River’s End

if—”
    He turned his head, crushed his mouth against hers. “We’ve already started, Liv. We started a long time ago.” He cupped her chin in his hand, then released her to turn to the bank. “We have to figure out where we want to finish.”
    She fixed powdered eggs, and they polished off the pot of coffee. He agreed with her plan to keep camp where they were and consider the hike she outlined a day trip that could be managed round trip in an easy five hours.
    Carrying light packs, they started the climb on a rough track that led to rougher ridges. The valley fell away to their right, the forest marched toward the sky to the left. With the river winding below, they moved up into cool, crisp air where eagles soared and no sign of man could be seen.
    He thought she maneuvered the dizzying switchbacks as other women would a ballroom floor, with a kind of casual feminine grace that spoke of supreme confidence.
    She was patient when he stopped to take pictures, and he stopped often. She answered his questions—and he had more than she’d expected—in clear and simple terms. And she stood by, silently amused, when he drew to a halt and stared as the trail curved and the sky was swept by mountains.
    “If you planted a house here, you’d never get anything done. How could you stop looking?”
    Why couldn’t he be shallow and simple as she’d wanted him to be? “It’s public land.”
    He only shook his head, taking her hand to link fingers. “Just think of it for a minute. We’re the only two people in the world, and we’ve landed here. We could spend our whole life right here, with our brains dazzled.”
    Blue, white, green and silver. The world was made up of those strong colors and just the blurred smudges of more. Peaks and valleys and the rush of water. The feel of his hand warm in hers, as if it was meant to be.
    And nothing else, no one else existed. No fear, no pain, no memories, no tomorrows.
    Because she discovered she could yearn for that, she drew away. “You wouldn’t be so happy with it in the dead of winter when you’d freeze your ass off and couldn’t get a pizza delivery.”
    He looked at her, quiet, patient and made her ashamed. “What would you miss most if you could never go back?”
    “My family.”
    “No, not people. What thing would you miss most?”
    “The green,” she said instantly and without thought. “The green light, and the green smell of the forest. It’s different up here,” she continued as they began to walk again.
    “Open, cool, with the forest well past peak.”
    “Not as many places to hide.”
    “I’m not hiding. This is iceland-moss,” she told him, gesturing to a curly clump of yellow-green. “It’s the best-known lichen in human consumption. In Sweden it’s sold as an herbal medicine.” She caught his look and lifted her eyebrows. “What?”
    “I just like that snippy tone you get when you’re annoyed and start a nature lecture.”
    “If you don’t want to know what you’re looking at, fine.”
    “No, I do. Besides, when you start talking about lichens and fungi, I get this urge to make wild animal love with you.”
    “Then I’ll have to switch to wildflowers.”
    “It won’t help. I’ll still want to jump you.” A flash of pink caught his eye. “Hey, are those bleeding hearts? Growing wild.”
    “That’s right.” Her annoyance didn’t have a chance against his honest enthusiasm as he scrambled over some rocks to get a closer look. “Very much like your garden variety in appearance. Don’t touch,” she warned. “We maintain low impact here.”
    “I don’t have the right shade or soil to grow these at home. Tried them at Mom’s, but that was the next thing to murder. I’ve always liked the look of them.”
    “We have some nice specimens in the garden at my grandparents’. We’ll go this way.” She climbed over the rocks and chose a new heading. “I think I know a spot you’ll like.”
    The track moved inside the edge of the forest, a steep incline with tumbles of rocks to one side where flowers forced their way through cracks and rooted ruthlessly in thin soil.
    He heard the sound of drumming and grinned like a boy when they passed a cliff face sheared with a roaring fall of water. A dozen times he had to resist the urge to stop and pluck up handfuls of the hardy wildflowers.
    His muscles began to burn, his feet to beg for rest. He was about to give in to both when she clattered over a hunched fist of rocks and