Free Canyon Sacrifice by Scott Graham

they fell asleep on the platform opposite the girls in the camper. He slept late the next morning. Like Janelle, he’d had only the one shot of tequila, but the pleasant evening must have had a calming effect on both of them because it was past eight when he slipped outside, leaving Janelle breathing evenly behind him, her head buried in her pillow.
    The day was sunny and already warm. He rotated his upper body in a few leisurely stretches, finding that he had little desire to take off on his morning run. Instead, he fired up the camp stove. He finished making coffee just as Janelle joined him at the picnic table in low-cut jeans and a sleeveless top. He poured her a cup while she yawned and kneaded the back of her neck.
    â€œWhere’s Carmelita?” she asked sleepily, taking her mug from Chuck.
    â€œInside.” Chuck poured his own cup and pointed at the camper. “Isn’t she?”
    Janelle shook her head.
    â€œI’ve been up a while,” Chuck said with a frown. “Fifteen or twenty minutes.”
    Janelle looked around the quiet campsite. She set her mug on the picnic table and ducked inside the camper only to reemerge seconds later. “Rosie’s there, that’s all,” she said, her voice strained.
    She circled the camper, checking the windows of her mini-SUV and Clarence’s hatchback and looking all directions. Chuck followed, coffee cup in hand. She set off toward the nearest bathroom, the one Carmelita had visited on her own the night before. Chuck set his mug on the table and jogged to catch up.
    Janelle turned to him. “No. You stay here.”
    She walked a few more paces, then broke into a run.
    Back at camp, Chuck peered into Clarence’s car. Clarencelay diagonally across the folded rear hatch area in his sleeping bag, his eyes closed, the bottle of tequila, half-empty, tucked beside him. Chuck double-checked Janelle’s car next, convinced she’d overlooked Carmelita curled up inside reading a book. But both the front and rear seats were empty. He turned a full circle. Where was she?
    The campground was full of noise and motion, campers cooking, washing dishes, collapsing tents, and walking to and from the bathrooms, unaware of the frigid rush of fear now coursing through Chuck’s veins.
    Janelle emerged alone from the women’s bathroom. She took a couple of steps in the direction of camp, then turned and disappeared inside the men’s half of the building. She came out seconds later, still alone, and ran toward camp.
    â€œCarm!” she called. “Carmelita!” she yelled again, drawing stares from neighboring campers.
    Chuck met her at the edge of the campsite. “She’s gone, Chuck,” Janelle said, her voice shaking, her eyes filled with alarm. “Carm’s gone.”

T HURSDAY
    â€œA descent into the Cañon is essential for a proper estimate of its details, and one can never realize the enormity of certain valleys, till he has crawled like a maimed insect at their base and looked thence upward to the narrowed sky.”
    â€” John Stoddard
    John L. Stoddard’s Lectures, Vol. 10, 1898

E IGHT
    8:30 a.m.
    Fire blazed suddenly in Janelle’s eyes. She slapped Chuck hard on the side of his face. The pop of her palm echoed across the campground. Chuck stumbled backward, putting a hand to his stinging cheek.
    â€œYou let her go last night,” Janelle snapped. “‘You’re a big girl,’ you told her. Well, she isn’t, Chuck. She isn’t!”
    The flames receded from Jan’s eyes as quickly as they had come. She collapsed against Chuck’s chest. Before he could put his arms around her, she shoved herself away from him.
    â€œWhere is she, Chuck? Where is Carmelita ?”
    Chuck’s eyes darted around the campground, searching for a glimpse of Carmelita’s wispy frame. Janelle needed strength. Encouragement. She needed a good cop, a proclaimer of positive