Higher Ground by Becky Black (notion reading list txt) 📗

Zach. “We’re not going to be very far away, you know. Maybe only a few hundred meters.” But it would feel like light-years if Zach’s stricken face was anything to go by.

Adam and Simon helped each other on with their packs. Visha approached her husband, carrying Amina, so Adam strolled away to give them the privacy to say good-bye. Korrie and Howie were busying themselves putting the things discarded from Adam’s and Simon’s packs into others.

“Zach,” Adam said. “See you later. I’ll be—”

Before he could finish, Zach pulled Adam to him for a fierce kiss, pressed so close Adam worried about what people would think. He gasped when they parted. “My God, I can’t imagine how hard you’d kiss me if I ever went away to war.”

“Don’t even joke about that. Please, just be careful.”

“Hey, I’ve got Simon with me. He’ll keep us out of trouble. He’s steady as a rock.” Perhaps not a good analogy, given how unsteady the rocks around here had become.

“Then good luck. And don’t forget your check-ins.”

“You know I can’t go for an hour without hearing you worrying at me.” He reached up and touched the side of Zach’s face, feeling the rasp of stubble under his palm. “Take care of yourself, rock-botherer. See you soon.” His final kiss was gentle, lingering, yet over too quickly. Time to go. He clipped his walkie-talkie to the strap of his backpack and nodded to Simon, who fell into step with him. Neither of them dared to look back as they walked out of camp.

* * * *

Zach trudged at the head of the group, climbing. Lost they may be, but up was the only destination, so it made no sense to sit waiting for Adam and Simon to return.

“Can I walk with you?” Visha stepped up. She gave Zach a brave smile, but her eyes were red from crying. She carried Amina, fast asleep against her shoulder.

“Of course.” It would be good for him to have someone to talk to, perhaps lift his gloom. Though Visha looked as gloomy as him. Okay, then, misery loves company. “Can I carry Amina for you for a while?”

“Oh, thank you. She is getting a bit heavy for me.”

Zach glanced at Visha’s backpack as she handed the sleeping child over. It was too full for Amina to ride in like a papoose, since it had some of Simon’s things in there, just as Zach’s backpack had some of Adam’s belongings. He settled Amina against his chest and shoulder. She stirred a bit, murmured, but silenced again.

“She’s getting so big,” Visha said as they carried on walking. She sighed. “Seems like only yesterday she was my baby.”

“Time goes so fast,” Zach agreed. “Life, I mean. It passes so quickly.”

But not so quickly that a person couldn’t build a life, a family, a future. Not mayflies. We’re not. We’ve got the time to build careers. To have children. To explore all the possibilities of a life together.

“Adam will take good care of Simon,” he said, earning a smile from Visha.

“And vice versa. Our men, eh? Playing the hero.”

“Not playing it. They are heroes.”

“So are you, Zach. We’d all be dead back there if you hadn’t saved us.”

Zach didn’t answer. He could only think again about the people he hadn’t saved.

“And one day, when Ami’s old enough, I’ll make sure she understands what you did for her and for all of us.”

They weren’t safe yet. They could climb, but Zach couldn’t magic up rescue. Their climb might do no more than delay the inevitable.

But as Amina sighed sleepily close to his ear, he summoned up his resolve. She would be safe. He’d make certain of it.

* * * *

“Here!” Adam looked back over his shoulder as Simon scrambled over rocks to catch up to him. “Here’s our stream. Or rather, here was our stream.”

“You’re sure?” Simon asked, frowning down at what Adam was pointing at.

“I’m sure.” The channel in the nearly bare rock was empty and dry, but Adam recognized the signs that water had rushed down it not long ago. Particular lichens on the rock. Accumulations of pebbles behind larger rocks. “Question is, where’s the water?”

“Could falling rock have dammed it upstream?” They both looked up the slope, trying to follow the dry channel in a maze of rock.

“Could be. Only one way to find out. Come on.”

They climbed again on the bank of the dry stream channel and sometimes in it, when the rocks on either side were too difficult to easily scramble over. Simon did most of the check-ins. Adam wanted to hear Zach’s voice, but he thought Amina needed to hear her father’s voice more than Adam needed to hear his lover’s. He could have used the walkie-talkie he carried to talk to Zach, but sense won out; he knew he should save the battery.

“You hear that?” Simon said after a couple of hours climbing. “Is it the stream?”

“Sounds like it. Stop for a minute.” They stopped walking and stood in silence, and coming from somewhere ahead, they heard it. Water. Water running and crashing over stone. Simon pointed, and Adam nodded in agreement.

They climbed, barely speaking, only the rustle of their clothing and packs and the sound of their boots on rock breaking the silence, as they followed the sound of the water.

Adam took the lead, the more experienced climber, so he spotted it first. He stopped to let Simon catch up.

“There’s our stream.”

It had become a waterfall. The ground had cracked open right across the channel, splitting it in two like scissors through a ribbon. The water fell down into a deep ravine. Adam leaned over enough to look down into it. A pool had formed down there. Would it fill all the way to the top, or was the water escaping somewhere?

“Okay, so the stream above this crack is fine,” Simon said. “So we get across and go on following it.”

“I think it narrows in that direction,” Adam said, pointing to the left. “Let’s go see if