It had taken him a long time to pull himself out of that depression. It had taken even longer to learn to live with what had happened to his father.
His mother had never learned how to live without her husband. Nick had had to in order to take care of her. The idea of losing her, too, was intolerable. Watching her mind begin to slip away and her constant care wasn’t easy, but she was still a big part of his life.
He threw himself into work helping others. Saving lives. It wouldn’t bring his father back. It wouldn’t erase what had happened to his mother as a result. But he thought if he could save enough people…maybe he would be forgiven for not saving his father.
Maybe he could forgive himself.
Nick stood from the boulder he and Riot had been resting on. He picked up his pack and slung it on his back, making adjustments.
Riot sprang to his feet, panting and looking a good deal more ready than Nick felt.
Nick wrangled an encouraging smile onto his face. “Back on the trail.”
Riot bounded forward, leading the way.
Nick squinted against the sun. He preferred to hike west to east in the afternoons to keep the low-hanging sun out of his eyes. Lowering his chin so the bill of his ball cap cut the angle of the harsh rays, he followed his dog.
Riot’s past was as linked with Dark Canyon Wilderness as Nick’s. Three years ago, Nick had been camping near the Ancestral Puebloan ruins when he’d seen the dog loping across the canyon floor. At first, he’d thought he was a coyote. But as the animal crept closer to Nick’s tent and the smell of food, he’d realized that he was a young mutt with a gray face, a white speckled coat, one brown ear and bicolored eyes. Riot had been skin and bones. Nick had shared his dinner with him. The dog had eaten like he hadn’t seen a scrap of food in days. He’d lingered at the campsite long after moonrise.
When Nick woke the next morning, the dog was still there. As Nick had cooked breakfast, he’d waited patiently, tail wagging. When it came time to pack up and head out, the animal had followed.
Nick thought he would branch off to hunt or search for pack members somewhere along the trail. But when he reached the trailhead days later, the dog had been with him still. After Nick had loaded his gear into his truck, he and the dog had engaged in a brief staring contest with Riot’s tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, eyes round with expectation, and Nick’s restraint had crumbled like a rock ledge.C’mon, he’d said, opening the passenger door of the cab. Riot had had no qualms about leaping into the seat. He’d spent much of the ride back to the town of Dark Canyon with his chin propped contentedly on Nick’s free arm.
I guess I’ve got a dog now, he’d thought. His grin hadn’t been forced then. It wasn’t often he drove away from Dark Canyon Wilderness after his annual hiking trip smiling. That year, it had been as inevitable as his and Riot’s connection.
But by rushing to get ready for this year’s trip, Nick hadn’t just potentially endangered himself. He may have endangered Riot, too.
Shame coated his parched throat and he struggled to swallow. He kept walking at a steady pace, following the tracks Riot left on the narrow, sandy path.
They trekked another half hour before the nosebleed started. It began as one drop of blood in a slow crawl from his left nostril. Then the other joined in. Riot whined as Nick stopped again to dig out his handkerchief. He dropped his head back, trying to stanch the flow.
Nosebleeds happened in dry climates, particularly when the subject lacked hydration. Nick knew that. Still, his pulse knelled ominously against his eardrums. He could feel it in the back of his head.
He looked up to see that Riot had wandered off the path into the sagebrush to sniff the remains of a dead elk.
“Riot!” Nick called. “Get away from there.”
Riot reluctantly padded back to him. He planted himself at Nick’s feet, resting his rump in the space between Nick’s well-worn hiking boots.
“Stay,” he instructed, trying not to look at what remained of the elk. He and Riot had passed it on the way into the wildlife zone. It’d been there for some time. There were patches of fur and skin left in places, but the line of its stark white jawbone and the ladder of its ribs jutted out in distinction.
Another casualty of the wilderness. A reminder that nature took everything back eventually.
“We should move on,” Nick said, wiping the space beneath his nose once more with the handkerchief. He sniffed wetly.
Riot let out a low woof. He rushed forward with a cadence of barks.
“No!” Nick cried, sprinting after him. “Riot! Come back!”
Riot ran full tilt up a small rise and stopped, tail wagging madly.
Nick raised his hand to block the sun. A figure stood at the top of the rise, small and slender.
The figure raised a hand. Then a voice called out to him, “Yá'át'ééh!”
He recognized the voice and the traditional Navajo greeting. His shoulders sagged in relief. The muscles of his back eased. His lip cracked again as his mouth split wide in a grin and he raised his hand in return. “Aoo’ yá’át’ééh!” he called.
Sassy, decked out in a desert-brown button-up and cargo pants, her long braids climbing down her shoulders, beamed as she scratched Riot’s back. The flash of her bright white teeth caused a weak sensation around the joints of his knees. She broke into a run, her backpack bouncing noisily against her spine and Riot fast on her heels, skipping in all his excitement.
