The path curved and headed in an eastern direction, like Galen had told them it would. Jo breathed a sigh of relief. Still, she didn’t trust him.
They walked a while and the trail began to ascend. It took them up the side of a slope, to the top of a knoll. They had no choice, but to follow it.
“Yeah, this is new,” Mike commented.
“What happened to that nice flat hike you promised?” Drew asked. His effort was great in climbing up the path. He was winded and dripping in sweat. Ben was fairing worse. Jo’s heart went out to both of them.
“Just keep going,” Galen said He stayed closer to the group now. Jo sneered secretively at the back of his head.
Everyone was quiet during the uphill hike. Apprehension was contagious, and each of them seemed subdued by it. Even Red. Ben had concurred with Mike and Lary that the trail was probably an ‘alternate path the Forest Service had made to provide a more moderate hiking experience’. Jo chose to believe that too, but she didn’t feel any better about the forest, the decaying sunlight, or Galen.
The climb left them panting, and Ben and Drew moaning. The path thinned on the top of the ridge and they were forced to walk single file. But they were headed east and, the group agreed, that was a good thing.
On top of this hill, the view awed Jo: green forest rolling on and on, hills cresting like multiple ocean waves, until meeting the horizon in the east where the glass-blue color of the sky started to deepen.
The knoll they walked descended steeply on their left, overgrown with trees and thickets of shrubs. On their right, it had a gentler slope. The trees were spaced apart and, at the bottom, the forest floor became a meadow. On the far side of the meadow was a line of aspen, and behind these, the river flowed.
April, in front of Jo, gazed toward the river. She twisted her neck to look back at Jo. “No way to swim in that.”
Jo gazed out at the wild river. “That’s for—”
April shrieked. She disappeared.
“April!” Jo screamed.
The group came to a halt and bunched as close as they could, shouting and screaming at the side of the hill where April had vanished.
“April!” Drew yelled frantically, leaning over, about to lose his balance. Ben grabbed onto the back of his T-shirt.
“What happened?” Dove asked Jo.
“I don’t know,” Jo answered. She looked down at the trail where the edge of the path had crumbled away and gravity had sucked April down.
Jo leaned over, holding onto Dove, and searched the thickets for her friend. She couldn’t see anything but brush and tree limbs. Mike grabbed onto a tree limb and prepared to climb down.
“Careful, Mike,” Red cautioned. But just as he took a step down, the top of April’s head appeared.
Spellbound, Jo watched the strawberry blonde frizz rise out of the scrub. Beside April’s face was Galen’s. He climbed back onto the trail carrying April in his arms. His arms were scratched and his shirt snagged.
April cried and clung to him, scraped and covered with dirt. She had a gash on the shin of one leg. Bright red blood dripped on the ground. Mike stripped off a piece of the denim shirt he pulled out of his backpack and Dove tied it over the wound to help staunch the flow of blood.
They walked as quickly as they could. Galen carried April until they were down the other side, back on flat land. He sat her gently down in the grass and stepped aside to let Dove attend to her.
April sobbed and trembled while Dove checked her for broken bones. Drew knelt beside her and offered her water from his canteen, but she shook her head. Minor scratches striped her arms and legs, but besides the deep cut on her shin bone, nothing major had happened; nothing was broken.
Mike ripped another piece of his shirt. Dove pushed the edges of the cut together and wrapped the cloth around the leg as tight as she could without cutting off circulation. Ben came over and offered some yellow flower petals to Dove. “They’re antiseptic.”
“No thanks,” Dove told him flatly. He shrugged his shoulders and ate them.
Galen knelt on one knee at April’s feet. He stared at the bandaged wound and the browning trail on April’s leg where the blood had streamed. The red liquid soaked into the blue denim fibers creating a dark purple blotch. He looked at April’s wet eyes. “Can you walk?”
“Let her rest,” Red told him.
“Yeah, she needs to rest,” Drew echoed.
Galen took April’s hand and held it between both of his. She looked up at him, her shoulders convulsing with her sobs and her whole body trembling. His touch was tender and his expression compassionate. Jo watched him with reverence as he calmed April’s crying and she stopped shaking.
“April, we’ve got to get back. Can you walk?” He asked again. There was urgency in his statement though his tone was soft and composed.
April wiped the wetness from her cheeks with her other hand and nodded her head. Galen helped her to her feet.
“Are you Ok, April?” Drew asked her. Jo knew he wanted to reach out and take her hand, the way Galen had.
“I’m Ok.” Her eyes barely met his.
“All right, let’s get going,” Galen said, as he walked by Jo.
“Hey,” she called to him.
He stopped. His eyes were bright, his face washed with the golden glow of the evening sun.
“Thanks. That was awesome—what you did for April.” She smiled at him, genuinely grateful.
His expression remained blank. He turned and walked away. Jo’s mouth gaped. Anger heated the flesh on her forehead.
The group moved forward. Jo fell in beside Dove.
“That was incredible.” Dove’s voice was full of marvel. She talked fast. “How did he get to her so quickly?”
“I don’t know,” Jo replied, annoyed by Dove’s exuberance.
“It’s like…magic! He was leading us—then he was down the hill—then he was up the hill with April. Actually, I never saw him go down the hill.” Dove talked excitedly. “That hill was steep, but he just carried her up it like it was nothing. I can’t—”
“Yeah, yeah, he’s quite the hero.” She set her sights on Galen’s head. “I’m glad he helped April—thank the Lord for that—but I can’t wait to be far, far away from him…and I will never speak to him again.”
Dove grinned wearily at Jo and sighed. “So much for romance.”
Chapter 17