Escape from Fire Lake

by Robert Vernon

  Jake’s barking brought Mike back to reality. Somehow he felt strangely refreshed, his spirit had found new courage. “I’ve got to . . . get up, Jake,” Mike said with conviction. “Got to get off the ground and—”

  It slowly dawned on Mike that he was already off the ground. In fact, he was standing! “I’m up. I’m up?” He didn’t know how he had gotten that way, but he wasn’t going to waste time figuring it out. He was just thankful he wasn’t still lying there dying. “Okay . . . great . . . We’re movin’.”

  Mike began trudging forward up the steep incline. Somehow he had found, or been given, a second wind. He shook his head in wonder and let out a slight laugh. He was still alive and moving. And it felt good.

  “Kinda like the tortoise and the hare. You ever hear that story, Jake? We’re two tortoises—torti. And this hill is ours!”

  It took Mike all of ten minutes to scale the back side of the hill. The whole way he kept his mind busy telling Jake the story “The Tortoise and the Hare.” The tale was just winding to a close when they finally reached the summit. “So the hare jumps up and races for the finish line. But he was too late because the tortoise never—” Mike stopped in his tracks and got a strange look on his face. “He never gave up.” The words escaped over his lips.

  He was now standing at the edge of a cliff that overlooked a valley. And the sight of what was in it took Mike’s breath away.

  It was a town! No more than half a mile away! From his vantage on the cliff he could actually see cars driving around on the streets. And pools! Big, blue backyard pools just bursting with sparkling water!

  It’s too good to be true, he told himself. It can’t be real. It’s gotta be some kind of crazy mirage! He closed his eyes tightly and then slowly opened them again, afraid that it would all be gone. But it was still there.

  “Yes! Ha-ha! We’re back!” he cried. “Do you see it, Jake? Do you see it?”

  Jake happily barked his reply.

  Overcome with emotion, Mike knelt beside his dog and wrapped his arms around him in a huge bear hug. Burying his face deep in Jake’s fur, he laughed uncontrollably and wept tears of joy.

  Finally releasing his hold, he stood to his feet and pulled the jade statuette out of his pocket. He triumphantly thrust it into the air, like a victorious athlete holding high his hard-won trophy. “Mike is back, and he’s got evidence!” he yelled for the world to hear. “You don’t mess with the Last Chance Detectives!”

  Mike made his way slowly down the rocky cliff face. He had come too far and fought too hard to allow a careless slip to ruin things now. He followed small critter trails that zigzagged their way across the sandstone face. It wasn’t the shortest way down, but it was definitely the safest. Sometimes the trails were several feet wide; sometimes they disappeared altogether, and Mike had to make things up for a while. But as long as he was making progress, he was satisfied. With the finish line just in front of him, he felt reenergized.

  “I’m gonna drink sixteen gallons of water,” Mike fantasized out loud. “Then I want five hamburgers—no, cheeseburgers—great big juicy cheeseburgers with extra pickles and a mountain of secret sauce, five chocolate shakes, and a banana split—”

  He started to stumble but regained his footing. He decided that he’d better rest for a moment and not let his enthusiasm get the best of him. “Let’s take a breather, Jake,” Mike said over his shoulder. “The town can wait a few more minutes—it’s not going anywhere.”

  He steadied himself on a large boulder and then carefully sat down beside it on a foot-wide ledge. Jake sat down beside him, a happy look on his face. With his feet dangling over the edge, Mike leaned slowly over to see what was below. The cliff fell off another sixty feet. Large jagged rocks and dark chasms where the rock had broken away from the cliff waited menacingly down below. “Well, we’re not going down that way,” he said with a newfound respect.

  Mike set the statuette he had been carrying beside him near the boulder and untied his leather jacket that had been secured to his waist. He didn’t want it to get snagged on an outcropping and cause him to lose his balance. Even though it was hot, it would be safer to wear it the rest of the way down.

  “I wonder what town it is?” he asked, gazing at the town in the distance and savoring the sight. “Could be Cottonwood. I just didn’t figure that we were that far south.” Mike slipped his arms through the sleeves of his jacket, then hefted it over his shoulders. “I guess it doesn’t really matter. As long as it’s a town with water, that’s good enough for me.”

  Mike craned his head around to steal a glance at Jake. The dog looked as eager as Mike felt to get off the cliff face and into the town. “All right, if you’re ready, I am,” Mike said reaching for the statuette at his side. “Just think, within the hour we oughta be—”

  Whhiiiirrrrrr.

  The sound was unmistakable. Living in the desert, Mike had heard it before. But never this close. It was the deadly whir of a diamondback rattlesnake.

  Mike immediately froze his position, his arm still outstretched for the statuette. The fur on the back of Jake’s neck stood on end, and the dog let out a low growl.

  Keeping his head absolutely still, Mike slowly panned his eyes to his left. There, inches from the statuette under the cool shade of the boulder, Mike could easily make out the distinct black-and-white diamond-patterned rattlesnake. Its five-foot-long body was coiled; its spear-shaped head poised ready to strike. Mike knew that the average rattlesnake could easily strike over half its length. His hand wavered less than a foot away.

  Jake’s low growling erupted into vicious barking.

  “Easy, Jake!” Mike whispered. “Don’t make him mad.”

  As he sat there frozen, like a statue, large beads of sweat dripped down his forehead, stinging as they made their way into his eyes. He didn’t dare brush them away.

  Mike noticed that his hand was beginning to shake badly. No matter how hard he tried, in his weakened condition, he just couldn’t keep his hand still. He thought about yanking it quickly out of the way before the shaking could get any worse. But the thought occurred to him too late.

  The snake struck out with such speed that it was only a blur of motion. It sank its razor-sharp teeth deep into Mike’s hand and unloaded its deadly payload of venom.

  Without thinking, Mike instinctively recoiled away. The movement caused him to lose his seating on the rock, and he began sliding over the side. Panicked, Mike rolled over onto his stomach and dug his fingers into the rock. The fingernail on his index finger tore away as he tried to find a handhold. But he just couldn’t make himself stop.

  Time seemed to decelerate into slow motion. One moment he was staring up at Jake; the next, he was slowly falling away into empty space.

  With a sickening crunch his leg hit a rock outcropping. The impact started him tumbling head over heels. Every few feet he would make contact and then bounce off the sandstone wall.

  Mike lost consciousness after being slammed hard one last time against the cliff face. His body bounced clear of the rocks and then disappeared into the inky darkness of a gaping chasm.

  After a few seconds, all was silent.

  Chapter 11

  IT HAD BEEN OVER TWO HOURS since Ben, Spence, and Winnie had left Pop and Smitty on the side of the road. On the quad runners they were able to cover a lot of miles quickly, and now they were deep in the desert. But they still hadn’t found anything.

  Spence was taking his turn leading the pack. Ben and Winnie noticed him put on the brakes and come to a stop.

  “See something?” asked Ben as he and Winnie pulled up beside Spence.

  “No,” replied Spence, “but it’s been twenty minutes since our last report to Smitty.” He pulled the walkie-talkie from the basket on the back of his quad. “Sheriff Smitty . . . this is Spence. Do you copy? Over.”

  “Go ahead, Spence. This is Smitty,” came the reply.

  “Just checking in, Smitty. Over.”

  “You kids see a
nything?”

  “No, sir. Not yet. Over.”

  There was a long pause before Smitty spoke again. “Listen, you kids better be heading on back now. Over.”

  “What!” exclaimed Winnie. “Here, hand me that!” Spence passed her the walkie-talkie. “Sheriff Smitty, this is Winnie. What do you mean ‘head back’? There’s still several hours of light left.”

  “That’s my point. You kids have been gone for almost three hours. It’ll take you at least that long to find your way back out to the road again. Over.”

  “But, Smitty, I’ve got this feeling that we’re getting close,” pleaded Winnie. “Just let us go a little bit farther. We’ve got headlights on the quads. We can turn them on if it gets dark before we get back. Over.”

  “No, Winnie. It’s too risky. We’ll never find Mike if we have to go looking for you three, too.” Smitty’s voice softened. “Listen, you kids have done a great job. We couldn’t have gotten this far without your help. Now, head back and meet us where you left us on the highway. Smitty out.”

  Winnie silently handed Spence the walkie-talkie and then walked away from the quad runners. She had to be alone for a moment. It seemed like it was all becoming so hopeless—she knew how deadly the desert could be.

  She remembered an incident that had happened when she was a little girl. Some sightseers had ventured off road to enjoy the desert’s beauty, and their car broke down. They hadn’t planned on being gone for long and foolishly hadn’t brought any water. They only lasted a little more than a day. They were finally found only a few miles from their truck under a cloud of circling buzzards. There wasn’t much left for the rescuers to bring back.

  Winnie closed her eyes hard and fought back the tears. I can’t allow that to happen to Mike!

  Back at the quad runners, Spence offered Ben a bottle of water. “Better drink up,” Spence warned. “You don’t want to become dehydrated.”

  “No, thanks,” Ben replied. “I’ve been drinking so much already, I feel like my eyeballs are going to float away.” Ben glanced around at the landscape surrounding them. “Speaking of which, you think there’s a place around here to make a pit stop?”

  Spence swung an open hand to a stand of bushes on a nearby hill. “Help yourself.”

  Ben climbed off his quad and started up the hill. Once he had made it to the top, he pushed his way through the bushes until he had made it to the other side. Now standing in a clearing, he caught a glimpse of something down the opposite side of the hill that just didn’t seem to fit in with the surroundings. He did a double take, his eyes widening.

  It was a stone marker in the shape of a large letter M. Only Ben had approached it from the wrong side.

  “W?” he gasped.

  Smitty and Pop were not as deep in the desert as the kids were, because Smitty’s four-wheel drive could not move as fast over the rugged terrain as the kids’ quad runners could. Still they figured that they were roughly on a parallel course with the kids and were now heading back to the highway.

  The walkie-talkie on the bench seat between Smitty and Pop suddenly blared to life. “Sheriff Smitty! Come in, Sheriff Smitty!” It was Winnie, and she sounded excited.

  Smitty reached over and picked up the walkie-talkie. “Smitty here. What’s up, Winnie?”

  “I think we’ve found Mike!”

  “You what?!” Smitty slammed his foot on the brakes. “Whaddya mean, you think?”

  “He was here!”

  They could hear Ben’s excited voice in the background. “Tell him about the big stone W—I mean M!”

  “He left a marker,” Winnie continued. “He’s on foot, and we think we know which way he headed. Over.”

  “Where are you, Winnie?” asked Smitty.

  “I think we’re about five miles south of you. We can see your dust trail in the distance from here.”

  “Talk me in, Winnie,” Smitty said, patting Pop on the shoulder. “We’re on our way!”

  Jake slowly navigated his way down the cliff face, stopping occasionally to stick his nose in the air to try to catch the scent of his master.

  Jake had taken care of the rattlesnake—without being bitten. As it tried to slither away, it had exposed part of its midsection. Jake had grabbed it in his mouth and violently thrashed his head back and forth. The swinging momentum kept the rattlesnake from being able to coil, and its head was slowly crushed with each successive blow against the rocks. Jake had made sure that it paid dearly for what it had done to Mike.

  Once he was at the base of the cliff, Jake followed his nose until it led him into a narrow crevice. Inside, the fissure opened roughly ten or twelve feet wide, creating a sort of open-ceilinged chamber. It ran almost thirty feet long, until the walls slowly merged back together. The floor was flat and made up mostly of sand. A few sticks and some dead shrubs were scattered here and there.

  Though it was dark, Jake could make out Mike’s motionless figure lying in the center of the chamber, faintly lit by the reflected light above. Jake ran to his side and gently licked his face, but there was no response. Jake waited a second, let out a whine, and began pushing at Mike with his paw.

  Mike took a sudden breath of air as he regained consciousness. He slowly rolled over and let out a groan.

  Jake barked happily, glad the boy was still alive.

  “Jake?” Mike muttered. He blinked his eyes and tried to make things come into focus. “Where are we?”

  Mike had not yet caught his bearings. He tried to think back to what had happened. That’s right, I was climbing! I must have taken a fall!

  Mike managed to slowly raise himself up until he was in a sitting position against the chamber wall. He looked down his body, trying to assess the damage. He had some minor scrapes and bruises. He could feel a large knot still swelling up on the back of his head. He ran his hands down his right leg and was hit by a jolting stab of pain. He guessed his leg was probably broken.

  “Well, I’m done climbing today,” he told Jake through gritted teeth.

  He then noticed something on the back of his hand. On first inspection he had missed it, but looking closer now, he noticed two oozing puncture wounds on the fleshy part of his hand between the thumb and forefinger.

  The memory came rushing back. A rattlesnake! I was bitten by a rattlesnake! “All right, let’s not panic,” he told himself out loud. “I’ve got to keep still. The poison’ll spread faster if I don’t keep still.”

  Mike had to think fast, because it wouldn’t be long before the poison would begin taking effect. In his already fragile state, he knew he didn’t have much time before he would succumb to it.

  He grabbed for the flare gun canister that had fallen a few feet away. He unscrewed the two halves and emptied the contents out into the sand. Knocking the flares off the instruction booklet, Mike grasped the paper in his hand and reached into his pocket for the gold pen he had found in the truck. He quickly scratched a note on the back of the booklet that read, “SNAKEBITE, NEED HELP, FOLLOW DOG.”

  Working fast, Mike tore off the page he had just written on and tucked it into Jake’s collar. “Go into town and get help, Jake,” he instructed the dog.

  Jake barked in response and then ran in a big circle, finally ending up back at Mike’s side.

  “Go, Jake. Go!” Mike said louder, gesturing with his arms. “Go into town and bring back help.”

  Jake barked as if he finally understood and then raced away.

  Mike watched until Jake’s shadow had disappeared off the crevice wall. “Attaboy, Jake,” whispered Mike, his voice growing weaker. “We need help.”

  It had taken most of the day for Josh and Seth to retrace the long miles back to Fire Lake. They now drove off road across the dusty desert in a red four-by-four they had rented back in Las Vegas. It had been a long, quiet trip. Josh had been stewing the whole way there. Seth had been afraid to say anything lest it set him off.

  “Do you think we’ll be able to find him again?” asked Seth, finally breaking
the silence.

  “It’s too early to tell,” Josh said with a scowl. “But without any water, he shouldn’t have gotten too far.”

  Seth swallowed hard and looked out the window. If Josh finds out I gave the kid a bottle of water, he’ll really blow his stack!

  With his ears lying flat, Jake ran as fast as his legs would carry him. He could see the town in the distance. Another quarter of a mile and he would be there.

  Suddenly Jake came to a sliding stop. His ears had picked up the sound of a vehicle approaching. He saw the dust trail first, and then a truck drove out from behind an outcropping of rocks. Jake looked at the town and then back at the truck. The truck was closer. If he could get the truck to stop, it could get Mike to safety faster.

  Jake ran down to the dirt road the truck was traveling on just in time to intercept it. The truck fishtailed to a stop and then slowly backed up to where he stood.

  Jake barked as loud as he could and ran up to the door. When the door finally opened, a hand reached out as if to take the message and then grabbed Jake roughly by the collar.

  “Hiya, pooch!” Josh said, grinning from ear to ear. Before Jake could break free, Josh snatched the note from under his collar. Jake snapped at him with a ferocious bark. Josh dropped his hold on the collar, and Jake ran free.

  “Aw, isn’t this nice?” Josh said, examining the paper. “Mikey wrote us a note.”

  “Why’d you let the dog go?” asked Seth. “Maybe he’d show us where the kid is.”

  “You kiddin’? That dog hates us.” Josh looked out the window at Jake’s deep paw prints in the dirt. “We’ll follow his tracks. C’mon.” Josh handed the note to Seth, slipped the truck into gear, and started backtracking along Jake’s trail.

  The sun was already starting to set when Smitty, Pop, and the kids discovered the wrecked Cessna. They found it almost thirty miles due east of Mike’s arrow.