Quicksilver

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I had some help identifying the wrong words:

Heartfelt thanks to the following, for support, suggestions, information, expertise, and for reading and commenting on the beta draft:

Tom Colby, G. Nelson Eby, Raymond C. Murray, Richard Quinn, Catherine Thomas-Nobles, Emily Williams, J.T. Yeager.

The man who had hired us took the lead.

His name was Robert Shelburne and he was as sure of this path as he was of himself.

Nevertheless — if anyone was asking — I sure could not recommend this way up the mountain. There was no trailhead. There was no trail—the path did not exist on the map I carried. It was a rogue route, blazed long ago, surviving today as little more than a hint. It shot straight up the slope and was so thickly haired with trees and brush that we were nearly hiking blind.

I heard my partner Walter Shaws, a couple dozen feet below on the path, muttering words he would not normally speak aloud. Walter and I have certainly hiked plenty of unofficial trails and exploited the terrain where no trails run at all, in rougher country than this — we’re geologists who read earth evidence from crimes and crises, which often takes us deep into the field. Still, we weren’t in the habit of bushwhacking up a mountain without good reason.

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