Page 110 of Break My Fall

They kept the river on their right and headed downstream. Sometimes they had to move a good bit away from it, but she wasn’t worried. As long as it was nearby, she could make it home.

Meredith never would have dreamed that long-ago, ill-advised adventure would have ever paid off.

They were fifteen and sixteen years old. Bronwyn had taken off. Meredith and Cal were in shock. Mo vacillated between fiery anger and terrifying despondency. He never lashed out at her or Cal, but he beat the stuffing out of several punching bags and chopped so much firewood that he kept the whole family in split logs that entire winter.

Meredith and Cal hadn’t known how to help. As an adult, she understood that they were grieving in their own way, Mo was grieving in his. And none of them had the emotional capacity to help anyone.

Their compromised state probably helped explain why they decided to hike the river. Meredith had grown up traipsing all over the forests with Mo, Cal, and Bronwyn. But they’d always stayed on Quinn land. There was plenty of it, and she’d never been tempted to venture beyond it.

But they were feeling some weird mix of reckless and brave, and they started out early on a Saturday morning and hiked up the river. They knew when they’d left Quinn land. There were markers all over the place if you knew what to look for. Some of them marked one person’s personal property from another. Some marked the boundary between Quinn land and non-Quinn land. The ones to be most wary of were the ones that marked the line between the Quinns and Pierces, but there were others.

That day, they’d ventured on past the boundary that markedtheir home territory. And on. And on. Mo hiked like a man on a mission. Cal and Meredith followed him. She still didn’t know why they’d done it, but she did know that she’d been terrified to leave him. In hindsight? She suspected that God had been protecting all of them, but Mo especially, from doing something rash.

Not that hiking into Neeson County hadn’t been rash.

Although to be fair to their teenage selves, they hadn’t done it on purpose.

It wasn’t like the county lines were marked through the forest the way they were on the road. They hadn’t realized they were out of the county until they came to a ramshackle hut. Cabin was too fancy a word to describe it. And because they were young, stupid, and emotionally compromised, they went inside.

Ten seconds later, they were back outside and moving back toward home as fast as they could manage it. They didn’t stop or talk until they were back on Quinn land.

“Should we tell someone?” Meredith asked as they stood by the river.

“What are we going to tell them?” Mo’s voice was low, his anger simmering just below his fear. “So, Mom and Dad, we decided to hike up the river and we saw a hut and when we went inside there was a sign that said ‘Get out,’ and we’re pretty sure it was written in blood. We got out.”

“Yeah. That’s exactly what we tell them.”

“We were way off our own land. Probably trespassing.” Cal ran a hand over his hair. “Private property and all that.”

“So?”

“There’s nothing illegal about putting up a sign that tells people to get off your property, Meredith.”

Mo nodded. “While thereissomething illegal about trespassing.”

“You aren’t going to tell?” Meredith looked at them.

“Not a chance.” Cal shook his head.

Mo agreed. “My lips are sealed.”

Later, they’d asked random, innocent questions and learned there were small hunting huts all over the mountains. Spots where people could hole up if they needed to for reasons that had nothing to do with criminal activity.

But they also learned that sometimes those huts were hideouts for people with nefarious ideas. Uncle John had said, “If you see one, stay away from it unless it’s on our land.”

She shared the story with Gray as they walked. “I haven’t thought about that hut for years. We have three that I know of on Quinn property. I can confirm that as of three years ago, none of them had signs written in blood.”

“Are you sure it was blood?”

“Until recently I would have told you it was some old geezer’s idea of a good way to keep kids out of his hunting hut. That it was red paint and that it was an effective, albeit horrific, method of protecting his space.”

“And now?”

“Now? Now I wonder if we should have said something.”

He bumped her elbow with his. “Well, see, now you have. You’ve reported it to law enforcement. And it looks like we’re going to have the opportunity to check it out for ourselves.”

“Yeah.” She couldn’t drum up any real enthusiasm. She was so cold. When they reached the hut, she was going inside. She didn’t care if there were signs all over that thing.

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