Mason

He traced our intended route, then traced where we thought we'd been pushed.

He tried to match landmarks, creeks, ridges, elevation.

The problem was that without a working GPS and with trail signs altered, our certainty was thin.

But there was one thing we did know.

The Ranger Station sign had been a lie, or at least the building wasn't what it claimed.

Which meant someone out here wanted us to believe in safety that wasn't real.

So we stopped trusting signs entirely.

We decided to follow water downstream.

Water leads to bigger water.

Bigger water leads to roads or bridges or people.

It might take longer, but it was a direction that didn't rely on someone else's markers.

We moved along the creek, sometimes in the streambed itself because it was easier than pushing through brush.

We slipped and fell.

We banged our knees on rocks.

We kept moving.

Around midday, we found another sign of him.

A fresh set of boot prints in the wet sand by the creek.

The same sole pattern as before, and beside it, pressed into the mud, was a handprint.

Five fingers.

Deep palm impression.