Reacher asked, “You OK?”
Helen answered, “In what way?”
“You don’t like the woods.”
“You want to take three wild-ass guesses as to why? As in, right now this minute?”
They pressed on, Reacher leading, making a big hole in the vegetation, Helen coming through it close behind, both of them making prints where maybe no human had ever walked before. And then they sensed rather than saw the trail up ahead, a slit, a discontinuity, an absence. A hole in the woodland sounds. A change in the sky. A seam in the canopy. And then they came upon it, stepping over gnarled trunks bent like knees, turning, squeezing, and finally falling out on what was literally the beaten track. The air above it was damp and still, and noticeably cool.
Helen said, “So are we ahead of them?”
“I think so,” Reacher said. “For sure, if they’re sightseeing. Maybe not, if something spooked them and they hustled. But I’m pretty sure we made it. And when it comes to speculation, I’m a very cautious man.”
“So we wait here?”
“The most efficient use of our time would be to move and meet them head on. By definition we’d turn them around closer to Naismith than here.”
“We might be walking away from them.”
“Life’s a gamble, I guess.”
“It was a spooky situation from the start. Maybe they were hustling all the way. Just to be able to say they’d done the miles. They could have passed here thirty minutes ago.”
“I’m guessing they didn’t hustle. They seemed really into this stuff. I think they’re strolling slow, stopping all the time, looking at this and that. All on their own. It’s just them and the forest. I say they’re thirty minutes in front of us.”
“You’ve done this kind of thing before, right?”
“From time to time.”
“Did you get them right?”
“Some of them.”
She took a breath and said, “OK, we’ll hope to meet them head on. And if we don’t, I’m going to call you some very un-Canadian names. Some with several syllables.”
“Sticks and stones,” Reacher said.
“I’ll go first,” she said.
The trail was much easier underfoot, and it was a straight shot, with no twisting or dodging, which meant they could pay a little attention to things more than a foot and a half away. Of which there were many. And which in the end slowed them down more than the tripwire brambles. Because there was a lot to look at. Primeval was the right word. Not necessarily Reacher’s thing, but he couldn’t deny some sense of primitive connection. It could have been that a hundred generations of his ancestors had lived in the woods. They had to live somewhere. The trees were spotty with lichen and smooth with light green moss, and they bent and twisted and jostled for light and space, and the gloomy shapes they made seemed to talk, just faintly, like a distant hum. Perfect ambush location ahead and left, so take care. Two defensive positions ahead and right, so plan to use the first, with the second to fall back on if necessary. A hundred generations, and by definition all of them survived.
They walked on, through cool air, like cellar air, still and damp and undisturbed. The trail itself was soft and springy, a dark, leaf-rich loam. Like carpet.
No hikers up ahead.
Not in the first five minutes, or the first ten. Which made each new minute more and more likely. Two couples on exactly opposite vectors, one moving fast, one moving slow, fifteen minutes already gone. The window in which the encounter would have to take place was getting smaller and smaller. If it was going to happen, it was going to happen soon.
It didn’t.
Not in the next five minutes, or the next ten. Which was getting arithmetically difficult. It was hard to imagine Henry and Suzanne could be slow enough to make the big numbers work. Unless they had chickened out and turned around, straight back to Naismith. Second thoughts, maybe, and an honorable retreat. They might have stepped out behind Sergeant Cain at the exact same moment Reacher and Helen had paddled away from the kayak dock.
No way of knowing.
No hikers up ahead.
Helen said, “Reacher, you blew it.”
He said, “Start with the polysyllabic examples. I’m always interested.”
She said, “Maybe something already happened to them.”
“But what? There are no search parties coming north out of Naismith. No other hikers. The missing equipment is not jumping up and biting them in the ass. Not actually. You can say so later, figuratively, but so far nothing much can have happened to them.”
“Then where are they?”
“They must be static. Maybe they pitched their tent already. Maybe they found the perfect spot.”
“I think they hustled and we missed them. I think we came in behind them. You blew the call.”
“Life’s a gamble,” Reacher said again.
They moved on, speeding up a little, ignoring the sylvan glades to their left and right, every one of them a separate curiosity, like a room in a museum. There was a new breeze high above them, and the canopy was rustling, and tree limbs were clicking and groaning. Small furtive animals made darting sounds in the underbrush. Insects hung in tight clouds, to be avoided if possible, or batted through if not.
Then the trail jinked right and left around a huge mossy bole four feet wide, and up ahead in the gloom they saw two bright objects stacked side by side on the forest floor. Red and orange and yellow, nylon, straps and buckles.
Backpacks.
“Theirs,” Helen said.
Reacher nodded at her side. He had seen the backpacks before, most recently at the wilderness arch that morning, hoisted into place and ready to go. They walked on and stopped next to the luggage. It was not abandoned. Both packs were set upright, leaning one on the other. They had been carefully placed.
“They stepped off the trail,” Reacher said. “A little side excursion. No point hauling bags through the brush.”
“When?” Helen said.
“Recently, I hope. Which would mean they’re close by.”
Behind the click and the hum of the living woods there was nothing but silence all around. No gasps, no calls, no feet ripping through the tangled undergrowth.
Nothing.
Helen said, “Should we shout?”
Reacher said, “Not too loud.”
“Henry? Suzanne?” She said their names like a fierce stage whisper, louder than talking, but far from yelling, with an anxious questioning cadence rising on the ends.
No response.
“Suzanne? Henry?”
No response.
She said, “They can’t be far away, surely.”
Reacher studied the brush to the left and the right. Logic said if they had stepped off the trail, they would have done so near their bags. No sense in stacking the packs and then choosing an exit point a hundred yards away. So Reacher knew where to start looking. But he was no kind of an expert tracker. Not out in the wilds. Not like the movies, where the guy squats down on his haunches and ponders a moment and says, They passed this way three hours ago, and the woman has a blister on her ankle.
But there were broken shoots and torn leaves in one location. Easy enough to imagine a planted foot, and the sweep of a short, cautious stride, and the next foot, and a second person following behind, leading with one shoulder, then leading with the other, squeezing through the gaps.
Helen said, “Should we try it?”
Reacher said, “Call their names again.”