by BJ Bourg
“What’re you doing?” I asked.
Charlie looked up. “Lightening my load. I’m only keeping enough food for today, since we’re coming back to the cabin tonight.”
“Good idea.” I tossed the blanket off and stretched. Dragging my tired frame off the sofa, I walked outside and scanned the area before approaching my truck. Keeping my head on a swivel, I grabbed my bags and hurried back into the cabin. I tossed them onto the sofa and dumped everything out. I shoved enough food for one day, a bottle of water, my fork, and the length of rope I’d brought along. I shoved my small bag into the rucksack and turned to Charlie, “Do we need matches for the hike?”
“No. It’s not like we’re sleeping out there in the wilderness.” He walked to the honeymoon suite and shoved the door open. “You coming or not?”
Brett walked out with his bag slung over one shoulder. “I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
I nodded my thanks, as I tossed the box of matches aside. After I was done with my rucksack, we stepped out onto the shady driveway in front of the cabin. It was a lot cooler than I expected, considering it was the middle of summer. Keeping a cautious eye on the thick forest surrounding us, I pulled the cabin door shut and locked it. There was no sign of the giant bear from the night before.
“Let’s saddle up,” I said, and we climbed into my truck.
With Charlie playing navigator, we made our way off Bear Mountain and drove for what seemed like forever on the road leading to Tipton Bluff, which marked the beginning of our hike.
“How far is it to the Tipton Bluff Road?” Brett asked.
Charlie consulted the map. “We have to be close—about three miles.”
“Three miles left to go?” I asked.
“Looks like it,” Charlie said.
I wanted to drive a little faster, but the sharp curves wouldn’t allow it. Before long, the road curved ninety-degrees to the left and then whipped around to the right near an area a sign called the Newfound Gap. It was a large parking lot with stairs leading up to an overlook. There were about four cars in the parking lot, but we didn’t see any people. I kept driving and soon came to a sign that directed me to veer right onto a narrower road, surrounded on either side by thick forests. Another sign indicated it was seven miles to Tipton Bluff. As we traveled along this road, we came upon a number of pullouts that provided awesome views of ridges and valleys. We stopped at a few of them to snap some pictures, but made good time along what we had come to realize was a typical mountain road.
“Look.” Charlie pointed. “There it is.”
I strained to see where he was pointing, but all I saw were trees. “I don’t see anything.”
“Look at the top of the tree line. You see it?”
I shook my head.
“I do,” Brett said.
Charlie stabbed his finger repeatedly in the air. “That giant piece of rock sticking out above the trees. It’s the bluffs.”
“I still don’t see it.” It was difficult picking something out of the faraway tree line while trying to keep from crashing into the jagged mountainside. “I’m trying not to kill us.”
“I appreciate that more than you know. Just drive. I’ll take a picture for you.” Charlie leaned out of the window and snapped some pictures.
Before long, the road widened to the left and the trees on the right gave way to a jagged rock wall. The two lanes were soon divided by a grassy median and it opened up into a large parking lot. The grass in the median was manicured, and there were a number of small trees growing at various locations along it. There weren’t many cars in the parking lot, and we were grateful to get a parking place close to the beginning of the trail. I took a spot to the left that overlooked an expansive range of mountains and valleys. We stepped out and, as though in a trance, walked to the sidewalk and found ourselves standing at what appeared to be the edge of the world, staring out at mountain upon rolling mountain for as far as our eyes could see. The mountains closest to us were dark green. As they extended away from us, they faded into a light gray and blended in with the blue skyline. In the distance, we could see a river cutting its way through one of the valleys.
“Is that one of the rivers on the map?” Charlie asked, referring to three crooked fingers of rivers on our map that extended from the southernmost part of the trails we would be hiking.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I think those rivers are on the other side, nearer the Cherokee Trail.”
Brett shook his head. “Arkansas doesn’t have mountains like this.”
“Really?” Charlie snapped more pictures and then turned to me, a solemn look on his face. “You ready to do this, Abe?”
I nodded, before I returned to my truck and pulled out my rucksack. Charlie stuffed the camera in his pack and then looked over at Brett and me. “Are y’all going to put on the hiking boots?”
Brett shook his head and retrieved his bag.
I thought about it for a few seconds, while I considered pulling them on. I was wearing a pair of leather water shoes that were a lot more comfortable than my hiking boots. “I don’t think so,” I said. “We’ll hike to where she was last seen and search all the trails in the area first. I read that’s what the rangers do when someone goes missing, so we’ll follow that plan. Tomorrow, we’ll branch out into the wilderness and go deeper and deeper each day.”
“Sounds good. I won’t wear mine either.” Charlie walked around to my side of the truck and leaned against the bed, wiping his face.
I glanced down at his water shoes and squinted when I saw flashes of silver on each shoe. There were about five of them. “Why do you have safety pins on your shoes?”
“The straps broke,” Charlie said.
Brett started laughing. “Um, why not buy new shoes? They’re like twenty bucks. If one of those pins pop off you’ll be walking barefooted.”
“Stop worrying about my shoes and grab your stuff.” Charlie walked away from us and stopped at a large monument-looking display case and the entrance to the trailhead.
I shrugged into my rucksack, locked up my truck, and Brett and I joined Charlie by the display case.
Charlie turned to us, his face a shade whiter than I was used to seeing. “This ain’t good at all!”
We flanked Charlie and looked up. Protected behind the glass of the display case was a giant map of the Blue Summit Mountains. Taped to the outside of the glass was a picture of Joy, along with a message asking anyone with information about her disappearance to call the park rangers. But that wasn’t what had caused Charlie’s concern—it was the other six posters taped to the glass. My heart pounded in my chest as I scanned the faces and read the details.
“So…Joy’s not the only one?” Brett’s voice shook.
“Joy’s the seventh person to go missing from this area since 2006.” Charlie stabbed at each of the posters with a finger and read off the locations of each disappearance. “Oliver’s Bald, Eagle’s Gap, Tipton Bluffs Bypass, Rocky Ridge Trail, Rocky Creek Trail, and Betham Creek Trail—we’re headed right into the heart of that area.”
I studied the map. Charlie was right. We had to pass nearly every disappearance site to get to where Joy went missing. Realization finally came to me. “She didn’t run away—she was taken!”
Brett threw up his hands. “I’m out! I didn’t sign up for this. I was willing to go out there looking for a girl who got lost, but this looks more like Big Foot is eating people.”
“Not just people,” Charlie corrected. “Young adults—they were all between fifteen and twenty when they went missing. Four girls and two boys.”
“Holy crap!” I nearly vomited when I noticed the dates of all the disappearances. “They all went missing in June!”
“Joy went missing in June. This is eerie.”
I looked over my shoulder, scanning the area. A few tourists were walking to and from the parking lot and a couple of park rangers stood huddled near an old wooden structure drinking something in deep mugs. When I wa
s sure they weren’t looking, I quickly ripped all of the posters down, then slung my rucksack off my shoulders.
“What’re you doing?” Brett asked. “You’re going to get us in trouble.”
“There might be a link between what happened to Joy and what happened to these people.” I folded the posters and shoved them into the large pouch of my bag, where they would be safe. “We’ll need this to help find Joy.”
“You’re not serious?” Brett asked. “After all of this you still want to go out there?”
“We’re not in danger,” I said. “It’s the end of August. No one has ever disappeared during the month of—”
“Look here!” Charlie moved next to me and showed me a news article on his phone. “The law called all of those disappearances suicides.”
“Even Joy’s?” I asked.
Charlie shook his head. “It’s from last September, long before her deal. But it talks about the six kids in those posters.”
I snatched the phone from his hand. The caption read, 6 Kids, 6 Years, Month 6 since ’06—Coincidence or Curse? “They’re calling this a curse or a suicide? Which is it?”
Charlie leaned over my shoulder and scrolled down through the details, stopping on a paragraph. “Here—some of the locals thought these kids were cursed because nearly one hundred people went missing from 2006 through 2011 and all were found except for them. They thought it might have been some sort of ritualistic thing.”
I read over the article. “So, every other person who went missing was found?”
“Right,” Charlie acknowledged, “every single one of them. Of course, they weren’t all found alive. Somewhere in the article it says a small percentage of the people who go missing in the mountains die, but it’s rare they go missing without a trace. In fact, in the last hundred years, only six people have never been found—well, seven now, counting Joy.”
Brett was pacing like a caged animal. “So, is this place cursed or not?”
“Some locals think the curse was broken, because the devil—or whoever they think it is—got his six sacrifices.” Charlie started to chuckle when he saw the look on Brett’s face. “But you can calm down. They think the curse was broken because no one disappeared last year.”
“So, it was cursed, but now it’s not?” Brett’s face twisted in confusion.
“That’s what the superstitious types think,” Charlie explained. “The cops say all of the kids were having problems in their lives and went off into the wilderness to die alone. They called it ‘returned to nature’ or something corny. They say it’s something kids do nowadays—like a suicide trend.”
Charlie was right. Some top park ranger was quoted as saying the only difference between the six kids who were never found and the hundreds of people they’ve recovered over the years was trouble at home. I couldn’t breathe. I felt weak. I leaned against the display case and slid down until my butt hit the ground. “It’s my fault. She ran off because I broke up with her. She said I was the only reason—”
Charlie quickly squatted beside me. “First off, she ran off because she was fighting with her dad, and that had nothing to do with you. Second, we don’t know for sure that’s why she disappeared. But if they are right, she’s still out there and it’s up to us to find her. Everyone else has given up.”
“But didn’t the cops search for like eight weeks?” Brett asked. “That’s longer than most search and rescue missions in the mountains. If the park rangers didn’t find her, we definitely won’t be able to. We shouldn’t be doing this. We need to get out—”
“How hard do you think they searched once they realized she was fighting with her dad? And that her boyfriend had broken up with her the day before they left?” Charlie shook his head. “Once grownups form an opinion about something, nothing can change their minds. Joy’s still out there, and we need to find her.”
I took a deep breath and struggled to my feet. “Charlie’s right. No matter what, she’s still out there. Even if she’s… Even if she died, we need to bring her back home.”
Brett shook his head. “This is a bad idea. I don’t like it one bit. I’m not going.”
“Would you want us going home if you were stranded out in the wilderness?” Charlie asked.
Brett shrugged. “I wouldn’t be stupid enough to run off into the mountains like an idiot. She should’ve known better.”
My blood instantly boiled. I jerked the truck keys out of my pocket and flung them at Brett. The keys ricocheted off his chest and fell to the paved parking lot. “If you don’t want to come,” I shouted, “get your ass in the truck and stay there! I’m sick of your whining. You knew what we were doing, so why’d you even come along if you’re such a coward?”
“Easy, Abe.” Charlie turned toward the park rangers—they had stopped talking to look our way. Smiling big, Charlie waved. They stared for several long seconds and then resumed their discussion. “Phew! That was close.”
I turned back to Brett. Tears had formed at the corners of his eyes. He chewed on his lower lip, and I knew he was trying to maintain his composure. No boy likes to cry in front of his friends. To save him the embarrassment, I shouldered my bag and walked off, Charlie beside me.
CHAPTER 5
Charlie and I walked in silence up the steep narrow trail for about twenty minutes. It was a blacktop path and the walking was smooth, but the trail was much steeper than I’d anticipated.
Charlie finally broke the silence. “Don’t worry about him. He’s not one of us, anyway.”
“I should’ve kept my cool. I can’t blame him for being scared. Hell, I’m scared, too. We don’t know what we’re doing out here—what we’ll find.”
“But you don’t hear us crying about it. Real men—”
“What about real men?” a voice called from behind us.
Charlie and I spun to see Brett standing there, face covered in sweat, breath coming in gasps.
“What do you want?” Charlie asked.
“I’m in,” Brett said.
Charlie’s eyes turned to slits. “For real this time?”
Brett nodded. “For real.”
“No more complaining?” Charlie asked.
Brett shook his head.
I smiled, walked over and slapped Brett’s back. “Sorry for losing my cool.”
He nodded his acceptance of my apology, and we turned to continue up the trail.
When we had rounded a blind curve in the trail for about the tenth time and the end still wasn’t in sight, I asked, “It’s two miles to the top?”
Charlie nodded. “That’s what the brochure said.”
“It’s pretty steep.” I took a deep breath, but it felt hollow. My lungs starved for the thick bayou air I was accustomed to. “It feels like we’ve walked ten miles.”
“This is the steepest thing I’ve ever been on,” Brett said. “I’ve hiked in the Ozarks a lot and don’t remember a mountain ever being this steep.”
“Are we going to have to hear about your Ozark Mountains all week?” Charlie wanted to know.
Brett laughed. “Am I going to have to look at those ugly shoes the entire trip?”
“These ugly shoes will kick your butt.”
We hadn’t gone much farther before we reached a wooden bench off to the right. There was a lady and a small girl sitting on it. They were both breathing hard and appeared exhausted.
“Are y’all coming or going?” Charlie asked them.
The lady took a deep breath and blew it out. Sweat dripped down her forehead and her long blonde hair stuck to her rosy cheeks. “We’re on our way down.”
The small girl was pouting and leaning against the lady. “I want to go home,” she said.
We smiled at her and continued up the path. On the right side of the trail the mountain extended upward into the sky, with trees protruding from the rocky ground. I wondered how a tree could grow out of solid rock. To the left, the ground was blanketed with thick, chest-high grass that stretched away from the trail
for several yards before dropping off gradually and merging with the crowded forest. The trees seemed to be growing on top of each other and appeared to be a great hiding place for wild animals. Pretty soon, I knew, we would be leaving this paved trail and plunging into the depths of the Blue Summit Mountain wilderness.
I didn’t want Brett to know it, but I was scared. If we met up with a giant bear that had bad intentions, we were dead. We were no match for the likes of what we’d seen outside our cabin. And the fact so many people our age had disappeared forever caused my stomach to turn. I kept telling myself we were okay because it wasn’t June anymore.
“Hey, there it is,” Brett said, pointing to a faded wooden sign along the trail.
The Cherokee Trail was nothing more than a faint dirt path that cut a narrow swath through the deepest and most desolate portion of the Blue Summit Mountain National Forest. We paused by the trailhead, traded glances, and then plunged along. We had walked barely a mile when a downed tree obstructed the path up ahead. I pointed to it. “Let’s stop by that roadblock. There’s something I want to show y’all.”
“What is it?” Charlie asked.
“You’ll see.” I continued toward the obstruction, carefully scanning the army of pine and oak trees surrounding us. A bear could be anywhere. I’d read that there were over two thousand of them out there—and they all had to eat. I waved my hand around. “There could be a bear behind every tree.”
“Yeah,” Brett said from behind me. “I’d feel much better if the can of bear spray wasn’t stuffed in our backpacks, out of reach.”
When we reached the downed tree, we shrugged our packs off and rested them side-by-side on the rough bark. Although the tree was firmly on its side, it was as high as my waist. Heeding Brett’s advice, I unzipped my small bag and dug out my can of bear spray, then shoved it into the right side pocket of my cargo shorts. Charlie dug out his, but stuffed it into the front of his waistband. “I don’t want my can getting tangled in the flap of my pocket,” he said. “You might want to do the same.”