The Complete Screech Owls, Volume 5

by Roy MacGregor

  “He’s lost a lot of blood,” Sarah said after a while. “We have to get him out of here.”

  “And how do we do that?” said Nish with unnecessary sarcasm.

  “We have to get help,” she said. “If we don’t get help soon, it’s going to be bad.”

  “How bad?” asked Fahd, who always asked the questions no one else would.

  Sarah didn’t answer. There were tears in her eyes.

  “What do we do?” Travis asked.

  “Someone’s going to have to hike out,” she said. “If they can’t find us, we’re going to have to get someplace where we can find them.”

  “I’ll go,” said Travis, suddenly brave.

  “And me,” said Rachel.

  Sarah shook her head. “Rachel has to stay. We’ll need water and food for him if he comes around, and she’s the best at that.”

  “I’ll help,” said Sam.

  “I’ll take care of the fire,” said Fahd.

  Sarah looked up at Travis and Nish. “That leaves you two,” she said. “Do you think you can do it?”

  “We don’t know what to do!” said an exasperated Nish.

  “Take the orange tarp,” said Rachel. “It’s big and it’s bright, and if they can’t see that, they can’t see anything.”

  “But where do we go?” asked Travis, beginning to get unnerved.

  “Follow the little creek to the big one,” said Rachel. “Water always flows to more water. It’s in an easterly direction. My guess is it will take you out to the Crow River, eventually. If you don’t find Muck, there will be other trippers going through.”

  “And if not,” added Sarah, “you’d need to find a high point of land – a bluff, maybe – where you could put out the tarp so one of the planes might see it.”

  “We’ll keep a smoky fire going here,” said Fahd. “And we’ll be west of where they pick you up.”

  “Good point, Fahd,” said Sarah. “If they find you two, they’ll find us.”

  “What if they find you before they find us?” Nish suddenly wailed.

  “I intend to say you were never with us,” said Sam, her joke relieving some of the tension.

  “You would!” snarled Nish. “C’mon, Trav, let’s save everybody! Just like we always have to!”

  22

  The going was rough. They had a pack holding the large orange tarpaulin, some berries and a change of clothes for each – Nish still having to live with Sam’s sequin madness – and they had only the vaguest idea of where they were heading.

  Nish seemed to have forgotten entirely that he was dressed so oddly. Travis no longer even considered it funny. They were tired, but they were also determined to get where they needed to be.

  They followed the creek. At times it was barely a trickle, at others the flow was so strong it seemed it would be only a turn or two before they came out onto a river. But whenever they got their hopes up, the flow returned to a trickle.

  Several times they headed down false leads, only to have to come back to where the creek had split and try again.

  The growth along the sides of the ever-widening creek was dense and thick and difficult. There were hawthorns, with sharp stabbing pricks, scratching raspberry bushes, and thistles. Travis and Nish were hot and sticky and the bugs were terrible.

  Nish hardly said a word. Normally, Travis thought, his friend would be moaning and complaining at every setback, but not this time. Nish ground ahead with that look of determination Travis knew so well from important hockey games, when all of a sudden, much to everyone’s surprise, Nish would quit playing the fool and become the hardest-working member of the team and the very best teammate in the world.

  Nish pushed on, his chubby butt making the copper-stud heart on the back of his borrowed cutoffs wiggle from side to side, but Travis couldn’t even bring himself to smile. He was proud of Nish, and glad to follow him.

  They paused for a break, the boys cupping cold water in their hands and letting it run down the backs of their necks. They opened the pack and ate some berries, careful to keep a good portion for later, when they would need it more.

  Travis lay down on an open spot along the bank, closing his eyes. When he opened them, he thought he was having a vision.

  He could see something in the distance that seemed to rise twice as high as the highest pines.

  “What’s that?” Travis asked.

  “Some kind of tower, I guess.”

  Travis sat up fast. “It’s a fire tower.”

  “A what?”

  “A fire tower – they were marked on the big map when we started out, remember?”

  “No.”

  “They were built all through the park to watch for fires in the old days. But they do it all by airplane now. Some of the towers are still standing, though – they’re tourist attractions for the canoe trippers.”

  “Big deal,” said Nish.

  “It is a big deal. If we can climb up and unfurl the tarp like a flag, a plane is sure to see it.”

  “I’m not climbing nothing,” said Nish. “I don’t like heights, remember?”

  “I’ll do it,” Travis said. “I don’t mind.”

  They made for the fire tower. Occasionally it was lost from view, but then a break would come in the tree cover and they’d see it again, looming above a nearing hill. Travis was astonished at how high it was.

  “You wouldn’t catch me going up something like that for all the money in the world,” said Nish.

  They arrived at a dried creek bed that came down from the hill and now were able to make good time. Travis was so excited he began to run, jumping from rock to rock. He could see this working, could see the planes spotting their sign. He even saw Jake Tyler being rescued in time. He was no longer scared. He was happy, full of hope.

  And then he fell.

  “This is just not happening to me!”

  “There’s no other way,” Travis said. His sandal had skidded on a rock he’d been leaping to, and his ankle had twisted. Badly.

  He thought at first it was broken; the pain was so intense he cried. He was not ashamed to cry. It hurt that much.

  He tried to put some weight on it and decided it wasn’t broken, but it was probably sprained. He could only hobble. He couldn’t continue up the creek bed very quickly, and he certainly couldn’t climb the fire tower.

  “You have to,” he said to Nish.

  “I can’t. You know that!”

  Travis did know. Nish was petrified of heights.

  “There’s no other way,” Travis said again.

  “I can’t,” Nish repeated. He was openly bawling now.

  “It’s not for me,” said Travis. “It’s for Jake.”

  Nish said nothing. He was clutching the edge of the tarp and staring up at the fire tower. He was shaking. Travis played the last card he held. “Jake will die, Nish … he’ll die if you don’t give him a chance.”

  Nish’s sequin-covered chest was heaving now he was crying so hard. Tears were pouring out of him and his cheeks were tomato-red. Travis didn’t think he had ever seen his friend in such bad shape.

  “Jake will die,” he repeated.

  Nish didn’t say a word. He picked up the tarp, stuffed it into his own pack, pulled the pack on, shifted it around, and turned to climb up the fire tower.

  23

  Nish tried to convince himself he was just climbing some stairs. He told himself he was going to bed, that he was walking up to the science lab at Lord Stanley Public School, that he was simply heading up into the stands at the Tamarack rink.

  But it was no use. He knew exactly where he was. There was a sign posted at the bottom of the fire tower: Keep Off! Extreme Danger. Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted.

  Nish found the sign amusing, at least. If only the police were here to arrest him, then he wouldn’t have to do it. If only there were video cameras watching the fire tower, he would just have to stand in front of it and wave.

  The wooden steps were rickety and rotten. So
me were broken. Nish adjusted his pack and began climbing, his eyes shut tight, refusing, at all costs, to look down. The only metal in the entire structure would be the nails, and he wasn’t sure about them. The wood had rotted away around many of them. Others were missing.

  “I’m gonna die,” he said out loud. “Simple as that – I am going to die!”

  He worked his way up slowly. He tried to think of nothing but the climb: first one hand, then the other, one step at a time, stop and rest whenever necessary, don’t forget to breathe, NEVER LOOK DOWN, NO MATTER WHAT.

  He kept count as he climbed. It seemed to calm his mind. He counted out loud.

  “… Forty-one … forty-two … forty-three …

  “… Seventy-six … seventy-seven … seventy-eight …”

  He would soon reach a hundred. He could feel the wind up here. He could feel – he was sure! – the structure swaying in the wind. He wondered if he was the only person in history who had ever climbed a fire tower with his eyes shut.

  Hand over hand, foot over foot – up, up, up he climbed.

  The wind was sharper now, buffeting him and forcing him to stop more often to gather his breath.

  “… Ninety-one … ninety-two … ninety-three …

  “… One hundred and twelve … one hundred and thirteen … one hundred and fourteen …”

  His head hit something.

  Nish opened his eyes. He could see forever. It was as if he were flying. He could see white pines reaching up far, far above the rest of the forest, but none of them nearly as high as him. He could see distant hills, blue in the haze. He could see clouds.

  He had reached the cabin at the top of the tower. It had seemed so small from the ground, but now that he was at the top, he was surprised at how large it was. Like a small cottage in the sky.

  He hurried up through an open trap door and onto the platform surrounding the lookout cabin. He dared not look down.

  “I’m going to pass out,” he said to himself. “I’m going to fall down right here and never get up again. I’m going to curl up into a ball and cry until someone climbs up and saves me …”

  But there was no one to save him. No one at all.

  He muscled off his pack, pulled out the orange tarp, and carefully unfolded it. The wind was gusting hard up here. It snapped at the corners of the tarp, the sound like gunfire as Nish tried to open it up. He’d have to tie it down.

  There were plastic ties already on the tarp. He tied as many as he could to a small flagpole on the platform, and when he thought it was solid enough, he let it go.

  The tarp roared out into the wind, snapping viciously off the end of the platform.

  Nish ducked back down, leaning hard against the little cabin. The cabin! He thought. I can get in out of the wind.

  He reached up, still on his knees, and tried the door. It gave.

  The cabin was a mess: old pots and pans, mouse nests, faded newspapers and curled and torn magazines, a single chair, a small table, some built-in cupboards. The names of previous visitors had been scribbled or carved everywhere. Most people had added dates, and they shocked him – 1947, 1938, 1952, 1961 – all long before he was even born.

  How long would it be, he wondered, before this whole thing toppled in the wind?

  He was too tired to care. He lay on the floor, staring up out of the window, and tried to shut out the screaming of the wind and the violent snapping of the tarp.

  Nish must have fallen asleep. He had no idea how long he had been lying there. It might have been hours. It might have been only a few minutes. But suddenly he was wide awake. The snapping had stopped.

  Nish got unsteadily to his feet and forced himself to the window, staring out at the pole.

  The tarp was gone! It must have just happened, because when he looked out he could see it flying like a leaf through the air, swinging one way then the other as it fell. It must have been the sudden silence that had woken him. He hadn’t tied it tightly enough!

  Nish fell to his knees, sobbing. He had failed everyone. He had killed Jake Tyson.

  And then he heard another sound, distant at first, like a low growl. He crawled back to the window, got to his knees, and looked out, scanning the hills.

  The tarp was still in the air, but beyond it there was something yellow.

  One of the rangers’ Otters – a search-and-rescue plane.

  It banked sharply to avoid the flying orange tarp then turned again towards the fire tower.

  Nish suddenly found himself on his feet. He was pulling open the door and jumping out onto the platform, waving madly and screaming. “HERE! HERE! HERE! SAVE ME! SAVE ME! SAVE ME!”

  The yellow Otter was coming straight for him, then banked away.

  “NOOOOOO!” Nish screamed. “I’M HERE! IT’S ME – NISH!!!”

  The plane banked again, then tipped its wings twice at him. The plane turned sharply right in front of Nish and he could see the pilot. He was giving Nish the thumbs-up.

  He’d been seen!

  “I’M A HERO!!” Nish screamed into the howling wind.

  And then he looked below.

  He still had to get down.

  24

  Travis was aware of nothing but the two slim arms around him.

  He thought he was going to burst.

  He thought he was going to die – absolutely happy.

  The hug was from Rachel. It had followed the hug from Sam, which had followed the hug from Sarah – and somewhere in there had been a backslap from Fahd – but this one was different. Travis was certain his feelings would be written all over his face when she finally let go of him.

  If she ever let go …

  The Screech Owls were back together. The Natural Resources yellow rescue helicopter had touched down by the fire tower, and Travis, with his ankle swelled up like a balloon, had been waiting at the foot of the wooden steps when the two rangers ducked under the slowing blades of the big chopper and came running towards him.

  At first they thought he was alone. They figured he had twisted his ankle coming down the ladder.

  That’s when Travis told the rangers there were two of them – that Nish was still somewhere up above. Travis hadn’t heard a word from his pal since he’d seen the big orange plastic tarp go sailing off into the wind just before the search-and-rescue plane made its wide turn and tipped its wings twice to signal they’d been seen.

  The rangers had to climb the tower and lead Nish down as if he were blind and helpless. One came down just ahead of him, carefully placing Nish’s feet on each step, while the other followed close behind, a rope tied from his shoulders around Nish’s thick waist.

  Nish climbed down with his eyes closed.

  Travis couldn’t help but giggle. The rangers must have wondered about Nish’s sequinned sweatshirt and cutoffs with the copper-stud heart on the butt.

  If they thought it odd – and surely they did – they were too polite to poke fun at him. They got Nish down and helped him lie on the ground, and Travis knew at once that the old Nish was back.

  “My energy’s down,” he heard Nish whine to the rangers. “You didn’t bring any chocolate bars, did you?”

  The helicopter dropped them back at their old campsite on Big Crow Lake. The others had already been rescued – Fahd, Sam, Sarah, and Rachel none the worse for wear – and the rest of the Screech Owls had been flown in from the river near Lake Laveille, Muck’s treasured fishing lake.

  The two older rangers, Tom McCormick and Jerry Kennedy, were still at the campsite, and the two younger rangers, Dick Chancey and André Girard, had just come back from helping airlift Jake Tyson out. Medics aboard the chopper had whisked the injured hockey star out to Tamarack, where he was put on an air ambulance that flew him straight to hospital down south.

  “He’ll live,” André told the group. “He may never play hockey again, but he’ll live.”

  Travis was certain he saw Muck flinch. Muck would be thinking about how his own leg got smashed so many years ago and
what it had done to his NHL dreams.

  “Why didn’t he ask us for help?” Sam said.

  André shrugged.

  “He came to when we were airlifting him out,” Dick said. “He seemed terrified of us. I don’t think he knew who he was or where he was or who we were. He had a tremendous bump on his forehead.”

  “Amnesia is a funny thing,” said the older ranger, Mr. Kennedy. “You never know how people will act or when they’ll snap out of it.”

  Travis tried to imagine what it would be like not to remember anything of his past. Not his family, his grandparents, all the hockey and lacrosse teams he’d played on, the Screech Owls, Muck, Mr. Dillinger, all the tournaments they’d played in and all the fabulous places they’d visited …

  Or Rachel.

  No, he decided. It wouldn’t matter how hard he hit his head – he’d never forget Rachel.

  25

  Life had returned to normal.

  The Owls were back home in Tamarack. The newspapers were reporting that Jake Tyson, the rookie hero of the previous spring’s Stanley Cup final, had recovered his memory and was in rehabilitation for his damaged leg. He was sure he’d be back on the ice by Christmas. The first week of school was over and Nish had already raised his hand in science class and asked Mr. Schultz if there was any scientific proof that fish farted under water.

  Best of all, the ice was back in at the Tamarack Memorial Arena and the Owls were getting ready for the new season.

  Travis had walked down to the rink early on Saturday morning, just to take in the familiar sights and sounds and smells of his favourite place on earth. The rink had been freshly flooded, the new ice gleaming like a white sheet of paper waiting for Travis and the Owls to begin writing out the story of their new season. Mr. Dillinger was at his regular spot at the far end of the dressing room, his skate-sharpening machine open and running, a long arc of red and orange sparks flying off the end of one of Sarah’s skate blades.

  One by one, the Owls came in for the first practice, Nish dumping his hockey equipment down like it had spent the summer at the bottom of one of the town sewers, Sam and Sarah setting up beside each other on one side, Travis on the other, where he could have the best view of the entire room. They were all there – Fahd, Lars, Dmitri, Jeremy, Jenny with a new set of pads, Gordie grumbling that his skates were too small, Simon claiming he’d grown a full inch over the summer … even Data was already set up, his laptop computer glowing with the promise of a new breakout pattern for the team.