A.N. I know it's been forever. Trying to do some writing this month.
After a long while, Alex shivered and pressed herself closer into Olivia's body. She had been right that the brunette gave off a lot of body heat.
"Are you cold?" Olivia asked with a sleepy rumble to her voice, wrapping the blonde more tightly in her arms.
"Just a bit. The fire has died down," Alex answered. "I should just get up and tend to it, but I'm enjoying lying here too much."
"Hmmm, me too. But I think I need to take some more ibuprofen, my knee is starting to hurt again. So as much as I'd like to stay like this..."
"Okay, you build up the fire and I'll go get you some ibuprofen and another ice pack," Alex said as she gave Olivia a quick peck on the lips and hopped up from the floor. As she headed for the kitchen, Alex grabbed up her shirt and put it on against the cold.
Olivia couldn't help but follow Alex, bare bottom showing below the hem of her shirt, with her eyes, as the blonde dashed into the kitchen. But not wanting to get caught ogling, she levered herself up and redressed herself before poking up the fire.
"No fair. You're dressed," Alex said as she returned.
"Sorry. Naked flesh and fire don't really mix."
"True. Okay, sit down and put your leg up."
Alex helped Olivia get settled in the chair, gently placing the ice pack on her knee and giving her a couple pills with a glass of water. Then she pulled on the rest of her clothes, taking note that Olivia was struggling to not watch.
Alex headed back into the kitchen. "I don't know about you, but I'm kind of hungry now. How does some more soup and turkey sandwiches sound?"
"Yeah, that would be good. Thanks."
—
After eating Alex reluctantly decided that she needed to go back to work. If she was going to make this project happen she needed to find something before she left the cabin. Olivia offered to read through Henry's diaries and those of the Guard guides Alex had managed to collect to see if she could pinpoint the location of Moose Creek Falls. After a while Alex got up to make some coffee. Turning from her desk she saw that Olivia, hunched over the coffee table with her legs stretched out beneath it, was busy flipping through one of Henry's notebooks and jotting down a list of something on the notepad she had borrowed from Alex.
"What's got your attention?"
Olivia held up a finger, putting Alex off as she flipped through the final pages of the journal. Putting down her pen, she said "It might be nothing, but reading through Henry's journals I noticed that he was really interested in birds and plants. He sketched a lot of things he saw when he was out hiking and camping. He clearly didn't know the names for everything he took saw, only some of the drawings seem to have been labeled at the time he drew them. In other cases it looks like he made his sketch in the field and then added the label later in a different ink. It's like he came home and went to the library or asked someone to help him identify what he had seen. And there are quite a few drawings that don't have labels. But what I was trying to figure out is whether or not it might be possible to identify where Henry was when he made certain sets of drawings. Certain plants have very specific environmental preferences, whether it's proximity to water, elevation, or exposure to sun for example. And the same thing with birds."
"You mean like poison ivy grows in shady places or Canada geese migrate with the seasons?"Alex asked.
"Exactly. But with enough data points, and some one who knows something more about birds and plants, I think we could look at where these all intersect to narrow down what kind of eco zone Henry would have been in when he did different sets of drawings."
"Really?" Alex asked with a note of excitement in her voice. Could Olivia actually found a way to narrow down the possible locations if Henry's disappearance?
"Yep. This is one of Henry's earlier notebooks and it looks like he was hiking below the cabin, across what is now the highway, but would have just been a dirt track in the early years of the last century. Here he actually drew a map of sorts. It looks like he had been reading Treasure Island or something about buried treasure, and decided to hide his own buried treasure and make a treasure map."
Alex sat down on the couch so she could look over Olivia's shoulder at the map Henry had drawn in his journal. She could see a little sketch of the cabin and the shed. Henry had even drawn in the big, old tree that used to sit behind the cabin. When Alex was little there was an old wooden swing attached to one of its massive branches. Alex had spent hours swinging on it and lying in the shade of the tree reading books when she visited in the summers as a kid. Unfortunately the tree had been struck by lightning when she was in college splitting it in two and her grandparents had decided to cut It down.
From the cabin, Henry had drawn a dashed line through the woods, across several streams and a track or road of some sort, then around a pond and through what looked like a swamp with stepping stones. The line ended at an X drawn at the base of some rocks with a tree growing out of the top of them.
"It looks like Henry spent a lot of time here where he's drawn his X in the summer of 1911. A lot of the pages have drawing of plants, animals and birds that would have lived in this little ecosystem along the edge of the marshy side of Lost Calf Pond," Olivia said, tapping the list she had made. Sitting behind Olivia, Alex could now see that the ranger had made several columns, each labeled: Plants, Birds, Amphibians/Reptiles, Animals.
"It's just a theory," Olivia continued, "but it looks like Henry was prolific. He must have spent hours observing and recording the things he saw. And he seems to have become more so as got older."
"Can you pull all this together to figure out where Moose Creek Falls is?" Alex asked.
"Not really. I know a fair bit about the ecozones around here, but remember I'm really a law enforcement ranger, not a scientist."
"That's too bad. I was just starting to think we were making progress," Alex said with a sigh as she flopped back on the couch."Ugh, why couldn't Henry just have drawn maps for all his trips? Or even describe the routes he took on his trips?"
"That would make things easier. But unfortunately Henry seems to have written less as time went on, as his drawing skills improved. Some of these sketches are beautiful and have amazing detail."
"Maybe I'd be better off publishing his drawings as a coffee table book," Alex said with obvious frustration.
"That's not a bad idea, Alex. Or a historical guide to the environment of this area of the White Mountains. But I don't think you need to give up on your project yet. You just need someone who can analyze the data from Henry's journals. And I might know someone who could help you."
"Who?"
"A friend of mine from college is a professor of environmental humanities at Boston University. This isn't exactly the sort of thing she does, but I bet she knows someone who can help."
Suddenly Olivia found herself wrapped in Alex's arms as the blonde gave her a big kiss on the cheek. "Oh my god, did I get lucky when you stopped to check on me last week! How am I going to repay you for all the help you've given me?"
Olivia laughed and pulled on Alex's arms to give herself some room to breathe, entwining her fingers with the blonde's to keep her close. "I'm sure you'll come up with something."
"Hmmm, is there something you have in mind?" Alex murmured into her ear.
"Actually, there might be something," Olivia said before pausing. She could feel Alex lean into her a little closer. "Some more of those chocolate chip cookies would be a good start," she finished with a grin.