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The younger girl was skinny, flat chested, freckle faced, and looked serious and bookish. Freckles and braces. His eyes slid right over her and his brain said, Nothing to see here folks, move along.

But he’d have to get to know that tall one.…

* * *

“Folks, I’m Jed McCarthy and this is Dakota Hill. We’re your guides, and we’re about to embark on the longest, most scenic, and most remote horse packing expedition into the Yellowstone backcountry wilderness available. It’s the best trip we do all summer and it’s the one we enjoy the most. This is the first and only time we’ll do this trip this season, and because the snows last winter were so heavy and have just recently melted away, we’re likely to be the only people going where we’re going. For you, all I can say is I envy you for what you’re going to see and experience for the first time. It truly is the trip of a lifetime into the farthest reaches of America’s first and best national park.

“I know you all got the materials I sent you and read up on our itinerary and the other info on the Web site, but in a nutshell, we’re going to match you up with a horse that will be your horse for the next six days and ninety miles,” he said, letting that sink in amidst titters.

Jed continued, “We’ll be leaving from here within the hour, so I’d urge you to make sure you’ve got all your gear out and piled up so we can load it on the mules. This is a progressive trip, meaning we’ll be at a new camp every night. Camp One is fifteen miles away along the shore of Yellowstone Lake. Tomorrow, we go into the Thorofare along the river and we follow it upstream to Camp Two. Camp Three is a hell of a climb from the river valley toward the top of the Continental Divide and Two Ocean Pass. We’ll ride a few thousand feet up into the mountains, and some of you may experience shortness of breath or maybe a touch of altitude sickness. The best way to ward that off is to keep hydrated. Keep drinking water, folks-it’s magic. If you’re doing it right, you’ll drink two or three times the water you usually drink. That’s what we want.

“It’s called Two Ocean Pass because the water on the east side of the mountains begins its flow to the Atlantic, and on the west side it’s headed for the Pacific. It’s high mountain country, and the most remote location in the lower forty-eight in terms of its distance from any road or structure. It is true primitive wilderness, but that’s what you signed up for, isn’t it?

“Keep this in mind, folks: only two percent of Yellowstone’s 3,468 square miles is developed in any way. It’s the largest remaining nearly intact ecosystem in the Earth’s northern temperate zone. What you see around you right now-a road, cars, a parking lot-are the last items of modern civilization you’ll see for the next week.”

He scanned his clients as he spoke, already putting them into categories. Rarely anymore did anyone truly surprise him. Everyone was a type, and he’d been with all types on his trips. As he looked his clients over he fitted them into slots.

Jed said, “We’ve all heard the term ‘beyond civilization’ without really thinking much about it because for most of you, being out of range of cell-phone towers or Wi-Fi isn’t something you’ve thought real hard about. But that’s where we’re going: the most remote wilderness left in our country. We like to call it Back of Beyond.”

As always, the phrase produced a nice murmur of trepidation.

* * *

He’d briefly talked to the lone married couple on the trip, Tristan and Donna Glode. Although in their sixties, they were fit and vigorous. He was a CEO of a manufacturing company in St. Louis and he spoke as if used to being listened to. Tristan seemed clear-eyed if hard-assed-even with that unfortunate name-Jed thought. A guy he could depend on if he didn’t cross him or fill him full of bullshit-which he wouldn’t. His wife, Donna, was arch and cold. She was one of those fine-boned skeleton women who no doubt did Pilates and had her plastic surgeon’s number on her speed dial. She was a horsewoman of a type-the type who stabled her expensive horses and rarely rode them but enjoyed long lunches with the girls and society functions. Jed guessed the two didn’t get along all that well with each other anymore. They wouldn’t be the first longtime married couple to come on one of his trips with the purpose-either stated or most likely implied-of trying to rekindle a failing or already dead marriage. But when he looked at them, the way they stood apart from each other, he guessed the rekindling would turn out to be unsuccessful. He just hoped neither of them drew any of his other clients into the dispute.