Chapter 24: Keys

Carrie's supervisor opened the gate for us himself, on a bright morning in early spring.

He unlocked the chain and swung it back.

"Gates close at six," he said, and winked at her.

"I know the rule," Carrie said.

Hollow Rock Canyon Park looked like a different place in daylight.

The red walls were warm, and the sky over the ridge was a hard clean blue.

A creek ran at the bottom of the lower wash, a foot deep and clear as glass.

I stood at the trailhead with my camera bag over my shoulder and looked at it for a long time.

"It's smaller than I remembered," I said.

"It always is," Carrie said. "That's the trick of it."

We drove the last mile in her truck.

I had told her I wanted to do the whole ridge, the same one.

She hadn't argued.

She had packed a lunch, two water bottles, and a flashlight she handed me without comment.

The ridge trail took forty minutes.

The path was dry and pale, with sage on both sides, and in some places the ledge was only a few feet wide.

I kept my eyes on the rock.

Halfway up I stopped.

Carrie stopped behind me.

"Here?" she asked.

"Here."

It was the spot where I had set down the tripod, ten weeks earlier.

The sun had been going, and the light was on the far wall in long gold bars.

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