Caching In

by Kristin Butcher

  “Old? Young? Fat? Skinny?”

  “All of the above. None of the above. I don’t know. She was wearing a sweat suit, a hat and dark glasses.”

  “It was probably the bride. If anybody knew there was a cache in the bouquet, it would be her.”

  “I guess,” I say. “But what do you think about the listing being pulled from the website?”

  “I think it’s great!” Chris says. “If there’s no competition, our chances of winning are excellent.”

  “Competition or not, we’re not going to win if we can’t figure out the clues,” I remind him.

  “No problem,” Chris drawls. I can’t believe how confident he sounds.

  “I hope that means you’ve had better luck figuring out the clues than I have,” I say.

  “Not all of them,” he admits, though he still sounds pretty smug. “But enough to get us going. And I’m pretty sure the rest of it will start to make sense as we go along.”

  “Explain, please,” I say as my hopes start to rise again.

  Chris chuckles. “Let’s just say that tomorrow is going to be a long day. Pack a lunch and make sure your bike is ready for a good ride. I’ll be at your house at nine sharp.”

  “Why? What are we—” I begin, but Chris has already hung up.

  Chapter Six

  “The Sooke Potholes! Are you crazy? Do you know how far that is?”

  Chris shrugs. “That depends on where you start and what route you take.”

  I wheel my bike out of the carport. “Well, we’re obviously starting here, so no matter what route we take, Sooke is a long way.”

  “True, but we’re not traveling by road. We’re going to go as the crow flies.” He snickers. “Well, more like as the goose flies.”

  I glare at him. “You’re starting to sound like that stupid letter. Crow flies, goose flies. Why not horseflies? What the heck are you talking about?”

  Chris laughs again. “Relax, Eric. It’s a play on words—like in the letter. Whoever wrote those clues likes double meanings. You know—to get us thinking one thing when we should be thinking something else. But I’m starting to catch on.”

  “Well, I’m not. So help me out. And start at the beginning.”

  Chris nods. “Okay. Yesterday, when I got home, I started thinking about the clues in both caches. The first one was connected to Richard Carlisle—that dead guy in the cemetery. It made me wonder if the second one was too. So I looked him up on the Internet.”

  In my mind, I kick myself for not thinking to do the same thing. But all I say out loud is, “So what did you find?”

  “Mostly information about his business, but also that he was a big humanitarian. He gave money to all kinds of charities, sponsored kids in Third World countries, stuff like that. His wife died a few years ago. His only living relative is his daughter, Jane. I’m thinking she was the bride we saw at the cemetery. I also found out that Carlisle was an outdoorsy guy who spent a lot of summers hiking and camping in the Sooke River Canyon. He was a distance runner too. He ran the Victoria Marathon every year, right up to the time he got sick. And his favorite training route was the Galloping Goose Trail.” Chris wiggles his eyebrows. “Are you starting to get the picture?”

  The first clue from the letter flashes across my brain. Follow the marathon man. It looks like that would be Richard Carlisle. I think about the next clue. Hurry northwest before flying south.

  “What direction is the Galloping Goose Trail from Victoria?” I ask Chris.

  His face breaks into a big grin. “I knew you’d catch on! It’s northwest.”

  I smile too. “And it leads to the Sooke River Canyon and the Potholes.”

  “Bingo.”

  I nod. “Okay, but I still don’t get the flying south bit?”

  “I think it’s just another way of telling us to take the Galloping Goose trail. You know—because geese fly south.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “So you think the next cache is in Sooke?”

  “Yup.”

  I slap Chris on the back and strap on my helmet. “So what are we waiting for? Let’s go.”

  The Galloping Goose was once a railway line, but now it’s a trail for hikers and cyclists. Parts of it are paved, others aren’t. From downtown Victoria to Leechtown, which is past the Sooke Potholes, the trail is fifty-five kilometers long.

  Chris and I get on at Atkins Road, which shortens our ride a lot. It’s still a long way, though, and it takes all morning for us to get to the Potholes.

  It’s a sunny day, so there are lots of people on the trail—joggers, skaters, families with strollers and dogs, and other cyclists. There are lots of girls, too, and some of them are pretty hot. But Chris and I are on a mission. We don’t have time for sightseeing. As we get into the more wooded areas, the pavement turns to gravel and hard-packed dirt, and the crowds thin out. Now it’s mostly hikers, a few cyclists and the occasional horse and rider.

  After rattling over a wooden bridge, Chris and I pull over to the side of the trail for a water break.

  I take a long swig from my water bottle and then wipe my forehead with my arm. I squint up at the sun. It’s starting to get hot. “How much farther do you think?” I say. “My legs have turned to spaghetti, and my butt is numb.”

  “I don’t know,” Chris replies. “But we have to be getting close. Maybe we should figure out the rest of the clues.” He rattles them off like he’s a tape recorder. “Remember, this isn’t a picnic. Billy loves Sara. Be prepared for danger and be on edge. Good luck finding your nest egg.”

  “Well, if the clue writer is sticking to a pattern, all those things are going to come up in that order,” I tell him.

  Chris looks at me, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “Think about it. Nothing so far has been mixed up. All the pieces of the longitude and latitude coordinates in the obituary were listed in the right order. We didn’t have to rearrange them. And the first two clues from the letter have been in order too.” I shrug. “I’m just sayin’.”

  Chris frowns for a second. Finally, he mutters, “You’re right. I should have thought of that.”

  I take another swig of water to hide my smile. Chris is a smart guy, so whenever I get one past him, I feel like I’ve won an Olympic medal.

  “So you think this isn’t a picnic is coming up next?” he says.

  I bob my head. “Yeah.”

  Chris gets back on his bike. “Okay, then. I guess we keep our eyes open for something that screams picnic.”

  That something appears around the next bend. Not only does it scream at us, it practically jumps onto the trail.

  This part of the Galloping Goose is totally owned by Mother Nature. It’s a forest. On one side, the trees go on forever. On the other side, they come and go in clumps. They disappear completely sometimes, and that’s when you realize you’re near the edge of a cliff.

  It’s like that when we round the bend. The trees on one side suddenly vanish, exposing a clearing between the forever-blue sky and the rushing water and rocks of the Sooke River.

  And right in the middle of the clearing is a picnic table.

  Chris and I spot it at the same time and race straight for it. You’d think we’d found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

  “This has to be the place,” Chris says, throwing down his bike. I can tell he’s excited.

  I am too. “So what now?” I pant.

  “Billy loves Sara.”

  Suddenly the clue makes sense. “I bet you anything that’s carved somewhere on the table,” I say.

  But it isn’t. Chris and I look everywhere, but all that’s scratched into the wood is a lightning bolt and the name of a band.

  “I was so sure there would be a lover’s heart carved into the table,” I sigh.

  “There’s not,” Chris says as he stands up and starts walking toward the cliff.

  “You don’t need to get suicidal about it,” I say. But when Chris keeps on walking, I add, “Hey, man, be careful. It
’s dangerous over there.”

  It’s like he doesn’t hear me. When he finally does turn back to look at me, he’s smiling. I think he’s gone goofy, but he points and says, “It’s carved in this tree.”

  I look past him, and sure enough, there’s a heart chiseled into the tree trunk. Inside it are the words Billy loves Sara. I move in for a closer look, though I keep one eye on the cliff. The tree is awfully close to the edge, and I’m not good with heights.

  “Be prepared for danger and be on edge.” Chris’s voice sounds fuzzy and far away.

  He takes another step toward the cliff. Now he’s standing right on the edge. And he’s looking down. I get dizzy just watching him.

  “Hey, Eric. Look.” Now Chris is pointing down at something. “This is it.”

  It takes all the nerve I have to move closer, but I do. I don’t want Chris to think I’m chicken. Now I’m looking over the edge too. My stomach is churning.

  “See it?” Chris says.

  Sweat is dripping into my eyes, but I make myself focus. About three meters below the cliff we’re standing on is another cliff, and growing on it—practically straight out over the edge—is a small tree. It looks more like a branch than a tree. My thigh is fatter than it is. I look along the trunk. At the end is a nest. No bird though. Instead, there’s a toy lantern. And even from here, I can see there’s something inside the lantern.

  Chris turns toward me and grins. “Looks like we’ve found our nest egg.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Yeah,” I say, but I’m not the least bit excited. Mostly I’m terrified about standing on the edge of the cliff, so I back away and head for the clearing. My knees are shaking so much, they barely hold me up. When I reach the table, they give out altogether, and I collapse onto the bench.

  Chris doesn’t notice. I might not be thrilled about the cache, but he is. He’s jacked enough for both of us. He doesn’t seem to realize there’s no way we can get to it. It might as well be on the moon.

  When he comes back to the table, he’s practically dancing. He swoops down onto the bench across from me. Then he slouches out of his backpack and heaves it onto the table.

  “We’ve found it!” he grins.

  “Yeah, but we still have to get it.

  And that could be a problem. Maybe you didn’t notice, but the tree it’s in is hanging out over the middle of nowhere. And it doesn’t look that sturdy. There’s no way we can climb out onto it.” The thought of trying makes my world spin.

  Chris waves away my concerns. “You worry too much.”

  “Ha!” I hoot as a man and woman on bikes ride into the clearing. They look in our direction for a half second and then continue along the trail.

  Chris lowers his voice and pats his pack. “I brought a rope.”

  “How’s that going to help?” I scoff. “You think you can lasso that lantern?”

  Chris frowns. “Don’t be a jerk. I’m gonna use the rope to climb down the cliff.” He pauses. “Or you are. One of us is. It’s my rope, but I’ll flip you to see who gets to use it.”

  “That’s crazy! You’re crazy! Climb down the cliff and onto that skinny branch? That’s suicide.”

  Chris shrugs. “Not with the rope as backup.”

  My jaw drops open. “You are crazy. There’s no way I’m climbing down there.”

  Chris looks puzzled. “You sure? You’re gonna let me have all the fun? You don’t even want to flip me for it?”

  I shake my head. “No way.” I have no intention of confessing my phobia, but my mouth turns traitor on me anyway, and I blurt out, “I can’t do heights.”

  Right away, I wish I could take the words back. Chris will think I’m a total wimp.

  “Seriously?” he says.

  I nod and look away. “I can barely look out over the cliff, never mind climb down it. Just thinking about it makes me want to puke.”

  I expect Chris to laugh, but he only says, “Then you’ll have to take care of things up here while I climb down.”

  The next thing I know, we’re tying one end of the rope around the Billy loves Sara tree and the other around Chris, and he’s getting set to head down the cliff.

  He tugs on the rope to make sure it’s secure. Then he starts lowering himself over the edge, letting out the rope a little at a time.

  I watch from the safety of the tree until Chris’s head disappears.

  “Okay,” he calls up after a few seconds. “I’m on the ledge. Now I’m going to shinny out to the end of the tree. Can you keep an eye on it and tell me if it looks like it’s gonna break?”

  I take a step toward the edge of the cliff and then stop. I’m not even looking down yet, and already I feel dizzy. I swallow hard and reach back for the tree.

  “Eric? You there, man?”

  I swallow again. “Yeah. I’m coming.”

  But my feet are frozen to the spot.

  Afraid of heights or not, I can’t leave Chris out there on that skimpy branch without even a lookout. I drop to the ground and crawl commando style to the edge of the cliff. My hands grip the sharp, rocky ledge while my runners wedge toeholds in the dirt. Only when I feel like my body is glued to the earth do I look over the edge.

  All I see is the water crashing over the rocks far below. The sound of it fills my ears, and my vision starts to swirl. I feel like I’m being dragged down a bathtub drain. I shut my eyes and wait for the spinning to stop.

  “You okay?” Chris says. “You look awful white.”

  “I’m fine,” I lie. I block out the river and focus on Chris. “Have you tested your weight on the tree?”

  He moves his head. I think he’s nodding, but it’s hard to tell from this angle.

  “It’s stronger than it looks,” he says. “I think it’s going to be fine, but yell if you see it start to move.”

  It’s my turn to nod. “Be careful,” I tell him.

  He doesn’t answer. He climbs onto the tree and starts shinnying up and out. I imagine I hear the trunk crack and see it break, dumping Chris into the river. I shake off the image and stare at the tree.

  I look at the rope, angling down over my shoulder from the tree behind me. It’s stretched as far as it can go. I steal a quick glance at Chris. He’s stretched too—flat along the length of the tree, his arm reaching toward the nest. His fingers claw at it, trying to pull it closer.

  I hold my breath and will the tree to be strong. The rope groans as Chris tries to shinny out a bit farther. I hear a scraping noise behind me, and suddenly the rope that was taut above me is right on top of me. It digs into my shoulder and pins me to the ground. The rope has slid down the trunk of the Billy loves Sara tree.

  Horrified, I look down. Chris is gone. My stomach leaps into my mouth, and the rocks and rushing river below become a blur. Oh, God. Don’t let this be happening.

  “Chris!” I scream. “Chris! Where are you? Chris, answer me!” The rope is really cutting into me. I know it will jerk again if I wriggle out from under it, but if I stay where I am, it’s going to take my shoulder off. Besides, I need to find Chris. Using my free hand to push at it, I pull my body the other way and slide free. The rope thumps to the ground like a giant elastic being snapped. There is a roar of complaint below. I peer back over the cliff and holler again. “Chris!”

  Finally, I see him—his hands, actually—hanging onto the tree, but at least he hasn’t fallen into the river. Not yet.

  “Chris!” I yell down to him. “Hang on. I’m going to get help.”

  The words are no sooner out of my mouth than I hear footsteps pounding the ground behind me. Then somebody is pulling me away from the cliff. It’s the man and woman who cycled past the clearing earlier.

  “What happened?” the man says. “Where’s your friend?”

  I point down to the ledge. “There.”

  The man looks over the cliff. “Hang on, kid. I’m coming.”

  I look down again. Chris is still dangling from the tree, but he’s working his way hand over hand
to the ledge. Before the guy even begins to climb down, Chris is back on his feet.

  He grins and waves. “I’m okay.” A couple of minutes later, he has scaled the cliff and is back on solid ground.

  Wearing a worried frown, the guy looks Chris over like he expects him to be missing an arm or a leg. “What the heck were you doing down there? You could have been killed.”

  “I dropped something,” Chris says. “So I climbed down to get it.”

  “And did you?” the woman asks.

  “Did I what?”

  “Get what you dropped.”

  Chris lowers his eyes and shakes his head. “Nah. It fell in the river.”

  Chapter Eight

  When the man and woman are convinced Chris is okay, they scold him for being reckless and make him swear not to do anything stupid like that again. Then they get on their bikes and leave.

  Chris doesn’t seem the least bit shook-up. I can’t believe it. If I’d been dangling over the Sooke River on the end of a rope, I would be a wreck.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” I tell him. “For a couple of minutes there, I thought you were dead.”

  Chris grins. “Nope. Totally alive, as you can see.”

  “How can you be so calm? That was really scary. And all for nothing.”

  “Not really,” he drawls. He reaches behind him into the waistband of his jeans and pulls out the toy lantern that had been in the bird’s nest.

  For a second, I think I’m seeing things. I blink a couple of times. “You got it? But you said it fell into the river.”

  Chris shrugs. “I had to say that, or those people would have wanted to look at it. And then they would’ve asked a ton of questions.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I agree. I slug him in the arm. “So open it!”

  As Chris fumbles with the tiny latch, his hands shake. I’m thinking maybe his hanging over the Sooke River got to him more than he wants to let on.

  He shoves the lantern at me. “You open it. My fingers are too big and clumsy.”

  I don’t say anything. I just take the lantern.

  Opening it is a snap. Digging out the paper that’s inside is a whole different matter. It’s wedged in so tight, it’s hard to get a grip on it.