“The cell service is shit up there,” Conner said. “So I thought we should all have identical maps in case we get separated for any reason.”
“Separated?” Jonathan asked.
“You never know,” Conner said. Jonathan couldn’t imagine these two brothers, who had been each other’s best friend since the day Conner was born, ever being separated. Even after the incident, as they all drifted away from each other to erase the past – as Jonathan slipped into loneliness and Gene tried to drown his memories – Conner and Michael never separated. It wasn’t in their nature; they worked in tandem.
“This looks rough. A long haul,” Michael said. “You remember what that country was like. Dragging that case with us, getting through that thick ground cover. It isn’t going to be easy.”
“It’s seven miles,” Conner said. “Even if we’re only doing forty-minute miles, we can make it in a day. I kept our path in the lowest elevation possible so we’re not climbing those mountains. If you look, there’s a corridor between two of the peaks on the western ridge. There’s a field there, just tall grass, as best I can tell. We can make good time there.” Michael traced the route with his finger until he found the flattened section of meadow before a slower, more casual descent toward the lake.
“If we start in the morning, we can make it to the lake by nightfall. Camp there, head back and then get the hell out of town.”
“I don’t know,” Michael said. “It’s going to be tough, slow-going. Might actually be a day and a half’s hike with everything in tow. Tents, guns, food, the box.” Michael took out his phone and pulled up satellite images of Coombs’ Gulch. He focused in on the passage between the peaks. “It’s thick brush. It won’t be easy no matter what.”
“Let’s not make this longer than we have to,” Jonathan said. “Early up, get it done. Don’t stop moving till it’s over.”
“It’s the best route,” Conner said. “The only way there is between those two peaks, unless you feel like climbing a mountain – which I don’t. It’s kind of the long way around, but any other route would be too dangerous, too difficult.”
Michael was still on his phone. “There’s going to be bad weather moving in by day three,” he said. “Should be all right till then, but that gives us three days before the temperature really drops, and it’s either rain or snow, depending.” Michael dropped the phone and then stared at the topographic map with its hypnotic lines and swirls that masked the true nature of the place. “I don’t like it,” Michael said. “Can’t say why.”
“Nobody likes any of this, Mike,” Conner said, and for the first time Jonathan felt a tension between them that seemed almost murderous in its betrayal. He remembered how fast tempers can flare between brothers who have everything to lose between them. “The plan will work. The route will work. I’ve been planning this out for months. We just need to man up and get through it. I never said it would be easy, but it has to be done.”
Conner’s SUV ate gas fast enough to warrant two stops, the first just past Albany as civilization began to stretch thin. They pulled off at a quiet Shell station overlooking the highway as double-rigged tractor-trailers passed below, burning diesel and rattling jake brakes in their descent. The few cars on the highway echoed in the cold, sharp air. The sun was bright but without warmth, and there were few shadows. Jonathan crawled from the back and stretched his legs. It was a lonely place. The sound of the highway died in the trees and every second seemed like the last.
Michael and Jonathan walked inside the small store while Conner gassed up the Suburban. Jonathan retrieved a soda and pawed at some bagged snacks but didn’t have much of an appetite. He looked at the newspaper headlines, national and local, but at this point nothing could occupy space in his head.
Michael came around the corner of the aisle. He carried a case of canned beer and was loading up on chips and pretzels. “It’s gonna be a long trip. Probably another couple hours and then another hour or so to get Bill and get to the cabin. Might as well be stocked up.” Michael had an edge to him, as if the small rift between him and his brother ran deeper than Jonathan realized, or at least shook Michael enough to put him in a foul mood.
“Really?” Jonathan whispered. “I don’t think…”
“Do you really want to be dead sober this whole time? You of all people? Do you really want to remember all this?” Jonathan felt that old dread wriggling at the back of his mind, an excitement that welled up within him at the thought of drowning out reality, even if only for a short time. He took a ten-dollar bill from his wallet and gave it to Michael. Conner saw them walking from the store with the beer and seemed annoyed he would be chauffeuring them through the mountains like he had ten years ago.
Jonathan stayed stretched out in the back seat, drinking the beer, letting his brain go numb and thoughts cloud over as they continued past Lake George. His mind softened and returned to dark ideas. Jonathan hadn’t told the brothers anything about his most recent online searches, about his insane suspicions, a line of thought he toyed with for no other reason than a lack of options. He had searched for so long, through so many missing person reports, that he’d finally veered off the well-worn path of rationality and spun a fact-based fiction. He had a creative mind; he knew he was subject to an imagination easily dismissed by someone with the opposite tendency like Michael, for whom the simplest explanation would always suffice. Jonathan could picture Michael’s response already and couldn’t blame him. Michael had been known to become
