Noctuidae Read Free Page A

true, this route would take them back to the main trunk of the Blue and its trackless and uninhabited middle stretch. Pete and Ron high-fived without a glance at Sue-Min who stood just a step behind.
    Pete sauntered to the edge and the others followed, Sue-Min squeezing between Ron on her left and the branches of a thick twisted fir on her right. Dirt cliffed at the top here, some eighty meters deep and at least that wide a span. Away to their left the canyon boxed off, but not so far ahead it jogged to the right and out of sight. Looked like the east wall rose there and some stone began to show through the slopes of soil. The bottom was a cleft too tight to see.
    Descending the dirt wall before them held zero appeal. They saw no paths, no ramps, no natural stairs in the crumbling unstable face, no hand or footholds. Just pink grainy soil, scattered bleached protruding stones, random precarious cacti. Attempting any route down here without rope seemed likely suicide. Even on rope the descent would be sketchy. But a rock face would be different if one were ahead.
    Onward then.
    Now they at least had a feature to follow. So they followed. They were not lost. Probably not anyway. Probably not yet anyway. Sue-Min’s incipient panic faded some. Pete took the lead again and they picked their way along the ridge, working around standing trees and fallen snags, retreating from the indented edges of scalloped collapse.
    The sun where they could see it hovered just above the western slate range in the haze. They held no discussion on the subject, but she knew they all understood they’d have to make plans for night soon. They wouldn’t be going much further than this, not today.
    They came to the canyon’s bend, rounded it. Ahead two changes leapt out at once. From here on, the walls on both sides were stone, steep scoured pink tuff ribbed with dubious holds. In addition their ridge dropped away, grew lower, just as the opposite wall ascended.
    They quickened their pace, worked their way down to a less elevated section of the west wall, an almost level grassy area studded with the dark forms of juniper and pines. Across the narrow canyon almost close enough to throw a stone, the east wall—or was it south now?—rose near three hundred meters overhead. The steep stone face was more of the same, scoured and striated and pink, pyroclastic tuff of some sort, ash deposited in strata over how many millennia from what volcano or volcanoes, super or just giant, then cut through by slow eons of flash flood and flow. . .
    That was when they saw the cave. Sue-Min was certain she spotted it first, but she only stared in silence so it was Ron who got to point it out and proclaim its presence. Maybe two thirds of the way up the wall and a hundred meters down canyon, a black horizontal oval in the rugged salmon scarp. Ahead of her Pete and Ron conferred close, heads bent together, low excited tones.
    —Let’s make for that cave. Ron.
    —Yeah bro, we can camp there. We’re gonna need to camp for the night soon anyway. Pete.
    No shit Sherlock. She knew that already. They all knew that already. Probably no bear or mountain lion in there, high as it was. And it was August, not hibernation season yet. So steep though. Her stomach fluttered contemplating the climb, but fuck it . She was in better shape than either of the guys.
    First they needed to cross. Ron stared from the edge, left-right, down, said —I think we can descend right here, hike up to the cave from below, choose the best ascent there.
    —Sounds good to me, bro. Lead on.
    Ron looked back at Sue-Min a second, said —Whadda you think, baby? Looks good?
    Only he turned before she could answer, dropped to his knees and slid his legs over the edge. Pete followed soon as Ron was all below. He looked up at her once his head had descended, said —Come on in, the water’s fine!
    What an asshole. She let him climb down at least two full body lengths before she commenced her own