Light on snow_ a novel - Anita Shreve [55]
Charlotte is panting by the time we reach a spot where we can stop to catch our breath. She bends over and puts her hands on her knees, a runner after a marathon. I ask her half a dozen times if she’s okay, and finally she tells me to quit it, she is fine. I know that if my father catches us (actually, I already know that it’s when, not if), my most flagrant transgression will not be having taken Charlotte to see the place where her baby was left to die, but rather that I risked her life in getting her there. I am trusting in Charlotte, a person I hardly know, to warn me if she’s in serious trouble.
“You’re sure you can do this?” I ask.
“I’m positive.”
The snow, dislodged from pine boughs above, falls in delicate showers. Charlotte begins to sweat. She unwinds the scarf and unzips her jacket to her stomach. Her jeans are wet to her knees, and I don’t want to think about her leather boots. I feel each footfall as a step toward disaster, but pride or inevitability or simply forward momentum keeps me going.
After a time I stop thinking about disaster and my father and Charlotte and begin to concentrate on navigating. I can see the path clearly in my mind’s eye; finding it from the forest floor is another matter. I recognize a rocky outcropping and locate the place where my father and I veered right, but after that I move more by instinct than by certain knowledge. Were we climbing as we moved sideways around the mountain to the right? I try to remember and wish I’d paid more attention during our second hike to the spot the day we ran into Detective Warren.
Charlotte and I fall into a routine. I walk a hundred feet, turn to see that she’s behind me, and wait for her to catch up. She doesn’t look quite as ungainly as she did when we set out, and she’s making better progress. As I wait for her, visions of catastrophe begin to crowd the edges of my thoughts, but I push them away. Jeopardizing Charlotte’s health will not be the worst crime my father will accuse me of, I now realize. The worst crime will be getting lost and forcing others to come find us. If they can find us.
We walk until we come to a clearing I have never seen before. I try to convince myself that my father and I simply bypassed it during our earlier treks, but I know that isn’t so. I hate telling Charlotte I’ve taken a wrong turn almost as much as admitting it to myself, but I have no choice.
Charlotte, too winded, says nothing.
“We’ll find it,” I say.
We retrace our steps, easy to follow in the pristine snow. Tiny V’s of bird tracks make faint impressions on the surface, and occasionally I can see the small scuff marks of an animal on the run. The challenge, I know, is to find the place where I went wrong. I walk slowly, like a hunter, examining every tree, every lower branch for some sign of breakage, but the bushes my father and I might have disturbed are mostly covered with snow. It is as if Charlotte and I are floating atop the forest floor.
I’ve already admitted defeat to myself, if not to Charlotte, when I see, in the distance, the tiniest blot of raspberry. “Wait here,” I say.
I move as quickly as I’m able. When I come within thirty feet of the reddish color, I see that it’s the item I hoped it was: my hat, the one I lost on the first night. It’s caught within a tangle of brush, possibly blown there by the winds of the night before. It might not mark the trail precisely, but I know that the path can’t be too far away. I yell for Charlotte to join me.
I reach for my hat in the brush. I’m glad to have it back. I hate losing anything I’ve knit.
“My hat,” I say to Charlotte when she reaches me. “The path has to be near here.”
The trail my father and I made, twice coming and going, has created a faint depression, as if a brook were running beneath the