by Roland Smith
Into the Dark
IT TOOK RAFE and me a while to find his backpack. It had been ransacked like the other packs, but most of the gear was nearby, including his headlamp. We repacked it, then found the camel munching on some bushes. The next problem was figuring out how to put the saddle on the beast.
“Not a problem,” Rafe said. “We have wild camels all over the outback. When I was a kid, I spent my summers leading camel tours around Ayers Rock, or as the aboriginals call it, Uluru.”
I knew that Ayers Rock was called Uluru, but I didn’t know there were wild camels in Australia.
“Camels are an invasive species, mate,” he continued. “The explorers Burke and Wills brought them over for their walkabout in the Never Never. After the car was invented, the camels were set loose. They’re a nuisance now, like roos. They shoot camels to control the herds.”
He might have been exaggerating about leading the tours, but he certainly seemed to know a lot about camels. He made the camel lie down, or cush, as he called it, which made it relatively easy to get the saddle on. When he got the camel back up, he buckled the saddle on like he’d done it a thousand times before.
“Small camel,” he said. “Female. Not big enough for both of us, but I can haul your pack and the other gear up with me.”
There was no debate about who was going to ride the camel, but I didn’t mind. I had no desire to ride a camel. He made the camel cush again, then clambered onto the saddle. I handed the gear up, and we headed off into the dark with the donkey trailing behind.
It was a lot easier negotiating the scree without a heavy pack. I kept my head down, looking for the others’ trail, but the scree was undisturbed and seemingly endless in my lamplight. I hadn’t even picked out the trail we had made getting to the cliff. I had just about resigned myself to hanging in limbo next to the river with Rafe, Ethan, and Cindy—providing Ethan and Cindy hadn’t been snatched as well—when my headlamp caught a tiny flash of something white to my left. I stopped and tried to find it again, but the camel bumped into my back, sending me sprawling face first onto the rocks.
“What the bloody . . .”
The rest of Rafe’s startled shout was drowned out by the camel bellowing and the donkey braying. I paid no attention to any of it because my fall had reopened the eagle wound on my chin, and I felt warm blood running down my neck. I started swearing too, probably saying worse things than Rafe was shouting, until I realized we were making enough noise to be heard all the way down to the river.
“Quiet!” I shouted.
Apparently both man and beast understood. The cursing, bellowing, and braying stopped immediately, as if I’d punched a mute button. I switched my headlamp off and whispered to Rafe to do the same. Without a word, he complied, and we were wrapped in blackness. It took a while for my eyes to adjust.
“What do you see?” Rafe whispered.
What I expected to see were lights coming our way. No lights. I pushed on my bandage to stem the flow of blood while I scanned the darkness.
“Why did you stop?” Rafe whispered.
I’d almost forgotten why I had stopped. There would be time to look for the white splotch after I figured out if they had heard us or not. “Can you hand down my first aid kit? Don’t turn your headlamp on.”
“Why?”
“Because it will act like a beacon for the bad guys.”
“I get that, mate. Why do you need the first aid kit?”
“Because my face is bleeding.”
“Hang on.”
I continued to stare into the darkness as he rummaged around behind me, relieved to see there were still no lights.
“What time would you say they took off with the others?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Probably around eight.”
I looked at my watch. They could have reached the river by now if they had hurried. The darkness would have slowed them up, and so would the hostages. It’s not easy to walk with your hands tied behind . . .
“Were their hands tied in front or behind them?”
“What difference does that make?”
It would make all the difference in the world if you were walking downhill over scree. “Humor me,” I said.
“In front, I think. Ah, found it.”
I walked over and grabbed the kit, but I waited a couple more minutes before using it to make sure there were no lights coming our way.
“I guess we’re okay.”
“Good. I need to get off and stretch my legs.” Rafe made the camel cush and climbed off. “It’s uncomfortable.”
“When we get going again, do you want to switch?”
“It’s not that uncomfortable, and you don’t know how to control a camel. It’s not as easy as you think.”
What I thought was, If Rafe could do it, a chimp could do it. What I said was, “I’m sure you’re right. I’m going to squat down behind the camel and work on my busted chin with my headlamp on. Keep an eye downhill. If you see a light, let me know.”
Rafe said something to the camel and jerked on its halter. The camel bellowed once, then was silent.
“She’ll stay down. She’s pretty well trained, actually. I’ll keep an eye out.”
“When I’m done, I’ll take a look at your bandages.”
I leaned against the camel’s warm rump and got the first aid supplies out. The gash on my chin had split open again, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought. I cleaned it, put new butterflies on, then rebandaged it.
“Hey, mate! I thought you said you didn’t have a mirror.”
Crap.
“I thought you were supposed to be looking downhill for lights.”
“It’s dark as an opal mine. What about the mirror?”
“Didn’t know I had one,” I lied. “It was at the bottom of the kit.”
“Let me see it.”
“Sit down and let me look at your bandages first,” I said.
We switched places. He sat down next to the camel.
“Give me the mirror.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“You told me it wasn’t bad.”
“I kind of exaggerated. The good news is that it’s a long way from the heart. It’ll heal.”
Rafe put his hand out. “The mirror, mate.”
I gave it to him.
“Good God! I look like the bloody Frankenstein monster!”
Actually he looked worse. “It’s not that bad. The swelling has already gone down.”
He reached for the bandage around his forehead.
“Don’t touch it,” I said. “The butterflies are holding it together nicely.”
“How long is the cut?”
I cut my answer in half. “A couple inches. We better get going. I’ll check the bandages when we get to base camp.”
“My lip,” Rafe said.
“Yeah, you bit through it, but it’s better than it was.” It was still pretty hideous, but the swelling had gone down some.
“Bloody hell! My earlobe is gone.”
There was nothing I could say about the missing earlobe, because the earlobe was gone, and nothing was going to make it better. I stood. I wanted to see if I could spot the white thing that had caused this whole mess. Rafe didn’t say a word as I walked away. Too busy wondering what he was going to look like when he healed, I guess.
I stood where I had gotten knocked down, which was pretty easy to find because the scree was disturbed and sprinkled with camel drool and my blood. It took me a while, but I found the white thing about forty feet to my left. It turned out to be a cigarette butt, smoked about halfway down. I examined it closely. Near the filter was the word Gauloises. I’d never heard of the brand. I doubted anyone in our group smoked, although Phillip might have been a smoker.
“What are you doing?” Rafe shouted.
“Looking at a cigarette butt,” I answered.
“What?”
“Never mind.” I didn’t want to carry on a shouting conversation across the
scree. “We better get moving.”
I squatted down, looked across the scree, and smiled, which hurt my chin. It was just like Zopa had explained the night before . . . This one. And this one. Both turned over earlier today by someone. But here there were dozens of flipped rocks, making the path as clear as the yellow brick road. Someone was smoking, and someone was dragging his feet. The foot dragger had to be Zopa, and maybe the others too if he had been able to suggest it to them. I started following the path. It was heading down to the river, roughly along a line parallel to the route Rafe and I had been traveling before the camel crash. It wasn’t long before Rafe caught up to me on the loping camel with the trailing donkey. He slowed down when he reached me.
“What’s with the different route?”
“It’s not that much different. Do you see the overturned rocks in front of us?”
“No.”
“Probably hard to see from up where you are, but someone is kicking over rocks for us to follow.”
“I’m not following anyone. I’m heading back to base camp.”
“I get that,” I said, a little irritated, although I was happy he was no longer worrying about his ruined face. “We’re on our way to the river, which will take us to base camp. One possibility is that they’re heading to our base camp as well. In fact, they might already be there, in which case, there won’t be a base camp by the time we get there.”
This seemed to hit home, because Rafe didn’t say a word for the next two miles. Zopa, or whoever was dragging their feet, continued to flip rocks, and I found three more Gauloises cigarette butts. About a mile from the river, their path took a sharp left. It was starting to get light out, which was making the path a little harder to see because there was less contrast. I stopped to reorient myself and get a drink of water.
“Why are you stopping now?” Rafe asked wearily. “We’re almost there.”
“The path hooks to the northeast here.”
“Good. That means they aren’t going to base camp.” He pointed to the southwest. “Base camp is that way. We’re in the clear.”
I was torn. I wanted to dump Rafe and continue following the others, but I had promised that I’d get him back to base camp. Not that he could miss it now. All he had to do was head downhill and, depending where he hit the river, take a right or left.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“It’s all I can do to keep myself from passing out, mate. My head is exploding. I think I might be having some kind of brain hemorrhage.”
I suspected that his brain had been hemorrhaging from the day he was born, but on the off chance that he was having a problem, I was going to have to get him back to base camp.
“Let’s go.”
I headed southwest, telling myself that it was just as well. I needed to check on Ethan and Cindy, repack my gear, and replenish my water supply. I hadn’t had the heart to do it at the spring where Elham and Ebadullah lay.
An hour and a half later, the camp came into view. I stopped to take everything in before we approached.
“Do we have a pair of binoculars?” I asked.
Rafe rummaged around for a minute, then handed a pair down. It was fully light now. There were two tents set up, forty or fifty feet away from each other. A campfire was smoking outside Cindy’s tent. The flaps on both tents were closed. I scanned the river. There was no sign of anyone along the shore.
“Well?” Rafe asked.
“Looks like we caught them sleeping.”
“Let’s wake them up.” Rafe slammed his heels into the camel’s sides. The camel let out a loud bellow and galloped down to the camp with the braying donkey close behind.
The camel bypassed the tents, running directly down to the river with Rafe shouting, “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Stop, you bloody—”
The camel did stop . . . abruptly, at the river’s edge, sending Rafe flying into the water. He stood up, drenched and cursing. The camel and donkey drank from the river as if he wasn’t there.
Split
Ethan opens his tent flap and steps out into the morning sun scratching his unruly brown hair. I join him.
“What happened to Rafe?”
“He fell off a cliff.”
“Land on his head?”
“More or less.”
“No harm, then.”
I laugh in spite of the circumstances.
“I didn’t expect you guys back until this afternoon or evening.” He turns and looks up the hill. “Where is everybody?”
“They’ve been kidnapped.”
ETHAN NEARLY FELL, whipping back around to face me. I quickly explained what had happened, leaving out several things like the eagle attack, Zopa’s premonition, and Rafe being a jerk, which Ethan probably already knew after spending three minutes with him the day before. Halfway through the summary, a disheveled and exhausted-looking Cindy showed up, and I had to restart the explanation, but only got to kidnapped before she started screaming. I should have headed back uphill as soon as Rafe got dunked in the river.
“Are they all right? Where are they? What do the kidnappers want? How did you get away? Are the phones working?”
I didn’t have the answers to any of her questions, except how I got away, but I didn’t want to get into the I-fell-asleep thing.
“Rafe will fill you in,” I said, pointing. He was trudging up from the river, drenched. His head bandage was hanging on his shoulder now, but the butterfly bandages were still holding the gash closed.
“Oh my God!” Cindy shrieked.
“It’s not that bad, is it?” Rafe asked, looking as horrified as she did.
“I’m going to get some water, pack some food, and take off,” I said. “I found their trail above. I’m going to follow it.”
“Which is really stupid,” Rafe said. “We need to stick right here so we can be rescued.”
“The helicopter won’t be here for eight days,” Ethan said. “And without a cell or sat signal, we have no way of telling anyone what happened.”
“I’m sure the kidnappers have a way of getting their demands out,” Rafe said. “Be pretty stupid to nab a bunch of people with no way to let anybody know about it.”
“Maybe,” Ethan said. “But, rather than sticking in camp, it seems like our best bet would be to head downriver to the nearest village or town. If we get lucky, we might even get a sat or cell signal.”
“I wouldn’t bet on finding a signal, mate. And the nearest village, if you even want to call it that, is a three- or four-day hike.”
“Not in a kayak,” Ethan said.
“You have a kayak?”
“Two-person inflatable. Do you know how to use a two-person?”
“Of course I do,” Rafe scoffed.
I didn’t say anything. Rafe had surprised me with the camel. And the camel surprised him when it saw the river. He very well may have been an expert kayaker. But none of this made any difference to me. I wasn’t going with them.
“The water’s not that fast here,” Ethan said. “But there might be some tricky places downriver were it narrows. If you see trouble ahead, you can always haul out and portage around it. The kayak is as light as a feather.”
Cindy’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by ‘you’?”
“I mean you and Rafe. It’s a two-person kayak. You two need to get out of here. Get help. Let people know what happened. I’m going with Peak.”
This was news to me, but I was happy to hear it.
“What about your ankle?” Cindy asked.
“It’s a lot better today than it was yesterday. And it’ll be even better tomorrow. I’ll use the camel.”
“Do you know how to drive a camel?” Rafe asked.
“No, but I’ve driven a yak, elephant, horse, and car, and flown an airplane. I should be able to figure it out.”
“And a snowboard down McKinley,” Rafe said with a smirk.
“That’s right, mate,” Ethan said, returning the smile, then turned to me. “That’s if you want
me with you.”
“Of course,” I nearly shouted.
Ethan slapped his hands together. “Great! Then we have a plan.”
“No one asked me what I thought,” Cindy said.
“Sorry,” Ethan said. “If you have a better idea, I’m all ears.”
“Two could ride the kayak, and two of us could walk downriver.”
I was about to say something, but Ethan beat me to it.
“Except Peak isn’t going downriver. He wants to find his mom and the others. And I don’t blame him. We can’t leave them out there hoping that the kidnappers let them go.”
“What are you going to do if you find them?” Cindy asked.
“Exactly,” Rafe said. “I asked Peak the same question last night.”
“And I bet Peak said that he didn’t know,” Ethan said.
“That’s right,” Rafe answered.
“You know,” I said, “I’m standing right here.”
Ethan laughed. “Sorry. We’ll figure it out when we catch up to them—if we catch up to them. It’s no different from climbing a mountain that you haven’t been up before. You figure it out as you go along. I’m not letting Peak go alone, and if he wasn’t going, I might go after them myself.”
“Enough of this,” I said. “We’re wasting time. I’m outta here.” I started down to the river to retrieve my gear from the camel.
“Hold on,” Ethan said.
I turned my head but kept walking. “What?”
“I’ll take care of the gear, drinking water, and kayak. Why don’t you tape Rafe up again? I think I saw some waterproof bandages in Phillip’s first aid kit. By the time you get him rewrapped, I’ll be ready to go.”
Which would probably be another forty-five minutes to an hour—and this was the problem of climbing with other people. I was grateful Ethan wanted to go with me, but I didn’t want to wait a second longer. I wanted to find Mom and Zopa and, to be honest, Alessia. And thinking about this brought on a memory that made me smile, unlikely as that was under the horrible circumstances. Mom was not much of a cook. We ate out, or ordered in, almost every night of the week, and it drove me nuts. Not the food, but the What do you want to eat? Where do you want to eat? Five different answers every night. My answer was always I don’t care. It took us longer to decide than it did to get the food and eat it. The memory made me grin.