“Works for me.”
“It’s settled then. We’ll go to the office for a newspaper after breakfast.”
While Billie, Fred, and the kids were at the office, Cat and Jen got ready for their hike.
“I don’t know how we lucked out, but a hike with the just the two of us is going to be heaven,” Jen said.
Cat leafed through the campground brochure. “There are several trails to choose from. Do you have a preference?”
Jen looked over Cat’s shoulder. “Something a little more challenging than the one we went on with the kids.”
“How about this one?” Cat pointed to the trailhead pictured in the brochure. “Camelback Mountain, moderate difficulty. It says the hike is about five miles each way, and the trails are well marked.”
“I can do moderate.”
“Okay then. Sunscreen, ball caps, snacks, sweatshirts, raincoats, bug spray, water. Did I miss anything?” Cat asked as she zipped her backpack.
“How about your cell phone?”
“Why don’t you bring yours? If anyone calls us, it’ll be Fred, and he’s likely to call your cell. Billie’s phone was buried at sea, remember?”
“How could I forget? Should we bring a flashlight?” Jen asked.
“I don’t think so. We’ll be back long before dark.”
“In that case, it sounds like a complete list.”
“Are you ready?”
“We’re not going to wait until the others return from the office?” Jen asked.
“I don’t think we need to. Who knows how long they’ll be? I’d rather get an early start if that’s okay with you.”
“At least let me leave them a note letting them know we’ll be back before dark.”
“Can we stop for a moment, Cat? I need to catch my breath.”
“Sure. There’s a group of boulders up ahead. It looks like as good a place as any to stop for a while.”
Cat and Jen settled onto the path-side boulders and took their water bottles from their backpacks.
Jen wiped the sweat from her brow. “If this is what they call moderate, I’d hate to see what difficult is.”
“I have to admit it is kind of challenging. I can’t help but wonder if we’ve veered off track. I haven’t seen any trail markers for a while.” Cat glanced at her watch. “Sheesh. Where’s the time going? It’s already four o’clock.”
“We left at what, noon? I can’t believe it’s taken us four hours to get this far. I’m more out of shape than I thought. Maybe we should turn around. At this rate, it’ll be dusk by the time we get back to camp.”
Cat screwed the cap onto her water bottle. “You’re right. Let’s go back.”
* * *
Billie, Fred and the kids spilled out of the van. “Mom, can we have a snack?” Seth asked.
“You guys just ate three buckets of popcorn at the movies,” Billie replied.
“That was an hour ago.”
Billie shook her head in disbelief. “All right, a snack and a drink for each of you, but don’t overdo it. I don’t want you to ruin your dinner.” She looked at Fred. “Where do they put it all?”
“I hear you. Jen and I would be rich if we didn’t have to feed the kids.”
Billie retrieved two bottles of pop from the cooler and handed one to Fred. “I wonder if the girls are enjoying their hike.”
Fred looked at his watch. “It’s nearly four o’clock. I suspect they’ll be back soon. I hope so; my stomach is rumbling.”
Billie chuckled. “I would hate to have to cook dinner if they’re not back in time.”
“Correction, Mom, we would hate for you to cook dinner if Mom and Aunt Jen don’t get back in time,” Seth said from the picnic table.
“Smart ass,” Billie whispered under her breath.
Seth waved his bottle of soda in her direction. “I heard that.”
“I’m gonna tell Mama you said a bad word,” Skylar added.
Billie rolled her eyes at Fred.
* * *
Cat glanced over her shoulder. “Have you seen a trail marker yet, Jen?”
“No, have you?”
“No.”
“Do you think we’re lost?”
“I’m kind of concerned that nothing looks familiar,” Cat admitted. “I would have sworn this was the path we came in on.”
“You wouldn’t happen to have a GPS on your phone, would you?”
“Yes, I do, but we left my phone at the campsite, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. What time is it getting to be?” Jen asked.
“Holy shit! It’s almost six o’clock.”
“No wonder my stomach’s growling. I ate the last of my snacks back at the boulders.”
“Maybe we should call Billie and Fred to let them know we’ll be later than expected,” Cat said.
“Good idea.” Jen retrieved the cell phone from her backpack and dialed Fred’s number.
Cat waited patiently. After several moments, she raised an eyebrow in query.
“He’s not answering,” Jen said. “I’ve got his voicemail. Fred, this is Jen. It’s about six o’clock. Just calling to say Cat and I are running a little late. Give me a call when you get this.” She snapped her cell phone closed. “We should probably get moving. I’d like to get off the trail before it gets dark.”
A faint rumble of thunder could be heard in the distance. Cat looked through the canopy of trees at the sky beyond. “Great! All we need is yet another soaking. We’d better hurry.”
“Which direction?”
Cat looked around. “Hard to tell. Between the dark clouds and the dense trees, it’s tough to see a trail.”
“There appears to be a break in the trees over there,” Jen said, pointing to their right.
“Lead the way,” Cat said.
The wind increased significantly as they approached the opening in the trees. “Shit! This isn’t good,” Cat said. “We may want to stay within the protection of the trees until this passes.”
“You might be right, but I want to see what’s in that clearing. We might get lucky and actually be near civilization,” Jen replied.
“It’s worth a look, I guess,” Cat said as she followed Jen.
A few moments later, they were within ten feet of the edge of the trees. Cat reached for Jen’s shoulder and brought them both to a halt. “That’s odd,” Cat said. “It looks like there’s nothing beyond the trees, just sky.”
“I was thinking that very thing,” Jen said. “I’m going to take a look.”
A strong gust of wind suddenly tore through the trees. “You’d better hurry. The sky’s about to open up. I’ll look for a place where we can sit out the storm while you check the clearing,” Cat said.
“Okay. I’ll be right back.”
“Be careful.”
Cat looked around and found several downed evergreen branches, still heavy with needles, which she was gathering when she heard a yelp from the woods. “Jen? Jen, where are you?” She looked around, but failed to see her friend. “Jen!”
“Fuck! Goddamnit! Help!”
“Jen!”
“Over here. I need help, quick!”
Cat ran toward the clearing and looked around. “Jen, where are you?”
“Over here. Quick, Cat, I can’t hold on for much longer.”
Cat soon realized the reason they saw only sky beyond the trees was because the ground abruptly fell off a cliff at the edge of the clearing. “Jen, I can’t see you!”
“I’m down here. Hurry, Cat!”
Cat approached the edge of the cliff and was startled to see her friend with a tenuous hold on a root protruding near the lip of the drop-off. She immediately dropped to her stomach on the ground.
“Oh my God, Jen! Here, grab my hand.” She reached forward as far as she could without slipping over the edge herself. “I’ve got you. Hold on tight,” she said as she anchored Jen’s climb over the top of the cliff. When Jen was safely beside her, Cat scrambled to her knees. “What happen
ed?”
“I was walking along the edge, looking for a trail down, and suddenly the ground gave out from under me,” Jen said. “Next thing I knew, I was hanging on for dear life.”
“Do you know what might have happened if we’d continued along this path in the dark?” Cat asked.
“I hate to even think about it.”
Cat climbed to her feet and peered over the edge of the cliff. “You’re lucky you didn’t fall to the bottom. You would’ve broken your neck.”
“Unfortunately, my cell phone wasn’t so lucky.”
Cat groaned. “Please don’t tell me that.”
“Okay, I won’t.”
A bright bolt of lightning and loud crack of thunder tore through the sky. Cat offered her hand to Jen and helped her to her feet. “Come on. The rain is going to let loose at any moment. We need to take shelter.”
* * *
Billie stoked the coals in the fire pit while Fred added another piece of wood.
“It’s a good thing we had canned soup,” he said. “Kind of hard to mess that up.”
Billie glanced at the kids gathered around the picnic table. “They seem to be enjoying it.”
A few awkward moments of silence passed before Fred cleared his throat and said, “I wonder when the girls will be back. Those dark clouds look menacing.”
“I was thinking the same thing. Have they called your cell at all?” Billie asked.
“I haven’t heard it ring.”
“Check it anyway. It’s possible they’ve called, and we just didn’t hear it.”
Fred dug his phone out of his pocket. “Oh, man!”
“What is it?”
“It’s off. I forgot to turn it back on after we left the movie theater.” The “missed call” chime sounded. Fred opened the phone. “The call is from Jen.”
“What time did it come in?”
“It says five forty-eight.”
Billie looked at her watch. “That was about a half hour ago.”
“She left a voicemail. Here, let me put it on speaker.”
“Fred, this is Jen. It’s about six o’clock. Just calling to say Cat and I are running a little late. Give me a call when you get this.”
“Call her back,” Billie said.
Fred dialed Jen’s number and waited. “It’s going to voicemail.”
“Leave a message. Tell them to call us right away.”
Fred nodded. “Hi, hon. Sorry. I shut my phone off when we went to the movies and just now turned it back on. Call me back. Love you.”
A bright bolt of lightning and loud crack of thunder tore through the sky. “This is not good,” Billie said.
* * *
“Jen, grab that bough and drag it over here.”
“I think this one should do it,” Jen said. She held it in place while Cat used their last shoestring to secure it to the other branches. “Just in time. It’s starting to rain.”
“Grab your stuff and get inside.”
Jen crawled into the triangular space between the large boulder and the small tree limbs Cat had set in place and covered with multiple layers of evergreen boughs. “Where did you learn to make a lean-to?”
“My dad used to take my sisters and me camping in the woods with nothing but our wits. I learned how to build a primitive structure when I was quite young.”
“Thank you, Doc.”
“Amen to that. I just hope the structure holds. The wind is picking up.”
“So is the rain.”
“You’d still better be prepared to get wet, Jen. The boughs will keep off most of the rain, but not all of it.”
A flash of light and clap of thunder vibrated through the shelter. Jen grabbed Cat’s arm. “A little warning would be nice,” she yelled into the darkness.
A few awkward moments of silence passed, before Cat said, “You do realize we’re here for the night.”
“I kind of figured that one out a while ago.”
“It could be worse, you know.”
Jen grimaced. “Pray tell how?”
“You could be at the bottom of the cliff with your cell phone.”
* * *
“What time did you say they left the site?” the ranger asked.
“Around—” A loud clap of thunder drowned out Billie’s reply, so she repeated, “Around noon. They said they’d be back before dark. That was at least two hours ago.”
“Do you know which trail they took?”
Billie stepped into the ranger’s personal space. “If I knew that, I’d be out there looking for them myself instead of asking you for help,” she snapped.
“Look, Ms. Charland, I know you’re concerned, but our trails are pretty safe.”
“Safe? I happen to know firsthand that you have free-range black bear running around here. Don’t tell me they’re safe.”
“Ms. Charland, I’m sure your friends are fine.”
“Wives, they are our wives. Get it straight.”
“Yes, of course. Look, it’ll be nearly impossible to look for them during this storm. I’ll take the necessary steps to organize search parties that will start out as soon as the storm is over. Until then, I recommend you return to your site. We’ll be in touch with you as soon as the weather breaks.”
“You want us to just sit around our campsite and wait? You’ve got to be kidding me,” Billie said. “What if something terrible has happened to them?”
“Putting a search party in danger looking for them is not going to improve their situation any. Besides, as safe as the trails are during the day, the darkness increases the risk that someone else could be hurt in the search. If they’re smart, your wives have found shelter and are holed up for the night,” the ranger explained. “Now please go back to your campsite and wait the storm out. I promise you we’ll begin the search at daylight.”
Billie returned to the van where Fred and the children were waiting. “Well?” Fred prodded.
“They said to go back to our campsite and wait. Apparently, the darkness combined with the storm makes it too dangerous to send out a search party.”
“What about Mama and Aunt Jen? Isn’t it dangerous for them?” Seth asked.
Billie squeezed her son’s shoulder and inhaled deeply to quell her emotions. “Mama’s pretty resourceful, scout. Try not to worry about her. I’m sure they’ll be okay. The ranger said he’d send a search party out at daylight.” Billie glanced over Seth’s head to Fred, whose worried expression mirrored her own.
* * *
“Jen, give me your raincoat.”
“What? Are you crazy? Why would I give you the one thing that is keeping me at least semi-dry?”
“I’m going to snap our two coats together and drape them over the top of the boughs to block the rain coming through the branches,” Cat explained.
“We’re going to freeze our asses off!”
“Not if we share our body heat.”
“Cat, if you’re trying to get me to join the Sisterhood, there are better ways of doing it than this,” Jen joked.
“Very funny. Now give me your coat.”
“Awww!”
“Trust me, Jen, we’ll be warmer if we can stay as dry as possible.”
“Fine!”
Jen stripped off her raincoat and handed it to Cat. Cat laid the two coats out across her lap in opposite directions, with the male part of the snap from one jacket and the female part from the other, then she fastened them together to create a makeshift waterproof barrier that was approximately six feet wide and four feet long.
“Let me help you with that,” Jen said as she climbed out of the lean-to behind Cat.
With barely enough light to see a foot in front of their faces, they worked together to drape the joined raincoats over the top of boughs, securing them with branches slipped into the sleeves. Moments later they were back inside, cold, but protected from the continuing downpour.
“That’s better,” Cat said. “We might have lost a layer of insulation, but overall, we’ll
be warmer if we can stay fairly dry.”
“Let’s just hope the wind doesn’t tear our shelter down,” Jen said.
“We’re pretty much protected by the trees. Come here. If we huddle together, we’ll be warmer.”
Cat and Jen wrapped their arms around each other. “How’s that?” Cat asked.
“Not too bad,” Jen said. “Not toasty, but not freezing either.”
“Billie and Fred are probably having kittens right now.”
“I’m more worried about the kids,” Jen confessed. “Karissa frets about everything. I wish there was a way to let them know we’re okay.”
“Unfortunately, your cell phone became this camping trip’s third electronic victim, so as cruel as it sounds, we’re just going to have to wait this one out until morning.” Cat felt Jen shiver in her arms. “Are you cold?”
“Not really. I was just thinking about what could’ve happened if that root hadn’t been there for me to grab when the ground collapsed by the cliff.”
“Amen to that.” A few moments of silence passed before Cat squeezed her friend’s shoulders and said, “Close your eyes, Jen. Try to sleep. It’s going to be a long night.”
Chapter 36: Here She Comes… Miss America
“All right, Squad One, you take the south slope of Camper’s Knoll. There are three trails to search on that side of the mountain. Squad Two, you’ve got the north slope. Here’s a trail guide. There are only two trails, but they’re steep. Squad Three will cover the east side of Camelback Mountain, and Squad Four, you cover the west side. That mountain has some treacherous cliffs and narrow trails, so be careful.”
“Ranger Johnson, you haven’t assigned us to a squad. Where should we search?” Billie asked.
“You and your family should stay here in case they return.”
“No fucking way am I staying here when Cat and Jen could be—”
“Ms. Charland, I understand your concern, but we can’t guarantee your safety if you come along.”
“Fuck that, I’m going.” Billie stomped over to her gear and slung a backpack over her shoulder.
Happy Campers Page 19