“Morning,” she said, and tipped the brim of her Stetson. A sheriff’s star had been embroidered into her black parka. “Y’all about ready to shove off?”
“Yep,” Scott said, pulling the strap to tighten the hip belt of his pack.
The sheriff pointed to Scott, said, “I see you’re taking a fly rod. You wouldn’t mind letting me have a peek at your fishing license?”
“Not at all.” Scott walked down to the sheriff and pulled his wallet out of his fleece pants. He flipped it open. She nodded.
“Y’all look like you’re headed in for the long haul.”
June said, “Well, we’ve got a ways to go. . . . How far did you say, Scott?”
“Seventeen miles.”
“Yeah, a seventeen-mile hike into this old ghost—”
“What’s your name, Sheriff?” Lawrence asked. “I feel like we’ve met before.”
“Jennifer. And yours?”
“Lawrence Kendall. Get down to Durango much, Jennifer?”
“Not if I can help it.” She cocked her head. “Where’d you think we’d met?”
“I don’t remember, but you look familiar.”
“Don’t think we have, and I’m pretty good with faces.” She addressed the group: “Well, I assume you all purchased backcountry insurance.”
“They did,” Scott said. “I’m the guide. I insisted they buy it.”
“Where you taking them?”
“Grizzly Gulch.”
“I thought she said you were headed to a ghost town. There are no ruins in Grizzly Gulch, at least that I know of.” She leveled her gaze on him, unblinking.
Abigail watched Scott. His Adam’s apple rolled in his throat.
“Actually, we’re going to Abandon,” Emmett said.
Without averting her eyes from Scott, the sheriff asked, “And what are you planning to do there?”
“Take some pictures. My wife and I are paranormal photographers. Depending on what we get, we may do a show in San Francisco this winter.”
The sheriff said to Scott, “No call to lie to me if all you’re gonna do is take pictures.”
He nodded.
“That is all you’re planning on doing?”
“Of course.”
“And you’ve got the permits to visit Abandon?”
“They do.”
The sheriff looked at June and Emmett. “Could I see them, please?”
Emmett reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope, which he handed to the sheriff. She thumbed through the papers.
“Wow, a group permit. They don’t give out many of these.”
Emmett said, “We’ve been trying to score one for three years.”
The sheriff gave the envelope back but lingered a moment longer, her brown eyes passing over each member of the group as if taking some kind of mental inventory. “I hope y’all have a real safe trip,” she said, then tipped her hat again and strode back to the Expedition.
As they watched her climb in, crank the engine, and continue on upcanyon, Abigail caught something, but it was subtle, and she instantly let it go. In a day and a half, she’d remember this moment, wish to God she’d paid it more credence. What she saw was a glance between Scott and Lawrence—just two seconds of eye contact that looked something like relief.
THREE
T
hey spent the first two hours climbing out of the canyon on a trail that switchbacked through a forest of old- growth Engelmann spruce. Abigail found herself near the back, between Emmett and Lawrence, trying to come to terms with the emaciated air.
At a break in the trees, she peered down and saw the road they’d taken out of Silverton, just a twisting brown thread eight hundred feet below. The sound of the stream had faded into a sustained hiss. The next time they stopped to rest, she’d lost the stream altogether and there was no wind, only the thud of her oxygen-starved heart banging in her ears.
At midday, they crossed a stretch of open country, the grasses dry and yellowed, littered with achromatic midsummer blooms of columbine, lupine, and Indian paintbrush. Abigail could see a subgroup of the San Juans—the mountains tan in direct sun, gray in the shadow of clouds, with rags of old snow high on the peaks. The sky shone neon blue.
Scott led them to the entrance of a broad valley. They came into a forest of ponderosa, plenty of space between the trees, sunlight pouring onto the pine-needle floor of the forest. As they climbed, the occasional spruce
