The side trail to the waterfall was in the same direction as Pompolona Creek, so Rosie and Stead followed them, quashing Alexa’s chance to tell Charlie her distressing news. She bumped his shoulder as they walked, feeling weightless without a backpack on, and kept repeating her favorite Robert Frost poem in her head, “These woods are lovely, dark and deep/ But I have promises to keep/ And miles to go before I sleep/ And miles to go before I sleep.”
Except these woods weren’t lovely. The foggy jungle hung heavy, oppressive, waiting to pounce. Hidden birds trilled and screeched. Night lurked around the bend.
“Why aren’t you wearing boots?” Charlie asked.
“Someone took them to be dried. It’s a service at the lodge.”
Charlie shook his head. “How could you lose your boots?”
“I didn’t lose them. Don’t you listen? And why did you hike off without me this morning?” A clammy spiderweb brushed her cheek. She swiped at it and waited a full minute for an answer.
“I needed to think. Figure things out. With Mel.” He kept his eyes on the trail.
She wasn’t good with feelings. “Yeah, well, okay.”
Stead, all business, was ten feet off the track to her left, gliding ethereally past hulking trees and glistening ferns. Rosie plodded ten feet off the other side of the trail.
“Dianaaa,” called Stead.
They froze, listening to collective dripping, a startled bird, the rasp of a critter scampering in the underbrush, then crept forward. After ten minutes Alexa saw the sign pointing to Floss Trail. Stead appeared on the track and said, “See you back at the lodge.” He veered off.
Rosie added, “Be careful,” and followed him.
They evaporated into the fog.
Before Alexa could launch into her story, Charlie sidled off the path to execute Stead’s search protocol. Alexa heard him counting steps. “Wait,” she said. “Come back. I have something to tell you.”
“Some woman is hurt, and you want to chat?” Charlie called. He crashed through brush like an angry bear.
Fury rose in her like bile. He was the one who left her behind this morning. This whole damn hiking vacation was a disaster. “Everything is always ‘I’ll hike ahead. Catch you later. Meet you at the hut,’” she yelled. “Forget that. I have something to tell you now!” She stamped her Teva like a kid, mud splattering her pants, and saw him, Charlie at six, his eyes sad, pleading with her to build a LEGO fort.
Her response: later. She never made time for him when he was a kid.
In the distance Stead called, “Dianaaa. Diana Clark.”
Charlie parted two tall ferns, squeezed through, and stepped on the track. “What?”
She hadn’t planned on how to tell him. “In case you’re interested, someone tried to kill me today. After I found a skeleton.”
A small flock of olive-green birds took wing in a cloudy unit.
“What the hell, Lexi?” Charlie looked mad instead of concerned.
“After the landslide…”
Charlie grabbed her arm. “What’s that?”
Was he not listening? The earth trembled. She could feel it to her knees, then hips. The trees in her peripheral vision jiggled, leaves and branches waving. A limb crashed through foliage and landed in the middle of the path, three feet away. She put her hands over her head. “Duck,” she cried.
Charlie wrapped her in a bear hug and pressed them both to the ground. They crouched like kids hiding in a closet, hoping not to be discovered. But they weren’t in a closet. They were exposed, with trees everywhere. When another limb fell, Alexa pulled them off the trail, against a thick tree trunk. They huddled together, tornado drill position, trembling like the fern fronds, waiting for the earth to still.
When it did, the birds stayed mute. Holding their bird breaths. Alexa let hers out in a long whoosh. “That was a tremor.”
“Holy shit,” Charlie said.
“These are the shaky isles,” Alexa said. “Tremors are common.”
“Does it mean a big earthquake is coming?”
“I don’t know.”
Charlie stood and looked around. “I think everything is okay.” He squatted and looked her in the eye. “Let’s stay a minute. You can tell me what happened earlier. Did someone really try to kill you?”
Alexa nodded. “There was a landslide. You heard about it, right?”
“The ranger at Mintaro Hut told us. Is that what you meant about someone trying to kill you? Mother Nature?”
“No. Hold on. The slide happened right in front of me. I ran the other way. After it was over, I didn’t want to be cut off from you, so I waded in the river to get around the mess.” She remembered the icy water and force of the current. “On the other side, I found the bones of a human hand. Sticking out from under rocks. Connected to a body.” Actually disarticulated but that was TMI.
“Are you kidding? Was it someone caught in the landslide?”
“He was skeletonized. The landslide exposed him.”
Charlie’s eyes widened. “If it’s a skeleton, how do you know it’s a guy? Because of what he was wearing?”
She relished his full attention. “There weren’t any clothes on the part I saw. They’ve disintegrated. That’s not surprising when you consider all the rain around here. But I did find a belt buckle.”
A high pitched kee-aaa, kee-aaa was followed by a chee chee chee. The birds were reclaiming the forest.
Alexa stared at Charlie’s face, inches away, noting his sandy-colored hair had flopped across his brow and the thickening stubble on his square jaw. She thought of how he had tried to protect her during the tremor. “I could tell it was male by the shape of the skull. That’s the reason I didn’t show up at the hut. I dug around and discovered evidence that the deceased might have been stabbed. The ribs showed…”
“What? The dude was murdered?”
“I think so. The police are coming in the morning.”
“Was it someone who died a long time ago? Like those bones in the caskets?”
She thought of the modern dental work. “This guy wasn’t as old as them.”
“A dead guy. A missing woman. A landslide and an earthquake. What else can happen? Oh, yeah.” He shook his head. “Who tried to kill you?”
All together the events sounded implausible. “After I left the bones, a helicopter flew over. Then it came toward me. I tried to flag it down, but it came after me.” The next part would sound deranged. “The pilot tried to knock me down with one of those giant bags of rock. He swung it at me.”
“What?”
“He tried to kill me with it. I’m pretty sure.” The more time that passed, the more she doubted her memory. Who can trust memory anyway? Human memory is malleable and reconstructive, she knew. The neurons and connections that an experience wires into the brain can be distorted. That’s why she preferred forensic evidence. Like the thumb bone. But then she felt a chill on her neck, as if the rock bag were passing overhead. “It happened twice.”
“Lexi, that’s…”
“I know. Crazy.”
Charlie stared at her, weighing her words and his obligation to her, she imagined. What would be the verdict?
“I saw one of those copters set a bag of rock down near the path this morning. Very dexterous. The pilot was probably focused on his work and didn’t see you.”
Alexa decided not to argue.
Charlie got to his feet. “Mel won’t believe all this.” He cracked a smile, and then it vanished, as if he remembered he and Mel had separated. He reached a hand down and pulled her up. “We better keep looking for Dr. Clark while there’s still some light.”
Since she was wearing open-toed shoes, she stayed on the track, picking her way over fallen branches and around mossy rocks. Why would the doctor be off the track anyway? An image of a wounded animal, crawling away to die, popped into her head. She tried to erase the image, but it lingered.
Charlie followed Stead’s advice, and Alexa could barely see him off to her left. Fog swirled and thickened as they traipsed. Charlie called Diana’s name every five minutes. Alexa froze each time, her ears straining. Only irritated birds answered. She pushed forward, stubbing her toe on a rock, and realized her hiking poles were at the lodge. Charlie didn’t have his, either. The trail was flat, so it didn’t matter, but she had grown fond of them. In the distance she heard the rush of water, and knew they were nearing the swing bridge and waterfall.
Charlie came out of the woods, and they stood side by side in the flat open space ten feet from the bank, staring at the crashing cataract. Its white froth was the only brightness in the gloaming, and its spray carried to Alexa’s cheeks.
Charlie yelled, “Dianaaa,” but his voice was drowned out by the thundery roar. “I hope she didn’t fall in the river,” he shouted to Alexa. “I’ll check on the other side of the bridge before we head back.”
Alexa stared at the bridge. The thought of Charlie crossing it—narrow treadway, droopy in the center, flimsy safety rail—made her mouth go dry. “We need to turn around or we’ll be caught in the dark,” she shouted. It was then she remembered finding someone’s pole. Right near here. Jeez. What if it belonged to the missing woman?
Charlie climbed the three stairs and stepped forward. She decided to wait from the stair platform, to keep a better eye on him. The slick coiled handrail vibrated as she pulled herself up. The volume of rushing water pounded closer and louder. Something whizzed by her cheek. A shadow with velocity. The platform shook. She jumped the three steps in a single sideways bound as the bridge twisted laterally, pitching Charlie over the railing.