Page 69 of 15 Summers Later

“We’ll never know. She was killed only a few months later.”

The trail turned rough again, climbing more steeply, and Madi had to concentrate on driving.

She didn’t like thinking about their father. It hurt too much. She had adored him all through her childhood, had considered him her hero. He had worked so hard to provide for their family, taking on second jobs to pay the bills when times were tight and his mechanic’s salary and the little they made from the farm didn’t stretch as far as necessary.

They rode in silence, each lost in her thoughts. It was too hard to carry on a conversation anyway, with the wind in their faces and the engine of the side-by-side throbbing.

The terrain began to grow more familiar. She remembered certain mountains, the winding flow of a creek, that wall of granite rock that curved along a hillside.

They continued climbing, moving deeper and deeper into Forest Service land, around switchback turns and through deep washes.

When they were maybe two miles from Ghost Lake, she pulled off at an overlook, where they could look back at the road they had traveled, so she could grab a drink. She turned off the engine and found her water bottle, drinking thirstily.

Ava, she saw, was shifting uncomfortably in the seat.

“If you need to use the forest, I have a spade and eco-friendly camp toilet paper.”

“That might be good,” Ava said, her cheeks turning pink.

Madi pulled them out of her pack and handed them over and Ava slid out of the vehicle.

“You won’t drive away without me or something, will you?” she asked.

Madi couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. “I hadn’t planned to. But thanks for the idea. I’m sure you can find your way to Ghost Lake. It’s only a few miles farther along the road.”

Ava stood next to the vehicle, her hand still on the door handle, her expression alarmed, and Madi rolled her eyes. “I won’t leave. I promise.”

After another pause, her sister apparently decided her need was greater than her fear, in this particular case. Gripping the spade and the toilet paper, she hurried away from the trail to a thick area of understory.

She returned shortly, handing Madi back the essentials as Madi in return passed her a bottle of hand sanitizer that always came in handy.

“Thanks,” Ava said. She gingerly climbed back into the UTV and Madi followed suit.

When they were both settled, she didn’t hit the gas immediately. Instead, she asked the question she had been wondering.

“Haveyouforgiven Dad?” she asked.

Ava was quiet. “It’s in the book,” she finally said.

“Right. I haven’t read that part, either,” Madi said.

“You haven’t read any of it, have you?”

“So give me the short version.”

“I read through all the investigative reports and the trial transcripts for the defendants. I found out some things I never knew. Things I wish I could have had the chance to ask him about before...”

Ava didn’t need to answer that. Before their dad, the man they once had both loved so much but had grown to fear, had been killed by federal agents in that final firefight.

“Like what?” Madi didn’t want to ask but couldn’t seem to help the words.

“He wanted to get us out, especially the last two weeks leading up to...up to my marriage. He was making plans but the Boyle brothers had as tight a leash on him as they did us. We escaped ourselves before he could...could help us.”

Madi stared out at the forest, the trunks of the aspens blurring together. She wanted to believe their father hadn’t abandoned them to their fate, caught up in his own twisted dogma. She couldn’t quite get there. The loving, playful father she had adored had warped into someone she didn’t recognize by the time they’d managed to creep away from camp into the wild unknown.

“We should get going,” she said abruptly. “Otherwise, we won’t make it back before dark.”

She didn’t wait for Ava’s response, simply started up the side-by-side and headed up the trail, which grew increasingly narrow and rutted as they drove.

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