As the sun dropped below the distant horizon, Callie and Pierce had only scrub pine and juniper to shield them, and not much of that. Pierce stopped at the foot of a steep slope and turned to search the land below them. Callie followed the direction of his gaze, the wind enfolding her from behind as it swooped off the mountainside. “When the wind changes they’ll smell us,” he’d said. Now he loosed a breath of decision, stripped off his pack, and pulled out a small hatchet. They continued up the ragged slope, zigzagging over uneven shelves of rock to a hollow bounded by a juniper-studded ridge. Midway across it, a gnarled old juniper bowed beside a massive sandstone block, and it was there he decided they’d shelter. “Do you know how to build a lean-to?” he asked her. “Sort of.” Turning, he hacked and tore a good-sized clump of sage from the ground, then handed Callie the hatchet. “Cut as many branches as you need from the other junipers. Pile ’em around this big one—between it and the rock.
