Page 37 of Deserving Ryleigh
“I’m not sure we should go off the path,” she told him with a small frown.
“It’s okay.”
“What if we get lost?”
“We aren’t going to get lost. I know where we are and where we’re going,” Tiny said.
She still hesitated.
“It’s ironic that I’m about to say what I am—but trust me, Ryleigh. I’m not going to get us lost in the woods. Besides, I have a compass, a satellite phone, a flint, an emergency blanket, a first-aid kit, and even a small tent in my bag.”
“You do?” she asked in surprise. “Why?”
“Because it’s not smart to go hiking in the woods without any of that stuff. But we aren’t going to need them. I’m taking you to a place I love.”
Ryleigh took a deep breath, then nodded. “Okay.”
Her trust in him meant the world. Especially after the way he’d treated her. As if she was the enemy. He couldn’t have been more wrong. This woman had been through hell at the hands of the one person she should have been able to trust, and somehow still turned out compassionate and kind. More than a lot of people he knew who’d been through far less. He’d done her wrong, and he desperately wanted to atone for his actions.
Tiny spontaneously held out his hand. To his surprise, she didn’t hesitate to take it willingly. Feeling as if he’d somehow crossed a major hurtle, Tiny turned and walkedthrough the trees. It took about ten minutes for them to get to their final destination, but when they did, her reaction was everything he hoped it would be.
Ryleigh gasped and dropped his hand as she stepped forward with eyes wide open in wonder. “Tiny, it’s…holy crap, it’s beautiful!”
It was.
They were standing at the edge of a field of huge boulders. He had no idea why there were so many in this one place, but dozens were the size of SUVs or buses. They were weathered and smooth, and all around and among them grew trees that towered high above. It was as if the boulders had been dropped from a great height, scattered over this area and this area alone. He hadn’t seen any other boulders this large in all his explorations of The Refuge’s vast property. He’d been just as awed as Ryleigh when he’d first stumbled across them.
“Want to see something cool?” he asked.
She turned to him. “Thisisn’tcool?” she asked with a smile, gesturing to the rocks.
“Cooler, then,” he said, reaching for her hand again. The way she took hold so easily, without guile, hit him hard. He led her to the right of the boulder field. They had to step over logs that had fallen and climb over smaller rocks, but it would be worth it. Of that he had no doubt.
They rounded a particularly large boulder, and Tiny knew the moment Ryleigh saw what he wanted to show her by the huge intake of breath.
“Oh my God, is that…stairs?”
“Yeah.”
“What…how…?” Again, she was as speechless as he’d been when he’d first found them.
“Come on,” Tiny said, pulling her toward the crude steps that had been cut into the rock at some point many, many,manyyears ago.
He had no idea how old these rocks were, or when someone might have carved the steps, but it had to have been hundreds of years. Maybe when the indigenous people lived here. There were cliff dwellings in the area. He’d been to Bandelier National Monument, with petroglyphs and homes carved into the soft rock cliffs. He wanted to think maybe some of those ancestral pueblo people branched out into this area as well.
Tiny led her up the steps, going slow so Ryleigh wouldn’t fall. When they got to the top of the surprisingly flat rock, he let go of her hand and watched as she looked around as if in a trance. The trees were thick, but he could imagine once long ago, the people who came here could probably see for miles around them. There was an indentation in the rock, probably also carved out, that was permanently blackened from what Tiny could only assume was soot.
“Wow,” Ryleigh said as she turned to him. “This is amazing!”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I don’t know much about this kind of thing, but I suspect this used to be some sort of lookout. A fire could be lit here.” He pointed at the depression in the rock. “Maybe to warn his people of danger, or of game in the area. I bet there are other lookouts hidden in the forest, and the native people would send messages from these greater heights, before the trees grew so big.”
“It makes you feel so small,” she said quietly. “Like your problems are insignificant in the face of so much history.”
“Never insignificant. Come on, let’s sit,” Tiny said as heput down his backpack. He opened it and pulled out the emergency blanket. It wasn’t the softest thing in the world, but using their jackets they’d wrapped around their waists when it got too warm would give them more padding.
Ryleigh watched as he arranged a little sitting area for them, then took his hand when he offered it and sat. Then he opened his pack and began to remove items.
“Holy crap, Tiny, I can’t believe all the stuff you have in there,” Ryleigh said with a small laugh, as he placed item after item on the blanket.
