All That We Carried Read online

  “Can you tell me where we are on this?”

  The man edged closer, took a moment to orient himself to the map, and pointed. “Right about here.”

  Melanie pushed the water bottle into Olivia’s hand. “What are you doing way out here?”

  He looked down at his waders and smiled. “Fishing. Downstream it’s a bit overfished, so when I come out here I like to visit these upstream areas off the beaten path.”

  “We’re supposed to be on the Little Carp River Trail,” Olivia said, getting to her feet and brushing the dirt off her rear end. “I’m assuming we can just follow the river downstream and we’ll get there?”

  “Might take a while, but yes.”

  Olivia sighed. “I don’t know what to do about our campsite tonight. There’s no way we’ll make it before dark now.”

  “Which one are you staying at?”

  Olivia quickly folded the map up and tucked it into her pocket. “We’ll figure it out.” She yanked up her pack and slipped her arms through the straps. Melanie saw her tuck the knife into her pants pocket.

  She understood why Olivia didn’t want to tell a man they’d just met where they were sleeping that night, but she didn’t have to be so brusque about it. “Thank you for your help . . .”

  “Josh,” the man supplied.

  “Thanks, Josh. We appreciate it. Best of luck on your fishing.” Melanie struggled to stand with the heavy pack still on her back. The man—Josh—held out a hand. She took it and he helped her to her feet.

  “You’re welcome to use my campsite tonight,” he said. “I’m right on the river, just past the Greenstone Falls cabin where the Little Carp Trail meets the Cross Trail. It’s not too far. And if I have that site, I imagine yours is quite a ways further since the backcountry sites are so spread out in this section.” He looked up at the sky. “You’re right that you’ll be hard-pressed to get where you’re going before dark.”

  “Thanks, but—” Olivia began, but Melanie cut her off.

  “Just a minute.” She pulled Olivia aside and turned her to face away from Josh, who politely took a few steps away to give them some privacy.

  “What?” Olivia whispered harshly. “We are not staying with some strange man out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “He seems very nice, and he’s willing to help us.”

  “We don’t need any help. We found the river on our own and we’ll find the trail on our own and we’ll camp on our own.”

  “How far is our site?”

  Olivia said nothing.

  “Let me see the map.”

  Olivia sighed. “If he’s right about where we are on the river, it’s at least six miles away.”

  “Are you crazy? We can’t hike six miles in”—she checked her watch—“five hours. And eat. And rest. And set up the tent. And—”

  “Okay, I get it,” Olivia said. “But we can’t just trust this guy. We know nothing about him. We can’t go to sleep with him just outside the tent.”

  “You slept with a bear outside the tent.”

  “That’s different.”

  “Yeah, this is a person, not a large carnivore. Someone who is polite and doesn’t look like a serial killer and who seems genuinely concerned about us.”

  “We’re as close to the road as we are to his campsite. Maybe we should call this trip what it is—a bit of a disaster—and just see if someone can take us to our car.”

  “You mean hitchhike? How is hitchhiking with a stranger—who then has us in his car and can take us anywhere he wants—better than pitching a tent at this guy’s spot? And no, I don’t want to call it quits. This trip is not a disaster. And we haven’t even seen the best spots yet. You said there would be waterfalls—”

  “We saw a waterfall.”

  “One waterfall! You promised me eight. And Lake Superior. And the Lake of the Clouds. And the overlooks. All the best stuff is yet to come. I am not giving up halfway through just because it got hard.”

  The look on Olivia’s face told Melanie the barb had hit a tender spot. Maybe Olivia’s only tender spot.

  Her sister narrowed her eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I think you know.”

  “You’re such a child.”

  “I’d rather be a child than whatever it is you’ve become.” Even as she said it, Melanie regretted it. She didn’t even mean it. But she was in it now. “You go ahead and hitchhike to the car if you want. I’ll take my chances with Josh.”

  Olivia gaped. “That’s not fair.”

  “Oh, you want to talk about fair?”

  Olivia planted her hands on her hips. “Sure. Hit me with your best shot.”

  “Was it fair that you just left and went back to school when Mom and Dad died, leaving me to sort everything out on my own?” Melanie started, holding up one finger. “Was it fair that you never called Grandma Jean and Grandpa Lou or Grandma Ann or Aunt Susan and Uncle Craig or even sent them a card for ten years?” Two fingers. “Is it fair that you’ve never come to see me in Petoskey? Or that you didn’t invite me to your graduation?” Three, four. “You can’t just quit when things get hard. You can’t just quit your family. That’s not how it works.”

  Melanie hadn’t exactly meant to say those things. They were things she’d thought—for years—but she never imagined she’d just blurt them all out like that. She waited for Olivia to say something. She could see her sister gathering up the words in her mouth, like the pulling back of an arrow in a bow.

  “Maybe I did leave. Maybe I did quit my family—what remained of my family. But at least I didn’t betray Mom and Dad by getting all chummy with the guy who killed them.”

  Melanie could feel her face beginning to crumple. She’d known that Olivia wasn’t happy that she’d forgiven Justin for the crash. But she’d tried to keep her relationship with him a secret. It was why they met in Grand Rapids rather than Rockford, which was too small a town with too big a gossip network. It was why the move to Petoskey had worked out so well. No one there knew them, knew their history, knew their secret. There their odd friendship could grow, unscrutinized. There they could both try to move on with their lives.

  Melanie took a slow, cleansing breath. She would not let Olivia drag her into defending herself. “I’m finishing this trip, with or without you.” She turned to tell Josh that they would camp at his site, but he’d disappeared. “Nice going,” she said to Olivia.

  “Me? You’re the one who’s freaking out here.”

  Melanie walked down to the water and looked first downstream and then up. Josh was standing in the middle of the river in water up to his knees, casting a fly into a still spot downstream. Melanie waved to him, but he was focused on the water. A moment later the line caught and tightened. Josh alternated between reeling it back in and letting it run out until suddenly a huge fish leaped out of the water. Another dance between drawing in and letting go until finally the fish could not resist the pull any longer. Josh held it firmly in his hand and removed the hook. Melanie assumed he would put it back into the water, but instead, he slipped it into the canvas bag at his side.

  She waved again, but now it seemed superfluous. He was already walking toward her through the water with a smile on his face, like he knew what she was about to say.

  “Decided to take me up on the offer?” he said when he reached the shore.

  “How’d you know?”

  “If the answer was no, you’d already be gone.”

  Melanie smiled and held out her hand. “I’m—”

  “Melanie.” He took her hand and gave it one firm shake.

  “Yes.” Had she told him her name? He must have heard Olivia say it. He must have heard a lot of things. “Please forgive us if we didn’t seem grateful for your offer. We’ve had a rough day. Actually, between you and me, we’ve had a rough decade. My sister’s not so keen on the idea, but I believe in fate and there’s no such thing as coincidence, and for us to come out of the woods right here, where you were randomly fi
shing way off the trail? Well, that’s fate.”

  Josh smiled. “That’s not quite what I’d call it, but you certainly are right where you need to be, and right on time.” He indicated the bag at his side. “A fish this size is really too much for just me.”

  “Oh, thank you, but I’m vegan.”

  He raised his eyebrows and gave her a little nod as Olivia walked up. He held out his hand to her. “Olivia.”

  Had Melanie told him her name? They must have been arguing a lot louder than she thought. How embarrassing.

  Olivia gave his hand a cursory shake and pointed to the map. “Is this the spot?”

  “Yes,” Josh said. “I’m already set up there, but there’s plenty of room for your tent.”

  “We won’t be imposing on you?” Olivia said.

  “Of course not. Meeting people along the way is one of the best parts of any journey. And I had a feeling I’d have company tonight.”

  “Oh, I get feelings like that too,” Melanie said. “Once I found a dog wandering around and I had a feeling its name was Sadie, and then when I found the owners and they came to pick her up and told me her name, it was Sadie.”

  “So when do we start?” Olivia said.

  Josh shrugged. “I’m ready if you are.”

  “Lead the way.”

  thirteen

  OLIVIA COULDN’T BELIEVE she was doing this. Following some strange man deeper into the woods. If Josh had been a woman or a young couple or even those three loud people from the parking lot, it would be totally different. But no. The one person out in the woods they run into is a bearded man in a plaid flannel shirt with an unsettlingly calm demeanor. If she saw this in a film, she’d walk out, disgusted with how stupid the heroine was. Likely their story would be made into a movie someday—one of those poorly acted TV movies about tragic unsolved mysteries. It would be called Who Killed the Greene Girls?, and she and Melanie would be painted as simpletons lured to their brutal deaths by a man played by a C-list actor with one expression, and the expression would say I lure simpletons to their brutal deaths.

  The one saving grace in all of this was that Josh’s campsite was not nearly as remote as many of the backcountry sites. If anything happened, anyone staying in the two nearby cabins would hear their screams, and they were close enough to the road that they could run there if needed to find someone who would pick them up and take them to their car.

  They walked along the river, Josh in the lead, Melanie in the middle, Olivia bringing up the rear. Every so often, Josh would look back to make sure they were keeping up with his brisk pace, and if they were lagging he would stop to let them catch up. He even offered to carry a pack. Olivia would have liked nothing more than to be relieved of her heavy burden, but allowing Josh to carry it would have made him more of a hero than he already was. She did not want to be dependent on the kindness of this stranger, and to let him carry her pack would be admitting that she needed his help. But she didn’t. She could take care of herself.

  Despite the less-than-ideal situation, Olivia tried to enjoy the walk. The river’s gurgling flow was a constant pleasant drone. The breeze whispered through the browning trees. It was beautiful out here. But it was hard to focus on these good things. Because once she stopped obsessing about how dumb it was to follow Josh, she started obsessing about how awful the fight with Melanie had been. Olivia had had no idea that Melanie felt so . . . abandoned. She had always figured that they were both coping in their own unique way and that Melanie was happy with her choice to stay behind, just as she had been happy with her choice to move on. Yet all these long years Melanie had been quietly building up a pile of grievances and accusations.

  Was that what this trip was about? Getting her alone in the woods, where she’d have to listen to her sister berate her for her conduct for the past ten years? Did Melanie actually think anything she said could not be trumped by the fact that she’d befriended Justin Navarro? If Melanie thought Olivia was just going to hand her a free pass for that, she had another thing coming.

  It was already late afternoon when they saw the first sign of the trail—a straight wooden bridge crossing the river in the distance.

  “There it is!” Melanie said, turning back toward Olivia with a huge grin across her face.

  “That’s the spur trail,” Josh said. “It connects the main trail with the parking area off the road.”

  Despite her fatigue, Olivia quickened her pace. “How far is the parking lot?”

  “Another mile,” Josh said.

  “Is there a ranger stationed there or anything?”

  “No. Just a gravel lot and a pit toilet,” he said. “By the way, whenever either of you needs to stop, just let me know.”

  Olivia frowned. She hadn’t thought of peeing out in the open anywhere near this guy. “Are you parked in that lot?”

  “No, I’m way down at Pinkerton Creek.”

  They reached the bridge, and Olivia took a moment to appreciate the feel of a man-made structure beneath her feet. Strange how a level surface was so foreign to the natural world. Just another reason to doubt that the world had been made specifically for humans, who had to do so much to alter the environment to make it more to their liking. If God had created everything for them, wouldn’t he have created it to suit them more?

  “We’re coming up on Overlooked Falls,” Josh said. “It’s just a few hundred feet down this way. Why don’t you drop your packs here and we’ll take a quick break.”

  He started walking before they could answer. Melanie leaned back against a tree and unbuckled her straps, then let the pack slide down to the ground. She waited for Olivia to do the same.

  “I’ll keep mine on,” she said.

  Mel shook her head and practically skipped after Josh. Olivia struggled on behind. They had been walking so long through wild terrain that the path here felt wide and luxurious. Dead pine needles beneath her feet cushioned her steps and softened the sound of her footfalls. In a moment, she couldn’t see Melanie or Josh ahead, but when she came over a small rise, she caught sight of them down by the water. Josh, in his waders, was standing in the river, and Melanie, a couple feet away on land, phone in hand, was taking pictures of the falls. Then she turned the lens on their new companion and took a picture of him. Olivia could imagine what Melanie would put on her blog about their benefactor. Then her heart sank at the thought of what she might write about her cantankerous sister.

  Olivia stepped off the path and over large boulders down toward the river. The falls were nowhere to be seen, though she could hear them.

  “Aren’t they sweet?” Melanie said when Olivia reached her.

  Olivia turned to look upriver, and there they were. A series of small waterfalls tumbling over resistant rock. At the topmost level, the river split in two around a large outcropping of rock, and the water leapt down in two falls, joining back up for a distance of perhaps fifteen or twenty feet, only to split again around an immovable stone. The bedrock was brown, etched with cracks and faults and peppered with moss and fallen yellow leaves. It was truly a beautiful sight. The kind of thing Olivia had been most looking forward to seeing on this trip out into the wilderness. A moving postcard.

  Could Melanie have been right when she claimed that Olivia had never even sent a card or a letter to anyone in her family for the past ten years? What kind of a person did that? What would her parents have thought if they knew?

  But they didn’t know. Olivia made a mental note to send apologies to her neglected relatives. She’d fix it, and then she wouldn’t need to feel guilty.

  Beside her Melanie sighed. “I’m so glad we didn’t miss this.”

  Josh looked back to them and smiled. “It’s nice, isn’t it. And it’s not even the best one, in my opinion.”

  “Have you seen all the falls in the park?” Melanie said.

  “At one time or another.”

  “Do you live up here?”

  “I’m from Paradise.”

  “Oh,” Melanie said,
“so these falls must seem pretty puny to you after Tahquamenon Falls.”

  Josh sloshed through the water back to shore. “They’re not better or worse. Just different. Sometimes you need the kind of powerful experience you get from the big falls like Upper Tahquamenon, and sometimes you need something quieter than that. Just like sometimes you want a nice big crackling campfire and sometimes all you need is a single candle.”

  “Well, I need a big crackling campfire,” Melanie said. “I’ve been cold all day. How far is it to the campsite?”

  “Just about a mile,” Josh said.

  “Are you ready to go, Ollie?”

  Olivia didn’t care for Melanie using her childhood nickname in front of a stranger, but she nodded. Watching two people walk around unfettered by packs had her feeling truly exhausted.

  They walked back up to the wooden bridge where Melanie had left her pack.

  “Could you hold this a second?” Josh asked her, handing over the fly rod.

  “Sure,” Melanie said.

  Then Josh scooped up her pack and swung it onto his back.

  “Oh, no, you don’t have to do that.”

  “It’s no problem,” Josh said, loosening the straps to fit around his larger frame. “I don’t mind at all.”

  “Well, okay,” Melanie said. She picked up her hiking poles in her free hand. “Do you want to use these?”

  “You keep those. I’ll take back the rod. It’s not easy to walk through a forest with a fishing pole and not get it all hung up on branches. It would be easier for me to carry it.”

  With the pack on his back and the canvas bag with the trout in it hanging just below his right hip, Josh led the way across the bridge and down another trail on the opposite side of the river. This time, Melanie motioned to Olivia to go next, but Olivia declined.

  “You go first,” she said. “I’ll be slower.”

  “Want me to take your pack for a while?”

  “No. Let’s just go. It’s not far now.”

  They hugged the river most of the way, and Olivia watched the fallen leaves speed effortlessly by on their way to Lake Superior a little less than seven miles downstream. There were several more petite drops with unnamed falls and cascades as the river hurtled itself down the resistant bedrock.