by Chris Bostic
Rather than drag it out too long, I simply whispered a quick goodbye. I touched my father’s cold, muddy hand and walked away to collapse into my mother’s arms. Katelyn stood close to me, and we welcomed her into the hug.
When Austin was done, Spotted Owl insisted that he would take care of everything. Mom guided us back toward the road as the others stayed behind to bury my dad.
The sound of stones chinking as they knocked together was almost more than I could bear. Each sound was like stone nails being driven into a coffin—and into my own shattered heart.
Fortunately, we got far enough away that the sounds faded. All that was left was the shuffling of feet through leaves, and sniffles from everyone.
We reached the edge of the road, and remained huddled there quietly. Finally, Katelyn’s family and Spotted Owl caught up. No one seemed to want to make eye contact with my family other than John. Even his tight-lipped, bobbing head didn’t linger on us for long.
“Should we stick to the road?” Austin asked, breaking the silence. He sounded clearly skeptical. I agreed with those sentiments, if a little too late to do any good.
“Maybe not, but it won’t matter much,” Spotted Owl explained. “At the top of the next hill, we’re taking off cross country anyway. Down the Thomas Divide Trail, along the top of ridge.”
“Without Noel?” I asked, wondering if the others had forgotten about him.
“We called, we’ve checked around…we can’t wait any longer,” Spotted Owl suggested as we gathered up along the edge of the highway. He looked to the adults. “Agreed?”
It made me wonder once again whether Noel was a traitor. Whether he had set us up, and brought all the pain down on me. Before I could vocalize those thoughts, Mom concurred with Spotted Owl, followed by agreement from Katelyn’s family.
“We’ve got all we need to know from him,” Spotted Owl said. “So let’s move out and put this, uhm, unfortunate event behind us.”
I felt inclined to argue, or worse. No one deserved to talk that way about my father’s death. I simmered to a boil inside, but was composed enough to realize that fighting among ourselves would do no one any good.
“Maybe he’s right,” I muttered as we trudged off.
“What’s that?” Katelyn asked. Even her gentle voice was too syrupy to my ears.
“Nothing.”
“I heard what he said. That was rude.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I growled, and instantly regretted it. Her frown couldn’t quite ugly up her features, but it pained me all the same to see it. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“It’s okay, babe.”
“Not really. I shouldn’t take it out on you.”
“Better me than someone else.” She squeezed my hand. “I’m here for you.”
“I know, but I’ll deal with it.”
She nodded and pinched her lips closed. I knew she might’ve been disappointed in me; hopefully not hurt. Mostly, I needed time to process the evening. I could make it up to her later, I hoped. Just in case, I whispered, “Just give me a little time. Okay?”
“I’ll be here.”
“That’s all I need to know.”
No one spoke for quite a while. We quickly moved up the hill, keeping even closer to the edge of the woods. Sorrow and high alert was a strange mixture. I found myself constantly wanting to look back over my shoulder. Not always for enemies, but sometimes to remember all I was leaving behind.
We crested the hill, and I wanted to run back to the last one. I couldn’t go on that way, only thinking of helicopters swooping in and my world crumbling apart.
The emotions sapped my strength faster than the hiking. My feet moved robotically while my insides burned. The gasps of air I sucked in were heavy and cold.
Somewhere past midnight, I became as lifeless as a zombie. I only wished I was as brainless.
“This way,” Spotted Owl was saying when Katelyn tapped me on my shoulder to get my attention. “We go down the Divide Trail here, then turn off toward Newton Bald.”
“You made camp on a bald knob?” Austin said. “That’s stupid.”
Lucky for everyone, Spotted Owl ignored the insult. “It’s not on the knob. We’re in a cave around behind it, well off the trail.”
I ignored the rest of the conversation. I remained stuck in the past, and that sparked my memory. Remembering that nothing but bad luck had come from taking the first prisoner, I randomly asked, “Does Noel know where your camp is at?”
“I didn’t tell him,” Spotted Owl replied. “Why? We don’t really need him anymore.”
“That’s not what I was thinking…” The adults all focused on me. I swallowed, and firmed up my resolve. “I just mean that all the bad stuff happened when he was around. The drone and then choppers with the soldiers. The attack. Did we even have a reason to trust him?”
I was glad that no one thought to mention that I was the one who captured the guy in the first place. I hadn’t meant to call out John, and quickly traded a glance with him to make sure I hadn’t spoken out of turn.
John shrugged, but offered no disagreement about Noel. No one could have known.
Nevertheless, a quick discussion sparked about whether Noel was trustworthy, which wasn’t ideal for me to hear seeing how my father had a part in deciding to bring him back to our camp—not that I thought he had made the wrong decision, or really had much of a choice.
The end result was that it didn’t matter. Better yet, no one specifically remembered telling him where Spotted Owl’s camp was located, though he had obviously been looking over the maps with the other adults in the back of the cave. At the very least, he knew it was somewhere relatively close to Cherokee.
“As big as this park is, that means nothing,” Spotted Owl said, trying to be a cheerleader. “So forget him and let’s keep moving.”
“Good idea,” my mom agreed.
Spotted Owl, followed by John, led us down a narrow gravelly path that was only wide enough for one person to pass at a time. I was happy to go last. I followed directly behind Katelyn, and spent quite a while planting my feet right behind hers like it was some kind of mind numbing game to match her steps exactly.
Austin shattered the silence before we got too far down the trail. “Are we even close?”
“We’re over halfway to Cherokee, and we’re not going that far today,” Spotted Owl replied. “It’s only about five more miles to my camp.”
“Five miles,” Austin said, but quickly bit back on his whining. He turned around and looked past Katelyn. “We got this. Right, bro?”
“Yeah, bud.” I said softly. “No problem.”
As far as I was concerned, I could go a lifetime with no more problems.
CHAPTER 14
The gravel path switched over to dirt after the turn off to the Kanati Fork Trail.
“Keep going straight,” Spotted Owl said. He stood aside and waved everyone past. “That one goes back to the highway.”
I kept right behind Katelyn. I didn’t bother looking down the other trail. All that mattered to me was getting to camp. Then I could hopefully pass out. Sleep couldn’t come soon enough, though I knew it might not come as easily as it should.
Spotted Owl stepped behind me. “Hey, Zach,” he called.
“Yeah.”
I cringed, expecting some sort of words of sympathy or something; however, Spotted Owl had other things on his mind.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said. Tell me more about Noel.”
“Like what?”
“No one ever asked you about him, did they?” Spotted Owl asked. I nodded and kept trudging down the trail. “They just took over the questioning and kinda left you out of the loop.”
“Yeah, well…I’ve kinda gotten used to that.”
“Tell me more about what he was like when you captured him. I’d only trailed him for maybe a quarter mile, you know, thinking he was probably one of your guys. That is, at least until I saw you g
uys at the falls watching over him like a prisoner.”
“He wouldn’t tell me anything.” I turned around to add, “Kinda like you. It was all big secrets about whatever the enemy was up to.”
“I hear you.” Spotted Owl didn’t quite apologize, but he said, “We need to stop that. We need to treat everyone alike. Everybody is counting on all of us, not just the older people.”
I bristled at the comment. “You don’t have to pretend like you’re my buddy or that I’m some kind of equal. I know my place here.” I choked up for a second before uttering, “Or at least I used to.”
“Zach,” Katelyn said, turning around.
“I’m fine.”
“It’s okay,” Spotted Owl said. “I’ll leave you alone. I was just wondering about Noel.”
I relented. “I really wish I could tell you more. All I know is that he said he was a deserter when John pressed him, and everyone seemed to buy that.” I paused, and went back to the edge of conspiracy theory again. “All I know is that the Feds seem to draw a bead on that guy even though y’all didn’t find a tracker on him.”
“We might be lucky he’s gone,” Spotted Owl said, and left me alone so he could hurry back up to the front.
“Too late,” I muttered.
I reverted back to mindless zombie mode after that. The trail grew more rugged, and after a couple branches had brushed up against my jacket sleeve, I finally put a little more effort into watching where I was going.
Katelyn handed branches back to me as we ducked under a particularly overgrown stretch. Though not in the slightest relieved, I felt a little safer than I had out by the road. But any thought of actual safety had been irreparably shattered after that night.
We hit another cross trail, and Spotted Owl directed us off to the right. The path changed from dirt to solid rock. It didn’t make me feel any better when I noticed there was a sheer drop off after about thirty paces down the trail.
At a narrow stretch, I needed to turn sideways on the pathway and pushed my back up against a cliff to keep away from the edge. As we rounded an especially tight corner, Katelyn’s boot slipped in loose gravel. I shook off the lethargy and grabbed for her as pebbles showered the leaves on the trees below.
“I’m okay,” she told the others. “But I sure wouldn’t recommend looking down.” Thinking about Jonas and the waterfall was the farthest thing from my mind, but Katelyn used it again to try to bring some levity to the situation. “Thanks for the save, babe. You should’ve been there before Jonas fell.”
“Yeah, right. You did fine.”
“I ended up at the bottom of a cliff. He was unconscious.”
“Nah, he was okay…sorta. Besides, the waterfall was hardly a cliff.”
“Good thing too. I’m lucky to have you with me.”
“I won’t let you fall,” I said, keeping hold of her arm as she started inching forward again.
“I might drag you down.”
“I’d let go first,” I said with my first chuckle in a long time.
“Thanks, Zach.” She punched me on the arm, and teetered again a little too close to the brink.
“Careful, slugger.” I steadied her. “But don’t worry, I’d come save you…again.” I threw in a wry smile for good measure.
“I know you would.”
Thankfully, the rock ledge ended soon after our exchange. The trail still wasn’t wide enough to walk side by side, but just being on dirt that was lined by heavy brush felt far safer than the precipice.
We continued several hundred yards farther before Spotted Owl waved us to a halt.
“There’s one more trail to cross, and probably sentries up ahead. I’ve called ahead to camp on the two-way, but I’d better go ahead by myself in case the guy on watch doesn’t get the message.”
“That’s all we need to cap off this night,” Austin said. He slumped back against a tree while keeping close to our mother.
She hadn’t said much for quite some time. Possibly not even the whole trip since the so-called incident, at least as far as I could remember. But she seemed to be handling herself okay. Not chipper, but as well as could be expected.
I didn’t feel like talking to anyone, and stayed off to the edge of the group. Katelyn stood at my side and took my hand. She seemed to understand that I wasn’t in a talkative mood.
John went a little farther down the trail and hopped up onto a boulder the size of a table. His parents ambled over and stood below him as they waited for Spotted Owl to return.
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, but resisted the urge to sit down. If I did, I thought I might pass out. As close as I assumed we were to the camp, I decided I could stay awake a while longer—if I could even sleep at all. After all the walking, I was pretty sure it would be lights out, toes up the minute I got to the camp, but the awful images wouldn’t stay away.
Cold leached into me. I felt like I was shriveling up like a corpse. I could almost literally see my dad’s blood pouring out of the side of his abdomen, and somehow got the idea that it was my own blood. I clamped a hand to my side to staunch the imaginary flow, but it gurgled through my fingers, babbling onto the dark ground like an unstoppable stream.
The longer I waited, the more my feet ached. But that wasn’t all. There was too much free time when I really needed to keep moving. My ribcage seemingly tightened around me like a straitjacket, making my heart hurt.
I refused to cry again. I shook my head and exhaled loudly. Katelyn looked up at me, and leaned in closer. I buried my face in her shoulder, and stroked her long brown hair.
“He needs to hurry up,” I muttered.
“He’ll be back.”
“It could be a set up,” I said, though I didn’t really believe it. Of the two strangers, Noel had seemed far more suspicious. Then again, I couldn’t help but notice that Spotted Owl had been around for all the same bad things as Noel.
My overactive mind spun off on a wholly unexpected tangent. I found myself deep in the woods after the rocket attack, watching Spotted Owl strangle Noel to keep him from sharing his secret with the others. I gasped, wondering if Spotted Owl was the double agent, or spy, or whatever.
“What’s up?” Katelyn asked me.
“Nothing.”
She looked at me disapprovingly, but didn’t press the question.
I answered anyway. “Too many movies, I guess. You remember all those secret agent ones, like with the super spies that switch sides and all that.”
Katelyn nodded, though it was easy for me to tell that she wasn’t really following. I couldn’t blame her for that. I could barely follow my own thoughts.
“Too many conspiracy theories,” I explained rather vaguely. “Sometimes they’re the only things that makes sense.”
My parents had ingrained in me the need to question everything, whether it be the motivations of people or the government. I was fortunate that I didn’t ever doubt the people closest to me, but I was never sure where to draw the line.
Thinking back, my dad should’ve been on high alert around the other two guys, but he’d seemingly welcomed Spotted Owl into the camp with open arms. I didn’t know enough about the system of dealing with the other camps to know whether I could trust the adults’ judgment. But they’d never steered me wrong. Even their rantings about the government had all proved true.
“It seems there’s more truth than fiction in conspiracies these days,” Katelyn said softly.
I wished she hadn’t just added fuel to the Spotted Owl is a traitor fire, but she made me chuckle nonetheless. “You’re not helping,” I said with a grin.
We waited quietly for what was probably just a couple more minutes. It seemed to me like an hour. My eyelids grew so heavy that I could barely lift them, but they jumped wide open when John announced, “He’s coming back. He’s got company.”
I tensed up, wondering which Spotted Owl was returning—friend or foe. My fingers tightened around the butt of my rifle, though I kept it slung over my
shoulder. Spotted Owl appeared a second later with a pair of heavily-bearded, middle-aged men.
“Alright, guys. We’re ready for you.” He waved for us to follow them. “Just had to roll out the red carpet.”
“And call off your dogs,” I mumbled, though I had noticed little trace of animosity from the two new men. They’d just eyeballed our group from a distance and offered no more than guarded nods for a greeting.
We hiked down the trail another quarter of a mile, skirting along the base of a cliff of exposed rock. On the other side, a wooded slope tumbled down into a valley well below, though we were not so close to the edge of the dropoff that I was concerned about falling.
The flat, cleared knob of Newton Bald towered over us as we made an arcing turn around the base of it. When it seemed like we were halfway around, the cliff face above us transitioned into a forested slope of dirt and scattered boulders.
Not more than fifty yards ahead, a thin ribbon of a stream tumbled off the knob. It turned out to be the staircase for climbing farther down the hill. Spotted Owl guided us in that direction. About a hundred steps later, he abruptly left the stream and headed off cross country. Shortly, we arrived at the cave.
The similarities to ours were striking. There was slightly less open ground in front of the cave, but a huge field of boulders all the same. Like our camp, it seemed as though they’d rolled down the slope at some point and made themselves into a maze on the flat ground in front of the opening.
Up under a short wall of solid rock, the cave opening showed up as dark as a blackhole. We were all drawn to the safety of the nook like an old friend.
“It’s late, and we’ve had a helluva day,” Spotted Owl said once we’d negotiated the rock field and stood under a wide opening no taller than a door. He gestured to his quiet, bearded companions. “Besides these guys, everyone’s still sleeping, so we’ll do introductions first thing in the morning.”