Run

“Cole, grab my hand, and I’ll pull you up.”

Cole reached.

Jack got a solid grasp on his wrist, heaved his boy up the rest of the way.

With the cumbersome pack and the shotgun tied to it, the two of them took up every square inch of the recess.

“Dee, you still have the Glock, right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I have to get rid of this pack.”

“Jack, no, it has our tent, our sleeping bags, our—”

“I know, believe me. Last thing I want to do, but I can’t move in this crack with the pack on, and I’ve almost fallen twice because of it getting caught up.”

He unhooked the hip belt.

“Jack, please. Think about this.”

“I have.”

“We have to have a tent.”

He unclipped the chest strap.

“We’ll make do.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. Look out, both of you.” He slid out of the shoulder straps and slung the pack hard enough to clear the ledge.

It fell uninterrupted for a hundred and fifty feet, then struck rock, then bounced through a series of echoing ricochets for another four hundred feet until it vanished in the upper realm of the boulder field, the delayed sound of its ongoing fall still audible.

“All right, Naomi,” Jack said, “it’s all you.”

She began to climb, either more careful or less sure of herself than Cole.

Halfway to the crack, she froze.

“I’m stuck,” she said.

“You’re not stuck. There’s a great handhold a couple feet up.”

“I can’t hold on much longer. My fingers are—”

“Listen to me, Na. Reach above you and pull yourself up. If you get to that point, I can grab you.”

She looked up at him, tears streaming from the corners of her eyes and so much fear, her entire body trembling, knuckles blanching from the sheer strain of clutching the rock.

“I’m slipping, Daddy.”

“Naomi. Reach up right now or you’re going to fall.”

She lunged for the handhold, and Jack saw her miss it, fingers dancing across smooth rock. He reached so far down he nearly fell out of the nook, catching her wrist as she came off the mountain, her feet dangling over the ledge, one hundred and five pounds slowly tugging Jack’s shoulder out of socket and dragging him off the nook.

“Oh my God, Jack.”

“I’ve got her. Get your feet on the rock, Na.”

“I’m trying.”

“Don’t try. Do it.” She found purchase and Jack pulled with everything he had, walking her up the rock and then over the ledge, all three of them crammed into the nook and Naomi crying hysterically.

“Have a nice life, guys,” Dee said, “because there is no fucking way.”

“Come on, sweetheart. Get up here. It’s cake from here on out.”

“Honestly?”

“Maybe cake is too strong a word. It’s shortbread. How’s that?”

“I hate you so much.”

But she started to climb.

Moving up the crack proved easier, if only because of the illusion of safety—boxed in on three sides and plenty of handholds. They climbed all morning, blisters forming on Jack’s fingertips, and he kept wondering how close it was to midday, the adrenaline rush having skewed his perception of time. Doubted their morale could withstand another night on this mountain.

Thirty feet above, Cole hollered.

Jack’s heart stopped. He looked up, the sun burning down, couldn’t see a thing through its cutting-torch glare.

He shouted, “Everyone okay?”

Dee yelled back, “We’re at the top.”

Jack stood on the ridge, bracing against the wind and staring east. The mountain fell away beneath them toward pine-covered foothills that downsloped into high desert. Several miles out and one vertical mile below, a highway ran north.

“There it is,” Jack said. “I don’t see any cars on it.”

“Backside of this mountain doesn’t look too awful,” Dee said.

“No, just long as hell.”

Dee lowered herself off the ridge.

“Ready to get off this rock, huh?”

“Like you can’t even imagine.”

They descended the east slope—a steep boulder field streaked with last year’s snow that was hard as asphalt—and evening was coming on by the time they stumbled out of it into the spruce. After two full days on nothing but rock, the moist dirt floor felt like sponge under Jack’s feet. He was too tired and sore to register hunger, but his thirst verged on desperation.

“Should we stop?” Dee asked as they hiked through the darkening woods. “I mean, it’s not like we need to find the perfect spot for our tent or anything. Any old piece of ground will do.”

“A stream would be nice,” he said.

Jack stopped four times so they could hush and listen for the sound of ru

Jack climbed under a huge spruce tree and broke off as many lower limbs as his strength would allow. His family joined him under the overhanging branches, and they all lay huddled together on the forest floor.

Dee reached over, held Jack’s hand.

Cole already asleep.

Hardly any light left in the sky, and what little there was struggled to pass through the spiderweb of branches. Jack wanted to say something to Dee and Naomi before they drifted off, something about how proud he was of them, but he made the mistake of closing his eyes while he tried to think of what he should say.

He woke once in the middle of the night. Pitch black and the patter of rainfall all around them. The branches thick enough over where they slept to keep them dry. Jack’s body was cold but he could still feel the glow of the sunburn in his face. Brightness when he shut his eyes. Thinking, water is falling out there. Water. But thirsty as he was, he couldn’t bring himself to move.

* * * * *

THE woods smelled of last night’s rainfall and everything still dripped. They could’ve laid there all day under the tree watching the light spill through the branches, but he made them get up. Two full days since their last sip of water at that high lake on the other side of the mountain, and he fought a raging headache.

They left while it was still early. No trail to follow but the path of least resistance, slowly winding their way down through the spruce. Cole couldn’t walk, so Jack carried him on his shoulders. He felt dizzy, his legs cramping, thinking he should have dragged them all out from under the tree last night and made a catch for the rain. They were dying of thirst, and he’d let a shot at water pass them by.

Midafternoon and stumbling through the woods like zombies. Back down into pine trees, descending toward desert and the heat of it and the tang of dry sage in the upslope wind.

They would’ve missed it but for Cole.

The boy said, “Look.” Pointed toward a boulder a little ways off in the trees with a dark streak ru

Jack lifted his son off his shoulders and set him down and ran for it, hurdling two logs and sliding to a stop on his knees in the wet mud at the base.

A steady trickle the width of a string ran off the lip of the rock. He bent down and took a sip, just one to make sure it tasted safe, the water down his throat so cold and sweet he had to physically tear himself away from it.

“How is it?” Dee said. “Safe to drink?”

“Like nothing you ever tasted.” Jack stood, traced the stream to where it disappeared into rock. “It’s a spring,” he said. “Come here, Cole.” He helped his son down onto the wet mud and held his mouth under the stream for thirty seconds.

“All right, buddy, let’s give sister a shot.”

They each got a half minute under the trickle, and then, begi