Makayla doesn’t reply.

  “Bannon wants this guy real bad,” Frank says. “Arrested and put away.”

  “I just—I don’t know,” Makayla says. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I did my twenty-eight weeks at the Academy. I know the law, and I’m prepared to enforce it. But”—she looks him in the eye— “I feel for him, sir. There’s something very sad about it.”

  It’s the lieutenant’s turn to think her words over. He tugs on his ear, frowns. “There’s no gray area here. We enforce the law.” His face brightens into a smile. He pulls an item out of his pocket. “Ah, I almost forgot! This is for you. Let’s just say I unofficially requisitioned it from someone’s yellow Volvo.”

  Makayla accepts the silver dog whistle.

  “You know how it works?” he asks, eyes mirthful.

  Makayla’s eyebrows go up.

  “Dogs hear at a higher frequency than humans,” he explains. “Some people, not too many, use these whistles as a training tool. See here? This slide adjusts the pitch, You’ll have to play around with it.”

  Makayla puts it to her mouth and blows. It produces a quiet hissing sound. She grins. “Why not, right?”

  “Well, yeah. I suppose he had it in his glove compartment for a reason.” Frank pauses, shifts tone. “It’s a little fanatical, Brooklyn, if you ask me. Working on your day off. Are you sure?”

  Makayla looks away. She sees volunteers gathering. Rangers talking. Some folks already heading up the trail. She feels the vibrant urgency of the mission.

  “I’m sure,” she says.

  “You’re a good ranger, Devaroix,” Frank says. “Best of luck out there.”

  She returns to her big red Ford and rolls toward a little-used access road near Long Lake. She holds the dog whistle in her hand, rubbing it like a lucky rabbit’s foot.

  49

  [NEW MORNING]

  The color of Grace’s ankle has become spectacular. A brilliant fusion of blue, green, red, and purple. Grace is impressed. The swelling has calmed down. She pokes at it with a pinkie, probes for tenderness. Better, she lies to herself. Maybe, a bit. Grace gulps down three Advil. Her morning ritual. She’s been averaging ten Advil a day, and there’s only four left.

  She unwraps the bandage around her calf, feels discomfort in her ribs when she leans forward. A rank smell comes from the wound. The skin around it has blackened. It itches terribly. This wound is her biggest problem. If it becomes infected, Grace knows she’ll get sick—maybe very sick. She pours the last of the hydrogen peroxide over the wound. Cleans it with a sterile pad. Running low on those, too. Reuses the old bandage to wrap gauze over the torn flesh, seals it with duct tape.

  Sitka forages below. Nose to the ground, she sneezes, tail high, navigating the brambles. The dog’s pace quickens; she pounces. Grace notices how the morning light changes everything. The wildflowers seem brighter, more plentiful. Have they always been here, and she’s just now noticing? The sunlight ebbs in like a blood-orange tide, spilling color upon everything. The trees, the clouds, the rocks—all transform before her eyes, absorb the warmth from above. A volley of birdcalls fills the air. Grace feels her spirit awaken, like the petals of a flower unfolding. A new morning.

  She hobbles on her walking stick down to the water, now practiced at the tottering shuffle. Sitka trots over, tail sweeping like a whisk broom, and gives a snuffle of contentment when Grace scratches her ears and face. “You’re my best good girl,” Grace tells the dog.

  They both drink.

  Grace isn’t sure when she began talking to Sitka. She had always done it, of course, in small amounts: “Do you want a cookie?” or some other direction: “Sit, stay, lie down,” that kind of thing. But this was different. This was the sharing of her innermost thoughts. She was thinking out loud … to the dog.

  For her part, Sitka would tilt her head, perk up an ear, anything to hear better. After a while, Sitka accepted Grace’s vocalizations of a kind of ambient earthsong, companionable sounds without real significance, like the babbling of a brook.

  Grace began:

  “Well, that’s all there is to it. I’m not going to sleep another night like that. Today I’m going to improve my shelter. Home renovations,” she says, grinning. “I’m going to start with a new mattress in the bedroom. Don’t you think that’s a good idea, Sitka?”

  The dog does not object.

  Grace looks to the sky, partially obscured by tree branches. She sits and confesses, “I was so sad last night, Sitka. I can’t let that happen anymore. Look at this place. It’s beautiful. We’re here now. We’ve got to accept reality.”

  Sitka moves away, lies down in a patch of sunlight, still listening. Grace laughs. “It looks like you already have! The thing to do now is wait—but I can’t sit around and do nothing. I’ll go bananas.”

  At the mention of that word, Grace feels the clenched fist of hunger in her belly. The energy bars are gone. Bugs, next. Maybe she should start scouting around. See what’s on nature’s menu.

  So gross.

  Grace spends much of that day gathering anything that will soften her bed. She works doggedly, with purpose. Graces saws at the branches of a hemlock, scraping her knuckles, covering her hands with sap and dirt. Hauls the boughs up, which is not easy in her condition. She spreads the curved branches with the ends stuck in the dirt, so there’s a slight hump in the middle. Then she adds a mattress of moss and soft boughs.

  By the end, she is exhausted. Her entire body throbs.

  She lies down, breathes in the piney air, satisfied. And for that brief moment, Grace doesn’t feel lost anymore.

  50

  [ASSASSIN]

  While the boy still sleeps, John moves carefully about the camp. He removes the headlamp, returns it to its place. He ruminates on the compound bow—now hidden nearby, close at hand—and feels the coiled tension in his own body. He’s adjusted the draw weight, tightened the limb bolts, tested the pull. It is powerful enough to shoot an arrow at 320 feet per second to pass straight through a bear. Puncture the lungs, devastate the heart. Important for the blood trail. The bow, and the hunter, are one. The weapon does not ask questions. The weapon is decisive. It simply does.

  He seeks the clarity of the bow.

  The certainty of the arrow.

  The wisdom of the poet enters his mind: Have little, gain much. Have much, become confused.

  He needs to simplify his life.

  John has tried to disappear, strived to become empty, but this boy, asleep ten feet away, threatens to drag him back into the world. A groan comes from John’s body. Old emotions, long sealed off, twist their way into his thoughts.

  The boy’s breathing changes. John knows at once he is awake. He boils water. Drops a tea bag in his one metal cup. Not enough dishware for guests. John runs both hands through his hair, massaging his scalp. He squeezes his eyes shut. He knows he’s not right. The medicine never helped. Damaged in some irreparable way. His own parents turned against him, drove him to that clinic, forced him to meet with that self-important shrink, take all those pills. What a joke. The pills made it all so much worse. Never again.

  The only salvation is in the here and now. So he concentrates on the boiling water. Watches the bubbles form. Vapors rise. He pours it into the cup, not spilling a drop. Allows the tea to seep. Estimates three minutes without once thinking of time. These are the simple, ordinary acts that serve to save his soul. He clings to this life raft in the roiling sea, too lost and alone to cry out, “Save me!”

  The boy rouses, rises, sits on John’s thinking rock. He shivers, coming awake, wearing John’s big flannel for warmth.

  John hands him the cup.

  “Are we going today?” Carter asks.

  “Drink,” John says, motioning to the cup.

  “Um, I’m scared about my sister. I need to—”

  John snaps a stick. He is sinewy and strong. Taut as a wire. Drops both pieces at Carter’s feet. “Who sent you?” he asks.

  Carter lifts his head. “What?”

  “Why did you come?” John says. “Do you think I’m dumb? Do you have a camera? Are you filming this?”

  “Wait, what?” Carter says. “You brought me here, remember?”

  “How would I even find your sister, anyway?” John asks. He waves an arm, gesturing violently. “She could be anywhere. How am I supposed to know?”

  His eyes can’t stay still. He never makes eye contact with Carter. Looks at his feet, his chest, or off in a different direction entirely.

  “Okay,” Carter says, trying to speak in a soothing voice. “If you could, maybe, just point me in the right direction. That’s all I want.”

  “‘Need little, want less,’” John says. “Lao Tzu. You come here to poison me with ideas. You bring the world here and lay it at my feet? Like it’s some kind of prize?” He begins to pace. Five long strides, stops, turns, five strides back. “I’m supposed to give up my world to save yours? There are dangers out there you can’t imagine.” He withdraws his eight-inch knife. Picks up a stick from the ground. Starts carving. Peels the bark, smooths the surface, brings it to a sharp point that could pierce the skin. He violently pivots, lunges forward, drops to one knee, and stabs the stake into the ground. Gives it a final twist.

  He starts pacing again.

  Carter watches all this with a growing sense of horror, the big knife still in John’s hand, an electricity coming off his body. It’s as if he’s become some other self. The alone man of the mountain. He seems twisted in a thousand different ways, filled with ghosts and demons. Carter shivers again, this time from a chill that has nothing to do with the cool, early-morning air.

  John mutters words Carter can’t discern at first. It comes out as garbled gibberish. It’s as if John has forgotten that Carter is even here. After a while, the phrases become clear: “Be broken to be whole, twist to be straight, empty … to be full.” He repeats them meditatively, over and over. “Broken to be whole … empty to be full.”

  Carter moves to lie back down. Retreats back into bed, the dark, safe place.

  John suddenly wheels. His eyes flash fiercely: “Have I scared you? Is that it? Are you going to get the knife you stole? Didn’t you think I’d miss it? Do you keep it next to you in the night? Is that your plan? To crawl out in the dark like a snake and slice my throat?”

  Carter’s heart freezes. His body, from head to toe, goes cold. He wants to speak. He wants to run. He can do neither. His throat feels constricted, as if he can’t quite get enough air. His legs feel numb.

  Is this how it feels, he wonders, for an animal to be trapped in a cage?

  51

  [WARMER]

  Makayla holds a Dodger-blue hat in her hands. It’s streaked with mud, water-stained, but not particularly misshapen. Which makes sense, since she found it on the fringe of the dank and waterlogged flatlands. It has not been here for long. She checks the hat for identification, a name scrawled in permanent marker, but no luck.

  How did you get here? she inquires of the hat.

  She knows the hat is Carter’s, for dispatch has provided the search team with a description of the children’s clothing, thanks to both parents’ cooperation: the mother, clear-headed and detailed, driving up today with the help of a family friend; and the father from his hospital bed, lucid now, anxious and despairing. Makayla even has a picture on her phone. The children together, Carter wearing this very hat, blond hair flying out beneath it. Cute kid.

  After some investigation, she finds the disorderly footprints in the bog. One person, traveling alone. Not a clear, steady pace. More the path expected of a drunken sailor, staggering home at night after the bars have shut down. She notes the direction and tracks them to firm ground. Might have collapsed here, she thinks, reading the smudged land. There’s a spot near a willow where a second print enters the narrative. It is not a deep impression, but clear enough. A large boot. Makayla places her own much smaller foot beside it.

  The air is still. A mosquito buzzes by the back of her neck. She tries to imagine the scene. The boy, alone, wandering through the bog. If he kept going, he could have made it to the access road and, eventually, Long Lake. She feels sure he didn’t. She checks the ground for signs. Nothing. As if he disappeared. She finds a partial print that matches the big boot ten yards away, but headed in the direction of the willow and, presumably, the boy. But where did they go from here?

  She ponders the stranger who lives hidden somewhere in these mountains. He must have found the boy. Makayla has no way of knowing if this is a good thing or a very bad thing. She’s not optimistic. She spotted the man yesterday, alone. No boy. It’s a puzzle, and too many pieces are still missing.

  This wilderness park is an excellent place to disappear. But not forever. Makayla instinctively touches the holstered gun on her hip. Speaking calmly, she calls in to dispatch. Based on this new clue, the search will shift, take on new focus and momentum. She tucks the hat into her backpack and trudges on. There’s messy work ahead. She must retrace the boy’s steps through the mire. One made it out, but perhaps the second child, the girl, never did. Makayla braces herself for whatever she might find. Fearing that it could be the body of a thirteen-year-old girl named Grace.

  Bogs are wonderful places—for insects and amphibians: frogs, salamanders, and newts. Cranes might nest here. Because bogs are acidic and nutrient-poor, perpetually in a state of arrested decay, only the heartiest plants thrive here. Makayla identifies pickerel weed, sphagnum moss (everywhere), holly, cranberry, blueberry, water lilies, loblolly pine, and other stunted evergreens. She notes varieties of insect-eating plants like sundew and Venus flytrap and, without pause, trudges on.

  The path swerves and dips like a squiggly line, but leads her in a clear general direction. A sort of road from nowhere. It loosely fits the theory she outlined to Lieutenant Watkins in the morning. The map in her mind. Makayla doesn’t know why the boy was alone—they split up for whatever reason—but she feels the chase growing warm. As always, she stops, calls, blows the silver whistle. Changes the frequency, blows again.

  Her intention is fixed on retracing the boy’s path, going to where he’s been, in the hope it might lead Makayla to the girl. As she attains the higher elevation, she loses and rediscovers the trail a dozen times. She spies a broken twig, a squashed fern, the mark of a boot skidding in the mud, and her heart pumps with quiet triumph. Here the high timber, mostly fir and spruce and copses of white birch, creates a thick mesh whichever way she looks. Something catches her eye, a shape that doesn’t belong. She picks up a water bottle, left standing on a rock next to a stream. His, surely. Makayla feels anxious excitement course through her body. Holding the bottle in her hands makes it all feel profoundly real. He stood here. The boy, Carter, drank exactly here. The searchers, behind her, will focus on the area below. Create a grid, go over it inch by inch. As they should. Makayla instead seeks where the boy once was, where he came from. For now, it leads up.

  52

  [ERRATICS]

  Hours pass. Carter has to get up to use the bathroom. He tries to wait John out, but it is no use. Moving slowly, careful not to disturb John, Carter goes toward the pit in the ground. He says, “I just have to…” Scarcely above a whisper. The words catch in his throat. Afraid to make the wrong sound.

  John calls, “Sprinkle a spoonful of lime in there when you’re done. It keeps away the flies.”

  Carter looks at the plastic bag he noticed yesterday. So that’s what it’s for.

  John welcomes him with food. “I have oats.”

  “Sure, thanks,” Carter says.

  He notes how John seems transformed, generously surrendering his seat on the rock to the boy. A new, softer John.

  Carter decides to try a different tactic. See if he can keep John relaxed. Not be so high-strung. Carter tries a little conversation. He says, “I guess the chili you gave me that first day was a special treat?”

  When was that? Carter wonders. How long ago? Not even two full days ago. He asks, “Do you know what day it is today?”

  John opts to answer the first question. “Propane is precious. Cans of chili, rare. So yes, it was a treat. You needed something warm.”

  Carter nods. He eats quietly, head down, careful not to upset the man.

  John hauls over a log. Not very big, but it serves as a second seat, which he now uses. “See that?” He gestures to the large rock. “Strange, right? Know what it’s called?”

  Carter knows a little bit about rocks. There are three kinds, basically: igneous, metamorphic, sedimentary. He doesn’t venture a guess. Doesn’t want to say the wrong thing.

  “An erratic,” the man says.

  Carter almost doesn’t reply. Still guarded. But John seems to expect some kind of human conversation. He’s so strange and unpredictable. So Carter offers, “News to me.”

  “Look at it,” John says. “It’s a huge rock out here in the middle of nowhere, not attached to any formation you can see. Am I wrong?”

  Carter sees that what John says is true. Eats the bland oats, wishes for milk, sugar. Still, it feels good in his belly.

  John’s thoughts are still on the erratics. “These mountains were formed, I’ve read, about five billion years ago. Give or take. But it’s a constantly changing process. Nothing stays the same. Problem is, we live too fast to see it. We don’t notice a thing. Here and gone. Blinded by the blur. But the rock remains. And it slowly, slowly changes.”

  “So how did it get here?” Carter asks.

  “The last ice age happened about ten thousand years ago—”

  “Wow,” Carter says, eager to please.

  John nods and almost, for the first time, smiles. “Powerful glaciers came in and carved up valleys. When the climate changed, the glaciers receded—meaning, the ice retreated—and when it did they randomly left these huge rocks behind. The erratics. Like these two. The sisters, I call ’em. You understand anything I’m talking about?”