Back of Beyond

“Somebody laughed.”

“Fucking pervert!” Danielle said over her shoulder before continuing down the switchback trail. Gracie followed. They ran down the trail for twenty feet before Danielle veered off, choosing to cut the corner for a more direct route through the brush. Danielle shoved branches aside that whipped back and hit Gracie in the face until she learned to duck under them.

Danielle led them into an impassible tangle of downed logs. The logs were old and gray, and blue-green lichen clung in clawlike pods in the elbows of branches. Something small, long, and dark scuttled out of the tangle away from them, rustling through the tall grass. Gracie couldn’t see what kind of animal it was.

“Shit,” Danielle said. “I don’t know if we can climb over this. It’s like we’re trapped here.”

“You trapped us,” Gracie said, letting her annoyance come through. “I thought you knew where you were going.”

Danielle turned on her and said with perfect logic, “So when have I ever known that?”

“You’re right. You’re off the hook.”

Danielle nodded triumphantly.

Said Gracie, “We’ll need to go back and find the trail. Then we can get back to camp. Whoever isn’t down there was up here. We’ll know who it was spying on you.”

Danielle said, “Which one of them do you think is the pervert?”

Gracie shrugged and led the way back until she broke through the foliage and found herself back on the trail. At least, she thought it was the right trail. For a second, she was confused which way to turn.

“Go right,” Danielle said, and Gracie did, even though she wasn’t any more confident of Danielle’s sense of direction than she was of her own. She made a promise to herself right then to wake up and pay more attention to her surroundings. She couldn’t just blindly follow Danielle, or Jed or Dakota or even her dad. She never wanted to feel lost like this again. Her stride lengthened and she picked up speed. The slope and the trees started to look familiar again. She almost ran through a mud bog but managed to skirt around it. The bog was the result of a thin trickle of water that came down from a spring somewhere higher on the mountain. She remembered the spot from the way up and felt a warm wave of relief because now she was sure they were going the right direction. But as she ran past it she noticed something different and stopped. Danielle practically ran over her.

“What?” her sister asked.

Gracie pointed toward the mud. “Look.”

There was half of a large fresh boot print on the edge of the mud, as if whomever had made it had tried to avoid stepping into the mud at the last second and almost succeeded.

Gracie wished she knew more about men’s boot sizes. But she could tell it was maybe a size ten or twelve since her dad wore size eight and these were bigger. The print had sharp lugs pressed into the dirt, a deep heel imprint, and a little diamond brand where the wearer’s arch was. The print was pointed up the trail.

“I don’t remember seeing that on the way, do you?” she said.

“No, but I didn’t look.”

Gracie nodded. “Memorize it. We may see who wears that boot later.”

* * *

When they broke through the trees into the sunshine Danielle passed Gracie again and they ran toward their dad. He was still standing next to Rachel Mina. All the tents were up and Dakota was shoving the last of the tent stakes into the soft ground. Gracie noticed an amused look on her father’s face as they approached.

“That go all right?” he asked.

Danielle answered with a rush of words. “Somebody up there was spying on me. He scared the shit out of us.”

Rather than concern, her dad suppressed a grin. “Come on, girls,” he said. “Who would do something like that?”

Gracie ignored him and concentrated on doing inventory of the camp. Not a lot had changed, although she noticed there were four men missing: Wilson, Tony, Knox, and Jed.

Her dad said, “Don’t let your imaginations get the best of you. Do you know how many animals there are up here?” It was obvious he didn’t want to believe them, didn’t want the trip to take this kind of unpleasant detour on the first day. Her dad didn’t like detours, or surprises, or events wrought with emotion. No matter what the situation or the crisis, his first words were generally I wish I would have known about this sooner, as if it were possible to know everything in advance and avert every problem if he just had the foreknowledge. It was a trait that annoyed Gracie because it always put the burden on her. Danielle was never expected to know anything in advance.

Her dad looked at both of them. Neither budged.

Gracie said, “Animals don’t wear boots.”

He sighed, said, “Okay, let’s go take a look.”

Gracie nodded and turned to lead the way.

* * *

“Mind if I come along?” Rachel Mina said to them as they started toward the trailhead up the mountain. “I overheard and I don’t like the idea of being spied on, either.”

Her dad said, “We’re not exactly sure what happened.” To Danielle, he asked, “Did the guy say anything at all?”

“No. He just coughed and laughed.”

“He laughed?”

Gracie and Danielle exchanged guilty looks.

“Gracie thought he did,” Danielle said.

“Did you feel threatened?” Rachel Mina asked them both.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Danielle said.

Said Gracie, “They should let us carry bear spray.”

“Or they should build a real fucking toilet,” Danielle mumbled.

“Language,” their dad said, and Gracie caught him shooting a quick glance to Rachel Mina to see her reaction to the profanity.

“Sorry.”

Her dad said, “Did you consider maybe he was as embarrassed to find you girls as you were? I mean, I’ve stumbled into a bathroom before and found somebody in it. It’s always a shock and I’ve been embarrassed. I remember opening the door on a stall once in a gas station and seeing this fat guy on the toilet looking at me. We were both kind of horrified.”

Rachel Mina laughed politely.

Her dad continued, “I remember I didn’t say anything-I was too red-faced. I just shut the door and went outside the station. When the guy finally came out neither one of us looked at each other. He went on his way, I went on mine. We both sort of pretended it didn’t happen, you know?”

Gracie hadn’t thought about it that way and she felt a needle of doubt creep in. Maybe they had overreacted with their shouting and Danielle calling him a pervert and all. Who would want to respond after being called a pervert? And much of the panic she’d felt earlier was more as a result of thinking she was lost in the forest than anything anyone did.

Still…

* * *

As they entered the trees Gracie did a 360-degree pivot to see if anyone was watching them carefully. Dakota waved from near the firepit where she was breaking sticks into kindling. No one else met her