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They rode for half an hour, until the hills began rising and turning into mountains. There, Alana and Diarmid showed them the trail that Elspeth—that was the name of Alana’s mother—usually took.
They began climbing. Thick forest—pine, birch, and aspen—grew here. The tops of the tall mountains were covered with snow. Amy breathed in the sweet, freezing air, her lungs burning from the fast ride. The sun rose, and she knew the thin layer of snow covering the soil and fallen leaves would begin melting soon.
Amy halted and climbed down from the horse. Right there, in the snow-covered frozen mud, was a footprint—a medium-sized, slightly supinating footprint.
“I see a footprint,” she said.
Craig jumped down his horse as well. Amy studied the ground and trees around them.
“What are ye searching for?” Craig said.
“I need a straight, forty-inch stick to track the footprints.”
He found a branch that was more or less straight.
“Will this do?” he asked.
“Yes, can you please cut off the smaller branches?”
He nodded and removed them with his knife, then handed her the branch.
“May I have the knife?” she asked.
His eyes shone with alarm. “Why?”
“I need to make some notches on the stick to measure the size of the foot and the length of the gait. To make sure we’re tracking her steps and not someone else’s.”
Craig eyed her and the imprint dubiously. “I have never heard of such method. If this is a trick…”
“I’m telling you, I’m good at this. We’ll find her. Let’s hurry.”
He handed her the knife and she put the stick over the footprint and marked the length from the tip of the stick. The sole pattern was flat, with a flat heel. Of course people didn’t have shoes with patterned rubber soles back then, she thought.
Amy crouched and slowly swiped the stick parallel to the ground above the imprint from ten o’clock to two o’clock. Her attention near the tip of the stick, she looked for the next sign.
“There!” She pointed.
A little less than a foot in front of her was the next imprint, not as deep as the first one and therefore less visible. She moved closer and sank to her knees, careful not to touch the track. It was only partial, with a visible heel. She marked the distance between the heel of the first one and the heel of the second one.
“Definitely an older person. You see how the edges of the heels are a little smudged?”
Craig crouched down next to her. “Aye.”
“She shuffles her feet. Maybe she’s tired. But likely, it’s her age.”
Craig nodded. “Ye’re right. I wouldna ken what to look for. How did ye learn all this? Who taught ye?”
Vermont Mountain Search and Rescue.
“There was a man back home,” she said. It was vague enough to be the truth, and it felt good not to lie to him. “He’s been a tracker his whole life, and he taught me.”
“But why were ye interested in tracking at all?”
She exhaled shakily, her chest tensing from the memory of the abandoned barn, the cold nights, the sucking hunger in her stomach, the dry, cracked lips from dehydration.
But she couldn’t tell him that. Not just because she couldn’t reveal she was from another time. She couldn’t bring herself to tell this to anyone. She couldn’t admit her own shame and the cowardice that had led her to that situation.
Something else, much later, had made her choose search and rescue as a profession.
