CHAPTER TEN

2018

There were five or six people standing in the parking lot at the bottom of the trail, gathered in a small group, discussing their dinner plans in the creeping twilight. They’d have to drive into Estes Park, but there were some good places right on the edge of town, an Italian place and a barbecue joint that had an amazing buffalo—

“Help!” a man shouted, and they all turned toward the voice. He was coming down the trail, stumbling along on the loose gravel, something in his hand. A small rectangle of light. His phone. Something moved in the woods behind him, startled and then dashed away, shaking up the undergrowth. A rabbit, or a small deer.

“My wife, she fell,” the man said. He was sweating lightly, gasping for air as if the hike down had been a rough one. “My wife, I think she might be dead.”