After a moment, the sun dipped and glinted, the wind whispering through the valley to shake leaves from the branches and ripple the water, and that’s when I saw them—the people in the spring. There were two of them. And yes, they were females from what I could tell, and by that I mean they weren’t actually swimming, but wading. Waist deep.
That got me scrambling forward, scraping my knees again. My earlier guilt remained, sharp and gutting, but voyeurism suited me. Besides, the women didn’t notice us. They were too busy bathing and washing clothes. They soaped their underarms and scrubbed their hair and rinsed their shirts. Bubbles pooled downstream, coming to rest along the shore like pearls that had lost their oysters. In the trail guide, I’d read that China Spring was a drinkable water source, fed straight from the earth, but I can tell you right now I had no intention of drinking anything other people washed their underwear in.
“God, they’re, like, old ladies!” Avery exclaimed, startling me. I looked up and saw she had her camera out. She was zooming in with that big lens of hers, and her comment pretty much shattered my voyeuristic fantasies. Archie, it seemed, felt the same way.
“Old ladies?” he echoed.
“Well, they’re definitely not young,” she said. Then she pointed excitedly. “Hey, there’s a guy, too!”
We all followed her line of sight, and sure enough, a man—also naked—was walking out of the tall grass and straight toward the pebbly beach. I put my hand over my eyes and squinted. There was a whole campsite back there, set up beneath the tree line. A not-at-all-legal campfire smoldered in a ring of rocks and a ragged beige tent with a large stain on the roof had been pitched downwind. Whoever was sleeping in there was sure to get a lungful of smoke. The man, meanwhile, strolled to the water’s edge. We watched with bated breath as he put his feet in, put his hands on his hips.
“Nasty,” breathed Dunc. “Think he puts bug spray on his dick?”
I made a face and sat back on my haunches.
“Well, he’s not old.” Avery continued to peer through her lens. “At least he’s not all wrinkly.”
Dunc snorted. “What’s he doing, then? Skinny-dipping with his mom?”
“I don’t think that’s his mom,” she said.
“Hey!” a voice called. “Hey, you! Get down here.”
“Oh, shit.” Avery scrambled back from the cliff’s edge.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s the naked guy,” she said. “He’s talking to us.”
16.
“C’MON NOW, KIDS. Come on down and say hello. That’s the polite thing to do. We won’t bite.” We all peeked over the edge again, and the naked man, who had very dark hair and very pale skin, stood in the water and waved both arms at us, a gesture that might’ve seemed friendly enough if he’d had, you know, clothes on, but as it was felt more than a little off-putting.
“Think we should go down there?” Avery whispered before waving back to the dark-haired man.
“No,” I said.
“Hell, yes,” Archie said at the exact same time.
I shot him a dark look. “The guy’s with his naked mom, remember? And what was that crack about not biting us?”
Archie crawled to his feet with a grunt. “When’d you get to be such a puss, Gibby? Ain’t no one down there going to bite us. Not unless we want them to.”
“No way,” I said. “We have to catch up with the rest of the group. We’re already behind as it is.”
“Ah, shit. Now they’re putting clothes on.” Dunc gestured with a whine of disappointment.
Sure enough, the three bathers had wandered back toward their camp and were pulling on clothing. One of the women, however, remained topless and went to hang her wet clothes in the sun. She had brown skin, glistening and sweaty from the heat, and her breasts were small, supple, reminding me of my Rose, who I missed with sudden urgency.
“We have to go,” I said again. “This doesn’t feel right. I don’t feel right about any of it. We shouldn’t be here.”
“Come on, Ben,” Avery pleaded. “You said we had plenty of time.”
“Come on, Ben,” Archie taunted, using his best girlish voice.
I ignored him to glare at Avery. “Why do you want to go down there anyway? They’re just trying to get a look at some tits.”
She lifted her camera.
“Seriously?”
She nodded.
“Well, I don’t think it’s safe,” I said.
“Why wouldn’t it be safe?” Dunc asked.
“What, haven’t you seen Deliverance?” I snapped, and no, the irony did not escape me.
Even Avery looked scornful. “Oh, please.”
“Ave . . .”
But it was too late. Archie crowed, “Squeal like a pig, Gibby!” and grabbed Avery by the waist, pulling her up to standing. She giggled while he did this, which I hated. I also hated what came after: watching them parade down the hillside trail, arm in arm, with Dunc following right on their heels, as if they were all setting off on some grand adventure.
But I grabbed my backpack and went after them. What else could I do? I tried not to give the appearance of resentment. Or bitterness of any kind. Any more whining on my part would no doubt be used against me once we finally got down to the water and met the trio of naked swimmers. That was the type of humiliating interaction that had happened to me before and was bound to happen again.
I also tried not to get caught up in the weird feeling of doom rattling around inside my chest or the funny tingling in my scalp. Bad omens both, especially together, but in the end, there was no point worrying. My migraines had a way of doing what they wanted. They could come on fast or not at all, but either way, out here in the woods without my medication, there wasn’t one damn thing I could do about it.
—
The path leading us into the canyon was steep. My scalp tingling persisted, eventually giving way to vertigo, and soon I was staring dumbly at my shoes to keep from falling. We’d almost reached the bottom of the trail when Dunc paused in stride, turning all the way around to look at me. His eyes were sleepy, the way they always were.
“You doing okay?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I feel kind of dizzy.”
“From hiking?”
“I guess.”
“Maybe you’re hungry.”
“Maybe.”
“Or thirsty?”
“Sure.”
Dunc reached his hand out and helped me down the rest of the way, a gesture I was more grateful for than embarrassed.
“You still think this is a bad idea?” he asked.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Then we’d better not let her get away from us, don’t you think?”
Her? I glanced up. Avery, being bolder and faster than the rest of us, was already picking her way across a shallow portion of the stream. A line of boulders had been arranged just for that purpose, and she stepped on each carefully, arms held out for balance, that damn camera still dangling from her neck. Useless as always, Archie had stopped to pour dirt out of his shoe, leaving Avery to approach the strange trio on her own. I hurried forward.
Tried to catch up.