Lily and Nicole shared a glance, and then Nicole moved in to hug her. “You stay safe.” Nicole turned to Leo. “And you. Bring her back in one piece or I’ll cut off all your protruding parts.”
“Noted,” he said, and turned to Lily. “Do we have everything?”
Lily checked her pack one more time. “I think so.”
“Wait!” Walter called. With a dust-caked hand, he reached up, shoving his dark curls off his forehead. “I just wanted to say to Miss Nicole and Lily, this has been one of the best trips we’ve ever, ever done.” He looked at Bradley and Leo. “Right, guys?”
“Except for the death,” Leo agreed, “it’s been great.”
“Right,” Walter said, laughing nervously, “obviously except for that. So, I just wanted to say thank you. I won’t ever forget this experience.”
With a reluctant smile, Lily leaned over and hugged him. “You’re a sweetheart, Walt. Don’t let Nicole into your pants.”
“Hey.” With a scowl, Nicole climbed into the driver’s seat, and Leo watched Bradley get in the passenger side. The engine roared to life, and Nicole looked out the window at them. “See you in a few days, Dub.”
Beside him, Lily nodded, expression intense. The guys waved, and they watched as Nicole tried to gently navigate them over the bumpy road.
Finally, the Jeep disappeared from view. “Think they’ll be okay?”
“They’ll be fine.” She hitched Terry’s pack up on her shoulders. “It’s us I’m worried about.”
* * *
They headed back out, retracing their steps, more conscious of the path and the pitfalls this time. They hadn’t talked, but there seemed to be an unspoken truce between them, an acknowledgment of what had happened last night and an understanding that it wouldn’t happen again. They just focused on the journey in front of them.
After about half an hour, though, the reality that they were truly alone seemed to loosen something. They dusted off conversation, warning each other of things to avoid or pointing out sights on the trail. Leo asked her about a flowering plant (creosote bush), and the clucking of a small bird with a gray cap (chukar), and she asked him a little more about Cora: What was she like, did she have a significant other, what kind of medicine did he think she’d go into? The going was faster with just the two of them, and they talked as they hiked over loose red dirt softened by bulges of grass and shrubby plants. When Lily veered right, the makeshift trail became more rock than soil and began to slope sharply down, requiring most of their concentration. They walked for miles, his thighs burning in the steep downhill grade.
“Step directly on my footprints here,” she tossed over her shoulder.
He did as she said, changing his stride so his steps mirrored hers.
She pointed. “See where the dirt is darker over there?”
He nodded. Just off their path, the dirt was bumpy, covered in some kind of organic matter. “What is that?”
“Cryptobiotic soil. It holds moisture when it rains and helps with erosion, but it can take hundreds of years to grow, and it’s super fragile. You never want to walk on that.”
He was careful to follow her steps as they navigated ground that became more gravel than dirt, then more solid rock than gravel. Gradually, the terrain narrowed into a slot canyon. Sheer faces of rock rose above them, tunneling them in, blocking out the sun. He was reminded of being in the city and stepping into a narrow gap between buildings.
He reached out, letting his fingers trail along the rock wall. Some parts were flat, some curved like waves. The surface was almost striped, with layer after layer of sedimentary rock carved by floodwater over millions of years. It didn’t feel like it should be real.
“Have you ever heard of Manhattanhenge?” he asked her, turning sideways to fit through a particularly narrow section.
“Manhattanhenge?” She laughed. “Sounds made-up.”
“In the city you don’t really see the sun rise or set because the buildings block the horizon. But twice a year the sunset aligns with the east-west streets, and if you stand in just the right spot—I like East Forty-Second and Third—you can see it.”
She stopped and turned with a faraway look in her eye, like she was trying to imagine a day without a sunset. Lily shook her head, clearing it. “I can’t decide if that sounds awful or weirdly magical.”
He looked up at the thin strip of sky overhead, a highway of blue stretched between red rock rooftops. “Probably both. I went to a party with Bradley one night, and just as I was ready to lie about why I needed to head home, he pulled me outside. There was a huge crowd, and it was like the whole city got quiet for a second while we watched the sunset together.”
“Do you miss it?” she asked. “The city?”