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God, being out here like this was awesome. The air was fresher than anything he could ever inhale in the city, the scenery was amazing, and the quiet was so deep he could hear his own breathing. He loved to be lost in the trees—not
lost
lost, as in he didn’t know where he was, but lost in the sense that he was the only person for miles around. There were no exhaust fumes, no cell phones ringing, no texting, no constant hum of people and machinery filling the air. There was just him, the mountains, and the sky.
    This was fun. His idea of fun didn’t always jibe with that of his friends—or his girlfriend—but this was pretty much perfection tohim. He liked to rough it, while their idea of camping included large amounts of booze, inflatable mattresses, and they never wanted to be too far from a McDonald’s. Danny liked a party as much as any of them did, but when he was camping he wanted to stay clearheaded. He even preferred a sleeping bag to an inflatable mattress. It was kind of silly, but it made him feel as if he had something in common with the settlers who, a hundred and fifty years ago, had made do with wrapping themselves in a blanket.
    As for food, he was happy with trail mix and water for a couple of days. Roughing it made him appreciate the soft mattress on his own bed and a hot meal a lot more when he got home.
    His girlfriend, Heather, sometimes got a little annoyed when he took off on a camping trip for two or three days at a time, but she didn’t offer to come along—not anymore; once had been enough for her. If he was being honest, that once had been enough for him, too. Heather didn’t appreciate quiet the way he did. She’d talked and talked and talked, scaring all the wildlife away, and most of her talking had been complaints. The going was too rough, it was too hot, or too cold, or she was thirsty, or she was hungry, or her feet hurt, or the mosquitos were eating her alive. She just wasn’t an outdoorsy person—and that was the understatement of the year. They’d been living together for eight months, and while he was pretty sure he loved her, he wasn’t sure he could actually marry a woman who cared more about her fingernails and her shoes than she did about … this.
    Come to think of it, maybe she had the same reservations, but in reverse, about him. Would she want to marry someone who enjoyed something she absolutely hated? Danny shifted his backpack and moved down the trail, thinking about Heather. Okay, maybe she wasn’t perfect, but she did have her good points. She didn’t like the fact that a couple or three times a year he took off on his own, but she hadn’t tried to get him to stay home, either. She hadn’t cried, or gotten all emotional and claimed he didn’t love her just because he wanted to do something without her. No, insteadshe’d bought him a portable GPS and a canister of bear repellent pepper spray and sent him on his way.
    He didn’t need either, but to keep Heather happy he carried them both. There was no personal locator on the GPS, but he’d never gotten lost in his life. It was as if he had a built-in compass in his head. He always knew where he’d come from, and how to get where he was going. As for the bear repellent, it was just something extra to carry; he didn’t think he’d ever need it. All the literature on bears said that they wanted to avoid humans as much as humans wanted to avoid them. But the canister was in an easily accessible pocket of his cargo pants, just in case—to keep Heather happy. He hadn’t cheated by leaving it behind, because if she asked him if he’d carried it, he wanted to be able to say “yes” with a clear conscience.
    Danny stopped again, peering through a clearing in the trees that offered yet another spectacular view, but this one was framed by some larch trees. He pulled his digital camera out of a pocket; his hobby—well, his
other
hobby—was photography, and he’d gotten some great shots up here. They