Mason
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Proper trail number.
This new board was crude.
Dark wood, wet with rain, with letters carved too deep.
Back this way.
The arrow pointed down the right fork, not the left.
Mason looked at me, and in his eyes I saw the first true panic, contained but real.
He's messing with us, he said.
I didn't argue.
I didn't try to rationalize.
Because the most frightening part was that he was right.
Someone was changing signs.
Someone was altering the trail.
Someone had been close enough in the night to cut cloth off Mason's gear and leave it like a message.
We didn't take the fork the sign pointed to.
We took the direction the map told us was correct.
We used the compass to confirm the general bearing.
We walked hard, trying to outpace the feeling that we were being guided like animals down a chute.
By late afternoon, the rain turned heavier.
The trail became a ribbon of mud.
The creek crossings rose.