Escape to the Mesa

by StacyPlays

  Dedication

  For Page

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Map

  Cast of Characters

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Stacy’s Favorite Words From the Book

  The Real-Life Mesa Biome!

  Meet the Real-Life Molly!

  Get to Know an Animal Expert!

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by StacyPlays

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Map

  Cast of Characters

  One

  LICK.

  Lick.

  Lick.

  A smile crept across Stacy’s face as the small dog nuzzled her awake.

  “Hi, Page,” Stacy said groggily.

  It was strangely cold in the cave. Stacy opened her eyes, instantly aware that she and Page were alone.

  Typically, Stacy slept nestled among her pack of Arctic wolves, their soft white fur providing Stacy with more warmth than any blanket or comforter ever could. And usually, the wolves waited for Stacy to wake up. But this morning was different. Her wolves were gone.

  Panic began to bubble up inside of her as she frantically rubbed her eyes and looked around until she spotted them. They weren’t gone at all; they just weren’t cuddled beside her. Everest, the alpha of the pack, was guarding the entrance to the cave. He was exchanging looks with Tucker, who was also at the cave entrance. Stacy remembered that last night had been Tucker’s turn to do patrol duty on the ridge. He must have just returned to update Everest on the evening’s events.

  Basil, the beta of the pack, was curled up by the cave’s hearth, where a healthy fire was crackling. Silly Basil, Stacy thought to herself. She survives being struck by lightning and yet she still likes to start fires. Addison, the pack’s other female wolf, was sitting near the large spruce table in the cave where Stacy prepared the pack’s meals and did various crafting projects. Behind her, Noah splashed in the small freshwater spring that flowed through the back of their cave. That was all her wolves accounted for—all except . . .

  “Where’s Wink?” Stacy asked, sitting up. He shouldn’t be out by himself. The fire that had spread through the taiga a couple of months before had driven all the hunters away for a while, but Stacy suspected there might still be a bounty on the wolves. Which meant they could all be in danger.

  Suddenly, Wink came bounding into the cave. At least, Stacy was pretty sure it was Wink. It was hard to tell because his normally brilliant white fur was brown, as if he’d been rolling in dirt. His front paws were completely covered in mud, which he was now tracking into the cave. Everest growled quietly in dismay at the mess. Wink sauntered up to Stacy and innocently dropped a mouthful of crumpled peonies on her lap.

  Stacy blinked a couple of times and looked at the pink flowers. They were covered in slobber and were already beginning to wilt. It was almost like Wink had dug them up in the forest days ago and then buried them until this morning. Actually, that was exactly what it was like. But why?

  What is going on? Stacy thought. First my wolves are all up and about without me. Now these flowers? And then it hit her. Today must be the eighth day of October. Today was her “rescue day.”

  Since no one knew when Stacy’s birthday was, they’d celebrated her rescue day every year since she’d come to live with the wolves in the taiga forest. This was year number five. Every morning of her rescue day, each wolf would give Stacy a gift to mark the occasion. How the wolves kept track of which day it was, Stacy hadn’t a clue. Nor was she sure of the exact details of the events that led to her being rescued and taken in by six Arctic wolves in the first place.

  Any memories Stacy had of those events were buried deep in her mind. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t remember anything. It wasn’t like she could ask the wolves. Over the years, the group had developed their own way of communicating with each other through barks, facial expressions, and body language, but they couldn’t talk or write—although Stacy was convinced that Addison was trying to learn how to read.

  “Thank you, Wink,” Stacy said, picking up the flowers and cradling them in her arms. “These were . . . uh, I mean, these are beautiful.”

  Wink stared up at her expectantly. “Oh, you’re right, I didn’t smell them,” Stacy said as she brought the droopy blooms up to her nose. “Mmm. So sweet.” She set the flowers down beside her. Page sniffed them and immediately buried her nose in her paws.

  Stacy stood and walked across the cave to her rocking chair and took a seat. She knew what was coming next. One by one the other wolves were going to bring her a gift.

  Sure enough, Tucker was already making his way toward her, dragging something behind him. Stacy leaned out of her rocking chair, craning her neck. As soon as she saw what it was, she let out a tiny gasp and stood up. Tucker was bringing her a large bow and a quiver filled with arrows. He pulled it as far as Stacy’s feet and then looked up at her nervously, waiting to see if Stacy would be happy about being gifted a weapon on her rescue day.

  “Wow,” Stacy said reverently, crouching to the cave floor and running her fingers along the bow. “Tucker, how did you get this?”

  Tucker’s rust-colored eyes danced around the cave. It wasn’t like Tucker to steal from people who came into the taiga. But if there was one thing Tucker hated, it was hunting. He must have swiped it from a hunter knowing Stacy would only use it for good. And with everything that happened over the summer with the wolf bounty, including the time when Dusky, the alpha of the wild wolf pack, was shot, Stacy was grateful to have another way to protect herself and the pack besides her small knife.

  “Thank you, Tuck,” Stacy said. “I’ll have to practice a lot, but I’m glad you brought me this. For now, though, why don’t you put it on my desk over there . . . out of Page’s reach.”

  Tucker eagerly obliged, pulling the bow and quiver of arrows onto the flat boulder Stacy used as a desk. Then Addison took a step toward Stacy and pointed her snout toward the crafting table, where a pumpkin pie, Stacy’s favorite, was cooling. Addison had baked it by the fire in an old tin they’d found at a campsite. Stacy knew wolves weren’t supposed to know mathematics, but Addison did (another reason why Stacy suspected she knew how to read). That knowledge made the graceful wolf particularly proficient in things like baking, where exact measurements were required.

  “Addi, that smells delicious, thank you,” Stacy said, sitting back down in her chair. Addison beamed with pride.

  Next was Noah, who had walked over while Stacy had been examining the bow. He proudly presented Stacy with some wet clay he’d fished up from the river banks.

  “Thanks, boy,” Stacy said, turning the soft clay over in her hands. She looked at Wink. “We can use this to make a flowerpot. Then the next time you bring me peonies they won’t die so quickly.”

  Wink wagged his tail and Stacy gave both him and Noah a pat on their heads.

  Stacy got out of her chair and walked over to a sullen-looking Basil. The scar from where Basil had been struck by lightning during July’s thunderstorm was a
lmost healed. New fur was beginning to grow in where the worst burns had been. After the fire, Stacy and the wolves had spent the rest of the summer lying low in the cave and caring for Basil.

  The lightning strike had seemed to affect Basil more on the inside than the outside. It had weakened her and she’d had to learn to walk all over again. She was able to walk short distances now, but was in no shape to leave the cave to find Stacy a present.

  “The best gift you could ever give me is to get better, girl,” Stacy said, kneeling down beside her and gently cupping Basil’s muzzle in her hands. “I mean that.”

  Basil stared up at Stacy, her giant yellow eyes finding Stacy’s emerald green ones. Stacy kissed Basil’s head and turned to look at Everest, who had appeared next to her in front of the fire. His silver eyes bore a serious expression.

  “Everest,” Stacy started. “It’s okay if you didn’t get me anything either, I . . .”

  Stacy’s voice trailed off as she noticed Everest was holding something in his jaw. He lowered his head to where Stacy’s hands were. She turned her palms up and he dropped the small item into them.

  Stacy stared blankly at the object in her hands. It felt . . . familiar. It was a small silver charm bracelet. Stacy squinted her eyes, hoping that the memory attached to the bracelet would somehow come into focus.

  She examined the charms; they had a dirty gray patina to them. There was a horse, a book, a helicopter, a letter S, and a mermaid.

  “Everest,” Stacy whispered. “Where did you get this?”

  She looked up at Everest, who had a sad, wistful expression on his face.

  Stacy knew, of course, that he couldn’t answer her. Still, she waited to see if Everest would make some gesture to give her a clue about where the bracelet came from. Instead, he walked past Stacy and lay down next to Basil. Stacy frowned for a moment. Why is he acting so odd?

  “Thank you, everyone,” Stacy said, turning to address the entire pack. “You’ve made this the best rescue day ever.”

  The wolves looked around at each other, obviously pleased with themselves.

  Stacy retreated to the back of the cave to change out of her pajamas and into her everyday clothes—a pair of worn blue jeans and her favorite blue-and-white-striped long-sleeved T-shirt. The shirt was incredibly soft from years of wear. Sometimes Stacy had to stop herself from sleeping in it, too. She didn’t want to wear it out too fast—she and Addison had already sewn patches onto both of the threadbare elbows, which had ripped open during their last animal rescue—a small pine marten who had injured its leg. Tucker had devised an ingenious splint for it using a discarded tent stake which he’d affixed onto the little mammal with some moss and tree sap that would likely break away after a few weeks of healing.

  Stacy walked over to her little makeshift bookcase in the cave and set the charm bracelet down on one of the shelves. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but something about Everest’s body language made Stacy think he hadn’t just found it in the woods. The bracelet felt so familiar. She was sure she had seen it before. Why can’t I remember where?

  She looked up at the top of the bookcase, where her pet chicken, Fluff, roosted. Stacy reached her hand under Fluff and pulled out a speckled egg. Digging her hand into her pants pocket, she pulled out a handful of seeds.

  “Here’s your breakfast, girl,” Stacy said, patting her feathers. “Thank you for mine.”

  Stacy walked across the cave and set the egg down in front of Addison, who was tidying up as Wink and Page chased each other around the crafting table.

  “I’m going to scramble that when I get back, okay?” Stacy said to Addison, walking over to the cave entrance and peering outside. It was drizzling, but she could see through the mist and clouds that the sun was just coming up over the giant spruce trees to the east.

  “We’re late,” Stacy said to the pack, pulling on her leather boots. She tied the right one up while Everest, carefully holding the laces in his teeth, tied the left. Stacy stood and grabbed her old leather satchel that hung on a hook near the cave entrance. She turned around to see Everest and Basil waiting for her command.

  “Okay, let’s go,” she said. “You too, Page. Droplet and Splat will be expecting us.”

  Two

  STACY, EVEREST, BASIL, and Page trudged through the muddy taiga on their way to visit Droplet and Splat. Everest, as usual, was about twenty paces ahead, always on the lookout for potential threats to his pack.

  Stacy knew of two big threats that Everest was watching for: the first one being it was officially hunting season, so they had to avoid any hunters who might be tracking deer or moose. The second and more serious threat was the wolf bounty the village had imposed over the summer to control the wild wolf pack that had started killing sheep from a farm on the outskirts of the village for food. The bounty meant farmers could legally kill wolves, and, adding insult to injury, get paid for doing so. It made Stacy’s blood boil.

  She’d made her pack go into hiding for most of the summer because of it, and because of Basil’s injury. But there was no trace of the wild wolf pack anymore. And the damage from the forest fire kept a lot of people from hiking or hunting near their cave, so she’d thought it was safe to resume their daily outings. Stacy always accompanied the wolves during the day, though. She figured that no farmer would shoot one of her wolves if a little girl was standing right next to it. Hopefully, they would assume she was just out walking her large dogs.

  Basil gave a little impatient growl. Stacy could tell she was frustrated by how slow she needed to walk because of her injuries. Basil’s job before the lightning strike had been that of the pack’s scout. She was the fastest wolf in the pack and could easily run ahead of everyone, survey the forest, and then run back and tell the group which direction to go.

  “You’re getting stronger every day, girl,” Stacy said quietly to Basil so Everest wouldn’t hear. “I bet you’ll be running circles around him again by Christmas.” Basil seemed to stifle a laugh. Do wolves laugh? Stacy wasn’t sure, but she was happy she’d been able to bolster Basil’s spirits, if only for a moment.

  Droplet and Splat, the timber wolf pups Stacy had rescued from the forest fire, were now living at Stacy’s farm, a small clearing hidden deep in the taiga where Stacy and the wolves kept a little crop of pumpkins and root vegetables.

  It was hard for Stacy to believe it had been almost three months since the wolf pups came to live with them. Stacy and Everest had searched for weeks for any remaining members of the wild pack who might have returned to their burned-down den after the forest fire. Even if the pups’ mother had died in the fire, Stacy knew all the members of the pack would help rear cubs. But they’d found no trace of them.

  Stacy guessed the survivors had moved on to a new territory. And she didn’t blame them if that was the case—between the firefighting crews and the land surveyors taking measurements for the proposed ski and golf resort, not to mention all the usual hikers and campers, there had been a lot of human activity in the taiga over the summer. Wolves want nothing to do with humans. Stacy’s pack was unique in the fact that they allowed Stacy to live with them.

  The pups stayed with the pack in the cave for a few weeks after the fire, but had quickly outgrown the space. They’d needed more room to run around and practice the hunting skills Everest had been teaching them. It was a little strange to Stacy for Everest to be teaching Droplet and Splat how to hunt the small taiga animals Stacy and her pack spent their days rescuing, but she understood that it was part of the cycle of nature. She also knew that growing pups could not adapt to the unusual diet of fish, pumpkins, and berries that Stacy and the pack ate.

  Besides needing more room to run, the wolf pups had also had a difficult time adhering to the group’s sleep schedule. Wolves are most active at dusk and dawn (and sometimes in the middle of the night), but Stacy’s wolves had adopted the particularly human habit she had of sleeping when it was dark. Now, whichever one of Stacy’s wolves had patrol d
uty for the night also looked in on Droplet and Splat to make sure they stayed out of trouble.

  Stacy had named Droplet and Splat one morning while she watched Noah trying to teach them to fish. Back then, Stacy had hoped the pups would develop a love of salmon instead of rabbit. But instead of watching Noah as he expertly caught fish after fish for them to eat, the pups kept playing in a small waterfall in the river. Droplet eagerly lapped up the water, sticking her whole head into the stream to drink and then shaking off, sending water droplets flying in all directions. Splat, on the other hand, sat directly in the small falls, happily letting the water beat down on his head, matting his fur down around his eyes.

  Stacy had thought of the nicknames on the spot, never intending them to be their actual names, but they seemed to suit their personalities and so they stuck.

  It was a good thing, Stacy thought, that the wolf pups were staying more wild than her pack. They didn’t have the special abilities her pack had—they couldn’t understand Stacy when she spoke to them, other than a few basic commands. Their wildness also meant they would be free to leave the taiga if they wanted to when they were older. And if the construction company from the village got their way, and the taiga was transformed into a ski and golf resort, Droplet and Splat might not have any choice but to find a new home.

  Sometimes Stacy wondered what her wolf pack would be doing if they weren’t living with her and helping her to rescue animals around the forest. How had six Arctic wolves come to live outside of the Arctic in the first place?

  Stacy pushed the question to the back of her brain as they reached the farm. The pine and spruce trees were incredibly dense in this part of the taiga. Stacy needed to hold both hands out in front of her face to push away the needle-filled branches all around her. Everest lowered his head to the forest floor and pulled away some branches to reveal the small underground passageway they used to enter the farm. Stacy, Basil, and Page followed him, shimmying their way through the passage and up into the clearing. There, nestled among the pumpkins and orange and yellow fallen leaves, were Droplet and Splat, fast asleep.