Mara carried a first aid kit, water, and bags of trail mix, though she wouldn’t offer supplies unless asked. She also brought a live snake in a cotton bag. If a client seemed too discouraged, Simone would distract them, and Mara would release the snake into their camp.

The snakes they brought weren’t venomous. They were gopher snakes, native to the northwest, and came special-ordered from a pet store. Mara hated buying them. The teenagers at checkout were earnest, and had been trained to ask questions. Do you have a heat lamp? they asked. Do you have bedding? And Mara would nod and say yes, yes, this isn’t my first snake. I understand that a snake is a lifetime responsibility. I am prepared to give this snake what it needs. It was true that Bjørn had terrariums back at headquarters. But the longest they’d kept a snake was a month, and that was in January, when business was slow.

Instructors weren’t supposed to release a snake unless a client really needed a boost. But when they did, the snake made a big difference. Usually one of two things happened. One, a client killed and ate it, or killed it, took a proud bite, and discarded the rest. Bjørn picked gopher snakes in particular because they were large, easy to pin with a branch, even for those with untrained reflexes.

More often, clients didn’t catch the snake, but they came out with a story. When two clients were together, Mara could watch it go down. “Did you see that?” one would ask.

And the other: “Is there a chance it was a rattlesnake?”

“I couldn’t tell.”

“Me neither.”

“Actually, yeah, I think—you saw the rattle, right?” Constructing a truth in real time, lying so they could both believe it. Then they were happy. Probably the snake was, too. It could slither off and eat rats for a decade until someday getting eaten by a hawk.

That weekend, the first Ultimate consisted of a dad and his teenage son, which was a pretty standard combination. They camped by a pond—a decent site, plenty of bluegills, though it shimmered with mosquitos in all but the hottest hours of the day. Mara waved through the trees, and the dad lifted a hand, but there was no urgency to his wave. All good.

The second duo was an older couple, who had asked not to be interrupted. It always made Mara nervous when couples said that, because she had to check on them anyway, and it meant they might be fucking. She found them by a fire in a dense grove, their eyes closed, chanting words she didn’t know. The man rested his palms on his wife’s wrists. It was too intimate; it made Mara uncomfortable. She was glad to slip away.

The last location was one of her favorites. A waterfall bounced down mossy boulders and landed in a pool full of newts. When the sun was low, the spray cast rainbows. The newts wiggled to the surface and then drifted back down, dozens of them, rising and falling in waves. Newts were poisonous, so you couldn’t eat them, but Mara could watch for hours and not get bored.