![]() ![]() She could just make out, to the very far west, beneath a slate layer of clouds, the feathery, blue-gray swirls of rain blowing south. The farther north and the closer to Lake Superior she got-still two days in the future and nothing but a hazy purple smear smudging the horizon-the greater the risk of bad weather. The going was treacherous, each step an invitation to turn an ankle. Now, she was crunching over brittle ice and skidding on frost-covered roots and bare rock every morning. The Waucamaw Wilderness had always been a summer adventure with her parents when pesky no-see-ums, bloodsucking mosquitoes, and heat that could melt a person to a sweat puddle were her biggest problems. The cold was a surprise, but then she’d never hiked the Waucamaw in late September either. ![]() Which Alex was pretty used to, having not smelled anything for well over a year. The chilly air smelled chilly-which is to say that for Alex, it really smelled like nothing at all. Far below, the Moss River sparkled with sun dazzle, a glittering ribbon that wound through a deep valley of leafless hardwoods, silver-blue spruce, and the darker green of dense hemlock and feathery white pine. A stiff wind gusted in from the northwest, wet and cold. Four days later, Alex perched on a knuckle of bone-cold rock and whittled an alder branch to a toothpick as she waited for her coffee water to boil. ![]()
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