"I have to go to the bathroom again,” I said, coming to a stop and catching my breath. We weren't moving quickly, but the continuous weight of my pack and the jarring impact of hiking down the steep, rugged slopes were taking their toll.
"You're giving her too much water,” Shaun complained to Mason. "She's pissing every hour." He turned on me. "Make it quick."
Mason helped me out of my backpack and rested it against a tree before shrugging out of his own pack. He did a few shoulder rolls, and I knew the weight was starting to get to him too.
"Ignore him,” he told me, and while there wasn't kindness in his voice, it wasn't filled with contempt, either. More matter-of fact. He handed me his headlamp. "Take five."
I walked a short distance, then stepped behind a pine tree. I switched off the headlamp and peered back through the branches, watching them. Shaun was relieving himself in the open, and Mason leaned his forearm on a tree, cradling his face in the crook of his elbow. If a person could sleep standing up, it would look like that, I thought. of the three of us, Mason was the most powerfully built, so it took me by surprise that he seemed to be handling the hike the worst. He peeled off a glove and rubbed his eyes, looking increasingly exhausted.
I wondered, if five minutes stretched to ten, would either of them notice I hadn't come back? I could run. It was an option, flickering like a loose lightbulb at the edge of my mind. I had promised myself I'd take the first chance I got. I could hike back to Korbie and we could go for help together. But if Calvin's map was right, we'd see the ranger patrol cabin as we came over the next slope. I could run now, and face the wilderness alone. or I could stay, and pray there was a ranger at the patrol cabin.
I played out the scenario a step further. When the ranger patrol cabin came into view, Mason and Shaun wouldn't be expecting it, and I would have to mirror their surprise. I'd have to convince them I hadn't planned to run into it, and I'd have to talk them into knocking on the door. Then I would need to covertly communicate to the ranger that I was in trouble-we both were. Because if I led Mason and Shaun to the ranger patrol cabin, I was dragging the park ranger into this. Whether I wanted to or not. The difference, I told myself, was that the park ranger was trained to handle the worst.
Confirming that Mason and Shaun weren't coming to check on me, I pulled Calvin's map out and examined it closely under the headlamp. Some distance behind the ranger patrol cabin was a small, narrow lake. Calvin had scribbled "clean water source" next to it. I filed away this information before heading back to Mason and Shaun.
"How long before we rest?" I asked them. "We can't go forever without sleep."
"We'll rest after the sun comes up,” Mason said. "We have to get to the highway by the time they plow the roads."
So you can steal a car before the police find you, I thought.
"There's an uncontaminated lake nearby, but it will take us about an hour off course,” I said. "It's our last chance at clean water."
Mason nodded. "Then we'll refill at the lake, set up a temporary shelter, and catch a quick nap." He held out my backpack, and he must have seen me grimace, because a brief, apologetic smile flickered at his mouth. He lowered his voice, keeping his next words between us. "I know it's heavy, but we're almost there. A couple more hours."
I took the backpack skeptically, unsure how to interpret his small gesture of kindness. He was holding me hostage. How did he expect me to respond? With a smile of my own? Remembering the dead body back at the cabin, I tried to reconcile this considerate version of Mason with the one who might be a killer. Was his kindness genuine? Would he kill me if he had to?
"A couple hours,” I echoed.
I didn't tell him, but if things went my way, we'd be stopping much sooner.
Not thirty minutes later, as we approached the basin of the slope, our path slanting diagonally through the trees to catch the softer edge of the mountain, I got my first glimpse of the ranger patrol cabin. It was small, two or three rooms at most, with a low roof and a tiny porch.
Up until this point, I'd kept my hope nailed down, afraid I wouldn't find the patrol cabin, but suddenly my heart swelled, burning in my chest. My relief smacked me with more force than the bitterly cold wind. The patrol cabin, just ahead. With a ranger inside, I was sure of it. After everything that had gone wrong, I was finally catching a break. The nightmare was coming to an end.
Beside me, Mason halted. He grabbed my arm and yanked me behind a tree. Shaun jumped the other way, concealing himself behind a tree a few feet away. I could hear Mason's breath coming in hard, choppy pants.
"The shelter down there. Did you know about it?"he demanded in a low, harsh whisper.
I shook my head no. I didn't trust my voice not to give me away. A strange, delicious hope thudded in my chest, and I was afraid Mason would hear it in my voice.
"So it's a coincidence?"he said, not sounding like he believed it.
"I didn't know, I swear,” I said, wide-eyed. "Think about it. The shelter is minuscule compared to the vastness of the forest. It would be easier to miss than to hit. I'd have to have a map to find it in the dark. It's a coincidence, just bad luck."
Shaun pointed a threatening finger at me. "If you knew about this, if you led us here on purpose-"
"I didn't know, I swear. You have to believe me." I was so close. The ranger patrol cabin was a short distance down the hill. I couldn't blow this now. "You chose the direction, you told me where you wanted to go. You've had more control over our direction than I've had."
Mason steepled his gloved hands over his mouth, thinking. "No one can see us from the structure in this light. We haven't been seen. Nothing's changed."
"Then we take the long way around,” Shaun said. "We walk a mile out of the way, if that's what it takes."
"What if it's empty?" I said. "If the pipes haven't frozen, it will have running water. Probably food and other supplies too. If we fill up here, we won't have to go out of our way to find the lake I told you about. It will save us a lot of time."
Mason studied me. "You're suggesting we raid the shelter?" "We aren't going to make it to the highway on what we've got.
We need to restock. Especially on water."
"Look around,” Shaun said, kicking snow at me. "We got an endless supply of water."
"It's thirty degrees out,” Mason said curtly. "How are we going to melt the snow? Britt is right. The shelter should have running water."