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The trail led us up into the hills, and before long, the two-legged members of our group scrabbled over and up rocky terrain that seemed ready and perhaps waiting for a careless moment to send us sliding backward toward a cliff. Alistair and Vicki made their way fairly well, but Hauser was not prepared for a hike at all in her skirt suit and dress shoes with a medium heel. Not even a tenth of the way to the top, I moved closer to offer her my arm. She accepted, taking a firm hold on my wrist and bringing her other hand up for a steadying grip on my bicep.
We spent the better part of thirty minutes climbing the hill in pursuit of the trail, until we pushed our way through some underbrush and found ourselves standing at the edge of a trailhead for one of the more popular hiking destinat
