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The rain had stopped, and the sun hung low in the sky, and he knew that way was west. Orienting himself, he proceeded south, mostly downhill. He was weak with hunger and parched and in pain, and when he heard distant voices, he nearly panicked. A woman’s whoop. The map told him he was near the Sawyer River Trail; maybe that was where the voices were coming from. He limped closer and saw, through the trees, a wide dirt trail with cyclists whizzing by and two or three women walking in the same direction.

Of course, he didn’t want to walk or, rather, shuffle along such a well-used trail. Far too visible. But after consulting his map, he saw that the trail ran south to the Kanc. If he hand-railed the trail—went parallel to it, but at a distance so that he wouldn’t be seen—it would lead him all the way to the 112.

Though, at the pace he was going, that would take hours.

He had reached a low, flat valley, where the going was much easier. He shuffled through the forest. It felt like his left ankle was swelling, his injury there exacerbated by the walking. He was only a few miles from the road, though he wasn’t sure exactly how many. He was cold, his pants and boots still wet from his splash in the stream. Whenever he took a break, he found himself shivering. When it became too dark to navigate through the dense woods, he briefly considered assembling a makeshift tent and resting overnight. But he felt urgency: he needed to get out of the woods and to Lincoln, no matter what time it was.

It wasn’t safe to continue through the woods in the dark, so he took another risk and moved over to the trail. He was cold, still shivering, and he knew that the cold and the stress and the exhaustion were compromising his decision-making process. He was driven by instinct: the need to get out of the woods and get to safety, if that was even possible anymore, the need for a hot shower, the need for sleep.

So he kept going along the now-deserted trail. The moon was covered by a scrim of clouds. He heard the distant hoot of an owl, the howl of a coyote somewhere. And the rustling of leaves. Was it deer? Foraging squirrels? Or just the wind? The shadows seemed to shift and move, as if alive with creatures. Tree branches reached out from the shadows like gnarled fingers.

A little after one in the morning, he came to a sign that read DANGEROUS CROSSING . He heard water running. He’d come to the Sawyer River, and he soon saw that it was running deep and fast. It must have been swollen from all the rain over the past few days.

Crossing the river, which had to be done, was indeed dangerous, especially in the dim moonlight. Fast-moving water could make him lose his footing, carry him away. But he had no choice: on the other side was the 112, the Kanc. That way was safety. He had to ford this river.

He returned to the woods and soon found a long, sturdy stick from a downed branch. It was tall enough to use as a walking stick, a trekking pole. He stood on the bank, heard the rush of water, and saw how powerful the river was. He estimated that it was around seventy feet wide at this point. You were supposed to pick the widest point to cross a river: the narrow points are usually faster and deeper. Ordinarily, he’d have tried to rock hop, jump from rock to rock, but with his injured ankle, that would be nearly impossible. So he found a spot that seemed shallowest, then he walked through the water, using his makeshift pole as a third point of contact, a tripod. The fast current grabbed the pole, nearly yanked it out of his hands. He dragged it along the river bottom, facing upstream, sliding his feet. The river was deeper here than he’d expected. The frigid water came up nearly to his hips. He inhaled sharply at the shock. He moved one foot, then the other, then he moved the pole, and in this fashion, he arrived, a few freezing minutes later, at the opposite bank.

He was shivering violently. He heard the occasional vehicle pass by on the Kancamagus Highway—surprising, given the hour. Up above him, he glimpsed the guardrail bordering the road, which was elevated above the river by a couple hundred feet of steep, muddy embankment. His left ankle throbbed.

How the hell was he going to get up to the road with a twisted ankle? But he didn’t have time to hesitate; he was bitterly cold and didn’t think he could last. So he gritted his teeth and powered ahead, hobbling along as best he could. When the ground started getting steep, he found low shrubs and other vegetation to grab on to, slipping in the mud whenever he didn’t have a firmly rooted plant to pull on, the sludge coating his pant legs. He kept on, exhausted, and finally— finally! —he was able to grab on to the steel guardrail and haul himself up onto the narrow shoulder of the 112.

Shivering, cold as hell, and entirely covered in mud, he stuck out his thumb.

He heard remote traffic sounds, and a few seconds later, a pair of headlights pulled into view . . . and then passed right by. A minute or so later, another pair of headlights appeared and just as quickly zipped past.

Understandable, he thought: he probably wouldn’t pick up anyone looking like him, like an escaped killer or a crazy man. He looked like he was running from something.

This thought might ordinarily have made him laugh, if he hadn’t been so miserably cold and tired.

He kept his thumb out. A truck zoomed by, a car, and then another car, and another. This went on for some twenty minutes. Meanwhile, his shaking grew more violent. But no one would stop for him, and it was easily twenty miles to Lincoln.

He had heard about people in the North Country called “trail angels,” who would stop along the highway to pick up those in need of help. Some of these angels drove the trail during heavy hiking season just to pick up pedestrians and take them to the next point, offer first aid and nourishment. They weren’t in it for the money: they didn’t expect compensation.

But, apparently, no trail angel was driving the Kanc at two o’clock that morning.

He decided to give up and walk as far as the next overlook, which, on his sodden map, looked to be two or three miles away. But in order to do that, he’d have to get down from the embankment; it was too steep there to try walking alongside the road. And to get down from the embankment, with his injured ankle, would be painful and would no doubt involve a lot of sliding, which he wasn’t looking forward to.

Then, suddenly, a truck approached, pulled over to the side of the road, and put on its flashers. Paul hobbled over to the passenger-side door of the GMC pickup as it popped open. Warily, he looked inside the cabin.

The driver was a plump, short, ruddy-cheeked woman in a plaid flannel shirt. The only other occupant of the vehicle was a big white dog in the backseat. The truck’s interior was wonderfully warm and smelled of dog.

“Well, are you going to get in or not?” the woman said.