Madeline studied the glaciers on the peaks around her, their deep blue ice cracked in some places from the weight of accumulated layers. She loved glaciers, loved to see the deep black crevasses in the ice perched high on a precipice. But now she was afraid. Her brow knitted.
Noah saw it immediately. “Hey, don’t worry,” he said gently. “I’ve got plenty of food, plenty of water, and we’re going to hike out of here together.”
“Thank you for helping me,” she said.
His gaze was warm and genuine. “Of course,” he said. “I’m a knight, remember?”
“That’s right. Thank you.”
“Great. And if I’d just let you wander off, I’d never know how everything turned out. It’d be too much of a cliff-hanger.”
“Cliff-hanger?”
“Yeah,” he went on. “Something really serious happens and then cut! Straight to commercials, and they make you sit through all those cleaning supply ads with talking bathtubs and animated bald men appearing suddenly in your floor. I don’t know about you, but if my toilet suddenly grew eyes and started talking, I’d freak out!”
Madeline laughed out loud. “Well, no cliff-hanger here. I’d love your help.”
“Terrific,” he said. “Hungry?”
“Waterlogged.”
“Of course. Well, I’m going to make some pasta. Maybe the smell of it will entice you to eat. Freeze-dried backcountry food certainly does that to me. Yum! C’mon,” he added, gesturing over a little hill. “My camp’s just on the other side.”
At his camp stood a little purple and burgundy tent, a tremendous backpack with a cup and pan hanging off it, and a little Therm-a-Rest chair. Next to it lay a bear-safe food canister.
“Nice tent,” she said, though she was looking at the chair.
“Have a seat,” he offered, noticing her attention. “You must be beat.”
“I am,” she responded, went straight for the chair, and sat down. She always thought Therm-a-Rest chairs were the best, lightweight and compact-just two great cushions, really, with straps holding them together. And they were comfortable as anything. Self-inflating, too. She’d had one in her pack, a lovely blue one. The kind that doubled as a sleeping pad.
“I’ll probably never see mine again.”
He sat down on a boulder near her and began filling his tin cup with filtered water from one of his bottles. She looked at it questioningly, wondering if she could even get it down.
“How about some dry clothes?” he asked.
She looked at him appreciatively. “Can you spare any?”
“Certainly.” He went to his backpack and pulled out a bundle of clothes, a small towel, and a pair of Teva sandals. “You can change in the tent,” he offered.
She placed her water on the ground and stood up, taking the clothes from him. “This is great,” she said.
The tiny tent, a one-person backpacker’s tent, was so small she couldn’t even kneel but had to lie down to change. She peeled off her soaked clothes, toweled off with the little back-packer’s towel, and put on a warm, dry turtleneck. Fleece pants, a polypropylene shirt and jacket followed, along with a woolly pair of socks. She knew the socks would get wet as soon as she put her boots back on, so she put on the sandals he’d offered her instead. They were too big, but the adjustable straps kept them on. When she emerged from the tent, he was still sitting down on the boulder.
She laid her wet clothes next to the tent and then returned to the chair. He looked at her with pensive eyes. The little crinkles around them told her he spent a lot of time out in the sun, probably hiking and enjoying the outdoors.
“You’re lucky to be all in one piece.”
“Yes.” She went silent, eyes huge, as she remembered gasping for breath, the cold, the tree branch slamming into her head.
“Are you okay?” he asked, studying her face.
She looked at him, trying to swallow back the lump of fear that welled up in her at the thought of the freezing water. She felt the bandage gingerly with tentative fingertips. It stung a little. But she was alive. “Yeah,” she said finally, meeting his eyes. “I think I am okay.”
“I’m glad,” was all he said.
He stood up then, rummaged through his pack. He began to set up his camp stove, screwing the fixture into a little tank of butane.
“Thank you,” she said, shuddering suddenly at what might have happened to her if he hadn’t been there.
“You’re welcome.” He smiled at her. He really was handsome. She stared a little too long. Then, to cover her staring, she averted her eyes and picked up the cup of water. She wasn’t used to people treating her like just another person. Anonymity had its blessings.
He looked satisfied that she was drinking and grabbed the food canister. She watched him move efficiently, rummaging through his pack for plates and cups. The sun dipped below the mountain, and now the blue sky deepened in hue. Before them lay a vast glacial field covered with yellow glacier lilies and vibrant pink and red Indian paintbrush, all wavering in the gentle breeze. A deepening shadow overcame the field as the light faded, taking on the soft shades of twilight.
Dinner was a slightly crunchy, gooey concoction-freeze-dried noodles in Alfredo sauce-and before they were finished, darkness had taken over. A full moon rose in the east, tremendous and yellow, casting light over the field and the forest of pines that lay beyond. Noah whistled, wiping out the dishes, while Madeline continued to sit and rest, finally feeling warm. Her long hair was almost dry, too.
As she watched Noah work, a sudden, furtive movement on her left caught her attention. She jerked her head to follow it and saw a dark shape darting across the white of the drift logs.
She squinted and leaned forward in the chair, trying to make out what it was. The figure was squat, low to the ground, moving too quickly to be a bear, but way too big to be a wolverine. Its wet fur gleamed in the moonlight, but she couldn’t even make out the basic shape of the animal. Wolf? she wondered.
“Noah,” she said quietly, “look over there.” She pointed toward the jumble of tree trunks where the dark figure crouched, now immobile. She had the familiar feeling that it was watching them.
Noah stopped cleaning the dishes and turned to face the spot. “What is it?” He sounded alarmed.
“Not sure…” She studied the spot but now couldn’t make out the animal at all. After years of wildlife watching, she’d trained her eyes to take in the slightest movement. Sometimes that was all that alerted her to a lone pika gathering grasses along an old lichen-covered rockslide, or a herd of goats leaping about on a mountain slope. But now she didn’t see any movement.
“What did you see?” Noah asked more nervously now, abandoning his dishes altogether. He squatted down beside her and peered intently at the logs.
She glanced at him, seeing his worried expression. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. It wasn’t a grizzly. It might have been a wolf, but I’m sure you know it’s just a myth that a wolf will attack a human-”
“That’s not what I’m worried about.” He held up his hand in a gesture of silence and studied the trunks along the riverbank intently. “Was it moving quickly?”
“Yes,” she said, bewildered about his worried state. The only animal that could potentially do them harm was a grizzly, and it certainly had been no grizzly.
“Stayed low to the ground?” he asked, peering out into the deepening shadows.
“Yes. Look, what do you think-”
“Shh…” Now Noah was listening intently, too, though Madeline didn’t know how he could hear anything over the roar of the river.
But she listened, too. Wind in the subalpine firs. The high cry of a night bird. And always the roar of the unrelenting water.