Expiration Date by Eric Wilson

Author:Eric Wilson [Wilson, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Thriller, Suspense, Mystery
ISBN: 1578567459
Google: GjwoZlIOoGQC
Amazon: B005PRJNHY
Barnesnoble: B005PRJNHY
Goodreads: 12826281
Publisher: Water Brook
Published: 2005-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

26

Bad Call

Clay could barely move. His mummy bag was tight around his ankles, but his trail-weary bones were the real culprit. After a second day together on the PCT, he and Wesley had claimed Tipsoo Peak and Mount Thielsen as their conquests. Tipsoo’s glaciated face and Thielsen’s needle-tip pinnacles had been well worth the journey, but this morning his body was paying the price.

Carrying my burden. All part of my pilgrimage.

He moaned, then wished he had not.

“I heard that,” Wesley said from the neighboring tent.

“Don’t even start.”

“Thursday morning. Ready to hit the trail again, you peak bagger?”

Clay kicked at the side of his tent. “Shut up.”

“I feel your pain. My body’s all racked up, like I got beat with a two-by-four.”

“Which is what I’ll do to you if you say another word.”

In the following silence, Clay rumbled over Tuesday night’s conversation. There, over the Maidu Lake campfire, his emotions had collided. The fact he was camping with a Wesley Scott seemed unreal, considering he was on these trails because of a dead friend named William “Bill” Scott.

Was the coincidence a gesture of hope from above? An offer to build new friendships while sweeping away the ghosts of Friday the thirteenth, May 1992?

Or was it a sinister sign? A dead man’s brother coming for blood?

Clay had made attempts to find out more, asking if Wesley had any siblings.

“Got four brothers,” Wesley had responded. “All of them older.”

“You grew up around Puget Sound, right? But did any of them live in Oregon?”

Wesley scratched at his chin. “I can’t keep track. Sorry, but I was the baby, and we didn’t have what you’d call the model family. Pretty abusive, if you wanna know the truth. We get together for two things—weddings and funerals.”

There was no easy way to ask this. “Are … all of your brothers still alive?”

“Dude, what kind of question is that?” Aggravation tinged Wesley’s words. “What do I care anyway? Been years since I talked to any of ’em, and you won’t hear me complainin’. Some things are better left alone.”

Clay took the hint. He didn’t broach the subject again.

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