Page 67 of Big & Lily

“Well, I always resented that you got the store up and running the way you did. And turned it into such a success. I couldn’t have done it. I’m no Lily Ackerman.”

“Bullshit. Seriously, Big. You should run the store with me. You’re a problem solver. You can be the muscle.” She smiles that Lily Ackerman salesperson-of-the-year smile.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I’m pretty busy at home.”

“You’ve got a lot of grown-up boys and girls at home who can fend for themselves. You said it yourself. It’s time for them to figure it out.”

Now it’s my turn to scoff. “That’s a little rich, coming from you.”

Lily doesn’t get defensive; she doesn’t raise her eyebrows and flap her mouth and act all insulted. “You love it,” she says playfully.

“I kind of do,” I admit. “Okay, we’ll have time to talk about our future after we find out if we have one. Let’s get the hell out of here. Listen, the storm has stopped.”

I crawl out from under the pine, and she follows me. The sun is shining now. The rays coming through the branches are laughing as if to say, “Only kidding about pelting you with that sharp ice.” We are swatting at our butts and pant legs and shaking off our jackets when Lily grabs my arm. “Look. Over there.”

There’s a clutch in my throat, a fear of another disaster, as I follow her gaze, until I see what she sees. A man walking toward us. He’s twenty feet way, walking past our line of vision like he’s crossing a stage. If we’d waited under the tree a few more seconds, we would have missed him. Lily and I run to the hiker, waving our arms and shouting, “Hey, help us, we’re lost!” He is not as startled as he should be by two women crashing out of the woods and hurling themselves at him. He’s walking on a flat, wide trail that we couldn’t see from the forest. We’d been so close. Would we ever have found it on our own? Who cares? Help is here.

“We are so happy to see you!” I shout out even before we reach him.

As he gets closer, a choking smell fills our noses and grinds us to a halt. Lily can’t control her face. Her nostrils flare, and then her hand goes up to her face. “Is that him?” she asks through her hand.

“Stop it,” I hiss. “We can’t afford to offend this guy. He’s gotta be a seasoned hiker; he’ll know the way back.”

“Seasonedbeing the operative word,” she whispers. I mean, she’s not wrong. The guy has clearly been out here a while. His T-shirt and shorts are grubby and stained. Dirt is ground into his knees, and there is a piece of duct tape wrapped around one of his boots. The sharp odors coming off him are part outhouse, part dead animal, part the skunky smell on every street corner since pot was legalized. Still, beggars and choosers.

“Hi, hi,” I say inching closer but not too close. “We’re lost. We took a wrong turn somewhere. Can you direct us back to the trailhead?”

He takes his time answering me. Lily and I look at each other; she shrugs her shoulders. I want to shake his. We are too cold and too wet and too tired and way too fed up with the what’s-lurking-around-the-corners out here for this nonsense. Finally, he says, “I’m heading back up past the Kesugi Ridge. I’ve got my tent and shit up there.”

“Right,” says Lily. “But we need to go down. Can you tell us how to getdown?”

“Nah, man. You’re going the wrong way. Up top is the place to be.”

“Yes, right,” I say slowly, making sure he understands what we are asking. “It’s beautiful up there, sure. That’s where we were heading this morning. But now we need to go back. To our camp. Where our friends are.”

“No, dudes. Come with me. I haven’t seen much of humanity in the last few weeks. It will be chill.” He licks his dry, cracked lips, and a shiver runs down my spine. Everyone in Alaska has been so lovely, so helpful and patient. Have we run into the one psychopath out here in the middle of nowhere?

“Big. We need to move.”

“Well, then,” I say backing up slowly. “We’ll be on our way. Like I said, we have people waiting who will be worried if we’re late.”

The hiker stares at us through glassy eyes. “That’s not very friendly, man. I told you I haven’t had any company in a while. And now I come upon you two snacks, a little old for me, but we’ll make do. So, let’s party.” He takes a step closer and grabs my wrist, gripping it with a frightening force. This time I know what to do when we come upon a predator. And it’s not back up slowly, or appear bigger and wave our arms, or play dead. It’s run.

Chapter Thirty-Three

“Big, stop,” Lily says, leaning over her knees with her hands on her chest. “He’s gone.”

I turn around, gulping air, and check behind us. No psycho-hiker heading our way. “Come on, let’s keeping going. At least we’re back on a trail.”

“Yeah, and we’re still lost.”

I’m feeling both traumatized and a bit euphoric. I had joked with Luna a few days ago about our outings being one near-death experience after the next, but today was no joke. “Holy crap.” I laugh as Lily and I head off to who knows where. “What do they say about things coming in threes? The fork in the road, the bear, and that creep,” I count off on my fingers. “At least we’re done. We survived. Nothing else can go wrong now.”

We walk along quietly for a while. The trail becomes steeper and narrower. Relief fills me when I suddenly recognize this spot. We hiked it yesterday. It’s where one side of the path slopes up to a thick forest, filled with tight trees, dead fallen trunks covered with thick moss, and overgrown bushes, too tight to stomp through like we did earlier. To our right is the steep ravine.

We must be almost back to camp. “I’m sorry you didn’t see the sunrise, Lil.”

“Yeah, me too.” She sighs and says, “So, I didn’t have my spiritual awakening, but I sure got a story I can tell at cocktail parties. Oh my God, Big. That guy wanted to be your boyfriend!”