by Doug Draper
“George, go back to the camp,” Joe said. “You’ll find it if you stay on the road and head down the canyon.”
George gladly obeyed. He soon disappeared, and Joe and Ben stood alone with Derek and his friends. Again, Ben wished that he had remembered his knife and hatchet.
“We didn’t have enough time to talk in town,” Derek said. “But now, we’re all alone and I’m pleased to have your full attention. I want you to know that you ruined my life. You should feel like the lowest kind of trash for lying to the sheriff that I kidnapped you and gave you all those bruises. And the whole time, all I truly wanted to do was help your dad out of a tough situation.”
Ben decided not to argue with Derek because he seemed to believe the twisted story trickling out of his mouth. So, Ben along with Joe listened as Derek rambled about how difficult his life had been in prison. “And since I got out, it’s been impossible to get a decent job, so I’m stuck doing crap work,” he said.
Ben kept his mouth shut, but he wanted to interrupt and tell Derek how hard life had been for his family after Derek took his father’s tools, equipment, and truck. An interruption came through the sound of a vehicle coming up the canyon at a high speed.
“I hope that moron sees our bikes on the side of the road,” Wayne said.
A truck came into view shortly before reaching the motorcycles and slid to a noisy stop on the sandy shoulder. Scoutmaster Gene Augustine had come to the rescue. He jumped out of the truck along with Brother Sanderson. They hurried toward the bikes and then noticed that they were being watched.
“Hey, fearless leaders, we found your lost boys!” Derek shouted. “They’re up here. Come and get them.”
“Joe and Ben, come with us,” Gene said, ignoring Derek and gesturing for the boys to join him on the side of the road. “We’re heading back to camp. Jerry told us that you might need a ride.”
“Jerry? Is that one of the kids that took off like a frightened bunny when we stopped by to lend assistance?” Derek asked with a laugh.
“He thought you might be trying to harm our scouts,” Gene said.
“Oh my, that boy is looney! Ben, please tell Mister Scoutmaster that we’ve only been catching up on old times.”
Ben glanced at Derek before responding. “Yep, we’ve only been chatting about stuff. Nothing to worry about.”
Derek smiled at Ben as if to say, I own you—and in some ways, he did. At first, he influenced Ben through his smooth style and rebellious attitude. After having been hit by Derek, he intimidated him because Ben knew Derek could beat him to death with his fists. And he had made it clear at the grocery store that he would enjoy killing Ben with his knife.
“Then, let’s head back to camp,” Gene said. “It’s time to eat.”
“Cool, don’t let me hold you up, gentlemen,” Derek said. “Go plug in your Easy Bake Ovens and cook up some hot brownies. My friends and I will be enjoying a few cans of beer we left cooling in the stream at our campsite. We’re only a few miles up the road from you.”
“Sir, I suggest that you and your friends stay away from our scouts,” Gene said, again gesturing for Joe and Ben to join him. “We’re here to learn scouting skills and don’t need any distractions.”
“Sounds good to us. We’re only trying to be neighborly.”
Following that fib, Joe and Ben hurried to join their rescuers and climbed into the truck with them. No words were exchanged until Gene had turned the truck back toward the campsite.
“That was tense,” Gene said and then whistled and let out a deep breath. “I know that man is an ex-convict and expect his friends might also be men with criminal records. I’m glad you got away from them without any violence. Count your blessings! Like Daniel in the lions’ den, God protected you.”
Ben smiled because most men would have taken credit for intimidating his opponent through physical threats or superior intellect. In the scoutmaster’s victory celebration, he voluntarily admitted that he needed help beyond his own strength to deal with someone as menacing as Derek. While Ben admired that humility, he preferred his hunting knife and hatchet. With them, he had confidence that he would be able to take care of himself—or die trying.
CHAPTER 33
The scoutmaster drove faster than he normally would and completed the return trip to the campsite in five minutes. The drive still gave him enough time to demand that Joe and Ben stay close to him for the rest of the campout. He also mentioned plans to discuss the Derek Dean encounter with Sheriff Kort as soon as the scouts returned to Alma.
“I’ll be praying that God protects you boys,” Gene said. “And Brother Sanderson and I will be super vigilant in doing whatever we can to keep those men away from you.”
“Don’t worry,” Ben said. “If Derek and his buddies come after me when I’m in the mountains, they’ll never catch me.”
“Ben, you missed my point,” Gene said. “I want you to stay near me at all times instead of running off into the mountains. And I suggest that you also seek God’s protection and guidance through prayer.”
“I’ll let you do that. My mother taught me that God helps those who help themselves. That’s my plan.”
“Hmm, I don’t think you’re hearing me,” Gene said. “Stay close to the troop—that’s an order.”
Ben wanted to argue with the scoutmaster, but he let it go as they had arrived at the campsite. After climbing out of the truck, Ben followed Joe to their tents where the other members of the Hawk patrol stood, waiting for them. Shaken by their encounter with Derek, they came back to the camp to discover that they had another problem.
“Somebody went into our tents while we were gone,” Fred said. “They wiped their dirty boots on our sleeping bags and stole our candy bars and other things. Joe, tell the scoutmaster and have him get our stuff back.”
“Let me look at my tent first,” Joe said. “Then I’ll go talk to him.”
Ben ran to his tent and found dirt and leaves covering his sleeping bag. Instead of only missing a few things, his backpack and all the contents had been stolen. He didn’t bring any candy bars on the campout, but he knew many of the boys envied his hunting knife and hatchet. Anger began to build inside of Ben and he stormed out of his tent ready to fight. He noticed Joe behind his tent, picking up clothes and other belongings from the ground and bushes.
“Remind me to never come on one of these stupid trips,” Joe said. “I’m done with stuff like this.”
“Have you seen my backpack?” Ben asked.
Joe pointed at a spot about twenty yards away. Ben dashed there and found his backpack—empty. Nearby, he spotted his clothes and food scattered behind a fallen poplar tree. He began gathering his belongings and returning them to his backpack, but he couldn’t find the items he valued most—his knife, hatchet, and Boy Scout merit badge sash.
Ben brought the sash on the trip because the scoutmaster had mentioned plans to hold a special ceremony to honor Joe and Ben for becoming Eagle Scouts. Ben thought it might be an appropriate time to wear the sash even though he usually didn’t take it on a campout. Everything ended up dirty from these trips and he wanted to protect his badges.
With assistance from the day’s last glimmers of sunlight, Ben sighted his hatchet stuck into the trunk of a blue spruce tree. Its head was buried into the tree about seven feet off the ground—out of his reach. The sheath sat at the base of the tree. He found a stout, fallen branch and swatted at the hatchet to knock it free. Whoever stuck it into the tree hadn’t driven it very deep, so the hatchet dropped to the ground after a few blows.
He sheathed the hatchet and attached it to his belt. In case the same thing had been done with his knife, Ben scanned the nearby trees and found it stuck in a Douglas fir tree about two feet off the ground. The knife had been used to pin his merit badge sash to the tree.
Ben walked to the tree and grasped the knife blade with one hand and the sash with the other. He quickly let go of both when finding them wet. He backed up slightly and notice
d wet sand below the sash and wondered why the boys had dumped water on the sash and knife. Then he picked up the strong scent of urine and brought his hands closer to his face. One sniff confirmed his fear. After pinning Ben’s sash to the tree, the scouts had urinated on it.
Words of frustration and hate swirled in Ben’s brain. Having been in similar situations over the years, he could easily imagine the boys giggling while peeing on his sash and doing it to show him that it didn’t matter how many merit badges he earned—they still could do whatever they wanted to drag him down.
Ben found the knife sheath nearby and attached it to his belt. Fortunately, it had escaped the urination ritual. Then he grabbed the wet knife handle and freed it from the tree. His sash fell to the damp soil below. He looped the knife blade through the sash and headed toward the huge fire blazing next to the Bears’ campsite.
By this time, the sun had completely set. As Ben approached the campfire, he could see all the other scouts and the adult leaders gathered around it. He walked directly to the fire with the dripping wet sash dangling from his knife.
Gene Augustine spoke solemnly as he often did during his Sunday school classes and, as always, his audience stared at the ground. When Ben came close enough to understand his words, he heard Gene lecturing the scouts about the unacceptable behavior of some troop members that evening.
When the boys noticed Ben approaching, they moved out of his way because he held his large hunting knife in front of him. He walked to the edge of the fire, so close that the intensity of the heat shrouded him, and then dropped the urine-soaked sash into the middle of the roaring fire.
“Ben, what are you doing?” Gene asked in an anguished tone. “You worked so hard for those badges.”
“They mean nothing to me,” Ben said coldly, watching the flames engulf the sash and steam rise off it as the urine quickly evaporated.
“Hurry somebody, get a stick and pull it out of the fire!” Gene shouted, looking around frantically for either a helper or a stick to save the sash.
One of the Wolf patrol members stepped forward to meet his request, but the Bears had built a white-hot fire and the sash was blackened before he could drag it out. The sash landed next to the fire pit and continued to burn until one of the boys stomped on it and the flames died.
“Ben, why?” Gene asked sorrowfully.
“I found it hanging from a tree drenched in pee,” Ben said, staring at the charred sash that included his hard-earned lifesaving merit badge.
A couple of the Bears laughed at Ben’s statement and received harsh looks from their buddies. They needed to hide their amusement, so they could deceitfully express shock that anyone would do this to a fellow scout.
“Go ahead and laugh!” Ben shouted. “I get it. The joke is always on me because I’m little and you’re so big. But you’re forgetting one thing.”
Ben paused to see if anyone would respond, but all of them, including the scoutmaster, looked at him in astonishment and offered no reaction to his speech.
Shaking with anger, he continued, “You’ve forgotten that I’ve spent a lot of time with Derek Dean and he taught me many valuable lessons. One of them is how to bring someone bigger than me to his knees. He showed me the power of a good weapon.”
“Ben, calm down,” Gene said gently as he moved toward Ben. “Let’s talk privately about this.”
“No, I’m done letting these jerks push me around,” Ben said, waving his knife through the air to make it clear what he meant when saying “a good weapon.”
The scouts backed away from Ben as he walked forward. Their retreat created an open path from the campfire to the Bears’ tents. Ben marched in that direction, unsheathing his hatchet and letting his suppressed rage flow. With his knife, he slashed the first tent in his path and then used his hatchet to chop the ropes holding up the tent.
The darkening sky suddenly filled with threats from his fellow scouts, but nobody tried to stop him. They followed at a safe distance, staying away from the wild slashing motions he made with his knife. The Bear patrol members and Brother Sanderson yelled at Ben to stop when he slashed another tent and chopped a few more ropes, causing two more tents to collapse. Still enraged, Ben headed for more targets.
Undeterred by this erratic behavior, Gene ran to Ben’s side and held out his hands. “Ben, give me your knife and hatchet. This must stop right now before someone gets hurt. Do you understand?”
Without a word, Ben handed Gene his weapons and retreated from the Bears’ territory to the place where he had left his backpack. He grabbed it and crawled into his tent to hide. Having already calmed down, Ben recognized that he had let his anger lead him into a forbidden zone. He faced serious trouble and hid in his tent hoping that everyone would stay away.
Ben’s reprieve lasted for about two minutes. Then Gene stood outside his tent and asked Ben to join him for a walk down the road. Ben followed, not wanting the other scouts to see the scoutmaster dragging him out of the tent.
“I understand that you’re upset about your sash being spoiled, but we can get you another one. You need to handle such things in a calm, peaceful way instead of resorting to violence.”
“That’s a joke. Unless I make them pay for what they’ve done, they’ll never leave me alone.”
“There are other options. The Bible teaches us to not repay evil for evil and to wait patiently for the Lord to settle such matters.”
“Where has God been for the last ten years?” Ben asked, feeling his anger return. “All I can remember since kindergarten is getting punched, kicked, pinched, poked and spit on. I’m tired of it—very tired!”
“I understand because I went through the same thing as a boy. Like you, I was smaller than the other kids and they liked to pick on me. It took a lot of prayer and perseverance to deal with it. Responding with violence isn’t the solution.”
“But it sure gets their attention. That’s what Derek Dean taught me.”
“Ben, do you really want to use an ex-convict as your role model? Look at what it’s done for him. He’s already been in prison twice and keeps doing things that are going to get him sent there again.”
“Fine, then I’ll disappear.”
“Or you could do what I did and turn to God for your protection and strength.”
Ben looked at Gene and chuckled, thinking about how all the scouts and members of his Sunday school class made jokes about him. He appreciated his scoutmaster’s help in becoming an Eagle Scout, but he never considered him as an example to follow.
“I understand why you laughed,” Gene said. “You look at me and think that I’m not the kind of man you want to become. But please try to see me as someone who has walked in your shoes and found a way to deal with the pain and frustration. I’ll be praying that you turn to God as your counselor instead of listening to bad advice.”
Gene waited for a reply, but Ben didn’t know what to say, so he blurted out what stood at the forefront of his mind. “Fine, can I get my knife and hatchet back?”
“Not today, but I’ll return them tomorrow night after we talk to your parents about what happened.”
Ben would rather have the scoutmaster keep his valued possessions than get his parents involved. His mother would be embarrassed about her son going nuts with a knife, and his father would use it as another chance to point out his stupidity. He never wanted to come on this trip and now dreaded going home.
Gene and Ben returned to the campsite and parted ways, but Ben kept an eye on his scoutmaster and watched him stash the knife and hatchet under the seat of his truck. Ben planned to retrieve his property later before he stepped away from this horrible mess—and disappeared.
CHAPTER 34
Ben’s chance to repossess his knife and hatchet came when he spotted Gene heading into the woods with a roll of toilet paper. Without hesitation, he grabbed his backpack and took an indirect route to the scoutmaster’s truck, going around the fringe of the campsite. Because the other scouts avoided him, Ben
easily made it to his target without being questioned.
After climbing inside, he turned off the cab light to conceal his actions and then reached under the seat. After sorting through the junk stashed there, Ben found his knife and slipped it into the sheath and then stored it in his backpack. Next, he looked for his hatchet and his fingers contacted a cold metal shaft that he thought was part of the hatchet. As he wrapped his hand around it, Ben’s mind registered something else—the barrel of a revolver.
When the object reached the faint light of the truck floorboard, Ben confirmed his guess. He considered the consequences of stealing the handgun, but the lure of the gun overwhelmed his conscience and judgment. He slipped it into his backpack.
Ben resumed searching for his hatchet and located it. He also put it in his backpack. After exiting the truck, Ben quietly closed the door and crept away, attempting to stay unseen by the scouts gathered around the campfire. Instead of walking through the camp, he took the road past the campsite and then used the brush near the Hawks’ campsite to hide his return.
When inside his tent, Ben closed the flap and pulled the gun out of his backpack. Using his flashlight, he inspected it more closely. He had stolen a .22 caliber revolver, a small gun primarily used for target practice or perhaps shooting squirrels. He decided to keep the gun even though it provided a poor option for self-defense.
After eating his evening meal, Ben walked toward the campfire to gather more food for his journey. He found a sandwich bag full of cookies and a package of hot dog buns and slipped them into his backpack. Because he stayed outside of the campfire’s glow, he acquired these items without being seen.
If Ben rationed his food, he could hike for a few days without becoming too hungry. Depending on his ability to find trails, he expected to be able cross the mountains between his location and Nephi in two days. When reaching Nephi, he could beg for food and hitch a ride to Southern Utah. He planned to create a new home for himself in or near Zion National Park—one of his favorite places that his family had visited during vacations.