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He adjusted his ancient hiking pack and breathed deep on the heady scent of the woods—earthy and sweet and almost cool from the conifers.
There was nowhere in the world more beautiful than the Pacific Northwest.
In pictures he’d seen of the great parks of California—Pinnacles and Joshua Tree and Sequoia—there always seemed a tension in the air. Green, yes, but with a sweep of sand ever looming. Deeply colored canopies covered grass that was already halfway to hay. The rivers seemed like reliefs in the landscape, rather than assumed features.
But the woods of Washington State were totally different. Because every leaf and fern and blade of grass was lush.
From the trail head, streams cascaded over shaded rocks. Birds twittered and leaves rustled. The whole woods felt like somewhere you could willingly lose yourself in. Where you could live an idyllic life in a little cabin, with your own little garden and own little world.
With a skip in his step, Luca set off. The smile across his round and bearded cheeks was as bright as the morning sun.
Because this great, green wonderland was his home for the next three months. And these majestic woods were the perfect spot to start his adventure as a journalist.
It was six minutes into the hike when Luca realized his mistake.
Every pore on his body was sobbing—running in rivers along strong brows and soft whiskers, before meeting at his neck and forming two waterfalls down his stocky chest and gym-broadened back. The front of his pink undershirt was sticking and see-through over his full belly, showing the outline of his treasure trail. His socks were already damp with a mix of thigh and ball sweat.
He sucked in buckets of fresh mountain air. Embarrassingly, it wasn’t even that hot. The prior winter had laid a heavy snowpack across the mountains, leading to a vibrant and pleasant spring. Summer was still four days away and was also expected to be mild—perfect conditions for a rookie season as a fire watch.
If I ever make it.
It wasn’t that Luca was unfamiliar with the outdoors. Far from it. He’d grown up in Lynden, Washington, a town of fifteen thousand people a few miles from the Canadian border. That had involved way more days in the woods than glued to some video game console—like so many of his old college friends.
As a child, he’d camped plenty with his family and knew his way around these kinds of woods. He could build a fire from scratch and cast a mean fly fishing line. He could navigate roughly by the sun and stars. He could tell if water was drinkable and what to do if you got cornered by a grizzly bear.
Cry and crap yourself, mostly.
However, it was equally true that the last five years living in Seattle had involved a bigger focus on keg-stands and computer screens than fifteen-hour hikes to remote fire watch towers. And whatever cardio he’d honed as a child had been replaced with late-night pizzas and just enough weights to look poundable in a jockstrap.
And the worst part? He had to keep going. There was literally no other option.
His parents were long gone from where they’d dropped him off. He’d lost phone reception miles before the hike even began. There was no one else on the whole trail. And he hadn’t even packed a tent.
We’ll provide the food and shelter, but you’ll have to hike everything else in, Sandy had said. So don’t waste space with overnight gear.
Luca mopped his brow with the brim of his cap, flicking open the waterproof trail map. The path now traveled seemed impossibly short, and the path beyond seemed impossibly long.
But if he wanted to reach Bleeding Heart Tower before sunset, he had to push through.
Mount Masters was 14,410 feet in elevation. And Luca’s ratty old hiking boots had trodden every single one of them.
A sliver of dusk remained when he crested the final ridge, enough to brush the horizon orange but too late in the day to give shadows to the trees.
It wasn’t a warm welcome—with lights lit and loved ones waiting on the porch. In fact, it was only the dark silhouette of something building-shaped that gave it away. That, and for the first time all day, there was no more up left to go.
After a few more vacant trudges, the climb was over. Luca at last kicked into something man-made—his reward for reaching the end of the long and arduous trek.
It was a set of stairs.
“For fuck’s sake!” he barked into the now-moonlit sky, his voice echoing down the mountain.
It was a slight overreaction, given there was a grand total of four steps to the wraparound porch. Unlike most fire watch towers, Bleeding Heart wasn’t elevated on three stories of winding scaffolding. It didn’t need to be. Apparently, the tower was the tallest point for thirty miles.
Not that he could tell that now. In this light, all he could see was the pale shade of the lockless and well-oiled door.
The smell of old attics greeted him, still and surprisingly warm. The only light was a tiny green speck on the far side of the single room.
He dumped his pack with a contemptuous thud, the padding sticking against saturated wool, and staggered toward the little bulb.
