Ken immediately rolled onto his back and started tugging like mad at his left leg, which he raised in the air for easier access. He fished in the left pant leg and came out a moment later with a squashed millipede. He felt an immediate swell of relief that it wasn’t anything worse, a feeling that was replaced a second later with dread when he realized how much noise he’d just made. Ken peeled back the ferns and saw Wade looking directly at him from 12 stories down. His expression was inscrutable underneath all that mud. Wade made his intentions plain a second later when he picked up his spear and started up the slope toward him.
That was all the motivation Ken needed to get moving. Naked fear enveloped him, took hold of his mind, and sent him hurtling down the slope at a dangerous, uncontrolled pace that straddled the line between fleeing and falling. Ken flailed blindly for tree limbs, nearby rocks, even tufts of grass, anything to control his descent as he skidded downhill, his feet scrambling to keep pace with gravity’s pull.
* * * * * *
Two hours of searching and nothing to show for it.
Lamar, Gaby and Coop trekked through the forest east of camp, keeping a spread of 20-30 feet between them to cover more ground, while still maintaining line of sight. They’d already covered most of the eastern basin between the camp and the ring of high hills separating them from the rest of Quehanna, and were now heading southward as the terrain started getting muddier.
Coop, who was carrying one of the plastic archery targets, paused to tear a foot-long strip from the target and tie it to a low-hanging branch as a marker. He wiped his brow on his robes. It was shortly after noon, and the temperature had risen considerably.
Gaby, who was on Coop’s left, called out, using the standard refrain the trio had employed for the past two hours now.
“Beverly? Are you out here?” she shouted.
The only reply came from a black squirrel in the tree canopy overhead, which chattered its displeasure before going back in its hole.
Lamar, who was on Coop’s right, stopped to lean against a tree. He was unused to long walks and was struggling to keep up with the others. He opened the canteen and upended most of it over his head to cool off.
“That water’s supposed to be for the three of us,” Coop scolded, though it came off as merely whiny thanks to his high-tenor voice.
“Four, if we ever find Beverly,” Gaby added. “You sure she went this way?”
“All I know is she was heading east when she ran out of camp,” Coop replied. “Who knows where she went after that?”
“Guys, I don’t think she wants to be found,” Lamar said, shaking the water from his head like a dog. “We should head back.”
“You said that an hour ago,” Coop reminded him.
“I meant it then, toooo!” Lamar said, drawing out the last word as he took a wrong step and slid several inches in the mud before steadying himself. “This is not productive.”
“Let’s give it another 30 minutes,” Gaby said. “Beverly would do the same for …” She paused midsentence as she saw Lamar and Coop both shaking their heads no.
“ … okay, maybe not,” she finished lamely.
“Make that definitely not,” Coop insisted. “The whole reason we’re out here is because she didn’t think of anybody but herself.”
“You know, you could have done something about it,” Lamar intoned.
“Am I my stranger’s keeper?” Coop asked rhetorically. “I’m not going to hold her against her will. I alerted you both; I figure that’s plenty.”
“Any idea what set her off?” Lamar asked.
“She got a lot worse after you all left,” Coop said, grimacing at the memory. “She was hysterical; babbling incoherently. The only thing I could get out of her before she bolted was that she had to get out of here.”
He paused again to tear another strip from the target and tie it to a nearby tree branch. There were tiny pools of brackish water all around. Evidently, it had rained shortly before they arrived in Quehanna, and some of these low-lying areas had yet to dry out. Coop gave silent thanks that mosquito season had come and gone.
“This is why we need to stick together,” Gaby said. “To prop each other up when things get rough. We can’t count on the others for that.”
“You don’t think Ken is a suitable outlet for emotional support?” Lamar teased.
“Only if schoolyard taunts and childish nicknames qualify,” Gaby snickered. “And Wade …”
A chill ran down her spine and she left the sentence unfinished. Judging from the others’ reaction to his name, she didn’t need to.
“So, we’re the Three Musketeers, are we?” Coop joked, trying to restore levity to the conversation.
“Minus the fancy costumes and swords,” Lamar quickly joined in.
Gaby chuckled and pumped her fist in the air.
“All for mice and mice for all!”
Dead silence. She turned and saw the others had stopped in their tracks, looking at her like she’d lost her mind. This only made her laugh harder.
“I think whatever Beverly has may be contagious,” Coop intoned as Gaby doubled over with laughter, resting her hand on a nearby tree for support.
“It’s … an inside … joke,” she managed to spit out between laughing fits.
“Deep inside,” Lamar answered, bewildered. “Mind clueing us in?”
“My parents emigrated from Cuba,” Gaby started after taking a few moments to compose herself. “They had trouble assimilating, so they moved to Little Havana where they wouldn’t have to. Growing up, all I heard was Spanish in the home and Spanish in the streets. I learned English from watching television. And my favorite program growing up was the Mickey Mouse Club.”
“Ahh!” Lamar said, making the connection.
“I thought that show was from the ’50s,” Coop said, confused.
“They revived it in the late ’80s,” Lamar explained as the group resumed their search. “That’s where Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake got their start.”
“Anyway, a lot of phrases from the show imprinted on me. When I was 14, I did a book report on Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, and the teacher flunked me because I kept spelling it as ‘The Three Mouseketeers.’ It kind of became an inside joke. Even today, I have trouble reading it as anything other than ‘Mouseketeer.’”
Lamar smiled and raised an pretend sword skyward.
“All for mice …” he called out with mock seriousness.
“… And mice for all!” Gaby and Coop joined in, both chuckling as they walked.
The trio found themselves in a small clearing littered with table-sized rocks jutting out of the ground and a downed tree overlaying a dry creek bed.
“Okay, fellow Mouseketeers, I need to sit down before I fall down,” Lamar said as he headed for the nearest moss-covered rock and collapsed onto it.
Coop chose a rock several feet away and removed his sandals, which were caked with mud.
“All right, but let’s make it a short one,” Gaby said. “Beverly’s still out there somewhere.”
“Have you considered that she may not want our help?” Lamar asked. “What if she’s still hysterical? Are we going to drag her back to camp, kicking and screaming?”
“Look, she panicked, but she’s had time to cool off,” Gaby said, picking off some branches from the downed tree to make herself a seat. “I’m sure we can reason with her.”
“Speaking of which,” Coop said, “you seemed pretty shaken up yourself when I found you, Gaby.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lamar gesturing for him to stop.
“Let’s not talk about it,” Gaby said in a tone that permitted no dissent.
She plopped down in a huff and immediately leapt up, screeching in pain.
“¡Dios mio!” she cried, clutching her backside and running several feet away.
“What? What’s wrong?” Coop asked, concerned.
“Something bit me!” she cried, rubbing her left cheek.
Lamar stood up and investigated the tree. He noticed that two of the branches Gaby removed before sitting down were splintered near the base, with several jagged edges. One had blood on its tip.
“No creatures,” Lamar called out. “I think you got a buttfull of wood.”
“Splinters can be serious out here,” Coop said, standing up. “I’d better take a look at it.”
Gaby backed away from Coop, shielding her posterior with her hands.
“You’ll do no such thing,” she warned.
Coop rolled his eyes.
“Relax, you’re not my type.”
“Oh, thank you very much!” Gaby shot back, incensed.
Coop folded his arms defensively over his chest.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“Coop, man, let it go,” suggested Lamar, who could already see where this was going. “You’re only digging yourself in deeper.”
“But …” Coop protested.
“Look, I’m fine, okay,” Gaby insisted. “Nobody needs to examine any part of me, understand?”
“If you’ll just let me take a look …” Coop began, circling toward Gaby’s rear as she spun away, resulting in a peculiar dance between them.
Coop grunted in frustration and grabbed her by the waist. Gaby’s eyes shot open in panic and she shoved him as hard as she could, sending Coop sprawling. As the magnitude of what she’d done started to sink in, Gaby covered her mouth in dismay.
“I’m trying to help, not playing grab-ass!” Coop shouted, growing heated as he picked himself up and dusted off his robes.
“I’m sorry,” Gaby said quietly, hanging her head. “I know you didn’t mean anything by it, but …” she paused, searching for the right words. “I don’t like people touching me. It’s nothing personal. Please don’t do it.”
Coop closed his eyes and let out a long sigh, trying to calm himself.
“You could have just told me,” he intoned.
An awkward silence fell over the group. Gaby hobbled over to the nearest tree and braced herself against it as she craned her neck to see if she could locate the injury herself. She gave up after several attempts and started hobbling southward, walking with a peculiar shimmy to try and minimize the pressure on her glutes.
“Break’s over,” she said.
“Hang on,” Lamar said. “Did you hear that?”
All of them paused and held their breath. An indistinct sound wafted across the breeze, so faint they couldn’t be sure if it was even real, much less where it was coming from.
“Is someone there?”
“Hello?” Coop shouted at the top of his lungs. “Anybody there?”
They heard the noise again, a little louder and clearer.
“Who’s out there? Identify yourselves.”
“That’s Beverly, all right,” Coop said with a snort. Even in a dire situation like this, she still found a way to be imperious.
“I think it came from over here,” Gaby said, pointing toward a grassy ridge about 100 yards east.
She and Lamar set off while Coop paused to leave a marker on the edge of the clearing.
At the top of the ridge they found a narrow, crescent-shaped ravine whose depth could only be guessed at, because all visibility ceased after 50 feet due to a mazelike hedge of thorny hawthorn shrubs that covered it.
“Beverly?” Gaby called from the top of the ridge.
“Down here,” a voice replied weakly from the bottom of the ravine.
The incline into the ravine looked steep but manageable. Those thorned bushes, though, were a bigger problem. Lamar motioned to their left, where the ridge tapered off into a small meadow with a gentle backslope that fed into the northern end of the ravine, one without any such impediments.
“If we start at the head of the ravine, we should be able to reach Beverly without having to tear through all those bushes,” Lamar said.
“Beverly, we’re coming to get you,” Coop shouted. “Are you hurt?”
“I twisted my ankle,” came the reply.
“Just stay put,” Coop advised as the group headed down the northern face of the ridge.
The meadow was overrun with wild grasses that came up to Lamar’s thigh, alongside thimbleweed and asters. Its southern edge was also matted with small leaf piles, likely swept downhill by the wind.
Coop viewed the piles warily.
“Watch your feet,” he warned. “I read that rattlesnakes often nest in leaf piles.”
The group gave the piles a wide berth and stepped gingerly among the grasses as they headed toward the northern edge of the ravine. Gaby and Lamar were walking side by side, with Coop directly behind them, when Gaby put her arm out in front of Lamar, stopping him in his tracks.
“Hey …” he started to complain until he looked down and saw a metallic glint among the high grasses where he was about to step. “What is that?”
In answer, Gaby grabbed a nearby tree branch and thrust it into the grass. Three-foot-wide metal jaws sprang from either side and clamped down on the stick with a heavy clang, snapping it neatly in two.
Coop gave a low whistle of admiration.
“Meanest rattlesnake I’ve ever seen,” he said.
“What’s a bear trap doing out here?” Lamar asked quietly.
“John said there are bears in these woods,” Gaby answered. “I guess bears bring poachers.”
They stood around the trap, examining it. It was badly rusted along the hinges, with telltale flakes of red and brown coating both sides. Clearly, it had not been used in a very long time.
“There may be others,” Gaby warned.
Silently, each of them picked up a stick and started forward again, holding the sticks out several feet in front of them and tapping the ground as they walked, as though they’d all spontaneously gone blind. This process set off another bear trap some 20 feet northward, making them all jump. The trio also spotted two more before arriving at the ravine’s entrance.
“Anyone else thinking this ravine may have been a bear’s den?” Lamar asked, giving voice to what they all were secretly dreading.
They all hesitated at the downward slope into the ravine, each looking to the others, waiting to see who would go down first. After several agonizing moments, Gaby shook her head in disgust and started down the slope, much to the relief of Coop and Lamar. She grimaced in pain with each step as the rough terrain forced her to put undue pressure on her barking glutes.
As she started winding her way down, Gaby kept her eyes peeled for any signs of bear activity, such as scat, bones or claw marks along the ravine walls. She saw nothing beyond earthen walls and a rocky base until they moved beneath the cover of the hawthorn bushes, which blotted out most of the light and made searching for signs futile. Fortunately, the ravine was sufficiently deep to afford adequate headroom so long as they kept their heads bowed.
“What took you so long?” came an irritated voice in the dark.
The group followed the voice, scanning for Beverly’s outline in the dim light until they found her some 30 yards away, lying prone in the center of the ravine.
“Are you hurt?” Coop asked, kneeling beside her while the others searched the area for any signs of bear activity.
Beverly’s face was smudged with dirt, and her right ankle looked swollen, but she appeared otherwise unharmed.
“I turned my ankle back there,” Beverly said, pointing toward the opposite end of the ravine. “How’d you find me?”
“We just followed the complaining,” Coop joked as he gingerly lifted her leg and tested her ankle’s range of motion. Beverly grimaced when he rotated it too far right or left.
“It doesn’t look like a sprain,” he decided after a few seconds. “You should be able to put weight on it in a day or two.”
Beverly extended her hand to Coop.
“Here, help me up.”
As Coop did so, the others returned from scouring the far side of the ravine.
“There’s nothing
back there,” Lamar informed them. “If there was a bear here, it would have mauled us already.”
Beverly looked the others over with a mixture of relief and condescension.
“Well, I’m glad you all finally came to your senses,” she said. “Now, if you take turns supporting me, we can finally get out of here.”
“So, which Mouseketeer wants to help her back to camp?” Gaby asked, hoping one of the others would volunteer.
“To camp?” Beverly responded indignantly, as though she’d just been offered a social disease. “I’m not going back to that awful place! I thought you were here to rescue me!”
“We are,” Gaby said reassuringly.
“Then get me out of this godforsaken forest!” Beverly shouted, flailing her arms as her emotions started to take over once more. Coop struggled to maintain his grip on her.
“I’m going home, where there are laws and food, and if someone abandons you, it’s not an automatic death sentence,” Beverly blathered. “If you three want to succumb to the elements, that’s your own affair. Me, I’m getting out of here.”
She shirked Coop’s support and began hopping on her good leg to the far side of the ravine, holding onto the dirt walls for support.
“Beverly,” Gaby said, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “You’re going the wrong way. The north side of the ravine leads back to camp.”
“I told you I’m not going back!” Beverly spat back.
“We’re not leaving you!” Gaby insisted, running past Beverly and barring her path.
“Well, you’re certainly not taking me back there, and that’s final!” Beverly said, smacking the dirt wall for emphasis. “So, I guess we’re at an impasse.”
“Not hardly,” Gaby replied, and motioned to Coop and Lamar, who took Beverly by either shoulder and raised her up.
“Hey, put me down!” Beverly shouted, kicking at the air like a little child. “This is undignified!”
Lamar clucked his tongue in irritation as he prepared for the long journey back to camp.
“This day just keeps getting better and better.”
The Truth Circle Page 9