C’mon, c’mon…any time now…
I was still behind the boulders, waiting for some kindly animal to show me the way to the buffet. But I was getting cold. It had started snowing again, and I had just made up my mind to start walking when I glanced over the rocks one last time.
Two deer were picking their way through the forest.
I held my breath. I’d never seen one deer before, let alone two. Cassie would have loved this. I reached for my phone camera before I remembered for the millionth time that the phone was dead. So I just kept still and watched them.
They were beautiful. Brown with white markings, long, slender legs, big, sensitive ears. They looked clean and natural in the forest. I thought of my dirt-caked shoes, filthy hoodie and grime-encrusted, barely thawed jeans. How could these deer live out here permanently and look so perfect?
One deer, after doing sort of an exploratory scope with his huge ears, began pawing at the snow. The other joined in. They ate, paused and looked around, then ate again. Their heads kept bobbing up, ears alert.
It must be very, very hard to be prey. You’d always have one eye peeled for danger. You could never fully relax. No matter whether you’d just found a great place to stay or some delicious stuff to eat, no matter whether you were drinking or sleeping, you’d always have to be ready to sprint, zero to full tilt, at a split second’s warning.
I watched those two beautiful deer and for the first time felt less alone in this huge forest. It wasn’t a full-blown feeling of weinerschnitzelkeit. I certainly didn’t feel at one with the forest or even remotely at peace. I was still freezing and miserable and lost and starving. But somehow I felt better. Calmer.
A crow flew overhead with a harsh cawing sound, and the deer startled, then bounded off quickly, their white tails bobbing. The moment, whatever it was, was over.
I lurched on my stiff legs over to where the deer had been pawing. They appeared to have been eating some kind of moss. I pulled off two bunches, stuffing them into my hoodie pockets. I separated a dirty bit, scrubbed it on the snow and popped it into my mouth.
“Literally living off the land,” I muttered as I looked around, chewing the springy mess. It took a lot of chewing. Possibly it was more suited to deer teeth. It tasted like a dirty, grassy sponge. I forced myself to chew and swallow a few bites, then washed it down with a handful of snow. The snow was the best part. Although my hands were freezing and soaking wet in Mom’s thin little gloves, I was grateful for the snow. It saved me from having to find some murky, bacteria-infested puddle and consider whether sipping from it would kill me. I’d take the snow any day.
I started trudging through the dense forest, following the deer tracks. They had showed me where a little bit of “food” was. Maybe they would help me get out of here.
As I walked, I wondered what had frightened the deer.
Oh, yeah, the crow.
Then a little voice in my head asked, But what frightened the crow?
This was starting to sound like some sort of sick riddle.
I kept turning around every few feet, glancing uneasily over my shoulder. It was probably nothing. Crows were just loudmouths. They always cawed when they flew. No reason. You didn’t need an app to tell you that.
I walked on, stopping to do the basketball defense drill from time to time. I lost the trail of the deer in the falling snow and wandered toward fallen or bent trees that seemed familiar.
And then I heard it.
Buh, buh, buh, buh…A faint, rhythmic thumping sound.
I stopped, and the loud shuffling and squelching of my sodden feet stopped with me. I stayed still, listening.
It was a distinctive, machine-like buh-buh-buh sound. A helicopter! It had to be a helicopter. I stood still and strained to hear where it was coming from. It was definitely a helicopter, coming this way.
Rescue! I was so relieved I couldn’t even think straight.
I started running, looking up frantically, trying to find some kind of clearing where I could wave and be seen. Most of the trees were leafless, but their tops were lined with snow. And the big evergreens blocked out everything else.
I ran back and forth and up and down, skittering in circles, waving up at the tops of the trees. Would anybody in the helicopter see me through all of these trees?
“Here!” I screamed as I ran. “HERE! OVER HERE!”
Bang! I cracked my head on a low-hanging branch. I went sprawling, reeling from the pain. I scrambled to my feet. There was no time to rub my throbbing, possibly bleeding forehead. I looked around and found a couple of pine boughs. I stood and waved them frantically overhead.
“HERE! HERE!”
I still couldn’t actually see the helicopter, so I kept running, hoping I’d reach a clearing just as it passed overhead.
I did reach a bit of a clearing.
I did see the helicopter, like a huge spiny bird, soaring far over to my right.
It was flying away from me.
I looked around for something, anything, to attract attention, to get it to come back. I squinted against the sun, which was low in the sky, setting in the east (or was it the west?).
Sun! Reflection!
I dropped the pine branches and rooted around in my pockets. I grabbed my dead cell phone in one hand and the shiny gum wrapper in the other, and I held them both over my head, trying to angle the reflection to create some kind of flash. I thought I did make sort of a glint. Maybe somebody looking back from that helicopter would see it.
Maybe…maybe…
Look back…look back…please…please…
“HERE! OVER HERE!” I screamed, my voice hoarse.
I strained upward on my toes, as if those couple of inches were going to make all the difference.
The thrumming of the helicopter died away.
I stood there, waiting, for a long, long time. It might just be turning around. It might come back.
It wasn’t.
It didn’t.
After all the noise, the silence in the forest was incredible. It was complete, a deadening stillness that lay like a thick quilt over the entire woods.
I looked around. Nothing moved; nothing stirred.
I was alone again.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Shelter
I was depressed after the helicopter incident.
Here I was, in the middle of nowhere, in a perfect position to use every swearword that eight years of school had taught me, and I didn’t even feel like doing that.
My shoulders slumped in quiet despair. Despair seems a strong word, but it was how I was feeling. I had been so close to being rescued. So close. And rescued in such a cool way! Clambering up one of those ropes they let down, soaring above the forest… It would have impressed my family and friends for years to come.
But let’s face it: I would have taken any kind of rescue right then. An old guy out for a hike, some backcountry enthusiasts, a Scout group—anything, anyone.
Missing that helicopter almost made me want to give up. It almost made me want to sit right down in my disgusting, dirty, leaf-ridden clothes, close my good eye (the other one was really swollen) and just give up.
I felt bitter. Because, seriously? One quick pass and whoever was in that helicopter just gave up? What was it, dinnertime? Pilot’s finished his shift at 5:00 PM? Chopper needed for the rush-hour traffic report? The way I saw it, there should have been a whole fleet peppering the area relentlessly until it was dark. And even then, what about those searchlights they use to hunt criminals? Criminals. Wasn’t I worth that much effort?
What if that helicopter had been my big chance at rescue, and it was over? For the first time since this whole ordeal started, I felt a kind of doom-filled fear. Not just an immediate, coyotes/wolves-howling-their-heads-off, adrenaline kind of fear. A bigger, colder dread. A dread of never being rescued.
What if they couldn’t find me? Joe and Ellen’s backyard seemed to stretch the whole length of the country. How long could I rea
lly survive out here, day after day, night after increasingly freezing night? How long could I survive eating nothing but deer moss?
I felt cold all the way through. Not just the regular cold (and by the way, I wasn’t feeling my hands and feet much anymore). This was a desperate, barren coldness that paralyzed me and closed around my heart.
It was one of the worst moments I’d ever had. I stood still and shut my eyes. My mind felt jumpy, panicky, borderline hysterical.
I’ll die of exposure.
And if I don’t die of exposure, I’ll starve to death.
And if I don’t starve to death, I’ll be eaten by some forest predator…
“Stop it!” I said out loud.
I heard scurrying and opened my eyes to see a large startled rabbit watching me. Probably technically a snow hare, but at the time I just thought, rabbit. He had hunkered down when I called out and was now in a frozen pose. The move-along, just-a-rock-here, ears-back rabbit crouch. But he was watching me.
“Sorry, rabbit,” I whispered, watching him back, glad of a distraction.
He was in that in-between stage of brown fur turning white, which must really annoy rabbits. Because the day the snow falls, you need that white fur immediately to blend in. To not be a walking advertisement for coyote lunch.
He was so nervous, watching me with his round rabbit eyes. I thought that even if I’d had a Skyrim-style crossbow and some conceivable way of making a fire, I couldn’t have killed him. I would gum moss and dead leaves and bark before I would do that. He and I were both just a couple of creatures trying to survive out here in this endless forest. He was, admittedly, way better equipped, but still, we were in the same boat.
Somehow, with his roundish body, ruffled fur and serious eyes, he reminded me of my sister, Cassie. Cassie and her group of chattering girls must be somewhere in this huge forest. Wasn’t her camp supposed to be an hour away by bus? Which way had they been going? East? West? Once again, I thought hopelessly, I hadn’t been paying attention.
Anyway, they were out in some forest, presumably surviving. Of course, they had a busload of stuff to help them do it. Cassie would never have gotten herself into this situation, where she was in the middle of a forest with nothing but a hoodie, a dead cell phone and a useless bus ticket. But if she had, and she was here, what would she do?
I could just picture my little sister considering it, owly head on one side, standing there in some lumpy sweater (mental note: tell Mom, if I ever see her again, to buy Cassie some cooler clothes for junior high).
“Flynn,” said imaginary Cassie in my head, “you’re such an idiot.”
“Thanks, Cass,” I said sarcastically. “I would never have known that. But on to the bigger issues here.”
“Yes, you do have some immediate problems. What I would do is walk the way that helicopter went and then find some kind of shelter. The sun is close to setting.”
“Yeah, yeah, good plan, Cass.”
Imaginary Cassie was right. I didn’t want to spend another night like the last one. I couldn’t. I needed a place to rest, to lie down. I was exhausted, delirious. My head was killing me, and I still didn’t want to look at my left hand. The thought of another night out here filled me with terror.
As if on cue, I heard a thin, faraway yelping.
Both the rabbit and I froze for a split second, then leaped into action. He bounded away quickly and easily, a blur of brown and white, melting into the forest with practiced skill.
I dropped to the defense drill to get my body working again. As I thumped away I yelled, “Oh, come on, you guys can do better than that. Any other coyotes like to respond?”
More yelping, closer.
“Yep, second batch. I was expecting you.” These coyotes were so predictable.
“Aaaand, almost time for the senseless howling. Who’s in for the senseless howling?”
The senseless howling started up. It was last night all over again.
I trudged on in the direction the helicopter had gone, not as swiftly or as gracefully as the rabbit, but he had the advantages of four legs and a fur coat. As I walked, I pressed some snow to my swelling eye. I also gulped down as much snow as I could find. I was pretty sure that dehydration was a bigger problem than hunger, no matter what my stomach was telling me.
I bit all the gum out of the wrapper. I couldn’t pry some of it off, so I only had about a quarter of a piece. I chewed it ravenously. You know things are bad when a whole piece of gum that was manufactured in this century seems like an unimaginable luxury.
I started getting nervous, and not only because of the coyotes screaming their heads off. The light was fading already. This is supposed to be a gradual thing, but last night the darkness seemed to settle in very, very fast. The snow had stopped, but it was getting colder. The wind picked up, sobbing and moaning, causing the trees to shiver.
After a while I stopped and looked around.
“Shelter…shelter. If I were shelter, what would I look like?”
I remembered the kid’s tree-trunk house in My Side of the Mountain. That sounded like a snug place to spend a night in a dark forest. But none of these trees was even remotely big enough for me to fit inside. Which, of course, made me irritated again that the book was totally unrealistic. Also, the log cabin and accompanying storage shed from Lost in the Barrens was out. No time (or tools) for anything like that.
“What do I have here?” I said out loud, trying to think clearly while the coyotes wailed. “What do I have? Oh, would you please shut up? Okay, I have lots of trees. I have the occasional rock. Trees…rocks…”
There was one tree that seemed promising. It was a big dead one that was lying on the ground. The base was a big vertical circle of wood and dirt and roots. Growing close to the dead tree was a big evergreen. I figured the pair of them might block the wind from two sides.
I concentrated on a little hollow where the dead tree’s roots had pulled away from the ground. Some of the dead roots crumbled in my hands, so I pounded at them with a stick and spread the wood chips out in the hollow.
I scrounged around in the increasing gloom for fallen branches. Most of them were too small for what I had planned, but some were long enough. I put as many long branches over the hollow as I could, balancing them on the base of the dead tree to make the skeleton of a rickety sort of lean-to. Then I collected all the pine and spruce boughs I could find and laid those on top of the bare branches.
I stockpiled rocks on one side of my lean-to. It made me think of a snow fort, where having a pile of snowballs makes you feel better, more in control. In case of animal attack, I could at least throw something. I also found a thick stick that I shoved into my new home.
Then I scrounged under nearby evergreens for anything that wasn’t wet with snow—leaves, moss, dead pine needles—and stuffed it into my hoodie. I threw the extra into the lean-to.
It was almost dark by the time I crawled backward into my shelter. It was ridiculously fragile and had already fallen in twice, so I was very, very careful not to touch the branches. It was a pretty tight fit, but the illusion of shelter, the sense of being hidden, made me feel more prepared for the night.
My face stung from evergreen-needle scratches. My hurt eye was almost swollen shut, and there was a lump the size of a baseball on my forehead. My hands were clubs, and my feet were useless, numb stumps.
But there was something else I needed to try to do before I passed out.
I was going to start a fire.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Warmth
When you’re a kid, fire is something you are taught to avoid. You’re told to stay away from those matches, mister. You’re told to walk quickly and in an orderly fashion away from pretend fires in school drills. You have bad dreams about your house catching fire, and not being able to find your family. Even the candles on birthday cakes seem vaguely threatening when lit, and there’s always that wave of relief when they’ve been blown out and the cake is safe to eat. And c
ertain enjoyable campfires I’ve experienced have turned menacing and sinister when somebody brandishes the odd flaming marshmallow.
But in the winter wilderness, you have to forget all that.
Fire is not only good, it’s necessary. Fire means survival.
Only it’s not as easy as it looks. Having briefly skimmed two survival books, I knew that lighting a fire without matches, lighter fluid and logs that have dried for years in your garage is a big ordeal.
The smug kid in My Side of the Mountain was smart to bring flint and steel (who does that?), which I now remembered he used to light a fire. He had to get the hang of it, but apparently when he knocked them together they struck sparks and allowed him to make a fire anytime he chose. The guys in Lost in the Barrens seemed to be lighting fires left, right and center. Fire is obviously a central part of winter survival. I had to try.
Paper first. I had Gracie’s funny-animal-website note and Mom’s old grocery list. Two small pieces of paper. I shredded them into tiny pieces. Then I reached into my hoodie pocket for a little bit of dried moss and a few pine needles I had stashed there. I had a pile of thin sticks at the ready. I’d seen Dad make enough campfires to know you can’t start with huge chunks of wood.
Slow and steady, Dad would say, delicately feeding the small flame more paper, covering it with a small pyramid of dry sticks and blowing on it. Dad took a lot of pride in making good, lasting campfires. I used to think this was rather pathetic.
Sorry, Dad. It’s not pathetic. It’s an actual skill. I wish I had you here now, and not only for the campfire.
I lay on my stomach in my rickety lean-to and methodically made a pyramid of paper, dried moss and dryish twigs. Then I selected two sticks and started rubbing them together. Lightly at first, then harder and harder. I rubbed and rubbed, until I could barely hold the sticks any longer. I stopped, started up again, picked up new sticks, rubbed again and again and again. I rubbed for, oh, about five, six years. Not one spark.
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