Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 95436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Unfazed, Bradley leaned back in his seat, face turned up to the wind. “Smell that air, ye lads. No pollution, no exhaust. This is the life of the adventurer, the life of the man out on the frontier.” He lifted his shirt, slapping his ribs. “My chest hair is growing. I can feel my fangs coming in.”
Walter stuck his head out the window and unleashed a trembly roar before ducking back in, coughing. “I inhaled a bug.”
“Some big ones out here,” Nicole confirmed.
“I’m telling you,” Bradley said, ignoring this and turning around in the front seat to face his friends, “this is going to be fucking awesome. A week with no responsibilities. I may never leave. Plus”—he motioned to himself—“you’ve got a real-life Howard Carter on your team.”
At Nicole’s questioning glance, Leo clarified, “The guy who found King Tut. Bradley’s a professor of archaeology.”
Terry scoffed and the wind whipped his wispy beard. “Yeah, but he doesn’t go out into the field. I’m the only one here who’s ever spent actual time in a slot canyon.”
“What’s a slot canyon again?” Walter asked.
Terry leaned back, happy to spout off to a captive audience. “They’re long, narrow gorges and channels caused by thousands of years of water penetrating cracks in soft sandstone.”
Bradley looked from Terry to Walter. “Did anyone else think that entire sentence was unnecessarily suggestive?”
Nicole met Walter’s eyes in the mirror and clarified, “Like a really long, skinny hallway carved into the rock.”
“Oh!” Walter said, satisfied. “That could be cool.”
Terry cleared his throat. “Anyway. Stick with me. I know what I’m doing.”
“I’ll stick with the guides,” Leo replied with quiet calm.
Nicole winked at him over her shoulder. “Smart man.”
Leo knew that even if Bradley had chosen a trip decidedly outside of Terry’s interests—treasure, canyoneering, and redneck Bear Grylls–style roughing it—Terry would still act like the resident expert. In the end, was it better or worse to hear him go on and on about something he knew a lot about or something he didn’t? Leo steadied his own anxiety and irritation with a deep breath.
And there was nothing else to do, anyway, but try to turn his horseback-related dread into the sweet anticipation of a week away from the office; they couldn’t see much as they raced through the dark. Leo thought he spotted a pair of glowing eyes in the brush as the headlights bounced and dipped, cutting a path of light through the empty road ahead. At a particularly high spot, his stomach soared and then dropped as the tires left the ground, connecting again with a bone-jarring clank that sprayed soil and gravel into the stillness behind them.
When the Bronco finally came to a clattering stop, the men climbed out with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Leo’s first step was a dizzy, dusty one; a cloud of dirt kicked up as his shoe met the ground. The breeze was cool and almost uncomfortably dry, the air heavy with the smells of sagebrush and woodsmoke, of earth cooling in the blissful absence of the sun.
Beside him, Walter dropped his bag at his feet and squinted into the distance, fists planted on his hips as he surveyed the landscape. It wasn’t likely he could make out much—the sky was more black than purple now, a backlit bruise with only a hint of the mountains beyond—but he slowly took it all in. A row of lanterns lit the path to where a small camp had been set up about forty yards away.
Nicole had already told them they’d be camping, but even the roughest of their previous excursions had included, at the very least, running water. As they followed her, a hushed awareness set in: this was rustic. Six glowing tents circled a crackling campfire; the soft whinny of horses carried through the darkness. It was beautiful. The closer they got to the fire, the better Leo was able to make out an iron corral with a corrugated metal overhang, a small building, and what looked like an outhouse nearby.
A large stake had been pounded into the ground near the fire, and Nicole reached for a clipboard hanging from a bent nail. “This is base camp, so there are more amenities here than we’ll have the rest of the trip.” She swatted at a mosquito and then pointed to the semicircle of tents. “Soak up the luxury, kids. Inside your tent you’ll find a pack with some food and water to get you through the night. Might even be a few cold ones in there, but that depends on how generous the boss was feeling. As a rule, there’s no drinking unless we’re back at camp for the evening, and only what we provide. Can’t have any messy cowboys.”
Her gaze landed meaningfully on Bradley, who jerked upright at attention. Beside him, Walt jumped at something rustling in the dry grass nearby, clutching for Leo. On instinct, everyone but Leo and Nicole took a step back.