Back of Beyond

duffel bag, looking like she couldn’t wait to get into her tent when it was set up.

Gracie narrowed her eyes and swept the area a second time. K. W. Wilson was nowhere to be seen. Maybe, she thought, he didn’t need instructions from Jed and Dakota where to relieve himself.

* * *

“You’re not going to like this very much,” her dad said to Danielle as he walked back to them. Gracie could tell he was suppressing a smile.

Said Danielle, “What?”

“There’s a little portable toilet up the mountain,” he said, pointing into the trees away from the lakefront. “Dakota said the trail goes up from the eating area over there where that lady is making a spectacle of herself. It’s about a quarter mile up the mountain, Dakota said.”

“A quarter mile?” Danielle cried.

“Park Service regulations, is what they told me,” her dad said, still controlling the grin. “Anyway, Dakota said she set it up first thing so you’re the inaugural user. There’s a roll of toilet paper in a Ziploc bag near the firepit.”

Danielle nodded and started for the trees.

“One more thing,” he said, winking at Gracie so Danielle couldn’t see him. “The Park Service has a regulation about the paper. After you’re done with it you need to bring it back down and throw it in the firepit. It has to be burned so there’s no trace.”

“What?” She was outraged. “I have to wipe myself and bring the paper back down? In my hand?”

He shrugged. “It’s the rules.”

Danielle turned to Gracie. “You’re coming with me.”

“I don’t have to go.”

Danielle narrowed her eyes. “You need to help me find it.”

“I don’t have to go.”

Her dad said, “Gracie, it would be nice if you went with her.”

“Let’s go now,” Danielle hissed.

Gracie said, “Ugh.”

“I’ll wait for you here,” their dad said. “I’ll figure out which tents we get in case you girls want to take a rest or change clothes or anything.”

* * *

It was striking, Gracie thought, how cool the temperature was in the shadows of the trees away from the lake and the clearings near the shore. She trudged along behind her sister’s long strides beneath the high canopy of the trees. They pushed their way up the hillside through knee-high ferns. At one point, Gracie turned and could see the sun-fused lake through an opening of branches and a glimpse of a yellow dome tent being set up on the grassy bench. Her dad stood near the yellow tent talking to Rachel Mina. Their conversation looked comfortable-even animated. Gracie was fascinated because she so rarely saw her father in the context of other people. Especially single women around his own age. She wondered if her dad was different with Rachel Mina. Maybe not so uptight and stiff as he was with them. And she wondered what Rachel Mina thought of him.

“Hmmm,” Gracie said.

“Come on,” Danielle said, “quit stopping.” Then: “My God-we have to have hiked a quarter of a mile so far. I wonder if we passed it?”

“We didn’t pass it,” Gracie said. “Keep going.”

“I might just drop my jeans and go right here.”

“Go ahead,” Gracie said, “I’m not stopping you.”

“Maybe a little farther,” Danielle said. “But if they think I’m carrying down the paper in my hands they’re out of their fucking minds. Jed can come up here and get it.”

“Sure, okay,” Gracie said, “let’s piss off the outfitter the very first night of the trip. That’s good thinking, Danielle.”

Her sister pushed her way through pine boughs and suddenly came to an abrupt stop before a small portable toilet with four metal legs and a square of plywood with a hole in the middle of it. A dark plastic bag hung down beneath the seat, the bottom of the bag inches from the pine-needle carpet. There were stunted pines near the apparatus, but basically it was in the open.

“Oh. My. God,” Danielle said, looking around as if trying to find the missing walls of the outhouse.

“Not a lot of privacy, is there?” Gracie said, needling her sister. “It’s like anybody could be hiding in the trees out there watching you. Or like a bear could come out of the woods and bite you on your naked white butt.

“Or ravens,” Gracie said, reveling in it, recalling when Danielle had once confessed her fear of the black birds. “Maybe ravens will fly down while you’re squatting and take a big old chunk out of your right cheek! You’ll be scarred! You’ll need surgery. You can never wear bikini bottoms again without people pointing and laughing at the girl with one ugly cheek!”

“Sometimes,” Danielle said, lowering her pants and shooting dagger eyes at her little sister while she squatted over the seat, “I could just kill you.”

Gracie turned away. It would be funnier, she thought, if she wouldn’t have to use the little toilet later.

And if she hadn’t just heard the muffled crack of a branch from someone coming up the trail toward them.

“What was that?” Danielle whispered. “I heard a sound. And don’t tell me it was bears or ravens.”

Gracie held her finger up to her lips to indicate to Danielle to be quiet, that she’d heard it too. Danielle’s eyes got wide and she mouthed, Who is it?

Gracie shrugged and stared into the forest below them. It was so green, wet, and dark up there, so different from the camp and the lake. So much foliage. So many places for a man or animal to hide.

“Keep them from coming up here until I’m through,” Danielle said.

Gracie put her hands on her hips and shouted, “Hey-whoever you are-give us a minute. We’re up here right now. Wait your turn, please.”

There was no response, which was disconcerting. Behind her, she could hear a hard stream of liquid strumming against the inside of the plastic toilet bag. Danielle was hurrying the best she could.

Then, after a beat, there was the sharp crack of a twig. Only this time, it wasn’t from below on the trail but to the side of them on the slope of the mountain. Whoever-or whatever-it was had deliberately left the trail and bushwhacked into the wet brush. For what reason, Gracie wondered-a better view?

“Hey,” Gracie called, “who’s out there?”

No response. She wished she had bear spray with her. Or a knife or club or some kind of weapon. She looked around and saw nothing she could really arm herself with. There was an old dry stick a couple of inches thick on the ground near her feet and she bent over to grab it, but it was rotten and broke apart as she lifted it.

Finally, Danielle was done. It had been only a few seconds but it seemed like forever to Gracie. Danielle cursed as she stood and fumbled for her thong and long pants. While she cinched her belt, she yelled, “This isn’t funny, pervert. Not funny at all. Hear me? Not funny.”

“Always the diplomat,” Gracie said under her breath.

Then there was a deep cough from the brush. It sounded closer than Gracie would have thought possible since she still couldn’t see anyone.

The cough did it. Gracie and Danielle exchanged terrified glances, then broke for the trail, their boots thumping the ground. Gracie thought about screaming, but didn’t.

Danielle passed her on the way down as Gracie paused to look over her shoulder to see if anyone was coming after them. She could see no one, although she thought she might have heard a chuckle.

“Did you hear that?” Gracie said to her sister as Danielle went by.

“What?”