Don’t, I told myself. Deep breaths. The sparkling trees, remember? Practicing my skills. Then Grandma’s voice came in my ear again: “Make a plan.”
I had a plan. I took a sip of tea. My hands trembled. I had a plan. Today I would improve my camp. I made a vow that I would not spend another night in the truck. It was too uncomfortable, too cold and too lonely. At least outside I could sleep near the fire; I could stretch out with the three sleeping bags for warmth, listen to the sounds of other animals moving around me who were also trying to get through the night.
I swallowed the last of my tea and stood up. I needed to make a shelter. And then I stopped, looked out at the long road and I made another vow. I would stop daydreaming about rescue. A rescue could come today or it could come tomorrow. Meanwhile, I had to survive. That was up to me and no one else.
An ax would have come in handy, but I had no ax. I walked into the woods looking for something to make my shelter. I remembered my survival book, went back for it and leafed through the pages until I came to the drawings of shelters. I could build the teepee, the debris hut, the thatched hut or the lean-to. I chose the lean-to. It made the most sense for the materials I saw around me.
I figured I needed five branches for the frame I had in mind. Two of them needed smaller branches on them, like crutches, to act as braces. In spite of the rain, the forest under the canopy of branches seemed dry. When a breeze came up, the branches trembled and shimmers of moisture shook down through the sunlight. I breathed in a deep breath of the washed-clean air, spicy with forest smells. It was a beautiful day.
Working my way back toward the rise of land I had climbed on that first day, I saw that it made a natural boundary that let me know where I was, and although the trees sometimes obscured the truck from there, I knew just how to find my way back to the road. In fact, I realized that if I followed the edge of this boundary in both directions, I couldn’t get lost. I’d mark my spot where I needed to turn in to get back to the truck. I gathered some rocks and built a little cairn, then planted a big crooked branch in it. Later, I could tie my fluorescent-orange T-shirt to it so I could see it from a distance.
South, the way Dad had gone, the brush was thicker, but there weren’t as many tall trees. After a few minutes of walking, I found what I was pretty sure was a saskatoon berry bush. Though I checked each branch carefully, I found no dried berries on it. There were a few hardened like leather in the grass beneath the bush and I popped these into my mouth and sucked on them to soften them.
A dead branch lying along the slope looked about the right size for what I needed. As I reached for it, my eye caught something out of place in the bright green moss of a clearing a few feet ahead. When I got closer, I saw what it was: the picked-clean bones of a carcass scattered in the leaf debris.
It looked like a deer carcass that had been killed not too long ago, a day or two maybe. I recognized part of a rib cage and a leg bone. Something had cornered it here—a cougar? A coyote or a wolf? Maybe the strange squawking bark I’d heard the other night had come from here.
The breeze that shivered through the leaves suddenly seemed lonely. The bright, winking day, the peep of birds carrying sticks to their nests, it all went on as if nothing had happened here, as if Mom and Dad were not missing and I was not out here on a road far from everywhere, far from everyone who cared about me.
Oh, don’t turn on the waterworks again. That came from the sensible side of me, the one who knew better, who knew that I could survive this if I kept my head. It made me laugh out loud, and my laughter sounded odd there in the quiet woods.
I had a lot of nicknames besides Frozen Francie. When you have a name like Francie, people find a lot of rhymes for it: Fancy Francie, Francie Dancey, Francie Pantsy and the double-special Francie Dancey Underpantsy. They didn’t bother me. They were just word games, as Mom explained. But if I had to have a nickname, I’d prefer something better.
I decided to call this voice Fierce Francie. She would help to keep me calm. She would remind me that it wasn’t enough to make the vow to stop wishing for rescue once; it would have to be made over and over again.
The bones of the deer would slowly disappear, buried by fallen leaves and new growth that would shoot up in the rain. It would take a long time for them to decompose. I picked up the leg bone and drew it under my nose, taking a whiff. It didn’t stink, which meant it was still fresh. I’d eaten deer before, when Grandma made stew from the meat Grandpa’s hunter friends gave them. But there was nothing left to eat on this. It was just a bone. A fresh one.
I once bet Mom that there was nothing healthy about Jell-O. (I was in bed sick and she was trying to make me eat it.) Turns out I was wrong. Mom had looked it up and triumphantly told me that Jell-O was actually made of animal bones, which turn into gelatin when boiled in water. That’s supposed to be good for human bone growth. For losing the bet, I had to eat the Jell-O—lime flavor. Bright green. At the time, I wondered what could be worse than lime Jell-O. It tastes nothing like real limes. But what I wouldn’t give now for a great big bowl of it. And it gave me an idea. Maybe I could use the bone for soup. If I could break it open, there would be marrow in it. It might not be too gross if it was boiled. I tucked the leg bone into my jacket and went back to gathering branches for my lean-to.
By early afternoon, the pile of sticks I’d found was starting to look like a decent shelter. I’d built it just long enough for me to lie down in, with a foot of extra room in case I wanted to store something. On top of the frame, I placed more branches lying side by side, as tight as I could make them. Now to strip some live fir limbs to lie on top of the frame and to add to the floor of my shelter to keep me dry and comfortable.
The work made me hungry and I decided to take a break to make my soup. I’d found some dried-up kinnikinnick berries, which didn’t taste like much, but I knew they’d been used by Indigenous people so they must be healthy. Some fir needles and plantain would add some flavor and color.
My survival book confirmed that I could eat the bone marrow if I could get to it. It took a few tries, but when I wedged the bone between two rocks and smashed it with another rock, it shattered into three pieces. Again, I gave it the whiff test. It smelled fine. So I picked out the splinters and threw the big pieces into my pot.
I still had two full canisters and one part canister of fuel, but if I left my soup to simmer on the burner, I figured the fuel wouldn’t last long. And I didn’t know how long I’d need it to last. So I rekindled the fire and waited for it to get hot enough to have some good cooking coals. Doing these things, taking responsibility for myself, made me feel better—strong.
I was trying to decide whether to lay the tarp over my shelter when I heard the distant low rumble of an engine. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, or even what it was—a vehicle, a plane or a helicopter? It was distinct, but far away.
I ran for the fire and threw more wood on. Then I tore some of the fir boughs from the roof of my lean-to and threw those on too. A plume of blue smoke began to rise up. I needed more. I didn’t want to smother the flames, but I needed big billows of smoke that someone could see from far away, hopefully get curious about and come to investigate.
But I overdid it. The boughs must have been wetter than I realized. The flames underneath faltered and went out. Running out to the road, I stood still and listened. It was still there, faint but steady like a tractor working a field on a sunny afternoon. It could be logging machinery; there could be a crew working nearby. If so, I had to get their attention.
I ran back to the truck and pulled open the door. I reached in and jammed my hand on the horn. It wasn’t as loud as it should be—was the battery dying? I doubted it could be heard more than a few hundred feet away. What else could I use? I had a whistle somewhere. But they’d have to be very close to hear a whistle. Would the sound carry more than a horn? I couldn’t think of anything else.
I tumbled into the backseat, bumping my shins on the gearshift, and I dug through my pack, the contents spilling out everywhere. Where was the whistle? Why didn’t I have it around my neck where it should be to be of any use? Stupid. Something metal clinked in among the crumpled clothes. I threw the stuff aside and noticed a slight gap where something had gotten lodged in the crack of the seat I was kneeling on. I slipped my fingers down into the space and felt cold metal. My fingers curled around the edge of something, and I pulled it out.
Mom’s flashlight lay in my hand.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I would not let my brain go to the worst place.
It wanted to go there. Even as I thought of keeping it away, my imagination wanted to see what I was keeping from it. It wanted to creep to the edge of disaster and look over.
It didn’t mean anything. It didn’t mean what I thought it did. It could mean anything. She could have decided not to travel at night. She could have looked for the flashlight and not found it. She could have heard something that made her want to hurry.
Don’t think about that.
My mind is a crazy thing. It can be my best friend or it can be my worst enemy. Fierce Francie said, “Don’t hang out with your worst enemy. Who does that? Hang out with your best friend.”
I needed another way to make noise. The truck radio? The driver’s seat was piled with firewood. I climbed over the gearshift and into the passenger seat, turned the key and tried the radio. Some static, dead air, more static. There was nothing; I was wasting time trying. It wasn’t like the truck had some big, powerful speakers. They probably wouldn’t make enough noise to carry very far or for anyone to think anything of it.
Drums could work. Our neighbor across the back lane, Duncan, his drums carried a long way down the lane when he played them in his garage. I could hear them when I walked home from the store. Sometimes I could even tell what song he was working on. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” had that ragged kind of hammering at the beginning.
Well, I could make my own drum. I tumbled out of the truck and pulled out the crowbar. First, I stopped to listen a minute for the engine rumble. Yes, it was still there. I have to make this sound like something, I thought. Something that would get someone’s attention.
I made a few swings on the edge of the truck bed. In spite of the situation I was in, I didn’t feel right about denting the truck. But I couldn’t get any good sound from there—it was flat and toneless. I wanted something loud and ringing. I jumped back down and tried a hubcap. No good. Then I tried the tailgate itself and that was better. It was hollow, so it rang out more.
I was useless at “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” But I tried one of Dad’s favorite songs, “More Than a Feeling” by Boston, and it sounded like something: Dun-dun-dun-DUN, DUN-DUN, Dun-dun-dun-DUN, DUN-DUN. I just hammered it out, over and over. I thought that if a crew was working, maybe there’d be somebody’s dad who’d be having a break, maybe smoking a cigarette, and who’d turn to his buddy and say, “Do you hear that?”
“That hammering?”
“Yeah, but it’s not just hammering. Listen.”
“I’m listening.”
“What does it remind you of?”
“Sounds familiar.”
“Yeah. It’s ‘More Than a Feeling.’ ”
I had to laugh at that. The chances of this actually happening? Next to none. But it was my fantasy, so in my fantasy the buddy says, “Huh. I think you’re right.”
And then, “Where do you think that is coming from?”
“There’s nothing back in there for miles.”
“Exactly.”
My arm was getting tired and I thought it would be okay to stop for a while. Then I thought of one more thing. As hard as I could, I smashed out three quick bangs, then three with longer spaces between them, then three more quick ones. Save Our Souls. I did it five or six times to give the work crew time to figure that out. Then I waited a couple more minutes and did it again a few more times. My hand was getting sore from the crowbar.
I stood still and listened for the engine sound. Nothing. A breeze whistled softly through the trees, dropped to stillness, then rose again, sweeping along the ground and quivering the grass along the road.
I could hope, I did hope, that the workers had stopped to listen and talk it over. Maybe there was a girl working a Caterpillar, like Ms. Fineday did for a while when she was younger, and she’d hopped down off her machine and recognized the SOS signal. Maybe they’d decide to check it out. In a few minutes, I’d do it again, and I’d do it every few minutes and maybe they would find me.
I know I vowed that I’d stop wishing for rescue. But wishing for something, wasting my time daydreaming about something, was not the same as doing something to try to make it happen, something that had a chance—a snowball’s chance in hell, as Aunt Sissy would say, but still a chance—of really happening.
* * *
I think dusk was the loneliest time of night out there. I felt a queasiness when the light started to fade, leaving a gray, empty sky. A chill dropped down as soon as the sun disappeared, which was around 7:30. Some crows or ravens seemed to start up their squawking back and forth right about then. What were they saying? And then they quieted, or flew off, and the other birds, the woodpeckers and jays, quieted too. Even the squirrels stopped chattering. I sat by the fire and finished my soup. It needed salt. It was probably good for me, though. I knew I should go and gather some more of the bones while they were still good, but when I looked into the woods, it was gray and gloomy. The stillness rattled through me, empty as the sky. I didn’t want to go into the woods or anywhere away from this fire.
Dusk was when I had to admit that no one was coming for me today. Night would fall and I would be alone. Dusk was also when my mind drifted into the shadow places I didn’t want to go. I saw Mom running toward Phoebe. I saw her bend over her and brush the hair from her face. She sat her up and folded her in her arms.
I wanted Mom to hug me, too. I was scared. I ran across the grass to where Mom was holding Phoebe. Grandma called to me. I looked back and Grandma waved me toward her with her arm outstretched. But I was already there. Mom looked up at me. She lay Phoebe down gently. Then she stood up, dug her fingers into my shoulders and shook me hard.
“What did I tell you?” she screamed. “I told you and I told you. No running. No chasing her. She’s not strong like you.”
Was it true? Was I strong? Why did she make it sound like a bad thing? Is there such a thing as being too strong? Sometimes I thought if I were weaker, like Phoebe was, Mom would love me better. Did she leave me out here alone because she thought I was strong enough? If that was true, maybe it was better to be weak. But that couldn’t be right.
* * *
It was amazing what I could hear once night came on. At night, what I could see narrowed: the campfire and the stars. But I could hear everything around me, louder it seemed, than in the daytime. Even with the crackling fire, the frogs grew loud as dusk fell. There was another whistling noise, rhythmic, constant, maybe some insect or bird. Something was scratching around the truck. Once in a while I heard a little tick or a ping of metal. Whatever it was, it wasn’t big.
I heard wind when it picked up and brushed softly through the treetops, and I heard it fall quiet, then rise again, like someone breathing or moaning. The fire snapped and sighed. But what I didn’t hear was the rumble of an engine. No human voices or footfalls in the dirt. I had to face it—my drum hadn’t worked. It hadn’t attracted attention. It must not have been loud enough.
There was no point in trying to attract attention at night. No one would be out here. No one would be looking for me. It was too early for anyone to be searching for us, and also, I had to admit that if they did start to search, they would probably be looking in the Grand Canyon and not here. I couldn’t think of anything that would give anyone a clue that we were here.
/> We had set out from home early on the same day the truck broke down on this road. We’d stopped in Yakima, Washington, for snacks. I wasn’t sure where we’d gone from there. Then sometime a couple of hours later maybe, we stopped for gas in that little town where we took the wrong road. What town was it? I hadn’t even noticed.
Dad had paid cash for the gas because he said the bank dinged you every time you used a card in the States. So there was no chance we could be traced by our bank records, like you sometimes hear about on the news when people are missing. We hadn’t talked to anyone. Why would anyone think we’d be here?
I stepped away from the fire and into the falling darkness. Stepping away from the fire even that far made me uneasy. It wasn’t fear exactly, but that loneliness, gripped by the chill dusk. I took a quick look down the road in both directions. A broad pale path hemmed in east and west by tall black firs. Light fading fast from the sky. A bright star or planet near the horizon in the south. What did I expect to see?
The map was still on the dashboard where Mom had left it. I hurried back to the fire and spread the map on my knees, flicking on the flashlight.
The nearest town appeared to be Bend, but that was as the crow flies. I didn’t think we had driven through Bend. It was east of where I was now, I was pretty sure. Between the town and here could be anything; it was hard to tell. Walking it was out of the question. If I were going to walk anywhere, it would be back down the road we came in on. But Mom’s note said to stay here. To wait for her. I had to give her time.
* * *
Lying on my side, I watched the embers glow blue then red then orange then red. I pulled the sleeping bags tighter around my head, not because I was cold, but just to keep out the loneliness. The night hissed and ticked and whispered. Tomorrow maybe. Something might happen tomorrow. Dad with his mailbag on his shoulder coming up the front step, holding paper cups of hot chocolate, one in each hand. A bag of sugar donuts. Duncan’s drums hammering out “More Than a Feeling” while I skipped down the back lane, the sage-covered hills around Penticton lit up in golden light. Soft piano music tinkling like water over rocks in a stream, Grandma on the piano bench, her shoulders rising and falling.
Red Fox Road Page 8