I was alone now. Not in the spiritual sense. Not in the romantic sense. But in the imperiled sense. The survival game. I was now hiking away from everything that mattered to me.
How does a small child survive in a cave? She would never leave her dad’s side, but what if her dad’s side left her? What if the unthinkable happened while I was gone? What if my husband died? What if tiny Sierra ended up there alone?
I was walking across incredibly jagged crags. Rocks sharp enough to cut flesh, rocks that could severely hurt me if I twisted my ankle. But worse than the pain if I was crippled—Sierra would be alone. No one would know where we were, where my husband was. She’d be stranded.
With that in mind, I crossed the rubble painfully slowly. The hesitation felt necessary, but it was a risk in itself; hesitation breeds bad decisions.
Be careful who you trust.
Why would Aaron tell me that, out here in the land of zero population? Nobody lives here. Nobody camps here. Nobody was here. I’d started to truly see it on this hike. We’d be lucky to find anyone at all.
But I had to maintain hope. Maybe today is the day there is a nurse convention in the desert crags. I was heading for elevation, to the closest viable ridge. From there, I figured I’d be afforded at least a twenty-mile vantage point. There was a fairly clean path up the rock face on my left that looked like a few miles of gradual slope, before zigzagging back up the hillside for another stretch of gradual slope to the top of my target ridge.
Or I could climb.
Climbing would be risky—possibly deadly—but I’d be saving myself hours of walking, a tough economization to resist. I could be up that ridge in half an hour. It wasn’t steep, and limestone is a safe rock. I’d climbed tougher routes. My instincts said I could handle it.
And yet my mind kept arguing with the numbers.
This particular hill offered a decently high chance of success. Let’s say 80 percent. The problem was that I’d be facing that sort of choice more than once. And every time I chose the riskier option, I’d be multiplying the risk factor times all the future risk factors. That’s 80 percent times 80 percent times—
“Oh, my God, Miranda,” I said out loud, “just make a decision.”
I’d just wasted minutes trying to figure out how to avoid wasting minutes. So I chose to climb. I started walking toward the cliff face and was soon monkeying up it. There were handholds to grip. And the footholds I found felt solid. My confidence increased as I looked straight up and had a clear visual of most of my route.
It really didn’t take long to reach the top, and I had an immediate task scheduled for myself. Research.
I’d sent up the signal flare thinking I saw sunlight glinting on a town, like maybe Red Bluff.
But I was wrong, I was now seeing a harsh reality. There was no city, no town. From this mercilessly clear vantage point I could see that what I thought was a town was…just a mirage. A desert mirage. The oldest cliché in the book.
I was flooded with regret. I’d sent up our only signal flare with no purpose.
With that bad news suddenly came good news—
Crack!
What sounded like a rifle shot was startlingly loud in the quiet landscape, and echoed. I didn’t think it could be more than a half mile away, though I had no idea which direction.
I instantly rejoiced at the prospect of hearing hunters in the distance. My first thought was, Humans. Salvation. Sure, it was dangerous to have bullets flying around. Most people would rightfully cringe and take cover. But in this case, bullets were music to my ears.
Crack! The next shot echoed around me. Even closer.
I don’t know what you would hunt in the desert, though.…Maybe it was a search party?
I stood tall and shouted, “Hey! Help! I need help!” I was waving my arms like crazy. “Whoever you are, please help me!”
I scanned the area, waiting for a response that didn’t come.
“I’m right here!” I said even louder. “Help!”
And the valley said nothing.
“Here on this ridge!” I yelled.
I kept repeating this routine for a half minute. Until I saw something that changed my mind about how the rest of my life might unfold.
The shooter—not very far away, maybe a hundred feet at most—well, he could see me. He was looking right at me, that was clear. He was on the ridge too, on higher ground. And he was aiming at me. Directly at me. Crack! Another shot was fired in my direction. From him. At me.
“Hey! What the hell is wrong with you!?” I screamed.
As I recognized who he was.
Fat.
Bearded.
Ugly.
The SUV driver.