At two in the morning, we took off through the trees, down the mountain to a dirt road. She struggled to keep up, and I badgered her like a football coach. “Keep going! You can do this! We can’t slow down!” After a while, we came to a small group of old mobile homes scattered around a cluttered field of junked cars and rusted machinery. We crept through the clutter, peeking in windows. Inside one of the trailers, a woman sat by herself, reading a thick book in the lamplight. She had a long, thick braid over her shoulder, jet black and steel gray, and a big dog curled up at her feet. A dog
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