It would be okay if I died out here, I thought, looking over the backcountry. What better place for someone to die? The ravens and the coyotes would eat my body, and the mice and foxes would chew on my bones, and then there would be nothing left to mourn. All the pieces of me would slip into the wilderness, entering the endless moving pattern of a world that wouldn't remember mankind. There was still awe here, and danger. There's no shame in being forgotten by the mountains and remembered by the crows.

Something glinted off to the right. I turned my head as if in a dream, slow and without a care in the world, everything in balance and at peace. There, two valleys over and below me, the sunlight caught on the surface of a still blue lake, reflecting into my eyes like light off of a mirror. I looked at it for a long while, with the same quiet calm as the injured explorers who had chosen to wait for death instead of slowing down their party.

I could sit here, watch the sun set, let the cold sink fingers into me and drift away. It would be peaceful, a quiet end, and no one would ever find my body. My atoms would live on in Yosemite, and my ghost could climb the alluring granite cliffs with James forever.

The call of one of the ravens echoed through the air, the sound of life in the wilderness, and the slightest smile touched my mouth. I could do that. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. But I wasn't dead yet, and that was water, not so very far away.

I closed my eyes and took stock. I was badly hurt, exhausted, and approaching severe dehydration. The blood loss, sweat, tears, and dry California air were combining forces to do what the mountain had failed to do, and lay me down to sleep forever. I opened my eyes, feeling something stern settle across my face.

I wasn't going to die. I was going to get to that lake, damnit, and I was going to drink water and sleep under pine needles, and in six days they'd start looking for me. There was going to be someone there for them to find, and she was going to come out of the backcountry alive.

3. Wolf Eyes

Chapter 3

Wolf Eyes