Those mountains, lakes, forests and streams in northern New York, that place defined by a blue line on maps and encircling an area of almost six million acres, about as large as Vermont but with only about one fifth the population, that rise of land where rocks and trees grow best and is sometimes called a park, sometimes called a forest preserve, a mix of state owned and private land where the state land is protected by the state constitution as “Forever Wild,” that place more commonly known simply as the Adirondacks had not been cooperating when Mary was on her solitary hike on the Northville/Lake Placid trail. When it wasn’t cool and rainy, the sun would come out and make for a sticky heat under a chicken white/yellow hazy kind of sky.
The hike forced Mary to slog through muddy trails with a fifty-pound pack on her back, wondering more than once each day why a girl like her was doing this. It was uphill and downhill. It was swatting bugs away and rubbing sweat from her eyes while smelling like a bug dope factory. It was stripping to jump in a lake if no one was around to watch, or go without the swim and feel clammy dirty. Yes, she liked hiking. She always had. Sometimes she would even walk to work just for the fun of it while coming up with the excuse she was doing it only to stay in shape. But Mary was a girl best known in Schenectady as Erica, a blond, voluptuous in all the right places girl with beautiful skin she was quite willing to bare to all at The Limina, the erotic dance club where she worked.
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