We walked. But it wasn’t easy.
The spot where we’d parked the car was a tenth of a mile from the trail. As seventeen-year-olds lugging a case of beer, we’d had no problem. Now, shrubs and vines and lack of light, as well as the weight of our load, kept us moving slowly, the bag’s handle carving into my tightly gripped palms. We stepped uneasily over the hilly ground. Several times we almost walked right off the trail, which was hidden underneath a layer of wet, decaying leaves.
We took breaks every few hundred feet, and we massaged our palms, and then we walked again.
I wondered what the man’s name was. I’d never asked. And I wondered other things: where Nolan had done it. And how. And what he’d felt at the exact moment it was happening. But I wasn’t going to ask, because I didn’t really want to know. Nor was there any need to satisfy my morbid curiosity, because I was certain that Nolan had covered his tracks. His epitaph someday would read: Nolan Albright. He covered his tracks.
We followed the trail deeper into the woods. It was very difficult going. The trail was too narrow for us to walk side by side. So we had to walk practically sideways, single file, Nolan ahead of me, the bag between us. The only sound was the uneven rhythm of our footfalls on the trail, punctuated by the snapping of a twig or the rolling of a rock kicked accidentally.
After about thirty minutes, Nolan stopped walking and looked around. By then our eyes had adjusted somewhat. We’d been walking so slowly, we probably hadn’t gone more than a mile. But this section of the forest looked untouched and particularly dense.
“This will do,” he said. “Let’s head off the trail now.”
“Not yet,” I said.
Yes, we were about as far from civilization as one could get in New Jersey. Yes, my hands and arms were burning, and I wanted nothing more than to stop. I was desperate for it. But by now I had a destination in mind, and I was pretty sure we could find it if we kept walking.
26
The cave was farther than I’d remembered.
For nearly another hour we traveled at a glacial pace through the unchanging, leafless forest. Trees were beginning to bud. Soon they would distinguish themselves. At this time of night, though, everything about the landscape looked dead and endlessly repetitive. Up a slope. Down a slope. More trees. More walking. Hands burning. Muscles straining. My thigh ached from where the bag rubbed against it with each step. An ankle nearly twisted from a carelessly placed shoe.
After several thousand steps the hill to the left of the trail began to rise—first gradually, then steeply—and became rocky. The trail ran along the base of the hillside for maybe another tenth of a mile, and then curved away from it.
“This way,” I said, when the trail began to curve. We carried the bag off the trail and then away from it for several hundred feet, and when we reached the rocky wall we set it down.
We had first found the small cave, a couple of friends and I, back in high school. The entrance was behind several large boulders and not visible from the trail, but we’d been horsing around, trying to climb the rocky wall, and had stumbled upon it. We’d only ever gone inside that one time. We’d been disappointed. It wasn’t a real cave so much as a small chamber caused by the way several large boulders jutted out slightly from the rest of the wall, forming a sort of triangle.
It didn’t take me long to find the entrance. I ran back to Nolan, and we carried the bag inside.
The chamber was no larger than a small bedroom. About half of it was covered by rock, and the other half looked up into the sky. It wasn’t much darker than the rest of the woods. But if we were looking for a secluded place, somewhere nobody would ever find, this was it.
“You’re right,” Nolan said. “This is a better spot.” He looked around some more, inspecting the place. “Still, one of us should gather up some rocks and branches to cover the hole when we’re done. Otherwise the ground is going to look freshly dug up.”
“You do it,” I found myself saying, despite my aching body. “I want to dig.”
“Okay,” he said, and handed me the shovel. “Let me know when it’s my turn.”
When he left the chamber, I tried to read my watch, tilting it until the face was readable. Four fifteen. During the last part of our walk I could see increasingly well. Probably just my eyes adjusting. And the moonlight glowing stronger through the thinning clouds. But morning was coming, and sooner than we’d like. By the time the sun came up, we had better be home.
I heaved the shovel into the ground, and my wrists nearly exploded from the vibration.
Stone! I cursed my stupidity. I hadn’t considered that the ground at the base of a rock wall might well be composed of rock.
“Nolan!” I whispered.