Survival in Style

Chapter 8: Moonbeams and Memories

  We hiked at a steady pace until I noticed that the sunlight was fading. It seemed like an eternity since I said goodbye to Mom at the airport.

  About the same time, Tony’s stomach growled. “We have to make a decision,” he said. “It’s probably near nine o’clock, and we’ll be out of sun soon. Should we keep going or stop for the night?”

  “You’re the Eagle Scout,” I said, sarcastic. “It’s up to you.”

  “You’re not used to hiking,” he replied, “and you have a say in the decision.”

  “Well, I’m not weak, if that’s what you want to know. I can keep going.”

  He glanced at me, surprised. “I never said you were weak.”

  I looked at the ground.

  His voice got real soft, almost tender. “You don’t have anything to prove to me. It’s not like anybody trains for this sort of thing.”

  His sympathy was almost enough to break my self-imposed barrier. “I say we keep going.”

  “Look, a Boy Scout troop can hike about fifteen miles a day, and that’s following a trail. I think we’ve matched that, maybe gone more.”

  “I do want a rest,” I admitted, “but not enough to risk getting caught. What do you think?”

  “I think - I hope - they fell for the boat-down-the-river trick. Even if they find it, maybe they’ll assume we’re heading to the trading post on foot. There are a lot of options, but only one ranger. Well, we hope. So maybe we should stop for the evening.”

  “I think... I think I have something to prove to myself. Maybe we could keep going a little longer.”

  “As you wish. But be careful - it’s hard to see when there’s no light.”

  We had to move at a slower pace as twilight approached, and then the rays faded from the sky altogether in a slow pink and purple goodbye. After all the stumbles I’d had already, you’d think I’d keep my eyes on the ground. But no; I was staring up at the gorgeous sunset and I wasn’t watching where I was going. I slid down a rocky incline and landed at the bottom in a pile of dry, dusty leaves.

  Tony came after me, sliding down on his feet like a snowboarder. “Are you okay?”

  “Stop asking me that! I’m fine!” I realized how sharp I sounded. He was just trying to help, and here I was, yelling at him. “Sorry. I think it’s time to set up camp now.”

  He hauled me to my feet. “Camp? We don’t have a tent or a pot or any food to boil, so I guess we can just pull up a rock and make ourselves comfortable for the night, eh?”

  I was about to pick on his near-Canadian accent, but I stopped myself. Besides, my knee was bruised by the fall and I suddenly realized how achy and fatigued the rest of my body was. Plus I was hungry and thirsty. “Sleeping out in the open doesn’t seem so bad anymore. I’ve been dreading it all day long, but now I’m so tired, it doesn’t even matter.”

  He chuckled. “Let’s get out of these leaves. You never know what spiders might call this home.”

  I squealed. Crawly things gave me the creeps. “I wish we had a tent,” I said.

  “Bug spray,” he replied. “Might do the trick.”

  The thought hit me like a rock. “I have bug spray!” I unbuckled my new belt and checked each little pocket. Dad had tucked a squeeze light in there, which really helped. I showed Tony the allergy pills, water decontamination pill, bugs repellent, gauze, and other tiny medical packets. “How’s this?”

  “Your father designed that? Not bad for a jeweler.”

  “I told you. He loves camping.”

  “What’s that?” Tony picked up a short narrow tube that was loaded with a needle of some sort. “Looks like a blow dart. Is it a tranquilizer or poison?”

  “I doubt Dad would give me poison. I’ve never been camping before, and Dad said he’d explain the stuff to me when I saw him. But some of it’s tricky. I haven’t figured out half this stuff yet. Like my necklace, for instance.” I showed him the locket with the fishing hooks and line inside. Easy enough to understand. But when I showed him the diamond-dust coated necklace part, he got very excited.

  “That’s a ring saw,” he explained. “You hold it by the loops at the end and pull it back and forth.”

  “I’m wearing a saw around my neck?” Geez, no wonder the thing was so itchy!

  “Show me the rest while we eat,” he said.

  We sprayed each other with the bug repellent and then sat down on some logs to eat our Army-issue meals. The mosquitoes still buzzed around us, but I was able to relax a little in the knowledge that they wouldn’t land and suck the life-force out of me.

  The Army meal was decent. It even had some squares of toilet paper, a tiny bottle of hot sauce, and a crunchy chocolate dessert. I tucked my toilet paper into my back pocket and saved the dessert for a midnight snack. “I wish we had a fire,” I said, leaning back against a tree. “I heard about a grizzly bear attack in this part of the state last year.”

  “Grizzlies don’t even live in this part of the state.”

  “Black bear, then.”

  “Whatever. They don’t attack unless they’re provoked. And nobody’s been hurt since 1987. I had to do a report on them for school.”

  “I thought you said you went to home school.”

  “Yeah, so? My mom was an English teacher. Now she just takes out all her frustrations on me - book reports each week, research papers, pen pals in Italy, Russia and Paraguay. I’m her own personal classroom.”

  “And I thought my mom was bad.”

  “I love my mom,” he said, serious. “She’s my hero.”

  I didn’t reply. I had been joking - sort of - about my mom. But she wasn’t my hero. Lately, we’d become more enemies than friends. I felt kind of sad, especially comparing my relationship with my mother to how Tony felt about his. After a while, I said, “I’d still feel better with a fire.”

  “Can’t. They’d be looking for it.”

  “No, they wouldn’t. Remember what the ranger said? It’s impossible to see individual fires from his tower, even if it’s a bonfire, unless you’re right over it or it’s the size of a house. I guess they might have a helicopter still looking for us...” I stared at my empty meal package, wishing there was more.

  “No matches,” he pointed out. “And I’ve never done the stick-friction way.”

  “If Nelson hadn’t taken my watch, we could have used the crystal to focus the sunlight.”

  “You mean moonlight?”

  Boy, how dumb could I be? If there’d been any sun, he would have seen my blush.

  He must have noticed my embarrassment because he bent down and picked up two sticks from the forest floor. “Now, how did this go again?” He tried to fit one end against the middle of the other.

  I shined my squeeze light on the sticks. “Does that help?”

  “Not really,” he said, then jerked his head up. “What’s that?”

  “What?”

  “Your bracelet. Can I see it a minute?”

  I handed it to him.

  He touched the plain gray stone, his eyebrows furrowed together. “You say your dad likes camping, right?”

  “Well, he likes fishing more.”

  “I think this is flint. I need something metal to bang it against. If it’s flint, it should produce some sparks.”

  “Oh, sure! Sparks would be easier than sticks. Would my belt buckle do?”

  “Not if it’s gold. Too soft.”

  I pushed into the buckle with my thumbnail, disappointed when it left a mark. “At least I’ll have a suggestion for Dad when I see him.”

  “Darn,” Tony said. “I almost thought it would work.” Then, half a breath later, he snapped his fingers. “Hang on - check your belt pouches again. I thought I saw a striker.”

  The last pocket had a thumb-sized piece of steel, which I had previously overlooked. Now it made sense.

  “It’s really small, but it should do,” Tony said, taking it from me. He held up the bracelet. “You okay if it gets da
maged?”

  I hesitated. It wasn’t exactly pretty, but it seemed a shame to ruin it before Dad saw me wear it. Still... “That’s its purpose, right? Go ahead.”

  He held my bracelet in his left hand and positioned the striker over the raised edge of the dull gray stone. I half-expected him to start whacking away, but he took a long, deliberate stroke like he was painting a picture, or spreading butter on bread. Against the darkness, a single flake of molten metal flew into the air and disappeared.

  “It works!” I cried. “Go, Dad!”

  “What do you know? Look for some shreds of bark and super dry grass,” he said. “If we get enough fine tinder, I can get a blaze going.”

  It didn’t take long to find the right materials. The forest was so dry that almost everything we collected was sure to catch fire. I remembered Nelson’s lament about how careless campers could burn down the forest in this sort of weather, so I made sure to hollow out a place in the dirt for our little fire. I even built up the banks around it with more dirt, like a bowl, just in case. Then I approached a birch tree whose bark was flaking in thin vertical strips - perfect for a baby fire. I ripped off several handfuls.

  Meanwhile, Tony used my ring saw to slice through a fallen sapling. We each grabbed an end of the necklace and sawed back and forth. Talk about bruised finger joints! At least it did its job, and we soon had several little logs, which we put next to my fire pit.

  He arranged the long stalks and dry grasses into a nest, then started drawing sparks from the stone.

  “It looks so easy,” I said. “And pretty, like fireworks.”

  “It isn’t easy,” he whispered. “It takes practice.”

  Finally, one large spark nestled itself in the tinder and began eating the grasses. A thin wisp of smoke floated into my nose. Tony blew gently, his face next to the glow. An orange blaze no longer than his finger shot up and disappeared, but it was enough to get the rest of the tinder burning. Carefully, he added my birch strips plus thicker twigs and then logs, until a solid and cozy blaze lit up the trees around us. He didn’t stop nursing the flames until they took on a life of their own.

  “I didn’t realize it would take so long,” I said. “I wonder how much time they spent in the old days just building fires when they could have been doing other things.”

  He squatted on his heels, pleased with himself. “You wanted your fire, and there it is. Let’s not make a big one, though. All we really need is the smoke smell to drive away any predators. Satisfied?”

  “Thank you.” I held my hands over the embers. The temperature had dropped fast after the sun disappeared. In fact, it was as cold as a night in March, instead of June. The fire was a good idea, after all.

  “Maybe we can use your cloak as a blanket to sleep on,” Tony suggested.

  “My cloak? Oh, yeah. I should have thought of that.” I untied it from my neck and spread it on the ground. But it was an awkward shape and would not lie flat. “That’s the best it’s gonna get,” I said after fussing with it a while.

  Tony reached out and touched a seam. “Maybe it unfolds. It looks like this is Velcro.”

  I focused the squeeze light the seam and gingerly pulled at it. To my surprise, it came undone!

  “Did you rip it?” asked Tony.

  “No, I think that was supposed to happen.” I ripped open several more, exposing the inside fabric. It was bright orange, making a sharp contrast with the elegant green outer fabric. Still, it did not open out into the blanket I was hoping for.

  Tony laughed. “Holy cow! It’s a tube tent!”

  “A what?”

  “Tube tent. Long piece of fabric, hollow on the inside? You put a rope through it and tie the rope to two trees. It forms a triangle when you set it up right... and look what happens when you flip this thing inside out! There’s even netting on both ends so you can seal it and keep the mosquitoes out. Your dad was a genius.”

  “Actually, this is my mom’s design. She does clothes, he does jewels.” So that’s what she meant about not letting Dad outshine her.

  “So it runs in your family. You’ll have to add something to the collection when you get back home.”

  Until he said that, my new toys almost seemed like being on a real camping trip. What were the chances we’d even get back?

  “Hey,” he said, guessing my thoughts. “We’ve done fine so far. We’ll make it home - both of us. Now grab your end and tie it to that tree branch. I’ll do this end.”

  Sure enough, after we’d tied the top strings to two trees, and fastened each corner string to tiny pegs that we drove into the ground, my cloak looked like a tent. A very low, very cramped tent, to be sure, but a little piece of security nonetheless.

  Just then, we heard the distant staccato of helicopter blades.

  “The fire’ll lead them straight to us,” Tony shouted. “Get in the tent!”

  “What if it’s a rescue party?” I asked.

  “How are we supposed to tell in the dark? Better be safe than sorry. I’ll douse the fire.”

  “They’re too close - get in here.” I tugged him into the tent just as the chopper shone its brilliant beam of light through the trees to our little clearing.

  We huddled in the tent, our heads scraping the ceiling.

  The helicopter dropped like a dragonfly hunting for bugs. There wasn’t enough room in our clearing for it to come all the way down, but for sure they saw our fire and tent. I squeezed my eye shut. I don’t know what I expected - more gun? Someone saying, “Come out with your hands up?” But they shot straight into the air after just a few seconds, zipping away.

  “I don’t understand,” Tony said. “Why didn’t they come get us?”

  “Because they think we’re camping,” I realized. “What did they see? A bright orange tent and a cozy fire. They’re looking for two kids on foot, not campers.”

  He let out a whoop that deafened me.

  I punched him in the shoulder. “Knock it off! That hurt.”

  “Sorry,” he grinned - and pecked me on the cheek.

  I’ve never been kissed by a guy before, so not only did he catch me off guard, but it stunned me to the core. He didn’t mean anything by it, I knew; he was just relieved. Still, it was awkward. I felt claustrophobic, especially since my tent was so tiny. “I have to go... you know...” I crawled out into the open air. Those few minutes alone gave me time to collect myself. It almost felt like I was sick, the way my stomach clenched all tight. But couldn’t stop grinning, for one thing, and I knew my trembles weren’t caused by the chilly night air. Even though it scared me, I liked how he made me feel.

  When I returned, he had zipped up the netting on the ends and added a few logs to the flames. He was stretched out in the tent with his feet near the entrance, but he curled up on his side to make room for me.

  I grew even edgier inside. There was no way to avoid touching him, so I found myself shoulder to shoulder with him. The ground under my back was uneven and uncomfortable. The soft silver moonlight penetrated the lightweight tent fabric, keeping me awake. Outside, every little snapping twig and rustling leaf seemed amplified and super loud. “Are you sure about the bears?” I whispered, trying to make a joke out of the thing that scared me. “Wolves, other predators with big teeth and claws?”

  “They won’t come near the smoke,” Tony said. He folded his arms across his chest and added, “Try to get some sleep.”

  “What if the fire shoots sparks outside the pit, and burns us alive while we sleep?”

  “We won’t get any sleep if you play the what-if game.”

  “Sorry. It’s just that my mind wanders. I can’t help it.”

  “Sure you can,” he mumbled. “It’s a matter of wanting to control it or not. If you do, just tell yourself to stop worrying and go to sleep.”

  My frown was lost in the darkness. “It’s not that easy.”

  He turned to face me. “Do you think I’m not afraid.”

  I considered my ans
wer. “You seem very brave and in control. Like you know what to do next. You said it, Boy Scout - always prepared.”

  “I’m not a Boy Scout, and that’s not the same thing as not being afraid. I’m terrified. I want to know what happened to my family. If they’re still alive. How many more rangers Drosnin bribed, how he got to my pilot friend Mike, and so much more. I want this whole nightmare to end! But the task at hand, right now, is to sleep so we can keep hiking tomorrow. If I let my emotions control me, I’ll be too tired to think or act tomorrow. So I make a choice - worry or sleep. My choice is sleep. What’s yours?”

  “It’s not that easy,” I repeated. “I never take charge of anything. Mom’s afraid I’ll ruin anything I touch, and Dad always protects his little darling from everything else. Between the two of them, I’m not allowed to sleep over at anyone’s house, do after-school activities anymore, or even do dishes! I might break something! Sometimes I wish I just had a normal family.”

  “Sounds normal to me,” he said. “I think every family has a little bit of that combination.”

  What I wanted was sympathy. What I was getting was advice, and sensible advice at that. It made me cross. “I’ll never get to sleep,” I insisted.

  “Your choice,” he said. “Might be easier, though, if you use my arm as a pillow. Not that I’m making a pass at you. Well, maybe I am making a pass, but it really is crowded in here...”

  I hesitated, but he was right. Mom made the tent for me, one body-width only. And the temperature was dropping outside at alarming rates; the tips of my nose and ears were already cold. Still, something about the situation felt immoral. Don’t get me wrong; I felt safe with him, but good girls don’t fall asleep next to handsome strangers. “I’m okay, thanks,” I said.

  “Suit yourself.”

  “I’m not really looking for a relationship right now,” I added.

  He snickered. “I’m not asking for anything, except maybe friendship. After all we’ve been through? You’ve been a really good sport. I don’t think other girls would have lasted. Plus you don’t complain - much - and you’re really easy to talk to.”

  If I’d been radioactive, my blush would have served as a nightlight. Again, I’d jumped to conclusions and been wrong. My good angels / bad angels started up.

  He’s been really nice, most of the time, I thought. Why be so rude to him? It’s not like he wants a date or anything. Relax a little. Just enjoy having a new friend.

  Be prudent! said my other side. Boys only say nice things so they can get a kiss. Remember Dad? Remember Mom? Look how they turned out..

  My thoughts would have continued to run rampant if not for two things - the fact that I was thoroughly and completely exhausted from hiking, and the fact that Tony started singing a sort of lullaby - something about the wind and the leaves. The words were so appropriate, considering where we were and how the weather had been, but what really caught me was the rumble in his chest. His voice, deep and mellow, soothed all the tension right out of me. The rustling leaves outside the tent faded under his song. Soon my heavy eyelids closed.