Finder Of Lost Things

(My view while I ran up the trail.)

The steady thrumming in my toes settled back into the familiar pins and needles sensation the farther from the glen I walked. No longer distracted by my digits and not hearing anyone calling my name (calling is such a tame word – hollering, bellowing or cursing it might be more accurate if they couldn’t find me) allowed my mind to mull over today’s work. 

Time coupled with several good soakings would leech the salt into the soil, rendering the contents of the cairn inert (or at least transforming a tiger into a tabby). One canteen of water, while a start, would not suffice to produce instant results, so the continued pricking along my toes didn’t worry me. 

The overall level of energy (or vita as it was technically known) still emanating – did. 

Reentering the picnic area, I sat in the spot Wood vacated earlier, trying to reason my way through this riddle. I’d started to pull out my brown bag lunch when a thought struck me with such force it launched me out of the clearing and onto the main trail, my lunch uneaten. The rise in elevation (and my fitness level) wouldn’t allow a flat out run, but I pushed myself hard, ignoring the protests my legs and lungs lodged against me. 

What if I salted the wrong bones? 

The Pumpkin Mountain Trail didn’t connect with any other trail systems in the park, which meant mountaineers rarely trafficked it, enthusiasts found the trail too easy and novices avoided it due to the inconvenient trailhead (if you didn’t talk to the locals). Taken together these conditions created an underutilized remote location, which fit the select set of criteria needed for the unsuspecting to vanish in. The odds of two illicit graves along one trail – astronomical – but not outside the realm of possibility.

Four more unofficial spots lay beyond the one I’d found the cairn by and I needed to appraise them. So onward and upward I pushed myself, pitting myself against my companions in a contest they didn’t know they raced, waiting for a whisper of vita to prick me. Ignoring my whistling lungs and the lead settling into my legs, my eyes only saw the dirt of the trail while I strained to feel the faintest ripple of energy. I needed to reach the top.

I’d past two camps without so much as a twinge with just two to go – when Bert and Ernie ran into me (literally, they just about knocked me on my ass).

Wood (breathless called): “Phoebe?” 

Me (unable to do more than pant): ….

Wood bounded over, removed my pack and tossed it aside, then pushed me to sit down on the trail. Bert and Ernie thrilled to have someone at tongue level started converging when Wood ordered them to “Sit and stay.” Without changing his tone, he started ordering me around, “Slow down. Take a deep breath, now another. Keep taking them.” He kneeled down in the dirt next to me felt for my pulse while pantomiming in and out trying to help me regain control of my breath. It took five minutes for the rest of the crew to catch up with us. When they did, concern filled their faces.

Wood (looked me dead in the eye): “Phoebe what were you thinking, running up a mountain?”

Laney: “Wood, give her minute.”

He’d spied my dubious attack of the switchbacks, which caused him to mount his own swift descent to meet me – seems a beet red face while whistling like a tea kettle worries a physician. Who knew? Since he used my actual first name (which is the equivalent of a parent middle naming you), I knew I was in trouble. History told me he would require an explanation for what he deemed reckless behavior and he could sniff out BS better than the boys. 

All I could think of? I’d fallen short.