Back of Beyond полностью

Gracie nodded. “Memorize it. We may see who wears that boot later.”

* * *

When they broke through the trees into the sunshine Danielle passed Gracie again and they ran toward their dad. He was still standing next to Rachel Mina. All the tents were up and Dakota was shoving the last of the tent stakes into the soft ground. Gracie noticed an amused look on her father’s face as they approached.

“That go all right?” he asked.

Danielle answered with a rush of words. “Somebody up there was spying on me. He scared the shit out of us.”

Rather than concern, her dad suppressed a grin. “Come on, girls,” he said. “Who would do something like that?”

Gracie ignored him and concentrated on doing inventory of the camp. Not a lot had changed, although she noticed there were four men missing: Wilson, Tony, Knox, and Jed.

Her dad said, “Don’t let your imaginations get the best of you. Do you know how many animals there are up here?” It was obvious he didn’t want to believe them, didn’t want the trip to take this kind of unpleasant detour on the first day. Her dad didn’t like detours, or surprises, or events wrought with emotion. No matter what the situation or the crisis, his first words were generally I wish I would have known about this sooner, as if it were possible to know everything in advance and avert every problem if he just had the foreknowledge. It was a trait that annoyed Gracie because it always put the burden on her. Danielle was never expected to know anything in advance.

Her dad looked at both of them. Neither budged.

Gracie said, “Animals don’t wear boots.”

He sighed, said, “Okay, let’s go take a look.”

Gracie nodded and turned to lead the way.

* * *

“Mind if I come along?” Rachel Mina said to them as they started toward the trailhead up the mountain. “I overheard and I don’t like the idea of being spied on, either.”

Her dad said, “We’re not exactly sure what happened.” To Danielle, he asked, “Did the guy say anything at all?”

“No. He just coughed and laughed.”

“He laughed?”

Gracie and Danielle exchanged guilty looks.

“Gracie thought he did,” Danielle said.

“Did you feel threatened?” Rachel Mina asked them both.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Danielle said.

Said Gracie, “They should let us carry bear spray.”

“Or they should build a real fucking toilet,” Danielle mumbled.

“Language,” their dad said, and Gracie caught him shooting a quick glance to Rachel Mina to see her reaction to the profanity.

“Sorry.”

Her dad said, “Did you consider maybe he was as embarrassed to find you girls as you were? I mean, I’ve stumbled into a bathroom before and found somebody in it. It’s always a shock and I’ve been embarrassed. I remember opening the door on a stall once in a gas station and seeing this fat guy on the toilet looking at me. We were both kind of horrified.”

Rachel Mina laughed politely.

Her dad continued, “I remember I didn’t say anything-I was too red-faced. I just shut the door and went outside the station. When the guy finally came out neither one of us looked at each other. He went on his way, I went on mine. We both sort of pretended it didn’t happen, you know?”

Gracie hadn’t thought about it that way and she felt a needle of doubt creep in. Maybe they had overreacted with their shouting and Danielle calling him a pervert and all. Who would want to respond after being called a pervert? And much of the panic she’d felt earlier was more as a result of thinking she was lost in the forest than anything anyone did.

Still …

* * *

As they entered the trees Gracie did a 360-degree pivot to see if anyone was watching them carefully. Dakota waved from near the firepit where she was breaking sticks into kindling. No one else met her eyes.

* * *

Within five minutes she found the bog. The footprint was gone, obscured in the mud by a gnarled knot of pitchwood that had been dropped on top of it. Whoever had left the print had crushed it out of existence.

“It was here,” she said to her dad and Rachel.

“I’m sure it was,” he said, waggling his eyebrows in a way of saying maybe they’d been mistaken.

“It was,” Gracie said with less assurance.

“Who knows what we thought we saw?” Danielle said. “You know how you get. Remember when you used to say there was a werewolf under your bed?”

Her dad stifled a smile. Rachel looked away.

Gracie hated her sister at that moment.

* * *

When they returned to the camp, Jed was setting up the aluminum cooking station-a series of interconnected boxes that became a counter, sink, and chuck box-and Dakota set a coffeepot over the fire. James Knox, Drey Russell, and K. W. Wilson sat on separate logs watching the fire burn. All of them looked up as the Sullivans and Rachel entered the camp from the trees.

“Everything all right?” Jed asked.