“There’s another one here,” Michael called.
We both hurried over to where he stood.
“Look,” Michael said as he pointed toward the path of small puddles that trailed off into the woods. It’s a path of footprints.
“How come we didn’t see these before?” Adam asked.
Michael walked slowly ahead, bending down to look at each one in turn.
“It looks like someone tried to cover them up, but when the snow started to melt and the light started to hit them, they became more visible. It’s definitely footprints, and since there’s no one else here and none of us walked this way into the woods; I’m assuming that they must belong to Rob.”
“Let’s go,” I said as I started to run along the trail of prints.
Michael grabbed my arm and gently pulled me back.
“Hang on,” he said. “We still can’t go wandering off aimlessly and unprepared into the woods. We want to find him as bad as you do, so let’s go inside and get what we need and then we’ll head out.”
“Okay,” I nodded as the three of us went back into the cabin.
Thoughts of what could have possibly happened to Rob, and who would have covered up his footprints, raced through my head. There was only one set of footprints, so unless whoever it was had carried him, then it looked like Rob was alone which didn’t make any sense. He wouldn’t have wandered off to disappear in the woods all on his own, and he certainly wouldn’t have covered up his own footprints. I only hoped that he was okay and that we found him before anything bad happened.
Michael grabbed three backpacks down from the top of the closet and tossed them onto the bed, one for each of us.
“Don’t make them too heavy,” he said as he started rooting through drawers to find what we needed. “We don’t know how far or how long we’ll have to be out there. The mountainous terrain can be difficult to navigate even with no pack. Keep it light and only pack the essentials; change of clothes, water canteen, some food. I’ll pack a tent, matches, and first aid. You guys just pack what you’ll need.”
“How long are we expecting to be out there for?” Adam said. “Like a general guess at least?”
“Maybe a day?” Michael said with a heavy dose of uncertainty in his voice. “Maybe two?”
Michael packed his backpack the heaviest, putting the communal things that we would all share inside his. I grabbed a pair of jeans, T-shirt, sweater, and a pair of underwear. I couldn’t really think straight on the spot about what I would need out in the woods. It wasn’t like I had ever done something like this before or had any survival training. Adam handed me a metal flask filled with water, and a few packs of beef jerky. Then, he folded up a blanket as tightly as he could and stuffed it into his pack. When all three backpacks were ready, I changed my shoes into a more durable pair of combat boots and grabbed a thicker jacket from the closet to push my arms through. The jacket had a fur-lined hood that reminded me of the fur blankets that Michael and I laid under by the bonfire. After everyone was ready, Michael locked up the cabin, and we headed out.
The footprints were already starting to fade, and a fresh dusting of snow was also starting to fall. It wouldn’t be long before we lost the track entirely and were searching blind.
“We need to use what light we have to search as far as we can,” Michael said.
For hours we trekked deeper and deeper into the mountains. We searched for the rest of the day until we exhausted all of the daylight and the dim light of dusk, then we used as much of the moonlight as we could to continue looking, until eventually we lost sight of the footprints and there were no more clues to go on. Now, we just had to canvas the wilderness until we either found more clues to follow, found Rob, or ran out of supplies and needed to turn back.
“It’s too dark to keep searching for tonight,” Adam said. “We need to stop and pitch the tent before we end up just wandering around in circles or falling off the edge of the mountain.”
“Agreed,” Michael said as he looked around for a safe place to camp for the night.
Between the cold, the wild, and the possibility of there being someone else in the woods with us with less than peaceful intentions; it was important that we pitched a secure tent in a relatively secluded and hidden area. Once the guys found a suitable spot, Michael began to set up the tent while Adam started a fire. A new layer of snow was falling, and the temperature was dropping. I pulled my furry hood closer around my face to edge out the biting wind that was starting to pick up.
“The fire will help,” Adam said as he looked over at me while I shivered.
I sat next to the growing fire and watched Michael put up the tent. It was big enough to hold all three of us, although we would definitely be close together in it. After the fire was hearty enough to be left untended, Adam went to go and help. He pulled the blanket out of his backpack and wrapped it around my shoulders before he went. I stared at the flames for a while and thought about Rob. If we were this cold and this tired, after just having spent a day in the wilderness and with the luxury of a tent, and blankets, and food; I wondered how he was faring.
When the guys finished pitching the tent, they both came to sit down beside me. Michael held his hands out against the warmth of the fire, and Adam pulled a whiskey bottle from his pack.
“Really?” Michael laughed at him. “I told you to pack lightly and you brought a full whiskey bottle in your backpack?”
“You told us to pack what we would need,” Adam said. “And I sure as hell knew that we would need this. Besides, it will help keep us warm.”
He was right about that, and as he passed the bottle around and we all took a swig from it, I think we were both grateful that he had the foresight to bring it. The alcohol stung my throat and fell into my chest with a blossoming warmth that heated me from the inside out.
“Where do you think Rob is?” I asked with a distant stare that looked past the flames into the empty darkness of the woods.
“I don’t know,” Adam said. “But I know that we will find him.”
“Alive?” I asked.
I hadn’t even intended to ask that, especially not to blurt it out so abruptly, but it just spilled out of my mouth because I felt like I needed someone to answer it.
“Yes,” Michael answered resolutely. “Alive.”
The three of us sat without any more talking for a while as we warmed by the fire and chewed on pieces of dried beef jerky that we washed down with whiskey until we were both warm and numb.
“We should get some rest,” Michael said after a while.
I wondered how we were all three going to share a singular blanket once we got inside the tent to sleep, considering that Michael was having a great deal of difficulty trying to stay away from me. Searching for Rob had definitely been at the forefront of my mind, but the torturous turmoil of still not knowing whether Michael was actually my brother or not was always underlying my every thought.
“We can leave the fire going. It’ll keep away any of the larger mountain animals that get curious about what we are doing in their home overnight.”
“How long are we prepared to stay out here for,” Adam asked, “before we need to go back for supplies?”
“Couple of days,” Michael answered. “I’m sure we’ll have found him by then.”
The confidence in Michael’s voice seemed so strong that I got the feeling it was being faked for the benefit of keeping us hopeful and calm. I think he was even trying to convince himself that things would be okay, and that Rob was just lost in the woods somewhere nearby, soon to be found. But I was not so confident. I had a really bad feeling about all of this, and I felt even worse not knowing where the sense of dread was coming from. We didn’t have any enemies remaining anymore and I just didn’t know what could have happened to Rob. Michael put his arm around my shoulder and helped me up with him as we stood to go into the tent.
