Blood lure

It wasn't against park rules to hike off trail. Or camp off trail for that matter, though that required a special permit. It was unusual. For a man alone it was also foolish. Bears were the least of the dangers of hiking by oneself in the backcountry. The greatest were carelessness and stupidity. A slip, a fall, a badly sprained ankle or shattered kneecap, and one could die of exposure or thirst before anybody thought to begin a search.

Rory, sensing a social-and so, static-occasion, was quick to drop his pack and dig out his water bottle, a state-of-the-art model with the filter built in. A

"Hello," Joan called cheerily, because she was that kind of person.

A happy "hello" from a small middle-aged lady was scarcely the stuff of nightmares, but even at twenty yards, A

"Wonder what in hell he's been up to." She wasn't aware she'd spoken out loud till she noticed Joan and Rory staring at her. "What?" she demanded.

Joan just chuckled. Few people chuckled anymore, that low burbling sound free of cynicism or judgement that ran under the surface of mirth.

A

The interloper was in his teens at a guess, though maybe older. His beard was nonexistent, but an accumulation of grime aged him around the mouth. He'd been in the backcountry awhile. Hazel eyes, startling under beautifully shaped brown brows and shaded by a ball cap with a dolphin embroidered above the brim, moved nervously from place to place, as if he looked beyond their tiny band to see if there were reinforcements hiding, waiting to ambush him. The pack he carried was big, too heavy for day hiking but not packed for overnight. Judging from the way the ripstop nylon bagged inward it contained neither sleeping bag nor tent. He was camped out somewhere. So why carry the frame pack? And why the haunted look?

"You're a ways from anywhere," Joan said and stuck out her hand.

After the briefest pause, he took it. Workman's hands, A

"You all just out camping or what?" he asked. The question didn't seem particularly neighborly to A

Out of long habit she committed his physical description to memory. He was a big kid, though not tall, around five-foot-eight, chunky without being fat. The kind of body that's a good deal stronger than one would think. Shoulders sloped away from a round handsome neck. What hair she could see poking from beneath the ball cap was silky brown with a natural wave. One day soon his face would be chiseled into classic good looks. A

She took another drink. Sat on a rock.

The boy never loosed his pack, made none of the comfortable settling-in gestures she and Rory engaged in. When Joan had done with her sales pitch, he asked her where they were going for their traps. Obligingly Joan began showing him on the topo. A

"I'm A

Again the flinch. "Geoffrey… uh… Mic-Mickleson."

"Nicholson?" Joan asked helpfully.

"Nicholson."

Now A

"Oh. You know. All over. I'd better be going. It's a ways back to camp." He smiled for the first time and A

"Be seeing you around," she said as he turned and walked back the way he had come. It sounded more like: "We'll be keeping an eye on you." A

Burbling notes drew her back into the present. Joan was smiling, her eyes full of altogether too much fun. "I do declare, in another minute or two you were going to frisk that boy and read him his rights. Frisking I could understand. A smile to make you lie right down and die."

Rory found a lump of charred wood to fix his attention on, evidently uncomfortable with women his mother's age- or older-having impure thoughts.

"He was so fishy I thought he was going to sprout gills and swim away," A

"Aw, he was just shy."

"He was carrying a half-empty frame pack."

"Maybe he lost his day pack."

"It was too full for a day hike."

"Maybe he's a photographer, carrying cameras, tripods, film."

"Maybe," A

"Because he's a niceyoung man and niceyoung men pretend to be interested in what their elders and betters are saying. Isn't that right, Rory?"

"That's true," Rory said with such sincerity A

"See? Proof," Joan said.

A