An hour later, she was bringing up the rear of the team. It wasn’t that she couldn’t keep up. It was more that she liked the solitude of walking alone under the trees and thinking. Ahead was a rising slope and trudging upward on it was the Aussie. When she came beside him, he said, “Awesome trekking weather, eh?”
“Yes, nice and cool,” Sarah agreed. “Aldan, right?”
“At your service,” he said, joining her as she poled her way up the steady incline. “You from LA?”
Sarah took a pull of water from her CamelBak. “Yes, I am.”
“I have a cousin living there. Encino, I think it is.”
“That’s a little south of me,” Sarah answered, looking ahead to a pile of large stones embedded in the trail before her. As she picked her way over them, she said, “Where are you from?”
“Me, I’m from Bulls Brook, l
