Page 73 of Wild Child
At the top, Ellie frowned, panted, and then cursed under her breath. While I surveyed the greater view of the horizon and tried to gain my bearings, a sense of puzzlement settled over her. She glanced behind us, then to the north again. Before I could make sense of it all, she muttered in astonishment, "No way."
"What?"
Ellie shuffled closer so our shoulders touched, then pointed to the north. Her arm led out, gesturing to the northwest.
"That's where our original camp was."
"What?"
"I'm certain of it. See the ridgeline? We crawled over that, then went north there."
While her fingers traced an invisible path, my mind scrambled the location together with quick, sporadic memories. At the time of hiking it, I'd paid more attention to Steve and Kimball, but I’d still tried to memorize as much of our surroundings as possible. Although we viewed the route from an entirely different angle, I saw the path that she meant.
"We came too far south?"
A troubled expression creased her brow. She licked her lips, and I wondered if her mouth was as dry as mine.
"Yes. That first night, we must have gone farther than I thought. I think we sort of made a circle yesterday evening. We were heading south, but then we angled southwest, then west, and now we're looking to the northwest. Look at the river down there? It curls. It's subtle, but it winds a bit. See that glimmer on the horizon?"
My heart nearly stopped and I felt a rush of euphoria. Glimmer, indeed. That glimmer indicated the reservoir at Pineville, which needed to be in the north. Relief rushed through me as I clapped her on the shoulder.
"Ellie, my guide. You have saved us!" I held up both hands in an expression of surrender and said. "I fully admit that I was wrong, you were right. If we had gone with my plan last night, we would have kept walking into the woods and been totally screwed."
“Agreed, minion. Your subservience is accepted.”
I laughed. She grinned, but eyed the path of the stream and canyon below. Indeed, it turned vaguely west/southwest around another mountain ridge, taking us farther from our ultimate goal. We would have stumbled all day for nothing.
She managed a wan smile.
"Nowcan we go back to our old campsite?"
19
Ellie
The silky tops of grasses tickled my fingers as we slipped through a mountain meadow. We’d been hiking for several hours, and I guessed the time to be about noon. Wildflowers stirred as we passed, our gazes fixated on an open tract of the mountain that lay beyond this one. A familiar meadow appeared back there.
A veryfamiliarmeadow.
The place where we'd first camped with Steve and Kimball when the thunder rolled through.
Had that happened ages ago?
The relief that had flowed through me this morning when I recognized where we stood buoyed me up now. We'd be able to find our way back to the truck. We didn't have the keys, and Kimball and Steve could have beaten us back and slashed our tires, but at least we had a location.
Either way, we'd have to walk to Pineville, but it would be on a road far easier than this. Angry red scratches and scrapes filled my arms. Devin had one across his left cheek. A few holes littered my shirt near the bottom from branches and brambles that reached for us in the thickest bracken. I didn't want to see another gully filled with bushes ever again.
Our surroundings now were vaguely familiar. I was certain I had hiked them before. Maybe I had brought my dog Thor here in the past. We'd camped at that campsite several times. Seemed likely we might have ventured down here.
A quiet feeling lay over the mountaintop, like the calm before a rainstorm. Clouds scudded over the sky, keeping the temperature cooler. We'd moved away from water after drinking until our stomachs hurt, so the calm warmth felt like a gift. Dreams of a savory BLT dripping with butter and a crisp salad filled my mind as we walked.
"Is it really hot on the east coast?" I asked.
Devin snorted. He walked only a few paces behind me, the crunch of his boots on the ground a comforting sound.
"As hell. It's so humid. Not as bad on the coast, near the ocean, but still . . . it's not like this."
My thoughts ran over his reply. I'd never grappled with humidity before. Had never seen the ocean or other places. Mountains rarely battled moisture, particularly with how dry things had been this year.
