Pete’s eyes turned steely with intrigue.
“That is if I can find it—and that’s a big ‘if’,” Cassidy added.
Cassidy parked the Suburban on the narrow pullout at the side of the gravel road. The slow creep of dusk had cooled the air another notch since they left their last field site, and the soft blue sky deepened further towards indigo with each passing minute. In an hour the sun would dip beneath the horizon, and they would be driving in the dark.
“I think this is it,” Cassidy said, glancing at Pete. “It’s a short walk and if I’m right it’ll be worth it.”
“Lead the way,” Pete said with a supportive nod. They exited the Suburban and the slam of their car doors sounded extra loud in the silent landscape.
Instead of towels, she brought her fleece shirt and an extra long-sleeved T-shirt. Pete copied her then fell in behind on the faint dirt path. Because this section of the forest had been clear-cut decades ago and replanted, their path snaked through slender Douglas Fir of uniform height crowded by leggy alders and huckleberry. Across the valley, the hills rose up in a bare patchwork of green, grey, and tan swaths of deforestation, the lines between each section sharp as a knife.
After a few moments, she heard the trickling of the creek. She wondered if the loggers ever stopped their tree cutting to frolic in the cool water. The thought of big, bearded males in the buff with the waterfall mist coating their beer bellies made her giggle.
The trail rounded a curve of land, and then the sound of the falls filled the air. A moment later they stopped at the base of a black rock shelf. Above, white ribbons of water cascaded down like a bridal veil and landed in a small pool about ten feet in diameter. A thin buffer of old-growth trees bordered the slope opposite the creek, but beyond them the landscape was scraped bare. It certainly wasn’t the most breathtaking waterfall she had ever seen, but seeing it amidst such devastation made it special.
“Nicely done,” Pete exclaimed as they gathered at the edge of the pool. Cassidy sat in the dirt to remove her boots.
“How’d you find this place?” he asked, tugging off his socks and placing them on a nearby rock.
“My advisor did. He’s been coming out here for decades.”
Cassidy zipped off the legs of her trekking pants. While raising the hem of her shirt, she felt suddenly self-conscious. Was it weird that she was about to be half-naked in a mountain pool, alone with him? She glanced at Pete, who was stepping out of his pants to reveal blue plaid boxers, looking completely unconcerned. Cassidy put the thought out of her mind. Pete was a professional, here to get a story, that’s all. She stripped to her sports bra and moved slowly over the sharp rocks, the cold mountain water soothing her sticky, hot skin. Pete caught up but the sharp rocks didn’t seem to bother his feet as he rushed past her and plunged face first into the five-foot deep pool.
He surfaced with a splash. “Great Scott!” he bellowed.
Cassidy laughed, deep enough in the water now to feel her core temperature dropping delightfully. Once the water reached up to her belly, she slowly sank in to her neck, savoring every inch of the cold.
When she emerged after dunking her head, Pete was floating on his back, his arms sculling like oars to keep him afloat.
Cassidy sighed in contentment. She scrubbed at her arms, feeling the dirt melt away, then dunked her head again and rubbed at her forehead and temples. Salt crystals rolled beneath her fingertips. “I think we earned this,” she said. She grew quiet for a moment, thinking about how much he had impressed her. Never complaining, keeping up with her stride for stride, load for load, almost as if he relished the work. “Thanks for being such a workhorse today. Fieldwork isn’t easy.”
“Bah,” he said, “it beats farm work any day.”
“You said it’s a vineyard, now, right?” Cassidy remembered his explanation about the three different plots of land his parents farmed, each with a unique combination of soil and climate.
“Yeah. But when I was a kid it was vegetables, and we had a small dairy.”
Cassidy tried to picture Pete as a teenager, milking cows before going to school, or working a plow beneath a hot summer sun. No wonder his arms were so muscular, she thought, sneaking a look at his firm, naked torso.
“Well, I could use about three more of you,” she said. “If you ever want to switch careers and become a geologist, let me know.”
“Ha!” he guffawed. “That’s a very kind offer,” he teased. “And I have the utmost respect for what you do, but I’d go crazy crunching data and waiting years to write the story. I don’t have enough patience for that.”
Cassidy had never thought about it that way, but it made sense. Publishing results in the scientific world could take years, and though frustrating, she didn’t envy Pete, who was under the gun to come up with new story ideas every day.
“You ever ski Helens?” he asked, nodding his head in the general direction of the summit.
“No, but the ski club usually offers a trip in the spring. I might go next year if I’m not in Sicily.” Cassidy’s skin prickled with goose bumps. She supposed they should get out of the pool. It would be dark soon—not city dark, with the glow from streetlights to soften it, but real dark, the kind where you can’t see your own hand in front of your face. She hadn’t brought a headlamp for the walk back.
“Ski club, huh? Is that through University of Washington?”
“Yeah, though I’m not able to go on many of their backcountry trips because they take up the whole weekend and I can’t take that much time off, but at least there’s always someone to ski with if I
