Distress Signal

by Mary E. Lambert

  They each had a partially drunk water bottle. Rachelle’s was lowest at only a quarter full.

  “We better drink it slowly,” John commented.

  Lavender nodded in agreement.

  Rachelle uncapped her bottle and took a swig.

  “What else is in your bags?” Marisol asked quickly.

  They had Lavender’s radio and John’s cell phone. Lavender showed them her bottle of sunscreen, roll of toilet paper, and empty bag of trail mix. Lavender once again remembered the items that had fallen out of her bag on the bus—the paper, the hair ties, the granola bar. She wished she still had the granola bar now, but even more, she wished she had that paper!

  “I can’t believe that’s all you brought,” Rachelle snapped.

  “Mrs. Henderson said to keep the bags light,” Lavender snapped back. Her mom had sent her with enough snacks to last a month, but they were heavy, so she’d left all but the trail mix in one of the food storage bins. Yet another mistake in an unending list of unfortunate decisions.

  John barely paid attention to the inventory of Lavender’s bag. He’d acted all twitchy and then refused to let them touch his backpack.

  “What are you hiding in there?” Lavender asked John.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “Who cares?” Rachelle said. “If we can’t eat it, it doesn’t matter. Let’s get going. I want to be back to camp in time for lunch.”

  Lavender snorted. “That’s about as likely as finding a cure for cancer while we’re out here.”

  “Don’t joke about that,” Rachelle said in a sharp voice.

  “Focus,” Marisol said, planting herself between the two of them. “If John is sure he doesn’t have food in his backpack, there’s no time to lose.”

  “I don’t have anything else in here,” he said quickly, jamming the flashlight back in his bag. Not the jacket. Marisol had passed it to Rachelle. They were all taking turns wearing it in the chilly early-morning air.

  “Let’s look for berries or some kind of fruit or seeds that we can eat,” Marisol said. “I’m hungry.”

  “Sure,” said John. “Because the desert is just full of berries and fruit.”

  “It is, too,” Marisol said. “And this is more than just a desert anyway. It’s like desert and forest and grasslands all combined. Look around.”

  “Can we just get going already?” Rachelle said.

  As they walked, Lavender scanned the plants around them, half hoping she would stumble into a miracle: an apple tree or a peach tree. Before the trip, Mrs. Henderson had told them that the original ranchers out here had planted those. But even if they did find a fruit tree, it was probably the wrong season to harvest any of it. She might as well wish for a cheeseburger tree and a french fry bush.

  And after a while, she forgot completely about the food. It wasn’t the gnawing in her empty stomach that bothered Lavender. It was the thirst. Water, Lavender decided, was going to kill you one way or another. Just yesterday, they almost died in a freak flash flood. Now they were lost and wandering through the Chiricahua Wilderness with empty stomachs and mostly empty water bottles. A person could live weeks without food, but only a couple days without water.

  She tried to ration the small sips from her water bottle as they walked—they weren’t on the side of the mountain yet, but they were definitely in the foothills, and the landscape was gradually changing. They had left much of the cactus behind. There were more grasses, and more of the twisty bushes with bright red bark. The trees were thicker, too. Arizona could be like that. Even small elevation changes could completely transform the scenery.

  They’d been walking for about an hour when Marisol fell back from Rachelle to join Lavender. It made her want to do a little happy jig. She refrained, in part because she was so tired she thought her legs might give out if she tried to jig.

  “I’m getting worried,” Marisol said.

  “Me too,” said Lavender, torn between being miserable that they were missing and thrilled that Marisol was talking to her like normal, like they’d never had a fight.

  “My mom is always watching these detective shows that say most missing people are found within twenty-four hours, and if they aren’t …”

  “Then what?”

  “Every hour that goes by makes it less likely their families will ever see them again.”

  Lavender blinked rapidly. She cleared her throat a few times, telling herself that she would see her parents again. She just had to think rationally.

  If Marisol was right, that meant they had fewer than twelve hours until their first twenty-four were up … and even less time than that until they were completely out of water. With every passing second, their situation was becoming grimmer. “Marisol,” Lavender said, “how much do you have left in your Nalgene?”

  Marisol shook it. “It’s getting low. I’ve been trying not to drink it too fast, but my stomach is so empty, I think I’m drinking even more than usual.”

  Lavender paused. “Maybe we should try to find water.”

  Marisol stopped beside her. “I have an idea about that,” she said eagerly. “But it’ll probably take a while, so Rachelle won’t listen to me. She’s so sure we can get back to camp if we just keep walking.”

  “She’s only doing that because it was her idea,” Lavender said. “She’s always in love with her own ideas.”

  “Gee, I wonder who else gets like that,” Marisol said.

  Lavender felt like she’d just walked into a brick wall. “What? Are you saying that Rachelle and I—”

  “Were you saying something about water?” John interrupted, coming up from behind them.

  “Sort of. I think we could get moisture from a cactus,” Marisol said.

  Lavender wanted to go back to whatever Marisol had been implying. Was she really comparing Lavender and Rachelle? But with a shake of her head, she decided to ask about it later. Not in front of John.

  “You want to cut a cactus open for water?” he was asking. “Like in the movies? My dad said that doesn’t actually work in real life.”

  “No,” Marisol said, “I’ve been thinking how we can eat it. I didn’t suggest it at first, because it’ll be tricky, but I’m starving and dying of thirst, and they’re really moist.”

  “Are you sure it’s edible?” John asked.

  “I’ve had it before,” Marisol said.

  “Do you mean, like, cactus fruit?” Lavender asked. Her mom had bought jelly made from cactus fruit a couple of times, and once her family had taken prickly pear candy as a gift to relatives who lived in Oregon.

  Marisol shook her head. “No, I don’t think the fruit is ripe now, but if we find a prickly pear, I’ve eaten the cactus pads before. My grandma cooks with them sometimes.”

  Before Lavender and John could agree or disagree, they were interrupted by loud footsteps as Rachelle charged toward them like an angry rhinoceros. “What is taking you guys so long? We don’t have time to waste just standing around,” Rachelle said. “I am not spending another night with coyotes and pigs—”

  “Javelinas,” Lavender corrected automatically. “You’re thinking of the wild pigs Mr. Bob told us about.”

  “What makes you think I was talking about the javelinas and not you?” Rachelle retorted.

  Lavender watched Marisol’s mouth drop open. She actually looked shocked. It was like Marisol had forgotten that Rachelle was rude and bossy and awful. With a surge of glee, Lavender realized that Rachelle’s real self was starting to show.

  John’s eyes were flicking between Lavender and Rachelle as if afraid another full-blown argument was going to break out. To Lavender, he sounded nervous as he said, “But Marisol had a good idea for breakfast. It would give us more energy to climb the mountain.”

  The stubborn rhinoceros expression disappeared, and Rachelle’s face brightened. “Breakfast?”

  “I tried explaining before,” Marisol said.

  Rachelle groaned. “Are you still talking about the cactus?”r />
  “Well, I think it’s a good idea,” Lavender said.

  “Me too,” John chimed in.

  “Please?” Marisol said.

  “Ugh, fine,” said Rachelle. “Let’s make it quick. I don’t want to be stranded out here overnight again.”

  “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” Lavender said loudly. “I’m getting tired, and I’m sure we could all use a rest, so let’s just look around here and as soon as we find a prickly pear, we can sit down and eat. Marisol, you look over there. John, you go over there. Rachelle, you take that direction.” Lavender pointed them all in different directions. “I’ll go down by those bushes.” She nodded toward a clump of overgrowth—bushes and trees grew in a thick line directly to their south.

  “I don’t really get why we should split up,” John said. “What if we—”

  Lavender interrupted, “We’ll find one faster this way.”

  “I don’t want to argue with you, but maybe you shouldn’t walk into—”

  “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.” Lavender waved him off. She wasn’t sure what John was worried about. Snakes, probably. But Lavender clearly remembered reading that water could often be found where plants, especially trees, grew more densely. She didn’t want to get their hopes up, but forget about prickly pear—Lavender was already picturing herself shouting triumphantly, “Water! I found water!” They would come running, and even Rachelle would have to admit that Lavender had saved their butts again.

  Lavender marched straight toward the dense shrubs. With every step, she grew more confident that she could find a stream hidden in the thick foliage. That would be even better. Plants grew in dense clumps along the temporary creeks and seasonal streams that sprang up after heavy rain. Given that there was a flash flood only yesterday, Lavender felt she had good reason to hope she would find running water.

  They needed it to survive, especially in a place as dry as Arizona.

  As she approached the line of trees, Lavender heard a rustle. She stopped, turned, and saw her friends spread out in their different directions. Could the noise have come from one of them?

  She took a few more steps.

  The rustling grew louder.

  Nope, not one of her friends.

  There was definitely something in the bushes.

  Lavender froze.

  A twig snapped.

  Maybe there were birds roosting in the scrub. Or squirrels. It was probably some small, defenseless creature, Lavender reassured herself. The scary things with big teeth belonged to the night. Didn’t they? After all, they’d heard the coyotes and javelinas and those things at dusk and dawn and in the night.

  The noise stopped.

  She saw a lizard hop onto a rock and scurry away.

  Lavender let out a breath. She’d almost had a panic attack over a harmless little lizard. Her backyard was full of them. No big deal. She took a few more steps toward the bushes.

  She was safe from the wild things. The day was growing bright. It would be sunny … too sunny, if the warm feeling on Lavender’s nose and back of her neck could be trusted. In all of yesterday’s excitement, she had forgotten to reapply sunscreen. She would put more on before they started hiking up the mountain.

  Picking up her pace, Lavender resumed walking toward the line of trees.

  An entire bush shook and rattled.

  She stopped.

  This was no lizard or squirrel. It was bigger. Definitely bigger. Maybe it was a the coatimundi, one of the raccoon-looking creatures Mr. Bob said inhabited Chiricahua. Only, unlike raccoons, he said they were more active in the daytime.

  But no. The thing that crawled out of the branches was a very different animal. Much bigger than any coatimundi or coyote. Mr. Bob had warned the class about these, but Lavender had never in her wildest dreams expected to walk into one.

  She called a quiet warning to the others.

  “Bear!”

  Her strangled whisper caught in her throat. She could barely hear her own voice.

  “Bear!” she tried again.

  The words were quiet and harsh.

  Lavender took a step back, almost tripping over a rock as the bear emerged the rest of the way from the bush. She heard a weird little whimper coming from her throat. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her hands clutching her neck like a choking person, which was strangely appropriate. Lavender felt like she was choking. The pulse in her neck pounded so hard, she thought it might explode.

  Cartoon bears and teddy bears and caged bears at the zoo … none of these did justice to the creature in front of Lavender. “Black bears are small,” Mr. Bob had reassured the class when they first arrived at camp. Well, Mr. Bob was a noodle head. What did he know?

  The monster in front of her looked like it could swallow Lavender’s entire face in one bite. It had claws and teeth, and Lavender was not about to fight back no matter what Mr. Bob had recommended. His words parroted through Lavender’s mind in a cruel parody of reality. At camp, surrounded by friends and teachers, she’d almost thought it was funny when he told them: “If you keep your campsite clean and lock up your food, you are not likely to see a bear. If one does attack, do not play dead and do not run. They will chase. We have black bears here, and the best way to deal with a black bear is to scare it off. Use bear spray; make yourself look bigger. If attacked, fight. But for the most part, black bears are not aggressive.”

  Too bad this bear had missed the memo about not being aggressive. Too bad Lavender didn’t have any bear spray. Too bad she didn’t have a secure location like a car conveniently nearby.

  Maybe there were cubs around. That would explain why the bear was rising to its rear legs. If Lavender thought the bear seemed large before, that was nothing compared to how it looked now. The bear towered over Lavender and made a deep huffing noise, snapping its teeth and rumbling, low and loud.

  “It’s a bear!” Lavender finally found her voice, shrieking loud enough for her friends to hear. John, Marisol, and Rachelle gasped as they finally noticed that Lavender was about to become a midmorning snack.

  The bear, still snorting and growling, took a step toward Lavender. She wanted to run. All her instincts told her to run. With every molecule and every atom that made her Lavender Hypatia Blue-Morris, she wanted to run. She wanted to sprint. She wanted to fly out of there. She didn’t care if Mr. Bob had said that she wouldn’t be able to outrun a bear; she wanted to try.

  Only she couldn’t.

  Lavender’s brain was no longer in control of her legs. They simply would not listen. She felt as if the force of gravity had suddenly quadrupled around her. Lavender didn’t have enough strength in her entire body to lift a single toe, never mind run.

  The bear was not having any similar issues with gravity. It took a step toward her.

  “Lavender, do something!” Rachelle shrieked.

  Like what? For once, Lavender was open to suggestions … even if they came from Rachelle.

  Too frightened to look away from the animal, Lavender could hear her friends’ feet shuffling through the brush. Were they backing away? Abandoning her?

  The bear, which had been briefly distracted by the sound of her friends, now refocused on Lavender, making more of the rumbling, huffing noises. The bear went down on its front legs again and started charging straight at her.

  Lavender heard herself start whimpering again. She shut her eyes and braced herself for the attack, hoping that when she felt the first claw she would be able to move again. If she was going to go down, she wanted to go down fighting. She wondered what it would feel like when its paw swiped her skin. Lavender liked her skin how it was: whole and unshredded. She tried not to the think about the pain when those teeth and claws ripped into her.

  A warm, foul huff hit her face. She knew if she opened her eyes, she would be only centimeters away from those razor-sharp teeth. Lavender squeezed her eyes more tightly shut. This was how her life ended. She never imagined it would be so gruesome. Or so smel
ly. Or so soon.

  “Go away!”

  “Get out of here!”

  “Shoo, bear. Shoo!”

  A chorus of shouts startled Lavender into opening her eyes. The noise must have startled the bear, too, because the hot, stinky breath disappeared from her face as the animal drew back from her. Suddenly it charged around Lavender and ran at the others. She spun around in time to see the bear heading for John, Marisol, and Rachelle. They were spread out in a semicircle, a few feet from one another, shouting and yelling. Rachelle held John’s jacket above her head, and she shook it. John was waving around his red hoodie. Marisol was simply waving her arms.

  “Watch out!” Lavender called.

  Rachelle fell back a couple of steps as the bear bore down on them.

  “No!” said John. “Hold your ground. It’ll chase if you run.”

  Rachelle stopped yelling, but she kept the jacket above her head, looking as tall as possible. For a heartbeat, Lavender thought Rachelle was going to be the one who wound up as bear food.

  But John started jumping up and down.

  “Yo, bear, over here! Leave her alone!” John waved his hoodie.

  The bear stopped, switched directions, and ran a few steps at John.

  “Stop it, bear! Don’t bother him.” Now Marisol shouted, distracting the bear from John.

  The bear looked toward Marisol.

  Rachelle found her voice again. “Go away.” She repeated the words again and again. Lavender watched as they worked seamlessly to call at the bear and distract it over and over.

  A knot eased in her chest, and she found herself able to speak.

  “Get out of here, bear! Shoo!” Lavender screamed.

  Maybe Mr. Bob knew something after all. The yelling and intimidation seemed to work. Without any warning, the black bear suddenly dodged past Rachelle and ran a little way downhill before it threw its paws around a trunk and started climbing a tree with a speed and skill that astonished Lavender.

  The four of them stood, watching.

  Marisol broke the shocked silence: “You guys, we did it.”

  Lavender’s legs gave out. She collapsed in a heap in the dirt.