The Never Game

Never hike anywhere without telling at least one person where you’ll be.

The way his mind had been sputtering recently, Mary Dove had made sure she or one of the children accompanied him on the longer forays within the Compound. Chaperoning was especially essential when he went into White Sulphur Springs because on those outings he’d taken to carrying a weapon. Two in fact: in the car and on his person. There’d been no incidents but Mary Dove thought it best to have a family member with him. Even thirteen-year-old Dorion has the grit and intelligence to defuse what might become a confrontation.

Only three people in the Compound tonight, apart from Ashton: Dorion, Colter and Mary Dove. Colter’s older brother, Russell, is in Los Angeles. He is starting to become a recluse, a role he will perfect in later years. Even if he had been here, though, Mary Dove would have come to her middle child for help.

“You’re the best tracker of the family, Colter. You can find where a sparrow breathed on a blade of grass. I need you to find him. I’ll stay here with your sister.”

“He take anything else?”

“Nothing that I could tell.”

In five minutes Colter is dressed for the predawn wilderness. October in eastern California can be fickle, so he wears thermals and two shirts under his canvas jacket. Jeans, thick socks and boots he broke in when he stopped growing two years ago; they feel like cotton on his feet. He has a night bag with him: clothes, flashlights, flares, food, water, sleeping bag, first aid, two hundred feet of rope, rappelling hardware, ammunition. For weapons: the Ka-Bar Army knife, ten-inch, and the Python. Ashton, who carries a .44 Magnum revolver, says that mud and water and tumbles won’t affect a revolver’s action the way they might a semiautomatic like a Glock, despite the gun manufacturer’s assertions to the contrary.

“Wait,” Mary Dove says. She goes to the mantel and opens a box, from which wires sprout, connected to the wall outlet. She removes one of the mobile phones inside, powers it on and gives it to Colter. He hasn’t held the phone in two years and he’s never used it.

In his hand the unit feels alien. Taboo. He places it in the bag as well.

Colter slips on gloves and a stocking cap that can pull down to a ski mask. He steps out into the bracing, damp chill, feeling the sting of cold in his nose. As soon as he steps off the porch he catches a break. A handful of trails lead from the cabin into the fields and woods on the property and beyond. One of these paths is rarely hiked and it’s on this one that the boy sees fresh boot prints — his father’s, which he knows well. The stride is curious. It’s longer than that of a man leisurely strolling into the woods. There is urgency in it. There’s purpose in it.

Colter continues cutting for sign in the direction his father took about five or six hours previously, to judge from the snapped grasses. It’s an easy track, since there are no forks or cross-paths. He can move quickly, stopping only sporadically to confirm that Ash came this way.

A mile from the cabin he spots another boot print in soft earth, paralleling his father’s route. He can’t tell its age. It might have been made months ago, by one of his father’s friends who’d come to visit — friends from the old days before he fled the Bay Area. They would frequently trek out together, just the two or three of them, for the day. His mother too has colleagues from her teaching days who visit.

But this is not a likely route for a leisurely walk with acquaintances. Being in a valley, there’s nothing to see. And here it’s a chore to hike — the angle, the rocks and pits and gravelly slopes. He continues along the trail, confirming again that his father came this way. Confirming too that the Second Person did as well.

Onward. Until he comes to a fork and sees that his father has turned left and that means only one destination: Crescent Lake, a large body of water that resembles either a smile or a frown, depending.

In twenty minutes Colter comes to the mucky shore. He looks across, a half mile at the widest. The water is black now, though the sky is going to a soft glow. The surface is mirror-still. The distant shore rises in forest to ragged peaks. He assumes his father has gone there because the family’s canoe is missing.

Why would he cross? It’s a warren of thickets and rocks on the other side.

He looks for signs of the Second Person’s prints and can find none. Widening his search circle, he finally does locate the sign. The man stood on the shore, perhaps looking around for Ashton. He then started up the steep trail to Echo Ridge, from which he can gaze over the whole terrain and possibly spot the man.

The ground is soft here, so Colter can see the Second Person’s prints clearly.

And something else.

His father’s prints. On top of the other man’s.