When the boys passed the ranger station at the bottom of the ditch, they stopped to read the information posted on the front porch. When they dumped their loads and thumped up the wooden steps in their boots, the ranger stepped out to greet them. Armen asked her if she’d seen or heard about the cowboy passing through. She hadn’t. They then chatted about the old trail. She told Armen that the old trail followed a saddle above the river instead of keeping close to the stream. Armen decided to try the old route over a saddle that ran parallel to the river, or more to the cause, parallel to the seismic fault that had determined the course of the river and the orientation of the canyon long ago. These saddles, dubbed “Kern cols” by geologists, make for strangely moderate passages amid such rugged country, and the peculiar peacefulness that they emit can be a little spooky at times. It was on this particular Kern col that Sam saw another shadow move among the trees.
When they reached the river, they fished for a while, and then decided to make camp nearby.
The next morning, Sam awoke in a sweat from the old dream, and turned quickly to assure himself that Armen hadn’t noticed. Armen seemed to be sleeping soundly. There was no smoke in the air this time.
After breakfast, they followed the Hockett Trail up out of the canyon, hoping to find Walker and his cattle in the Big Whitney Meadow area, but they didn’t see any fresh sign of him, so they turned back toward the canyon and camped just below the lava flow that maps refer to as Malpais, meaning “bad country”. They followed the Big Ditch along the fault line down to Trout Meadows, where they stayed the night. They returned to the trailhead in the morning.
During their ascent out of the wilderness, Armen talked about how they might find the cowboy by some other means next time, before hitting the trail. Sam looked warily into the trees on either side of the trail.
“Maybe we could find his employer somehow,” Armen continued. Though they hadn’t found the cowboy, the boys still felt some satisfaction upon completing the trip. Armen was satisfied with the accomplishment of covering so much of the map. Sam was satisfied to have survived the forest shadows. With the resurgence of his visions, he was more than happy to get back to the dairy.