The Search
Leif lays the map over the rocky ground, using a knee and palm to pin it flat.
He squints at the wavering paper. Yes. Just up ahead is the spot the German hikers described. There’s a platform of rock that juts out from the mountainside, fairly near the DNT cabin.
He folds up the map as best he can, slotting it into his pack, and then continues.
A fierce wind pushes into his face, makes his breath harder to exhale. It cools the sweat on his back, and he feels himself leaning into it, a sensation as if it is bearing some of his weight.
On a clear day, you can see miles and miles into the distant peaks in the east, and right out over the ocean in the west. But this afternoon, the cloud is billowing fast, pouring over the mountains, like white smoke.
He walks hesitantly toward the pinnacle, and when he reaches it, his stomach tightens.
He wants it to be a mistake, for those German women to have somehow gotten it wrong.
They were a good distance away, down on the lower path.
They’d thought they’d seen a woman, but maybe it was no more than a loose tarp.
They wouldn’t be the first ones to see something that wasn’t there in the wilderness.
He takes a breath, then steps out onto the table of rock, hands instinctively rising for balance. He can feel the wind lifting over the mountain face, sharp against his skin.
Why would a hiker be out here alone? Why would no one have called it in? That’s what troubles him.
He puts his feet to the very edge—and then he looks down.