Chapter Thirty
Sommer
Friday, Noon
Gabriel had hitched a ride with an elderly farmer so he could leave his car at the ranger station.
He and Whiskey sat on the hill waiting for Sommer to pass her medical checks with the paramedic and give her statement to the police officer.
And afterward, Sommer and Gabriel walked up the road, out of view of the accident scene.
There, Sommer wandered into the forest to find some privacy and bladder relief; she used hand sanitizer as she made her way over to Whiskey and Gabriel, stopping six feet away.
“I was exposed to whooping cough,” she said. “I should keep my distance.”
“You were exposed to norovirus, too. We should be down before either one kicks in. I’m not worried about it.” He lifted the bag with its grease-stained bottom. “Come sit. Food and hydration.” Gabriel used the kind of commanding voice she’d imagined he’d used as an Army Ranger.
She didn’t think she’d ever met an Army Ranger before. They were kind of like unicorns in her mind, possibly mythical.
“How do you feel stamina-wise?” he asked. “You’ve been going non-stop.”
“I sat in a car for hours.” She countered.
“Was that restful?”
“No,” Sommer admitted as she gobbled the first of the three burgers and fries he’d brought her.
He’d also brought salty, carb-heavy, walking snacks and protein bars.
They seemed to have been purposefully chosen for body-systems support, and when Sommer asked about it, Gabriel said he did adventure racing, and while these weren’t the exact thing he took for those multi-day runs, they were as close as he could get at a country market.
Sommer’s shoes and socks were off, her toes spread wide. The breeze felt blissfully restorative.
Gabriel focused on her duct tape. “You need to wrap your feet again. That’s stopped doing you any favors.”
“I left all my extra weight on the trail.”
Gabriel pulled his bag around and took out an old gift card that had been wrapped in tape, around and around.
“Clever,” Sommer accepted it. “This takes up less space.”
Once she was fed, her camel pack filled with water, and her offer to carry some of the weight from Gabriel’s pack denied, Sommer strapped her backpack on and looked up the hill.
Gabriel was carrying his own supplies and camel bag of water and was toting an additional four gallons of water that he’d managed, somehow, to shove into his pack.
“I looked at the maps, and the place you came down is the best place to start,” Gabriel said. “It’ll cut off the most time.”
“The exact place?” Sommer looked dubiously up the road.
“Whiskey will find it. Won’t you, sweet girl?”
Whiskey looked up with her long mopey face and doleful eyes.
After Sommer balled up the waste bag and shoved it into a side pocket, the two followed behind Whiskey as she retraced their steps up the road.
Sommer was working on blind trust because she’d come down at dawn and everything looked completely different now that the sun was high.
“From here,” Sommer said, “how long up to the summit?”
“It depends on rest periods.”
“None.”
“With certainty,” he countered, “for Whiskey’s sake.”
“Oh, of course,” and Sommer felt like a heel not to take into consideration that Whiskey and Gabriel had been working at rescuing Abbie and Marna since break of day. “Sorry.”
“I figure ten hours give or take. My goal is to get to your friends by midnight.”
Sommer started to doubt herself. She was used to being on her feet for long periods at the hospital.
During crises, she’d often have to take back-to-back shifts.
She wanted to lean into that experience and the stamina she’d built into her body.
But the thought of walking until midnight hit her like a brick.
She looked up the slope they needed to climb to the trail. It was daunting.
“I’ll help you,” Gabriel said, reaching out his hand.
And without a thought, she slipped her hand into his.
They were silent until they hit the trail at the exact place where she’d laid out the three arrows pointing off trail and the streamers of hot pink trail tape with black magic marker saying that she’d left the trail to find the road and help.
“That feels like weeks ago.”
“I bet it does.” He hadn’t let go of her hand yet, and as long as the trail allowed them to walk side by side, she was grateful.
The contact energized her.
“Let’s talk about how Whiskey is short and squat with little wee-wee legs, and yet I’m struggling with her speed.”
“Embarrassing, isn’t it?” Gabriel asked with a grin. “I’ve had Whiskey for a few months now, but she’s become a good friend.”
Sommer glanced up at him and cautiously asked. “Do you have a best friend? A male best friend?”
“Male best friend?” He looked down at her, and the glimmer in his eye was both curious and possibly hurt.
“I have good friends. My closest friends are from my childhood. They’ve scattered around the world, which makes for fun travels.
I keep up with my team brothers. We bonded pretty tight.
A lot of them are career military, so I don’t see them as often as I’d like. ”
“You still live in McLean?” she asked. “Yeah, I’m still there.”
“What about around home?”
“We’re still talking friends?” Gabriel asked, and she could tell he wondered why she was pressing the subject.
Sommer hoped that since Marna and Abbie were on the mountain, he figured that friendship was on her mind, which was also true.
“Mostly I have work friends and the friends I train with for competitions are co-ed.”
“But not one special friend?”
Could she hear herself? Yes.
Did she like herself? No.
She was on a rescue mission, not a date.
She should shut the hell up.
And yet, “The guy you tell all your innermost secrets to. The one you feel the most comfortable with.”
“My brother fit that bill, but he passed. I still talk to him every day.” He paused and worked his jaw before adding, “He doesn’t answer back, of course. So I talk to Whiskey. Which in the end is how we came into each other’s spheres.”
They walked silently for a while, then Gabriel said, “My brother, Daniel, he’s buried in the graveyard across the street from your house.”
“Oh, dear.” Sommer stopped and turned toward Gabriel, squeezing his hand a little tighter with sympathy.
“I knew from reading the article from the Sweet Gum search that he had died. I didn’t realize he was buried at the church.
” Then she touched her heart and stopped talking, sending empathy through her glance, not wanting to shift into one of those awkward dances that happen in conversations in the wake of a loss.
Gabriel squeezed her hand back, and they kept walking.
“You said that’s how we came to be in each other’s spheres.
And I’m suddenly wondering how it was that you were at my house to see my sister, and why it would be that you would think to stop and help her.
Knowing about the time you reached my signal arrows, that had to have been at sunup this morning. ”
“It’s a bit of a story.”
“We have hours on the trail. Talking makes it bearable.”
“Agreed, but we could find something else to talk about. I find you easy to talk to.”
“Thank you, but no.” Sommer had felt the tension radiating from Gabriel’s hand into hers.
For a moment, she considered pulling free, then she decided their holding hands was too big a help, too kind a gesture, for her to turn away, at least until she figured out what this was about. “No, I think I’d like to hear this.”
As they rounded the trail, they came to the place where Abbie and Marna had fallen in the stream.
Gabriel stopped and considered the place where a bridge had once stood.
“We think this is where Abbie and Marna contracted the Norovirus. They fell in while we were crossing. Whiskey, sweetheart, come away,” she called.
“Here?” Gabriel released Sommer’s hand and pulled the leash back to keep Whiskey from touching the water.
“We walked upstream, where we found some logs. Marna tried to walk across, and the log rolled. Abbie went in to help. I crawled across like a snail.” She looked down at Whiskey. “I’m not sure how this can work.”
Gabriel scratched his cheek, then looked up and down the stream. “Can you show me?”
At the log, Gabriel pushed it from either side. He shucked his backpack, then found sticks and rocks to make blocks to keep the log from shifting.
He tested his work then picked up his bag.
Sommer was going to remember that trick.
Gabriel positioned his bag on the log before climbing up behind it. “I’m going to test the theory. I’ll be right back.” He held the pack against his chest like a baby. With four gallons of water and whatever else he had with him, it had to weigh over fifty pounds.
He was graceful and athletic, moving across the log.
After setting the backpack down, he retraced his steps, asking Sommer to please wait, but reaching for her pack. With that on his back and Whiskey in his arms, over he went again.
“Down, stay,” Gabriel commanded as he put her pack next to his.
Now he made his way back to Sommer’s side of the stream and reached for her hand, keeping her steady all the way across, then putting his hands on her waist to jump her down.
Under any other circumstances, she would have felt like a lady from a far-away time.
And under any other circumstances, Sommer thought she might have enjoyed that immensely.
But there was still the question of who this guy was and how he’d landed on her trail.