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by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  It made it hard for him to think about hunting elk.

  But there was nothing he could do about it. The trip had not gone as planned so far, to put it mildly, with Susanne back in town and the horrible weather. Trish wasn’t making it any easier. What had she been thinking, inviting those older boys out to their campsite? Brandon and Todd were nice enough, but she was too young for them. For Brandon. Patrick remembered the phone call at McDonald’s. Now he understood what she had been up to—calling to let Brandon know where she’d be.

  He wouldn’t have admitted it out loud, but he was relieved Trish had stayed in the camp today. The break from her back talk and negative attitude was refreshing. But what if Brandon is coming back today? He pulled Reno to a stop. The horse snorted in protest. Patrick had been too hard on his mouth.

  “Sorry, boy.”

  That could have been the reason she insisted on staying at the campsite. And if it were the case, well, when he was Brandon’s age, he’d had one thing on his mind, and one only.

  Beside him, Perry jerked awake. The boy had both an amazing talent for sleep and an amazing ability to remain mounted while he did it. The first time he’d seen it happen was when their family had gone riding with the Sibleys on Piney Bottoms Ranch. Patrick had been shocked and Susanne worried. Henry had laughed it off. He told them about an old horse that had carried him home one night from a neighbor’s party when he was passed out drunk. And how Henry’s dad used to fall asleep riding fence, and when he’d come back he’d claim the horse did a better job of finding downed fence than he did, stopping any time he found an issue to be fixed.

  “Depends on the horse and the rider,” Henry had said. “But I think Duke and Perry are pretty well matched for sleep-riding.”

  After that, he and Susanne had worried about it less. But they couldn’t keep the kid awake anyway if they tried. He was practically narcoleptic.

  Perry yawned. “What’s wrong, Dad?”

  Patrick looked at his son. “What?”

  “You stopped us, and then you made a funny noise.”

  “I was just reliving our morning with your sister.”

  Perry snorted. “Mom would have grounded her.”

  “That may still happen. Hey, she didn’t say anything about that Brandon kid coming out again, did she?”

  Perry’s eyes popped. “No, sir.”

  “You didn’t hear Brandon or Todd mention it?”

  He shook his head.

  “Okay. Thanks, bud.” Patrick lifted a hand. Rain splashed in his palm. “I don’t think this is going to let up.”

  “Me neither.”

  “And I couldn’t see an elk if it walked in front of that tree to take a leak.” He pointed at a large tree ten feet in front of them. “I don’t think this is going to work.”

  “We can fish, though, can’t we, Dad?”

  Perry insisted on toting fishing gear everywhere they went, by car, by truck, by foot, or by horse. He had it all strapped to Duke’s saddle now.

  “I guess so. The West Fork of Big Goose isn’t too far behind us.”

  Perry beamed, showing a gap between his front upper teeth. “Cool.” He kicked Duke, but his short legs didn’t reach the horse’s “go” spot. Duke turned and shot him a look as if to say, “Is that all you’ve got?”

  Patrick led out with Reno, whose hooves were thudding a melancholy forest rhythm that matched the rain. Less than an hour later, they made it back to Big Goose and crossed to its east side. Patrick had fished here last year with Henry, although they’d ridden in from a different direction, and he knew there was a two-track running upstream that would give them better access to the creek than they’d get from the west side. Ten minutes and a mile later, the rain had lessened somewhat, enough that they pulled lunch from their saddlebags. They ate under a rock overhang while the horses hunkered, hobbled, under a thick stretch of pines.

  “What do you think Trish is eating for lunch?” Perry said. He had pulled his peanut butter and jelly sandwich apart and was eating each side separately, something he’d done since he was a toddler.

  “I left her a sandwich.” Thinking about his fussy daughter again made Patrick uneasy. His relief at getting away from her complaining had given way to something else. Guilt. He should have insisted she come, griping or not. It was a family vacation. He and Perry could have laughed about her bad attitude later. She’d have good memories to share someday, even if she protested now. Or she would have. Reading in a tent wasn’t a memory. She could do that anywhere.

  Perry tossed a crust toward a rock. Within seconds, a chipmunk hopped onto the rock near it. It grabbed the crust, then whipped its tail. It stood tall, feasting on the bread crust.

  “It looks like a little bear. Its body, I mean.” Perry reached a hand toward it, and it scampered out of sight into the rocks. Perry jumped up, shaking off his slicker. “Okay, I’m ready to fish.”

  “I have to water a tree.”

  “What?”

  “You know. Answer the call of nature?”

  “You’ve got to pee.”

  Patrick made a pistol with his finger. He pointed at Perry and bent his thumb like he was cocking a gun. “Bingo. I’ll meet you by the creek.”

  Perry took off, and Patrick walked farther up the two-track, searching for a tree to pee on like a dog in a field of fire hydrants. He stepped off the trail, pushed his slicker up, and unzipped. There was nothing like going outside in the depths of the wilderness. It was freeing. Made a man feel manly. He pressed a palm on the blistered, crunchy bark and immediately into sticky sap. When he was done, he wiped the sap from his hand onto the belly of his shirt and turned back to the trail, with his slicker bunched up, one hand on his not-yet zipped fly, and the other about to tuck himself back in his pants.

  A woman was watching him with a surprised but—unfortunately—amused look on her face—what he could see of it under a rain hat and with her hair plastered to her cheeks. The blood drained from his face.

  “Barn door’s open,” she said.

  He tucked and zipped so fast he nearly did damage. “Oh God. Oh, sorry. Good afternoon.” He was yammering like an idiot. As if he wasn’t already embarrassed enough.

  She nodded and resumed her walk downstream. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard her laughing. Not the reaction a man hopes for when he is caught, literally, with his pants down. Especially not when the hiker was the only woman ever to have seen him that way outside of his mother, his wife, and the nurse who assisted on his vasectomy after Perry was born. His ego deflated, he hurried to the creek, feeling chagrined. What was a female hiker doing alone in elk country during hunting season anyway? So much for wilderness. They might as well have been in downtown Denver.

  The blood returned to his cheeks slowly as he recovered his equilibrium. For the next few hours, he and Perry fished in companionable silence, occasionally catching and releasing small rainbow and brown trout. The rain continued, but it was sparse, and there was no lightning. They picked their way carefully out into the middle of the stream, moving from rock to rock. In the spring, the level and speed of the water would have made it impossible.

  Patrick gazed up at the rock cliffs overlooking them from both sides of the water, their stone faces striking over dark green full-skirted dresses of pines, whose hems ended at the midnight blue of the tumbling water. The cliffs were like a woman and her reflection in a slightly warped mirror. Trish would have loved this, albeit from the bank with her book. Susanne might have even liked it.

  Perry hollered from about ten yards downstream. His rod was bent near to ninety degrees.

  “Bring it in, buddy. Looking good.” Patrick reeled in his line as fast as he could, then hopped along a trail of rocks to go help Perry. “You’ve got it. It’s a big one.”

  The fish fought, zigging and zagging across the creek. Perry fought, too, his tongue out over his upper lip. Patrick was afraid he was going to trip and bite the thing off. Finally, the fish tired, which was a good thing, bec
ause Perry was wearing down almost as fast. His son rotated the reel a few last times, and Patrick scooped the fish into a net from their bag.

  “I got it.” Perry’s voice squeaked, which had been happening a lot lately. Puberty was almost upon him. Then he pumped his fist. “I got it.”

  Patrick wished he had a camera to catch the pride on the boy’s face. It was a beautiful fish. “Good job, son.” He ruffled Perry’s flattop with his free hand.

  Perry ducked away from the hair-rustling. “How big do you think it is?”

  Patrick held it up to his hand. It extended from the base of his palm, two inches past the tip of his middle finger. “Ten inches or more. A keeper.”

  A bright light flashed in the sky. Patrick got a sharp whiff of something burning, like plastic, at the same time that a powerful jolt rocked his body and rattled his teeth. Perry screamed and dropped his fishing pole. Patrick looked down and saw the fish and net rush downstream. Thunder shook him to his core. Lightning. They had to get out of the stream, where they were completely exposed electrical superconductors. Then something sharp bit into his arm, then his face, then his shoulder. Hail.

  He grabbed his son by the arm and pulled him toward the bank, stepping off the boulders and into the cold water. Running was all but impossible in the rocky stream, but he moved them as fast as he could. Perry tripped and splashed. Patrick bore down and dragged him, with Susanne’s face flashing in his mind.

  When they reached dry—drier—ground, Perry was sobbing. Hail as big as marbles was pelting them now. Patrick hauled him out of the water and onto the bank, where the kid flopped like the fish that had been in the net only moments before. Another bolt lit up the sky, and Patrick threw himself over Perry. Again, the current rattled his teeth. Maybe a little less than when they were in the water, but it was still jarring, and terrifying. He immediately picked Perry up and set him on his feet.

  “We’ve got to keep moving and find some rocks to get under.”

  “K-k-kay.”

  They ran hand in hand as Patrick scanned the rock face in front of them. They were far upstream from where they’d lunched, past where he’d seen the hiker. The horses were nowhere in sight. They’d probably headed for camp as fast as their hobbled legs would carry them.

  Ahead, he saw a low overhang. It wasn’t big, but it would do.

  “There.” He pushed Perry under the rock ahead of him, then stuffed his body partway in after him. The space was cramped. Cave-like.

  “What happened?” Perry said.

  “Don’t you know what that was?”

  “Lightning. But why did it smell so bad?”

  “That’s called ozone.” Another peal of thunder cracked.

  “I thought we were going to die.”

  Patrick knew well that it could happen. When he was a resident in Minneapolis, he had been working in the ER when a swimmer had been brought in after being struck. He had died. He and Perry had been having so much fun, he hadn’t wanted it to end. In hindsight, fishing in the rain was a higher-risk activity than he’d thought. It was probably too much to ask that Perry not tell his mom. But, oh, how he wanted to avoid that conversation. “We should let the worst of it pass before we leave.”

  “Did it hit us?”

  “No. We wouldn’t be here now if it had. I think it hit a tree or something pretty close to us, though.”

  “It hurt.”

  “Yes, it did.”

  Patrick slipped an arm around his son. The plastic of their slickers rubbed together with swishy noises. They huddled, barely talking. For the first few minutes, Patrick ran through scenarios. Walking back. Staying warm. Keeping out of the hail and lightning. Navigating through the darkness, if it came to that. His adrenaline ebbed, and he tried to free his mind of everything but gratitude, and he prayed, praising God that they survived the close call.

  When Patrick hadn’t heard any thunder or seen any flashes in the last five minutes, he said, “If we don’t want to be walking all the way back to camp, we need to go after those horses. You ready?”

  “Is it safe?”

  “I think it’s moved past us. We’ll stay in the tall trees. It’s going to strike them before us, if there’s any more lightning.”

  Perry’s face looked young and scared, but he screwed his lip and sat taller. “Okay.”

  Patrick squeezed his shoulder, then bent over and backed out of their hidey-hole. He reached in to help Perry out. Together they slogged along the road, staying under the canopy of trees along the edge. Perry was shivering. They stopped to pick up their tackle box.

  “My rod is gone.”

  “Yes, it is. And the net. And your great fish. Where’s your hat?”

  Rain was tracing a path down Perry’s face, freckle to freckle. He’d been wearing a weatherproof cowboy hat when they were fishing. His head was bare now, and the head loses body heat faster than any other part of the body.

  “I don’t know.”

  Patrick took his own off and plopped it on his son’s head. It wobbled, so he pulled the chin strap tight. It was better than nothing. If only he had something thick and dry to wrap him in. Wet hair, wet feet, wet pants. Even his shirt was partially wet under his slicker, from falling in the water. The best Patrick could do was keep them moving fast. That would keep Perry’s core warm. They took off at a brisk pace, alongside the muddy prints of their horses’ hooves. The hat and hard walking seemed to help Perry, and he didn’t speak again for fifteen minutes.

  When they came to the uphill turn leaving the prairie, Patrick was relieved to see the hoofprints of the horses heading toward camp. Perry sat down.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My feet hurt. And my ankle and shoulder a little, from yesterday when I fell off Duke. But mostly my feet.”

  Patrick felt terrible. Perry had shaken off the injuries and never mentioned them again, so he hadn’t asked. The foot issue was new, though. “I’m sorry, bud. Your socks got wet. It’s really uncomfortable, I know.”

  “I didn’t wear socks.”

  “What?”

  “I forgot to pack them.”

  The kid probably had major blisters. He could put his own socks on the boy. But if he took off Perry’s boots, he’d have a heck of a time getting them back on raw and ragged feet. Patrick clenched his fists. He’d asked Susanne to get them packed while he worked all night in the ER. A youngster can’t be trusted to ensure his own safety, and gear is key to safety.

  “I’ll carry you on my back.” He crouched down, and Perry stood, wincing, and climbed on. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d given him a piggyback ride, but whenever it was, the boy had been much smaller and lighter. His legs hung past Patrick’s knees now. “Ready?”

  “Ready.” He felt Perry wipe his eyes, then clutch onto him.

  The trudge up the hill was slow and hard, with lots of rest stops. The tackle box cut into Patrick’s hand and bounced against his hip. He struggled not to drop it, changing hands frequently. Halfway up, an emotion welled inside him. At first he thought it was frustration over the difficulty of their situation and the disappointing trip. But then he recognized it as a bittersweet gratitude. Almost a longing. Would he ever carry Perry on his back again? He’d blink and the boy would grow out of his undersized preteen body and into muscles and manhood. He’s not heavy, he’s my son.

  With this new mindset, he savored every painful step, chanting it to himself.

  Perry said, “Hey, Dad?”

  “Yep?”

  “Those guys at our camp last night were acting funny.”

  “Brandon and Todd?”

  “No. The guys with the picture.”

  Patrick stopped to catch his breath. “What do you mean?”

  “Like, I don’t know. Goofy.”

  Patrick nodded. He’d noticed it, too. “I’ve seen that at the hospital a few times before. I think they’d been doing drugs.”

  Perry drew in a quick breath. “Really?”

  “I’m not sure, but
that’s my guess.” Patrick started walking again.

  “Drugs can kill you. What if they overdosed up here?”

  “They’d die.”

  “Oh.” Perry stopped talking, seeming to be digesting the conversation.

  Patrick was relieved. It was hard to talk, lug Perry, and breathe at the same time. When they got to the top of the hill, he heard the clomping of hooves. Hope flared in his chest.

  A woman’s voice called, “Horses got loose.” The female hiker he’d embarrassed himself in front of earlier appeared around the corner leading their horses, neither of whom looked delighted.

  “Th-th-thank you,” he managed to stutter.

  “I recognized the big black one from when I saw you earlier. Thought you might like to have them back.”

  Patrick set Perry down.

  Perry limped over to Duke. “Ow.”

  “We had some lightning strikes near us, and they took off. Obviously they weren’t worried about us.” He took Duke’s lead rope, since he’d removed the bridles and looped them on the saddle horns before he’d turned the horse out in hobbles. “Let’s get you onboard and off those feet, son.” He bridled the horse and gave Perry a leg up.

  The boy’s eyes were bloodshot and swollen from crying. He was trying to keep his faced turned away so the woman wouldn’t see it, though. Patrick wanted to ruffle the kid’s hair again, but that would make things worse.

  Patrick turned to her for Reno’s lead. “Thanks, again. You really saved us. I wish we could show our appreciation more adequately.”

  She winked. “You’ve shown me all the appreciation you need to.”

  Patrick felt heat rush to his cheeks as he put Reno’s bridle on. He turned his big horse so he could mount from the uphill side. Once he was in the saddle, he asked, “Can we do anything for you? I’m sure you’re set back from your hiking destination quite a bit, bringing our horses back to us.”