The Wild

by Owen Laukkanen

She really wants to get off this mountain, and

  She can probably convince her nana to hold the phone on calling Cam and Wendy, for a couple of days, anyway. At least long enough to try to explain why her nana shouldn’t just send her back.

  Also:

  She REALLY wants to get off this mountain.

  She’ll figure out the rest when they get to Chicago.

  TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK. Or at the very least, it keeps you and your besties from freezing to death.

  It’s tough to find firewood up here in the alpine. The trees are all stunted and small, and there isn’t much dead wood just lying around. Dawn has to go pretty far out from the campsite to find anything good, down along the trail they followed to get up here. Brandon and Evan are getting firewood, too; she can hear them laughing and jostling each other somewhere nearby, but she never quite sees them.

  It weirds her out, though, how, like, unaffected they are by this whole turn of events. Like, Amber might die. There’s a big storm coming in. The radio’s smashed, and their first thought was to destroy the emergency beacon.

  Even if it means Amber might die.

  It’s getting dark now. Cold. Dawn walks so far down the trail that all she can hear is the wind and the boys’ disembodied laughter. There’s not much of a trail, either, and when there is, it seems to branch off in a bunch of directions. Dawn is so focused on finding wood that she’s hardly paying attention anymore, and soon she can’t even hear Brandon and Evan.

  Dawn looks up with an armload of firewood, and she can’t remember which way she came from.

  Around her, a few flakes of snow start to fall, and suddenly, Dawn realizes she’s lost. She’s been following a path that she thought was the trail going back up to camp, but it veered off and terminated at the edge of a cliff. If it had been any darker, Dawn might have walked off it.

  “Damn it.”

  She left her headlamp behind, too, like a rookie. Like a Bear Cub. And pretty soon it will be too dark to even make out the ground.

  Dawn stands there, dumb, her brain starting to panic. Her heart starting to pound and her thoughts yelling at her.

  You can’t just stand here.

  There’s no time.

  You’ll die in the dark if you don’t find the trail.

  MAKE A DECISION.

  It’s too much. It’s overwhelming. Dawn is tired and she’s hungry and she’s emotionally spent. She climbed the Raven’s Claw today, to the top, the hard way. She watched Amber plummet to the bottom. She climbed back down again. She needs food and warm clothes and a sleeping bag.

  She’s exhausted, and it’s all catching up to her now.

  Shit.

  “Hey.”

  A voice startles her out of the impending panic attack. It’s a girl’s voice, and since it’s not Kyla, it has to be Brielle.

  “Brielle?” Dawn says, ashamed of how small and childish her voice sounds. “Where are you?”

  A headlamp blinks through the patchy trees, and Dawn can see Brielle approaching, little more than a silhouette in the dying light. Brielle closes the distance quickly; she’s small and graceful and agile, and she doesn’t appear at all overwhelmed or exhausted.

  “Lost?” she asks Dawn.

  Dawn nods. “I was just about to freak out.”

  “Don’t do that,” Brielle says. She gestures at Dawn’s arms. “We need your wood.” Then she cocks her head. “That’s what she said.”

  Dawn laughs, despite herself. Holds up the branches she’s been collecting. “I’ve got enough wood for everyone.”

  Brielle smiles at her. It’s a weary smile, but it’s a friendly one. “Then I guess you’re my new BFF,” she says. “Let’s get back to camp.”

  “THIS IS FUCKED UP, RIGHT?” Dawn asks Brielle, as she follows the smaller girl up toward the boulder field, the tarn, and the camp. “I mean, this whole thing is psycho, isn’t it?”

  Brielle turns, the light from her headlamp cutting a swath through the dark night. They’re up in the alpine again, and the beam finds nothing but open air before it peters out into shadow. Dawn knows they’re in wide-open space, but she still feels claustrophobic, suffocated by the darkness. It’s an eerie, unsettling feeling, being out here like this.

  “Which part?” Brielle asks. “The part where our counselor just fell off a cliff? Or, like, in general terms how we’re enduring forced marches that are definitely not safe because our parents and/or parole officers think we could all use a little fresh air?”

  “I don’t even know how this is legal,” Dawn agrees. “Like, Christian is completely unqualified to be out here.”

  “And he’s a freaking child molester.”

  “That, too,” Dawn says. “But I guess I meant more about Brandon and Evan.”

  Brielle keeps walking. The trail is steeper now, gaps between the rocks.

  “Yeah,” she says quietly. “That is fucked up.”

  “You think Amber will make it?”

  “I dunno. Depends if Alex can get back to headquarters in time.” She pauses. “Depends if they let him.”

  Dawn waits, but Brielle doesn’t elaborate. “Who?” she asks. “Who’s going to let him do what?”

  “The boys,” Brielle says. She lets it sit there a beat, like Dawn should understand. Then, when it’s clear Dawn doesn’t, she sighs. “He’s kind of throwing a wrench in their plans. Don’t you think?”

  “What do you mean?” Dawn suddenly feels like the girl who walked into AP Japanese and can’t even pronounce konnichiwa. “What are you talking about?”

  They come up over a rise, and suddenly Dawn sees more light: flashlights, and the glow of a fire, closer than she expected.

  A flashlight turns in their direction. “There you are,” Warden says, climbing over the rocks toward them. “Jeez, I was starting to get worried.”

  He ignores Brielle, walks right past her and puts his arm around Dawn and takes the wood from her. “Come on,” he says. “Kyla’s almost got dinner ready.”

  Dawn lets Warden take the branches from her. Hangs back as she follows him into camp, hoping to get an answer from Brielle.

  But Brielle is gone, she realizes. The Black Bear has slipped off and disappeared again, leaving Dawn with nothing but more questions, and the sick feeling that more bad things are coming, just as sure as the storm is.

  IT’S NOT UNTIL SHE’S ACTUALLY EATING that Dawn realizes how hungry she is.

  She’s starving.

  She hasn’t eaten anything but energy bars since breakfast, and with the whole stress of the day and Amber falling and then the getting-lost-in-the-dark thing, Dawn’s been too distracted to eat.

  But now, as she stirs her spork into one of Christian’s emergency dehydrated mountain-climber mystery-meat dinners, Dawn can hear her stomach growl and feels a little dizzy, and even the mystery meat looks like prime rib.

  It’s actually some kind of pasta, according to the package. All Dawn knows is that it’s hot and it’s filling and it’s better than energy bars or, like, the sack of rice she’s been lugging around since forever.

  It’s freaking delicious.

  She eats so fast she doesn’t realize Warden’s watching her, but then she looks up from the little tinfoil bag and catches the gleam in Warden’s eyes across the campfire and it’s obvious he’s been looking at her pigging out this whole time, and Dawn sits up straighter and puts the bag down and tries to swallow and smile back and look cool without, you know, making a fool of herself, and then Warden makes a gesture like he’s wiping his chin and his smile never wavers and Dawn sets her spork down and touches her own chin and there’s like, drool or pasta sauce all over her face, and Warden bursts out laughing and Dawn spins away, mortified, but she kind of has to laugh, too, and on the other side of the fire, Lucas makes a disgusted noise and looks
away.

  And Warden’s still watching Dawn, and his eyes are still alight with the glow of the fire.

  * * *

  “What about Christian?” Dawn asks as the wind continues to pick up around the fire circle.

  Brandon and Evan kind of snicker. “What about Christian?” Evan says.

  But Lucas gets it. “He doesn’t have a tent up there at the summit,” he says. “The way this storm’s blowing in, shouldn’t we be worried? Like, it’s bound to be pretty cold up there overnight.”

  Dawn glances at him, grateful, but Lucas ignores her. He’s watching Warden instead. So is everyone else.

  Warden shakes his head. “We found a cavern up there,” he says. “Just, like, a little sheltered overhang. And Christian had an emergency blanket in his bag; I made sure of it. He’ll be cold tonight, but he should be okay.”

  He looks at each group member in turn, and he sounds confident and not worried at all.

  And Dawn figures that means she doesn’t need to worry either.

  * * *

  Night falls around them. The wind’s blowing hard now, whipping the flames from the campfire to and fro, sending sparks billowing up skyward in clouds of light. It’s cold now, away from the campfire, and Dawn can feel the first drops of rain on her face.

  Shit, she realizes. I haven’t even set up my tarp yet.

  She stands up from the fire circle into a bitter blast of wind, already hating the thought of setting up her stupid tarp in the dark before it starts to rain too hard. Knowing she’ll never stay dry enough, warm enough, to get any sleep tonight.

  You should have picked the tent, she tells herself. Not the goddamn backpack.

  It’s going to be a long, awful night.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Warden asks Dawn as she fumbles around in the dark for her pack.

  “My pack,” Dawn tells him, shining her flashlight across the ground. She’s sure she left it right here. “I still have to set up my tarp for the night.”

  Warden appears out of the gloom, stretching lazily, his hoodie riding up to reveal his flat stomach, toned abs. “Oh, you won’t need your tarp,” he says.

  Dawn looks at him like he’s crazy, and Warden shrugs. “It’s going to drop below freezing tonight,” he says. “You don’t want to catch hypothermia, do you?”

  “Of course not,” Dawn says. She starts to tell Warden that she has to sleep under her tarp, it’s the rules, but she stops herself just in time.

  “I have to sleep somewhere,” she says.

  “You can share my tent.” This isn’t Warden. It’s Lucas. He comes out of the dark on the other side of Dawn and shrugs and tries to look nonchalant. “I have a big tent. There’s plenty of room.”

  Before Dawn can answer, Warden shakes his head. “That’s cool of you, man, but I already moved her stuff into my tent. I’ve got lots of room, too.”

  He looks at her. “I’m not trying to hit on you,” he says. “It’s just you’ve got to stay warm and dry at this altitude. Especially with the storm coming in.”

  Lucas looks like he wants to argue. Say something. But what is there to say?

  (Anyway, Warden cuts him off at the knees.)

  “Thanks, man,” he tells Lucas. “Looks like we’ve got the situation taken care of.”

  (Sorry, Lucas.)

  * * *

  It’s not the best feeling in the world, being caught between the two guys like Dawn is.

  Feeling like no matter what she does, she’s going to hurt someone’s feelings.

  And suspecting that it’s going to be Lucas she hurts.

  “You know what, it’s fine,” she says. “I’ll just sleep in Christian’s tent. It’s not totally fucked up from Alex and Evan, right?”

  But Lucas is already turning to leave.

  “Christian’s tent is ruined,” he says. “Go ahead, crash with Warden.” He pauses. “Or don’t. It doesn’t matter to me.”

  Dawn hurries to follow him. “Lucas.”

  “What?” He spins. “You think I don’t know what’s going on here, Dawn? You and Warden?”

  Dawn glances back to where Warden’s watching them, fifteen or maybe twenty feet away. “It’s not like that,” she hisses.

  Lucas laughs but there’s no funny in it. “Oh yeah?” he says. “Then why did you kiss him, Dawn?”

  Dawn opens her mouth, but she doesn’t say anything.

  “I thought we had something cool,” Lucas says. “I thought we, you know, liked each other.”

  “We do,” Dawn says. “I do. I just—”

  “You just like Warden more.” Lucas shakes his head, bitterly. Then he starts to walk away from her again. “It’s fine, Dawn. No worries. Have a good night.”

  He disappears into the darkness, and Dawn watches after him. Wants to say something, but there’s nothing to say.

  She’s too tired for this drama, anyhow.

  * * *

  Warden’s sitting by the fire when Dawn comes back from her little tiff with Lucas.

  He’s alone.

  Dawn can see light in the other tents spread around the campfire; she can hear rustling as the rest of the Bear Pack gets comfortable for the night. But Warden’s just sitting there watching the fire die, his hoodie up over his head and the flames dancing in his eyes.

  “Everything okay?” he asks, smiling that mischievous smile as Dawn comes back into the circle, like he knows what’s going on between Lucas and Dawn, and he knows how Dawn’s conflicted about it.

  Dawn tries not to blush, avoids Warden’s eyes. “Everything’s cool,” she tells him. “Look, I think I’ll just crash with Kyla or something. Save everybody the trouble.”

  Warden nods. “Lucas is upset,” he says. “Jealous.”

  “I guess so,” Dawn says.

  “He has a thing for you.”

  Dawn shrugs.

  Warden stands and walks to his tent. Unzips the flap and shines his light inside.

  “Look, it doesn’t have to be like that,” he tells her. “You can crash in here and we can be good, I promise. I just didn’t want you to sleep in the cold.”

  He sounds so innocent when he says it that she almost believes him, and his eyes are clear of the mischief that often lives there.

  (Dawn isn’t sure if she wants to believe him, but that’s a different thing entirely.)

  “But hey,” Warden says, “if it’s a big deal between you and Lucas, believe me, no worries.” He reaches into his tent and comes out with her backpack. “The last thing I want is to fuck up group dynamics.”

  He hoists her pack and makes to hand it across to Dawn. Dawn stares at it. At Warden behind it. And she’s suddenly aware of how cold she is already, and wet; she’s shivering and her teeth are chattering and her toes are like ice, her pants wet and her legs wet underneath them and her feet are the worst of all, and she’s suddenly aware of how nice it would be to get warm and cozy and curl up beside somebody and not just, you know, shiver the night away by herself, and she must be subconsciously looking inside Warden’s tent, because he seems to read her mind.

  “We can be good, I promise,” he says. The way he smirks makes Dawn feel like she’s being childish. “It doesn’t have to be anything you don’t want it to be.”

  Dawn hesitates.

  She closes her eyes.

  She wonders how she’s going to face Lucas in the morning.

  But then she takes her backpack from Warden and puts it back in his tent.

  (Hell, she was probably going to fall for Warden at some point anyway.)

  CHANGING IS A CHORE.

  Changing clothes in a tent is hard enough as it is. Changing clothes in a sleeping bag is worse. Changing clothes in a sleeping bag when you’re shoulder to shoulder with a guy you kind of like?

  Impossible.


  “I won’t look,” Warden tells her. “I promise.”

  Somehow, Dawn pulls it off. She shimmies out of her wet clothes while somehow still remaining covered by the sleeping bag, and she pulls on dry undies and pants and a fresh T-shirt and socks, and she zips up her yellow Bear Cub fleece. She wads up her wet pants and her stinky socks and pushes them down to the very bottom of her pack, and then she pushes her pack down to the far end of the tent by her feet, and she lies back down again and pulls the sleeping bag over her shoulders and up to her neck and she’s still cold and still kind of shivering, but at last she’s starting to get warm, and starting to get comfortable, and maybe in a while, maybe, she’ll actually be able to relax.

  It’s cozy in Warden’s tent, that’s for sure.

  It’s a double tent, but just barely; Warden’s so tall that he kind of sleeps at an angle, and the tent isn’t even that wide. As soon as Dawn slides into her sleeping bag she can feel him beside her, pressed close, even through two layers of sleeping bag material, and it’s nice to be warm and it’s nice to be dry, and it’s nice to be this close to somebody.

  (Sorry, Lucas.)

  THEY LIE THERE IN SILENCE.

  Dawn and Warden.

  Warden and Dawn.

  At some point, Warden turns off his flashlight, and the tent is pitch dark, and all of a sudden Dawn is hyperaware of the sound of the wind gusting against the tent, and the sound of the rain falling against the tent.

  And the sound of Warden’s breathing.

  And the sound of her own.

  She can’t see Warden, and she doesn’t know what he’s doing; she can feel him next to her, some warm amorphous blob, but she doesn’t know where he’s facing or whether his eyes are open, and she sure as hell doesn’t know what he’s thinking.

  But then he shifts in his sleeping bag and she can feel his breath, warm, and she knows he’s sitting up, slightly, and looking her way.