EMP: Return of the Wild West Box Set | Books 1-3

by Hamilton, Grace

  They’d gone maybe an hour, still headed down into the valley, when Eustace called them to a stop.

  “Catch your breath, guys,” he said, leaning against the nearest large tree trunk. He unfolded the charred map and held it up. “I think we’re on track here.”

  “What do you mean by on track?” Tuck asked, grimacing and clutching his hiking staff with both hands until his leathery knuckles turned yellow. “We’re just heading south. How hard can that be?”

  “Exactly,” Eustace said. “And we’re right on track, according to the compass and the map.”

  “Well, it’s good to know we can walk in a straight line,” Tuck said.

  “Your sarcasm is not appreciated, old man,” Eustace said. “I’ve got our whole route mapped out in my head. We walk south to the stream and follow that to the river and follow that to the nearest town. Point A, Point B, Point C, and we’re home. No problem. Got it? Now, there’s hundreds of kilometers ahead of us, guys. It’s too early to start complaining. Come on.”

  He took a half-hearted swing with the machete, knocked a few branches out of his way, and resumed hiking. Tuck jabbed his hiking staff into the ground almost spitefully and went after him.

  “At least I got rested up this morning,” Tommy said. He had a tendency to kick at loose rocks or piles of leaves along the way, as if he were a child strolling through the park. “This is sort of invigorating. It’s working the stiffness out of my hip.”

  “You say that now…” Tuck said, shaking his head.

  They finally reached the bottom of the valley and came in sight of a small burbling creek, the water rushing over mossy rocks. Greg found the sound of it soothing, but the creek also gave them their first broad view of the sky. As Eustace lowered himself to the ground beside the water, Greg cast his gaze skyward, looking for the sun. He finally spotted it almost directly behind them, and he was shocked at how low it was.

  “The day is passing quickly,” he said.

  “Huh, what was that?” Eustace said, splashing water on his face.

  “We won’t get far before sunset,” Greg said. “We’ll have to keep our eyes out for a good place to camp.”

  “Camping close to fresh water is always a good idea,” Emma said. “Not too close, of course. You want to be above the water, in case it rains.”

  Eustace took a long swig from his canteen, refilled it in the creek, then slowly, achingly rose. “I’ll tell you what, kiddo. Why don’t you keep your eye out for a good camping spot? I think you’re the expert here. When you find the perfect place, let me know.”

  At this, Emma beamed, grinning broadly. Refolding the map, Eustace stepped over the burbling water and began tracing a path parallel to the stream. As the group followed him, Greg could hear Tommy constantly encouraging Tuck to pick up the pace. Despite the fact that his dad was a tough-looking old guy, he didn’t seem to have as much energy as the others. Greg wasn’t doing so hot himself. The thin air and rough terrain had already thoroughly worn him out, and he had no idea how he was going to endure days, maybe even weeks of this endless slog.

  Don’t think about it, he told himself. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

  Eventually, they reached a place that prevented them from following the creek—steep rocks rose up before them, the stream gushing down from a high place. Eustace paused here for a moment, scowling at the steep slope as if it had personally offended him. Then, finally, he shrugged and headed a different direction.

  “If we can’t follow the stream, how will we know which way to go?” Tuck asked between heaving breaths.

  “According to the map, we go due south to the river,” Eustace said, “and the river will take us out of here. So we just have to head due south. No big deal, right? We can circle around the rocks.”

  He led them away from the stream, up the slope to more open land, and then turned again. From time to time, he paused, pulled out the map, and looked around, as if he could match their surroundings with some spot on the map. The guy probably just wanted to look like he knew what he was doing. After all, the forest was little more than a jumble of shapes and shadows. Everything flowed together, and Greg felt so completely turned around that it gave him a strange sense of vertigo.

  I guess I wouldn’t make a good mountain man, he thought.

  Afternoon gave way to evening, the light through the trees shifting toward violet and they needed to stop for the night. Everyone was exhausted and walking had gradually devolved into stumbling, as they fought to take each step. Emma began pointing out potential camping spots. Unfortunately, they had lost sight of the stream, so they couldn’t follow her suggestion of camping near water. Instead, they chose a small clearing where the ground was relatively flat. It was small enough that the canopy of leaves still mostly enclosed them overhead. However, they were able to set up the three small tents they’d brought with them, pile their gear nearby, and even dig a shallow firepit.

  Emma was in the process of lining the firepit with rocks, and Greg was unrolling sleeping bags inside the tents when a light rain began to fall. Tuck was already sprawled out in his tent, while Tommy and Eustace unpacked some food.

  “Oh, great,” Emma said. “I should have looked for kindling first. Now all the wood is getting wet.”

  The rain grew steadily worse over the course of about half an hour, as Emma scrambled about the area and tried to find the driest sticks. Unfortunately, by the time she returned to the firepit, it was already becoming a small puddle. The rain didn’t last more than an hour, but it was enough to make everything significantly colder and more miserable. Greg had put his jacket back on, which helped, but he still had water streaming down his face and plastering his hair against his head.

  Finally, Greg, Tommy, and Eustace squatted down beside Emma in front of the firepit. She had a box of waterproof matches in one hand, but she just held it there, glaring down at the puddle.

  “That was really bad timing,” she said. “It couldn’t have waited to rain until the middle of the night or something? We won’t get a fire going, not like this.”

  “It’s okay,” Greg said, patting her on the back. “We can go one night without a fire.”

  “We should have put something out to collect the rainwater,” she said. “A bowl or something. I was too upset about the fire and forgot.”

  “We have enough water for another day,” Greg said. “When we find a stream again, we’ll fill up.”

  “It’ll have to be soon,” she said, tucking the matches into her jacket pocket. “You can get dehydrated up here really easy. Plus, we should probably boil any water we find. You shouldn’t drink it right out of the stream.” As she said this, she gave Eustace a pointed look.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know, kiddo,” he replied, flashing his teeth through his thick, red beard in what seemed to be an embarrassed smile. “I got thirsty. What can I say?”

  “We also need to ration our food very carefully,” she added.

  Eustace and Tommy were both clutching a number of plastic food pouches, which contained freeze-dried vegetables and meat for soup, dried fruit, and a few servings of MRE food. Emma reached out and plucked four of the smallest pouches.

  “This should be enough for tonight,” she said, setting them at her feet. “I suggest you put the rest back.”

  Eustace and Tommy traded a look. They seemed both amused and perhaps a little uncomfortable at being told what to do by the youngest member of the group, but Tommy finally grabbed the other pouches out of Eustace’s hands and stuffed them in his backpack.

  “So we should make finding fresh water a priority tomorrow,” Greg said.

  “Yes, and we should dump more of our gear,” Emma said. “I think we’re still carrying too much. We have to travel light, Dad. People are already getting tired. Look at Grandpa. How is he going to last at this rate? The clothes on our backs, sleeping bags, tents, food, water, first aid kits, and basic survival gear—that’s all we need. You guys are still carrying blankets, tarp
s, some of the fishing gear, and a bunch of random knickknacks. The electronic devices and so on—all tech should be left behind. It’s useless now anyway.”

  “You talk like you’ve done this before,” Eustace said, ripping open one of the small pouches of dried meat. “You look like a suburban kid in Grade 9, but you talk like a wilderness explorer. You got some secret history you’re not telling us about?”

  Emma averted her gaze, clearly embarrassed. “I just read a lot of websites before the trip.”

  Greg thought of the dead sat phone in his pack. Maybe I’ll stuff it a little deeper into the pack, where Emma won’t see it and be disappointed in me, he thought.

  11

  As Tuck snored softly in his tent, the others went through their gear and let Emma recommend what to keep and what to dump. While rooting through his pack, Greg tried to shove the sat phone down into the bottom, but his daughter walked up behind him and thrust her hand into the pack.

  “Dad, were you planning on keeping this?” she said, pulling the phone out. “It’s just a lump of plastic now. We should toss it, don’t you think?”

  And with that, she tossed the satellite phone onto the discard pile. He briefly considered exerting his parental authority to reclaim it, but he knew she was probably right. Once they’d lightened their gear, following Emma’s suggestions, they reduced their total weight by almost a third.

  Afterward, Eustace pulled out the map and studied it for a few minutes. Eventually, he called Greg and Tommy over, though Emma came as well.

  “I think I’ve figured out a better route,” he said. “It’ll be more certain than following the river, and more straightforward.”

  He pointed to something on the map. When Greg leaned in close, he saw a blue dotted line, very faint, cutting across the topography.

  “What is that?” Greg asked, and just before Eustace answered, he felt a moment of trepidation. This was a gas company map, after all.

  “One of our pipelines,” Eustace replied. “It’s not far from here, and unlike the river, it doesn’t zigzag all over the place.”

  “What a smart idea,” Tommy said, giving a big grin that revealed he was missing a bottom incisor. “We should’ve done that from the start.”

  “Well, I didn’t want to bring the company into it,” Eustace said, glancing briefly at Greg, “but if it’ll get us out of here faster, it’s worth it. What do you say, Emma? Greg?”

  Emma shrugged. Apparently, her study of camping and wilderness survival hadn’t covered natural gas pipelines, but Greg was struggling hard not to let his feelings show. The case he’d been building against Eustace’s company was specifically related to allegations that their pipelines had contaminated local water supplies. He’d intended to use the camping trip as an opportunity to look for evidence which he could take back to build the case.

  Now, however, their only real goal was to get out of the wilderness, and he couldn’t afford to make Eustace an enemy. More importantly, however, if the accusations were true, then sources of fresh water along the pipeline could be contaminated and unsafe to drink. Still, he tried not to give any indication of his thoughts, as he considered how best to respond.

  Eustace noted his hesitation and slid a finger along the map to a small X in the middle of the dotted line. “There are way stations along the pipeline. Actually, the reason we keep maps like that in our choppers is so we can find the way stations. That’s the point of this map. Here’s one of them. We stock a lot of supplies there. Heck, we might even find some functional radio equipment, and if we’re real lucky, one of our emergency technicians will be on-site.”

  It was like frosting on a crap sandwich, but Greg couldn’t pass it up. Way stations with radio equipment and technicians on-site. He nodded and said, “All right, I’m on board. Do we know how to get there?”

  Eustace just stared at the map and said nothing. Greg looked up at the now-ominous canopy of leaves overheard and the tiny specks of gray sky that were visible through the gaps.

  “We brought binoculars,” Emma said. “Shouldn’t a big pipe like that be visible from a long distance?”

  Eustace hesitated a moment before saying, “Yes, the pipeline is visible, as long as you’re above the trees.”

  “So, let’s look for a ledge above the trees,” Greg said.

  “We can’t do that tonight,” Tommy said. “We have maybe half an hour of good light left. You don’t want to be stumbling around in the woods at night.”

  Emma rose and started walking away. It almost seemed like Tommy’s words had offended her suddenly, and Greg started to say something. Then he realized his daughter was gazing upward into the treetops.

  “If we climbed one of the taller trees, we’d get a pretty good view,” she said. She pointed at a particularly large tree nearby. “Some of these white pine and black spruce are huge. That one even has a few low branches I could use.”

  “You?” Greg said, standing and moving to his daughter’s side. “Why would you be the one climbing? Leave it to one of us big guys. It’s risky.”

  Emma looked from Greg to Eustace to Tommy, grimaced, and said, “Dad, none of you old guys are…I mean, I’m in the best shape for climbing. I’ve done the rock-climbing wall at school dozens of times.”

  “Climbing a rock wall is not the same as climbing a tree,” he said.

  “No, it’s harder,” she said with a smile. “Look at those big branches there. It’s practically a ladder, Dad.”

  The biggest trees around them were towering behemoths, rising forty or fifty meters. It made him dizzy just looking up at them. How could Emma even think about it?

  “She’s right,” Eustace said, picking himself up with a grunt and a hippo-like expulsion of breath. “We’re a bunch of out-of-shape old men. Not a one of us could climb that tree, even if we were being chased by a hungry bear.”

  “Dad, I can do it.” Emma headed toward their packs, which were stacked together at the base of one of the larger trees. She rooted around inside and pulled out the pair of binoculars, slipping the strap over her head. Then she pulled out a length of nylon rope and held it up. “See? I’ll do it safely.”

  “You don’t have climbing equipment,” he noted. “Just a length of rope.”

  “I don’t even need the rope,” she said. “I’m just using it so you’ll worry a little less. Actually, it’ll kind of be in my way.”

  Greg groaned. “Okay, fine, forget the rope. Just, please, take it slow. Carefully consider every move before you make it, okay?”

  “Dad.” She laughed as she approached one of the biggest trees in the area. “This tree has a lot of big branches, and they’re all pretty close together. I’ll be fine.”

  She dumped the rope, reached up to the nearest branch, and pulled herself up into the enormous tree. The black spruce had numerous short, compact branches tipped in clusters of green needles. Once she was in the tree, she almost disappeared behind the green, moving like a pale squirrel from branch to branch.

  Greg glanced over his shoulder and saw Eustace and Tommy standing behind him. Tommy was gaping in amazement, showing off his mouthful of unhealthy teeth.

  “She’s doing great,” Eustace said. “You should trust the kid a little more.”

  “Let’s wait until she’s safely back on the ground,” Greg replied.

  When Emma reached the top of the tree, she disappeared entirely, though he could still hear her moving around up there through breaks in the rhythmic snoring of his father. After a couple of minutes, she began climbing back down.

  “Slowly,” he called to her. “Think about every step down before you take it.”

  “Dad, stop,” she shouted back. “You’re distracting me.”

  A sudden strange sound from behind him startled Greg and made him lurch forward. Up in the tree, Emma gasped, and branches shook. When Greg turned to look for the source of the sound, he saw Tuck dragging himself out of his tent, eyes wide as he gazed up into the tree.

  “Is she climbin
g all the way up in that tree?” he croaked. “What’s going on here? I fall asleep for one minute, and you’ve got my granddaughter climbing a forty-meter tree like a lemur?”

  Greg put a finger to his lips, but his dad came trundling over like a roused bear. “She’s a young girl. What if she falls? Whose ideas was this? Starting a campfire is one thing, but come on, Greg. Use your head.” He tapped a gnarled finger against the side of his head.

  Emma had gone quiet for a few seconds, but Greg heard her resume descending, moving more slowly this time.

  “She’s better at climbing than I was at her age,” Greg said. The irony that he was now defending her decision didn’t escape him, but it took a furious act of will not to respond to his dad’s grumpiness with anger.

  “That’s not saying much,” Tuck said with a scowl, “seeing as how you fell out of the maple tree in the backyard and sprained your wrist when you were, what, ten?”

  I’m surprised you remember, Greg thought, bitterly. I’m surprised you remember anything about me at that age.

  Instead of saying this, he shrugged it off and turned away. Talking about childhood memories with the father who had largely ignored him for so many years would only stir up his worst feelings.

  “Emma, don’t let them talk you into doing crazy stuff,” Tuck shouted up into the tree. “They should be looking out for you, not risking your life.”

  “I’m fine, Grandpa,” she replied, her voice trembling slightly. “Don’t yell at me. I’m trying to concentrate now.”

  A nice way of asking the old man to shut up. Tuck seemed to take the hint, as he grunted and planted his hands on his narrow hips. Emma continued her descent, and Greg could see now that she was very carefully picking her way from branch to branch. His father’s outburst had induced a potent mix of bad emotions, and it made him restless. He began to pace back and forth, his hands crammed deep into the pockets of his jacket.

  I’d really like to punch something, he thought.

  His back was turned when Emma reached the ground, so he didn’t realize she was there until she spoke. And then her voice was so close that it startled him again.