Escape from Fire Lake

by Robert Vernon

  Mike took a couple of steps, forcing his tired legs forward. He suddenly realized that he had stood up too fast. The heat and his own exhaustion were making him light-headed. For a moment he thought that he might pass out. He stuck out an arm to balance himself but lost his footing in the deep sand. He landed on his side and started tumbling out of control down the hill. Arms flailing, he rolled almost fifteen yards before he was able to bring himself to a stop.

  He shook his head to get the sand out of his face and looked around to see if Jake was all right. The dog was still standing where Mike had left him, intently staring at a spot on the ground between him and Mike.

  As Mike followed Jake’s gaze, his eyes went wide. It was the water bottle! It had fallen out of his pocket during the fall, and he must have rolled over it. The plastic side was cracked and caved in, water spilling out of the split.

  “No!” yelled Mike.

  Forgetting about his tired legs, he dug his toes into the sand and started to scramble back up the hill. He had to get there before it was too late!

  Time seemed to slow to a snail’s pace. As he pushed his legs as fast as they would go, his eyes watched the water bottle continue to spill its precious contents into the desert sand. Mike dove the last couple of yards and grabbed the bottle in his right hand. But it was too late. He watched as the last drop of water fell and disappeared into the all-consuming sand.

  For a moment he looked at the ground in disbelief. No! This isn’t happening!

  He dropped the empty water bottle and dug frantically into the sand, hoping that somehow he might be able to create a puddle from which to drink. But it was all in vain. The water was gone.

  His arms slowed their digging as the futility of what he was trying to do slowly sank in. He rolled over onto his back in bitter resignation and covered his face with his forearms.

  “Noooooo!” Mike screamed at the sun.

  He knew that the desert would not forgive him his mistake. Without water, he may as well have been handed a death sentence.

  Chapter 7

  “TOM, PULL MY TRUCK AROUND. I think we’ve got a lead!” Smitty ordered. He reached over and pulled his hat off a nearby coatrack. “Arlene, call Andy Anders over at the bank. Tell him to meet me out at the Last Chance Diner, pronto!”

  Smitty felt like a bloodhound on a hot trail. Although he was confident that the robbers would eventually be brought to justice, he knew that time was of the essence. The longer Mike was missing, the worse his chances of survival were.

  When Smitty and Tom pulled up to the Last Chance Diner, Andy Anders was already waiting for them. The bank manager looked a little out of place standing in the dirt parking lot in his three-piece suit. A tumbleweed made a beeline for him and snagged itself on his pant leg. He tried to kick it loose, but it hung on like a stubborn pit bull. He finally reached down in an attempt to unhook it and caught a thorn in his finger for his trouble.

  “Hey, Andy,” Smitty called as he climbed out of the truck. “Would you be able to identify a bill from the robbery if you saw it?”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem,” said Andy, sucking on his bleeding finger. “For the most part, they were consecutively numbered.”

  “Good!” Smitty said. “There’s something I want you to see.”

  Andy followed Smitty and Tom into the diner. Part of the tumbleweed was still attached to his leg.

  As they entered, all three noticed Harley sitting wide-eyed at the diner’s counter. A silly smile was stretched across his face. Before him sat a spread of food that was fit for a king.

  “Where is it, Pop?” asked Smitty, wasting no time.

  Pop pulled the hundred-dollar bill from his pocket and handed it to Smitty. “Right here.”

  In turn, Smitty passed it on to the bank manager. “Well? Is it one of yours?”

  Andy carefully took the bill and walked up to one of the windows where he could see it more clearly. They all held their breath and waited for his answer.

  “Yes! No doubt about it,” Andy finally said. He spun on his wing-tip shoes to face the others. “The numbers match. It’s definitely one of ours.”

  Smitty gave Pop a congratulatory slap on the back and then slid onto a stool next to Harley. He pulled out a pad of paper to take notes on. “So, where exactly did you find it, Harley?”

  Harley was busy eyeballing a piece of boysenberry pie Grandma Fowler had just placed in front of him.

  “Uh, you got a couple more of those?” Harley asked through a mouthful of biscuits.

  “Sure,” replied Kate, amazed that someone so thin could put away so much food.

  “And how about some ice cream on the top?” added Harley.

  “Look,” interrupted Smitty, “we’ve got a very pressing situation here—”

  “Out on 102, Sheriff. West of town,” explained Harley, spraying Smitty with biscuit crumbs. “There he was, old Ben Franklin staring up at me, pretty as you please.”

  Smitty gestured for his deputy. “Tom, get on the horn. They’re headed west.” Tom quickly exited the diner and went to the radio in the sheriff’s truck outside.

  Pop set his hands on the counter and looked across at Smitty. “Well, at least we’ve got something to go on. Any hunches, Smitty?”

  “L.A., Vegas, maybe some shack in the hills,” Smitty said, letting out a deep sigh. “I dunno, Pop.”

  Smitty flipped the pages of his notepad and mentally reviewed the clues. Winnie, Ben, and Spence approached from behind him.

  “We want to help, Sheriff,” Winnie said, a note of intensity in her voice. “Maybe Mike left a trail.”

  Smitty didn’t look up from his pad of paper. “I appreciate your wanting to help, Winnie, but, uh . . .”

  He could feel three pairs of eyes trained on his back. He set the notepad on the counter and swiveled on the stool to face the three kids. They looked like three soldiers just waiting for their marching orders. They were all business.

  They did find Mike’s compass at the motor lodge, Smitty thought. And it’s not like they’ve been getting in the way. Besides, they’re Mike’s best friends.

  “How could I say no?” Smitty finally said. “Listen, I’ve got an idea. . . .”

  Mike knew that he had to keep going. Even though it seemed like an impossible task without water, it was better than just giving up and being eventually swallowed up by the sand dunes. If that happened, his fate would forever become just another mystery. For his mom’s sake he had to try to make it back.

  He finally managed to reach the top of the sand crest he had been climbing. From that vantage he got a good look at what lay ahead. The good news was that once he made it down the other side, the sand dunes came to an end. The bad news was that all they had been hiding were miles of desolate desert that went on as far as the eye could see.

  Getting to the bottom was pretty easy. All he had to do was sit down and push. He slid down the dunes as easily as sledding down a mountain of snow. The only difference was that the sand radiated temperatures exceeding 140 degrees.

  Once they made it to the flat desert floor, Mike noticed that Jake was limping. He realized that the sand must have burned Jake’s tender paws. His own neck and face were already burned from prolonged exposure to the sun. He was afraid of what he would look like at the end of the day. But that was the least of his worries.

  They continued on, mile after aching mile. Mike didn’t know if they were getting closer to or heading farther away from civilization. He could feel each minute he spent in the sun slowly sapping him of his strength.

  After what seemed like endless hours of walking, he finally topped a rise and paused for a moment. He still had a few more hours of sunlight left, but he felt too worn out, hungry, and thirsty to continue on. With his head hanging, he fell to his knees and slowly drew the back of his hand across his parched lips. Jake let out a pitiful whimper at his side.

  “Sorry, Jake,” Mike weakly whispered. “I just gotta rest for a—”

  Something caug
ht Mike’s eye. It was just a familiar shape at first. But after squinting his bleary eyes, he was able to make it come into focus.

  “What?” Mike said, slowly rising to his feet.

  A plane sat only forty-five yards ahead. It was only a small, orange-and-white two-seater, but it was a plane nevertheless.

  Hanging around with Pop at the airfield had given Mike an informal education about airplanes. He could tell the make and model of most by sight. As he drew closer to the craft, he recognized that it was a Cessna 186, or what was left of one.

  The prop blades were twisted back crazily. One wing was almost sheared off. The tail was bent to one side, exposing a wicked tear in the back of the plane. It had obviously crash-landed. And from the looks of it, the plane had been baking in the desert for quite a few years.

  Just another casualty of the desert, Mike thought.

  At first he felt sorry for the pilot, but as he looked over the wreckage and saw no sign of dried blood, he guessed that there had been no casualties. The pilot had probably radioed his position before going down and was picked up within a few short hours.

  Mike wished that it could be that easy for him. Although he was sure that search parties were looking for him, how could they possibly know he was this far from home?

  He slid through the gaping hole in the side of the airplane and made his way to the cockpit. The seats had been stripped of their cushions, probably by desert mice trying to insulate their nests.

  Mike sat on the rusted springs of the pilot’s seat and examined the instrument panel. Surprisingly, the gauges were all still intact. Mike guessed that the wreck was too deep in the desert for anyone to be interested in salvaging it. He flipped on all the switches, on the outside chance that the radio might still work—but the batteries had long since died.

  Giving up, he searched the entire airplane, going through all of its small compartments and looking under the scattered debris on the floor. But in the end he came up with nothing that would come in handy.

  When Mike finally exited the airplane, he found Jake lying in the cool shade of the wing.

  “Well, Jake,” Mike said, looking down at the dog. “We’re not flying out of here.”

  Jake managed a few weak barks in reply.

  “Yeah, I know how you feel,” Mike said with a sigh. “I’m all tuckered out, too. If nothing else, this plane gives off some pretty good shade. And if a sandstorm should blow in tonight, we can just climb inside for shelter. I vote we bed down here for the night.”

  Jake seemed to understand and barked his approval.

  Reaching down to pet the dog, Mike noticed a nylon strap half-buried in the sand. He reached over and tried to pick it up, but it was anchored to something below the surface. Mike knelt down and started to scoop the sand away. Once he had dug a foot below the surface, Mike discovered that the strap was secured to a bright orange barrel-shaped plastic container.

  Pulling it free from the sand, Mike inspected the container until he found that it was made up of two halves that screwed together. Twisting both halves, Mike easily opened the container and carefully poured out its contents onto the ground. Mike couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw what was inside. Before him lay a flare gun, six unused flare cartridges, an instruction booklet, and a box of safety matches. Mike picked up the gun and held it in his hands in disbelief.

  “Jake!” Mike exclaimed excitedly. “This is our ticket home!”

  Chapter 8

  SMITTY’S PLAN AS TO HOW the kids might help the investigation was not only simple, it also made a lot of sense. He had a hunch that the hundred-dollar bill Harley had found was not the only one out there. If he knew Mike like he thought he did, then the kid just might have managed to leave some sort of trail.

  He was already shorthanded back in town, which left the job up to him to do. He knew his vision wasn’t what it used to be, so he decided to let the kids do the eye straining for him. Together they would be able to cover at least three times the territory he could by himself.

  Smitty asked the kids to go get their quad runners and meet him out on the highway. Once they had gathered at the spot where Harley had found the bill, Smitty had the kids spread out a few yards away from each other. Their job was to slowly make their way down the highway and scour the brush on the shoulder for any remaining clues. Smitty followed in his police pickup, the light bar flashing, warning any motorists to slow down and make way.

  Within an hour, they found three more hundred-dollar bills, each about a mile apart. Although it was exciting to be on the trail, Smitty knew they would never be able to catch up to the robbers at their current snail’s pace.

  Smitty looked out through his windshield and studied the horizon. It would be getting dark in an hour or so. Soon he would have to call off the search for the day.

  Spence pulled his quad into a sharp U-turn and peered at a bush he had just passed.

  “Hey! Over here!” Spence called. He climbed off his quad runner and, kneeling on all fours, reached under a small pile of tumbleweeds. He pulled out another bill and waved it triumphantly over his head for the others to see.

  “Great work, Spence!” Ben yelled. “That makes five!”

  As Spence took a closer look at the bill, his face registered a look of surprise. “Wait a minute! Guys! Come here, quick!”

  Winnie and Ben turned their quads around and headed to Spence’s position. He ran up to meet them and excitedly handed the bill to Winnie. “Look!” Spence exclaimed, pointing at the bill.

  Ben craned his neck over Winnie’s shoulder to get a look. “Whoa!” was all he could say.

  Smitty pulled the truck up alongside them. “What have you got there?” he asked.

  Winnie handed the bill through the window and simply said, “Mike!”

  At first Smitty saw nothing uncommon about the bill. But flipping it over he found that a handwritten message had been quickly scribbled on the back. It read, “Army truck. M.”

  As the afternoon temperatures started to cool, Mike lay with Jake, resting in the shadow of the abandoned plane. With his head propped against its aluminum side, he watched the sun slowly begin to sink behind a desert mesa.

  It was the first time that day he had allowed his body to really relax. As he lay there breathing deeply, he noticed that the grumbling in his stomach was turning into outright hunger pangs.

  He had to find something to eat soon. But where?

  Thinking back on all the miles they had covered that day, he could not remember seeing another living thing—aside from an occasional sand fly buzzing by—out in the dunes. He closed his eyes and decided that he would worry about finding a source of food the next day.

  It was then that he heard it.

  The sound seemed to be coming from inside the airplane. It was a slight brushing sound—not like a twig in the wind, but like something that was slowly moving about. He quietly got to his feet and looked into the airplane cabin. Everything was just as he had left it, and no movement caught his eye. He waited and listened until he heard it again.

  This time he circled the aircraft, searching all of its outer walls for any signs of life. He had almost completed his circle and was nearing the tail of the plane when he saw a small cloud of dust rise from under the base of the plane.

  He quietly knelt down to see where the dust was coming from and discovered a small six-inch-wide hole. It was obviously an entrance to some kind of lair under the airplane. Something had found a safe haven from the sun and was moving around down there—maybe even coming out now that it was cooling off.

  Jake came walking around the corner to see what was up. Mike put his finger to his lips. “Shhh.” He motioned for Jake to follow him, and they hid behind a small rise.

  Mike had wanted food, and maybe this was the answer. As much as he didn’t like the idea of eating a prairie-dog burger, he knew that he had to assume that this might be the last opportunity he would get to eat anything.

  After a few minutes his patience pai
d off. At first only a snout was visible. Then the mouth opened to allow a long black tongue to taste the air. And then it crept forward, its entire body coming into view.

  It was the biggest, scaliest lizard Mike had ever seen. From nose to tail it had to be over two feet long. It paused for a moment, cautiously looking around, and then slowly crawled away from the plane.

  Mike had seen a few Gila monsters in the desert before. They were brightly marked with orange-and-black spots and had a terribly poisonous bite. This, however, was no Gila monster. It was slate gray with large, dime-sized scales.

  He and Jake followed the lizard at a distance. Either they were not seen, or the lizard didn’t care that it was being watched. It finally crawled up onto a large rock to sun itself in the last rays of the day.

  Mike hated to have to kill any living creature, but if he planned to survive, he didn’t have much of a choice.

  He had read stories of plane crash survivors eating bugs and snails and other disgusting things to survive. With that in mind, he didn’t think lizard meat would be all that bad. Besides, it would probably just taste like chicken.

  Mike snuck up behind the lizard. He found a large rock and decided it would make an appropriate weapon. But in his weakened state, Mike’s throw missed his target by a mile. The lizard gave him a disgusted look and slowly scampered away.

  Mike told Jake to keep an eye on the lizard while he went to find a more suitable weapon. Returning to the airplane, Mike fashioned a crude spear out of some loose parts. A jagged piece of aluminum made up the head of the spear, and the shaft was a three-foot metal rod. It was all tied together with one of Mike’s own shoestrings. It wasn’t much to look at, but it would do the job.

  After several valiant attempts, Mike realized that he wasn’t a javelin thrower either. Each of his throws fell either far short or wide of the lizard. The sun would be going down soon, which meant that he didn’t have much time left and would have to abandon the subtle approach.