“We can build our fire inside the cave,” said Justin, “and the smoke’ll go up through the gap—like a natural chimney.”
“What about crawling creatures?” Janie asked.
Justin laughed. “They’ll always be with us. We just have to be on the watch for the dangerous ones, like scorpions. That’s one of the first things we do wherever we bed down. Check for creepy crawlers and sweep them out of our space. After that, the fire should keep them away.”
Both girls grimaced. They shuddered at the thought of scorpions and because of the cold evening air. “J.J. Flack might not be so bad after all,” said Janie.
“A scorpion is a scorpion,” said Rachel, “and some are human.”
Justin was already busy preparing to start a fire. As they hiked, he’d found a small flexible limb for a bow, and now he removed his shoelace to serve as a bow string. He also carried two other pieces of wood: a hickory stick about a foot-and-a-half long, and a flat, dry piece of softwood he’d found under a fallen pine. He notched a hole in the softwood, wrapped the bow string around the hickory stick and then strung the bow. Finally he laid the stick near the hole and looked up at the girls. “How many pairs of socks are you guys wearing?”
“Three,” they both said at once, “like you said.”
“Good, one of you unravel a ball of yarn from the top of one of your socks.” When he was met with two puzzled expressions, he added, “For tinder, to start the fire. Then both of you go out and gather kindling—small, thin, branches. It’ll probably be damp, but maybe you can find some that was protected from the snow. If we can get the fire going, we can dry out the rest. Then we need larger pieces of wood, all you can carry. There seems to be a lot of downed trees and broken limbs. It shouldn’t be a problem. But first the ball of yarn, and then I’ll help you get more wood.”
After the girls had gone, he spread the small tarp on the floor of the cave and went out to search for a rock or a flat piece of hardwood to serve as a socket to hold the hickory drill. He found a small round rock with an indentation in the center and returned to the cave about the same time as the girls who had their arms full of kindling.
“Janie’s got the dry stuff,” said Rachel.
“Good, good,” said Justin. He then inserted the hickory drill into the yarn-filled hole in the soft pine, capped the drill with the socket for stability, and began to twill the entire apparatus with the bow string. He twilled faster and faster, stopping occasionally for a rest. When he realized no spark was forming, he got to his feet and said, “It’s never easy. Let’s go out and get some logs. I’ll try again when we get back. Probably better to have some logs on hand anyway. Might burn through the kindling faster than we think.”
When they returned, they all carried chunks of wood of various shapes and sizes, and they dumped them just inside the mouth of the cave. “Now, let’s get this thing started,” said Justin. He knelt and readjusted the ball of yarn tinder and then grasped the socket with his left hand and began to twill the drill with the bow. This time puffs of smoke rose quickly from the hole and Justin squealed happily. When the smoke increased, a tiny red ember began to form in the tinder. He quickly reached down and plucked out the smoking tinder and cupped it in his hands. He began to blow on it until it emitted a soft puff and burst into flames. He carefully placed the fire under the driest kindling, and they all watched as the kindling converted the fragile fire into a significant blaze. They waited a few minutes and then added the smallest and thinnest logs to the fire; and after the cave was filled with light and heat, they added the heavier logs.
“That’s the bow and drill method,” said Justin. “Think you guys could do it?”
Both nodded. “I think so,” said Rachel.
“Now five or six more trips for wood,” said Justin. “It’ll be a long night.”
“And then we divide our tuna sandwich and chips three ways,” said Rachel, “and melt some snow for drinking water. Has anybody thought about what we’re going to use to hold the snow?”
Justin smiled and reached into his coat and removed a bowl-shaped turtle shell about six inches in diameter. “I found this a ways back. The former occupant isn’t using it any longer. I’ll clean it out, boil it for a good long time, and we’ve got our pot.”
“You’re amazing,” said Janie.
“No, just trained.”
Later, when they were curled up together for warmth, watching the smoke from their fire drift through the crack in the cave’s ceiling, Justin said, “This is the best it’s going to be. It’s going to get worse from now on.”
“And we’re out of food,” said Rachel.
“We can go quite awhile without food,” said Justin, “but I’ve got some ideas.”
“Like what?” asked Janie.
“How do you guys feel about grubs, termites, lizards, and snails?”
“They sound delicious,” said Rachel.
He chuckled. “And rabbits and snakes?”
“Rabbits, okay,” said Janie, making a face, “but I’m not eating snakes.”
“You will if you get hungry enough,” said Justin.
“I thought snakes hibernated in winter,” said Rachel.
“They do, but we might come on a winter den. If so, there might be hundreds of them—rattlesnakes mainly.”
“Oh, no,” said Janie.
“Not likely, though,” said Justin. “But we might see one or two out and about if it warms up.”
“How do we stay away from winter dens?” asked Janie.
“Avoid south-facing hillsides. That’s mostly where they are.”
“I hate rattlesnakes. In fact, I hate all snakes,” said Janie.
“They taste like chicken,” said Justin.
16
Pursuit
Chuky shined his powerful flashlight into the pit at the back of the mine. The ancient downshaft seemed bottomless, but he knew it wasn’t. He had tossed a rock in and had heard it hit bottom; but it had taken a long time to do so, and he knew the hole was very, very deep. He turned the light toward the rocky ledge about thirty or forty feet down. Was that blood? Had the boy struck the ledge as he was falling? It was a possibility. But where were Karl and Brian? What was going on? What had happened here?”
On the logging road, he had found the SUV with the smashed window. Not too hard to figure that out. The twins had done it, probably to get supplies. But supplies for what? Surely they weren’t trying to go up into the high country. They weren’t stupid, but maybe they were. And where were Karl and Brian? Had they gone after the girls?
He knelt to examine the tracks at the edge of the pit. There were so many and they were so smudged it was impossible for him to determine what had gone on here. Surely the boy was gone—over the lip and into the shaft. He couldn’t have fought off two adults the size of Karl and Brian. Had the girls followed the trio into the mine? The tracks outside appeared as if they might have done so; but again it was difficult to say for certain because of the snow melt and the tramping that had occurred. And even if the twins had made it inside, what could they have done? They would have been too late; and they would have been too small and too ineffective to have accomplished anything. But where were the guards?
He was puzzled. He knew he needed to get back to the SUV and look for clues on the logging road. Maybe the tracks there would be more readable, and he could then give a report to the Prophet that was meaningful.
The main search party had not yet left Bitterroot Camp. The Prophet wanted to wait for the rest of the security staff and for the men from Missoula to arrive so there would be enough hunters to thoroughly scour the upper mountain trails. He was concerned that if the net wasn’t spread wide enough, the twins might somehow slip through the mesh. He did, however, send Chuky on ahead with instructions to pick up any signs or tracks and to be prepared to direct the main party. The Prophet also took Elder Mobly’s advice and sent people to watch the lower trails and the road that led to the highway in case the girls had do
ubled back.
Three men from the security staff in Sheba had flown to Missoula during the night and had driven to Bitterroot Camp, arriving before dawn. As directed, they had come prepared for an expedition into the high country; and after stowing their gear, they were now stretched out on the couches in the great room, trying to catch up on lost sleep.
The four Missoula men arrived at nine in the morning. They were not members of the Sheba Temple. Their loyalty was to their own needs and to their own welfare. And one of their needs was money, and lots of it, which the Prophet provided in abundance. All of the men had spent time in the Montana State Prison system in either max or close custody, and all were ready to do whatever their employer required.
The Prophet gathered his searchers on the back deck: the two remaining guards from Bitterroot Camp, the four Missoula men, and the three guards from Sheba Hill—nine men, eleven including himself and Chuky who was still up on the logging road. Mobly and the other senior elders, as well as the women and the peripheral members were busy guarding the lower trails.
“There’ll be eleven of us when we meet Chuky,” the Prophet said, “thirteen when we find Karl and Brian. That should be enough—more than enough. The first one to spot the twins gets a two-thousand-dollar bonus.”
One of the newly-arrived temple guards said, “Does that go for all of us?”
“Yes, all of you, so keep a sharp eye.”
By mid-morning the three pre-teens had progressed to a position at least four miles beyond the cave where they had spent a cozy, if somewhat cramped night. They had by now worked out all the kinks in their muscles and joints, and the girls were making sounds of hunger and thirst.
“You won’t be thirsty much longer,” said Justin.
“Are we going to build another fire? Melt snow?” Rachel asked.
“Not necessary, listen.” In the distance they could hear a faint rumble, a continuous low growl.
“Is that a bear?” Janie asked in a weak voice.
“No, hopefully the bears are still napping—though once in a while one will wake up and go for a stroll. We’ll have to watch out for him. And anyway, when bears roar they stop for air. This sound goes on and on. What we hear is a river or a stream. Listen.” The growl in the distance was constant, unchanging. “A small or medium-sized stream, I think.”
They hiked for another fifteen minutes and then broke through the trees onto a smooth, gently sloping bank that led down to a crystal-clear stream about forty feet across.
“Can we drink?” said Janie.
“You bet,” said Justin. “People in cities pay good money for water this pure.”
They drank their fill, leaning over the bank in an easily accessed spot near a small pool. When they were finished, Justin got to his feet and walked to the pool. “Look,” he said, “fish—Rainbow Trout.” The girls joined him and saw ten or twelve fish darting in and out of the pool formed by a natural rock dam.
“Can we catch one?” asked Rachel.
“Not as easy as it looks,” Justin said. “If we had time I could carve a hardwood hook, twist bark into a fishing line, improvise bait of some kind. But all that would take too long. We need to keep moving. I do have an idea though.” He went back to the tree line, cut a stout sapling, and began to sharpen the point to form a spear.”
“You’re going to spear a fish?” asked Rachel.
“I’m going to try.”
He stepped to the edge of the pool and made several determined thrusts at the trout. He was unsuccessful, and when the water cleared, it was apparent he had succeeded only in driving the fish from the pool. When the trout returned, he tried again, this time with more and more energy, until, breathing heavily, he collapsed on the bank. “Can’t do it,” he said. “The tricky little devils are too fast.”
“You tried your best,” Rachel said. “Janie and I never did like fish much anyway.”
Justin jumped to his feet and hurled the spear into the pool in a final gesture of frustration and defeat. “Okay, trout, you win this time, but I’ll get you yet.” He looked up and down the stream and shook his head. “Right now we’ve got another problem. How do we get to the other side? It’s running so fast I don’t think we could wade across—and we don’t want to get soaked. That could be deadly.”
“Do we have to cross?” asked Janie.
“Eventually,” Justin said, “but for now we can follow the stream.”
As the search party trudged up the logging road, one of the two guards from Bitterroot Camp asked the Prophet, “How can two twelve-year-old girls survive out here? Bitter cold. Overnight. Food? Water? Shelter? I don’t get it. Maybe they’re dead.”
Flack glared at him.
“Maybe they’re in the mine,” said the other Bitterroot guard. “They’d be okay in there.”
“Then what about Brian and Karl?” said the first guard. “Where are they? Why didn’t they bring the twins down?”
The Missoula men and the guards from the Sheba Temple didn’t contribute to the conversation, but marched up the road silently, waiting for cues from J.J. Flack.
“We’ll see what we’ll see,” he said. “It doesn’t do any good to speculate.”
Chuky and the search party met at the SUV. The Siberian trotted up to Flack and waited to see if his boss wished to be given the report in private or if Chuky should speak in front of the others. When Flack waved his hand to indicate it was okay to begin, Chuky began to speak in a high, excited voice. “Boy alive. Twins alive. Tracks go up the road. Three sets—twins’ and boy’s. They go off into the woods, north, tricky, come back down here, cross road and go south. Very tricky.”
“I don’t get it,” said the first Bitterroot guard. “Where’re Karl and Brian? Are they after them?”
“No Karl and no Brian,” said Chuky. “No tracks up the road or in the woods.”
The Prophet frowned. “The SUV’s still here—they didn’t desert.”
“Broken window,” said Chuky. “Kids do that, no key. Karl and Brian have key.”
“But—” the Prophet began.
“I go back in mine again. Careful, careful,” said Chuky. “Try to figure out, even with bad tracks….Karl and Brian not leave mine.”
Flack blew out his breath and scowled. You mean—”
Chuky looked around uncomfortably at the large group of men surrounding him. He hesitated, but Flack made it clear that the Siberian should continue his report. “Karl and Brian down hole, not boy,” said Chuky. “Tracks messy, but no other answer possible.”
“But,” said Flack, “three kids. How in the world?”
Chuky shrugged. “Don’t know.” He pointed to the south side of the road. “They go that way.”
Flack and Chuky went down the trail and into the mine so Flack could evaluate what his enforcer had said. When they arrived back at the SUV both men seemed certain of Chuky’s assessment. “Karl and Brian are gone,” said Flack. “Let’s get moving…south. Remember the reward: two thousand to whoever spots them first. But we’re looking for three kids now. The twins and the boy.” He stared into the eyes of the waiting men. “And if the boy doesn’t survive, so be it.”
17
Survival
As the twins and Justin trekked south along the rushing stream, they could see it wasn’t narrowing as they’d hoped. If anything it was widening and producing more and more white water as it sped over rocks and boulders. “Rapids,” said Justin. “We’ll never get across here.”
“Can’t we just keep going this way?” asked Janie.
“The Continental Divide and Idaho are to the west. We need to go back the way we came, see if there’s a way across back there.”
“But we’d be heading toward whoever might be coming after us.”
“It won’t matter if we’re quick about it. We haven’t come that far.” He held out his palm. “Besides, we’ve got clouds again and we’re getting a dusting of snow. That’s good. It’ll cover our tracks.”
They hurried
back the way they’d come; and about a half mile beyond the spot where Justin had tried to spear the trout, they noticed that the stream was indeed narrowing. And better yet, a fallen tree had spanned the rushing water. Justin ran to the natural bridge and said excitedly, “Can you believe this? We can crawl across! And it’s high enough so we won’t even get our boots wet.”
The girls eyed the tree suspiciously. “Unless we slip off,” said Rachel. “You’ve got to remember, Justin, that we’re not trained monkeys like you are.”
Justin laughed. “No, no. It’s not that hard. Use the muscles in your legs. Watch me. The limb’s small enough to wrap your legs around, and it looks strong enough to hold us—if we go one at a time. Watch.” He edged out on the log, riding it like he would a pony. After he’d progressed several feet he looked back at the twins and said, “See, it’s easy. Just keep scooting until you reach the other side.” Then without turning around again, he completed his trip to the opposite bank. He hopped triumphantly off the log and called out, “See! I told you! Now who’s first?”
Rachel said, “Go ahead, Janie, you always had more monkey in you than me.”
Stepping forward, Janie said, “Well, I’m not afraid.”
Rachel snorted. “Afraid? Me? No way!” And she pushed her sister aside and straddled the log. “Here I go.” She inched across, much more slowly than Justin had, but soon she, too, was on the other side of the stream.
Janie, having watched precisely how her two companions had made the transit, scooted across in record time, even faster than Justin had managed. When she jumped off, she said to Rachel, “I could’ve come over and gone back three times while you were crossing.” She punched her sister playfully.
“I told you you had more monkey in you than me,” said Rachel.
The light snow was continuing, and Justin said, “Perfect. They’ll have a tough time following us now.”
RUNAWAY TWINS (Runaway Twins series #1) Page 7