Found

by Joseph Bruchac

  Then, with a flutter of its wings and a soft caw, a Canada jay dropped down to land right on the ground in front of him. Probably the same bird he’d seen the evening before, and likely one of this year’s new additions to the forest. Unlike a lot of other birds, Canada jays lay their eggs and make their nests in the coldest part of the winter. And in the summer, when their little ones become large enough, they are sent out to be on their own for a while until they can form a family of their own.

  “More?” Nick asked.

  The small gray bird opened its wings slightly and bobbed its head up and down.

  Nick picked several pieces of almonds from his trail mix and held them out on his palm. The jay hopped up onto his thumb, took the pieces of nut one by one, and then flew off.

  If I wasn’t worried about being followed, Nick thought, this would be a good place to spend more than one day.

  He ate a handful of his trail mix and drank from his canteen. Then he took out one of his energy bars. He’d made them himself, wrapping each bar in waxed paper so there would be no plastic waste. He shook his head thinking of how often, even in what seemed remote wilderness, he’d find human garbage left behind. Gum and candy wrappers, bottles and cans, and drink containers of all kinds, along with cigarette filters, plastic bags, straws, socks, hats, gloves, and other articles of clothing he’d rather not think about. Nick would use a stick to pick up the items and put them in the garbage bag he always had with him. People either never heard—or maybe didn’t care—about that old rule: If you carry it in, carry it out again.

  So Nick would pick that stuff up. Sometimes— after hiking some trails in the Adirondacks or the Green Mountains—Nick ended up carrying out twice as much as he’d carried in.

  He folded the waxed paper up and tucked it back into his pack. The paper would burn clean— part of the tinder for his next fire.

  Then he checked his fire circle from the night before.

  Never leave a fire burning.

  That was one of the first rules he’d learned from Grampa Elie. He had also learned that just because a fire looks like it’s out doesn’t mean it isn’t still burning down below, out of sight. Nick carefully stirred the ashes, sifting them through his fingers. Not even a little warm. That was good. Fire can get into the roots of a dry forest, keep burning out of sight, and spread. He poured water from his canteen over the ashes. A little dust rose, but no steam.

  Using the sandy soil he’d placed to the side, he mixed dirt in with the ashes of his fire, then filled in more soil, followed by the pieces of sod. If he’d been near a stream, he would have poured on even more water, but filling the fire pit in this way should be fine.

  He brushed off his feet, shook out his socks and slipped them on, and slid into his boots. Then, one by one, he carried each of the stones he’d placed in a semicircle back to the same exact places where he’d taken them from the hillside.

  Placing his pack to one side, he brushed the moss and needles off his lean-to. He removed the branches from the sides and pulled the slipknots to untie the longer poles that formed the frame. Carefully, he distributed the sticks at random around the woods. Raking moss, leaves, and twigs over his camping area left no evidence of either a fire or a shelter. It was the way he always tried to clean up any place he’d stayed in the woods.

  Leave no more sign behind than a fish does going through the water.

  But this time he’d taken special care to cover where he’d been. There was no way yet that he could be absolutely sure that he was going to be followed. But the gesture Dead Eyes had made on seeing Nick survive made him sure enough.

  Nick made a wide circle with his right arm, then touched his palm to his heart.

  “Wliwini,” he said to everything around him. “Thank you.”

  Which way now? he thought.

  He could keep following the stream that flowed around the hill in front of him, a hill that would gradually turn into a mountain. The stream way would be easier. But more predictable.

  Shouldering his pack, he began to climb the hill.

  CHAPTER 8

  Climbing

  As Nick climbed, he used a dry, straight cedar branch as a walking stick. Using the edge of his knife, he’d taken a few minutes to scrape off the branch so that it was smooth. It felt good in his hand, the way certain stones felt. Nick liked the feel of those natural things that his aunt Marge referred to as “our oldest tools.”

  Some of those stones you pick up, she said, the ones that seem to fit right into your palm. Those were probably used by other people for different tasks thousands of year ago.

  Sometimes as weapons.

  Nick paused and lifted his cedar walking stick. It was about five feet long, light enough to carry but heavy enough to hold up, and flexible enough to bend but not break. And strong enough to perhaps be used to defend yourself. He held the stick out, balanced it on his palm, rolled it over the back of his hand, and caught it. Then he twirled it in a figure eight, passed it behind his back from his right hand to his left, spun it overhead, and let it fall back into his right hand. He didn’t go any further into the kata he’d mastered after eight years of weapons training with his pencak silat instructor. He’d done enough to have the feel of his new bo staff. Not made of Chinese whitewood, but good enough.

  Hold on, dummy!

  For a minute there he’d been picturing himself as one of those martial arts experts he’d seen in films, like Michelle Yeoh in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Tony Jaa in Ong Bak. He imagined himself vanquishing hordes of attackers one by one with precise strikes and kicks. As if it would happen that way. First of all, he was still only a teenager who weighed 140 pounds. He remembered the way Dead Eyes had grabbed him on the train and manhandled him like a sack of potatoes. It showed him just how much all the self-defense he’d learned was worth when his arms were pinned and he was lifted off his feet from behind by someone bigger and stronger. And probably better trained. The way Dead Eyes held him, his forehead tight against the back of Nick’s neck, showed that. There was no way that he could throw his head back against the man’s nose.

  The second thing was even grimmer. Was anyone pursuing him going to give him a chance to fight back hand to hand? No way! Most likely they’d just shoot him from a hundred yards away.

  He shook his head and smiled. His best bet was to not be seen. To not stand out on a hillside in plain sight swinging a stick. He studied the terrain around him. A direct route to the top wouldn’t be that hard. There was already a trail. It had probably been worn into the ground by generations of deer and mountain goats. He’d seen their tracks at the base and along the way in areas of soft earth as he’d climbed. Staying on the game trail would be faster. But it was exposed. And even though he’d been taking care not to leave visible footprints, there might be some signs left of his passage.

  Think like a deer in hunting season.

  If he veered off to the right, the slope would be stonier. There were fields of boulders and folds in the land. It would a tougher, longer climb, but his inner voice told him it was the right way to go. He’d be unseen, or at least be less visible from a distance. He continued on up the rugged slope. He stayed as low as he could, following a zigzag path. He took care not to send any loose stones rolling down the steep slopes. He went around, not over, the boulders in his way. As much as he could, he avoided any stretch where he’d be out in the open.

  An hour later he was almost at the top. Twice already he’d thought he was there. Instead, he’d seen yet another slope to climb when he’d reached what was not actually the summit. The sun had crested the peak and was shining down so hard on him that he was sweating. To his right was a huge, flat rock perched on the edge of a smooth stone drop-off, like a giant slide, that went half a mile or more down the mountainside before entering the wooded slope of the forest below.

  That ancient boulder, which seemed to be lodged firmly in place, had probably slid down from the mountaintop ages ago. It looked as if a sort of cave
had formed beneath it. It might be a good place to get out of the sun for a little while and rest before going farther.

  Nick made his way carefully over to it and rested one hand on the giant stone. Staying to one side, he carefully poked his stick into the cave. There might be animals in there, maybe even a mountain lion. He tapped the stick against the cave’s floor, making a hollow sound almost like a drum beat.

  Thunk-thunk, thunk-thunk.

  No sound came back to indicate that anything was alive and moving about in there. Best to make doubly sure, though. Nick picked up a round stone the size of a baseball and tossed it back into the darkness. All he heard was the rattle of the rock against the cave’s walls and floor. Nobody home.

  “Grandfather, thank you for letting me use you as shelter,” he said to the giant boulder.

  Then, sliding his stick ahead of him, he knelt and crawled into the cave. It was cool and dark inside. The ceiling was high enough that he could kneel upright. Once his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could see all around him. The cave was only about as deep as it was wide, no more than twenty feet, sloping back to the bare stone. Were those markings on the flat wall to his right? He crawled closer. Someone, taking care and showing great patience, had chiseled a shape into the gray stone. It was a man holding up his hands—perhaps in greeting or thanksgiving. Other humans before him, people native to this land, had taken shelter here before him. They’d honored this spot.

  “Thank you, Old Ones,” Nick said again, his voice soft.

  He slid off his pack and turned to sit crosslegged facing the opening. He felt secure here. A wide vista of forest and hills beneath an impossibly blue sky stretched beyond and below as far as he could see. He had a great view. It would be impossible for anyone out there to see him when he was hidden inside the darkness of the cave.

  Not that he expected to be followed already. Even if Dead Eyes or anyone helping him had come back to that train trestle, it was unlikely they would have found his trail. How would they even know whether he’d gone upstream or down? There were countless square miles of forests, hills, and mountains dotted with lakes and crossed by streams in every direction from the place he’d been tossed off the train like a bag of garbage. And there were almost no roads—aside from those used by loggers. The nearest village was on the Cree reserve where he was headed, still forty miles away.

  He undid the bandanna he’d tied around his head. The fabric was strong and fast-drying. It kept sweat out of his eyes. But it was soaked. He wrung the water from it and then spread it out on the flat stone surface next to him. Then he shrugged off his jacket, planning to tie it around his waist. As he did so, the back of the coat brushed the wall of the cave, and he heard a small clinking sound. Metal striking stone.

  He turned the jacket around and spread it in his lap. Something was stuck there, between the shoulders. Last night he’d thought it was a stone. But it was metal with some sort of adhesive on it. He pried it free and held it up to study it.

  Crap!

  He’d never seen one before, but he thought he knew what it was. A tracking device. Put there by that slap on his back before Dead Eyes had wrapped his arms around him.

  That way a cleanup crew would have been able to find his dead body below the trestle to make sure he’d disappear without a trace. He hadn’t died, but all the care he’d taken to cover his trail had been for nothing. With that tracker, they’d know exactly where he was.

  And that was when he heard a distant thump- thump-thump. It was getting louder as it came coming closer. And now Nick knew what it was.

  A helicopter.

  CHAPTER 9

  The Sound of the Copter

  Rescuers? Nick thought.

  Maybe. But probably not. Never break cover until you’re sure. That was another lesson Grampa Elie taught.

  The sound of the helicopter was still far away. The way sound carried, it might be as far as a few miles. But the sound was getting closer. It was a good bet that someone in the copter was looking at a GPS tracker homed in on the device in Nick’s hand.

  If Nick stayed inside the cave, they wouldn’t see him. But they’d know where he was. Maybe there would be men dropping down on lines.

  Nick looked over to his left. The baseballsized stone he’d thrown into the cave was there. He opened his pack and pulled out one of his extra pairs of wool socks and the roll of duct tape. He dropped the stone into one of the socks, wrapped it tight, and strapped the tracking device onto it. Then he stuffed it into the second sock and wound more tape around it, making a solid, almost-round ball. With all that padding, Nick hoped the device would not break.

  Taking careful aim and not stepping out of the mouth of the cave, Nick tossed the tape- wrapped bundle. It landed on the steepest part of the slope and started to roll. He watched as it picked up speed, bouncing now and then but not running into anything. The angle of the cave was just right so that he could see it all the way down until it disappeared half a mile below into the woods. With any luck, it would keep rolling there even longer.

  The sound of the helicopter was disturbingly loud now. Right overhead. Then it suddenly was there in front of him, having come over the mountain from behind him. It was so close that Nick could see the people inside. A pilot and two other men. One of them was a man he knew all too well. Dead Eyes. But they were not looking his way.

  Nick closed his own eyes, crouched down, pulled his jacket over his head, and froze. It was dark in the cave, but if they flashed a light into it, they might see him. Nothing is more recognizable faster than a human face. And there’s something about looking at another person that draws their eyes to you. Even if you’re going sixty miles an hour down a road, try locking eyes with a person in an oncoming car. Nine times out of ten they’ll look straight back at you as they whiz by.

  For several seconds, the sound of the chopper hovering in the air, no more than a few hundred feet away, was deafening. Nick could feel the wash of its blades blowing dust into the cave.

  Then the sound began to lessen. It was moving away. He dared to lower the jacket and open his eyes. The helicopter was gone. He rose up to look down the mountain. The helicopter was there, so far away it seemed no larger than a dragonfly. Then it disappeared over the trees, still heading in the direction of his sock-wrapped stone and the tracking device that was in it.

  Sometimes luck is even better than skill. That’s what Aunt Marge used to say. And right now, if only for a brief time, luck seemed to be on his side.

  Nick closed his pack, put it over his shoulder, and slid out of the cave. He had to move fast now. He scrambled up and over the top of the mountain. A maze of animal trails led down the other side. One group of trails led toward a river valley, perhaps two miles away to his left. To his right, another group of straighter trails headed to a much closer, higher valley with a smaller stream running through it. Maybe it was the one that flowed around the mountain he’d climbed to end up passing under the railroad bridge.

  That straight group of trails looked easier to travel. But it was also more open to the sky, which made it easier in another way. Easier for anyone going that way to be seen from above. The trail to the left was more wooded, rockier, and rougher. It offered cover.

  Nick hardly paused.

  Left it is.

  He began bounding down the mountain.

  He’d run down slopes like this before, so he knew the difference between recklessness and speed. His legs were strong, his balance sure. His shoes provided the right amount of tread to keep from slipping and just enough stiffness to provide ankle support. He’d done some parkour training at the school where he earned his certification as a tracking teacher. That once- secret art of learning how to navigate over and around obstacles was what he needed to keep moving quickly down the steep slope. He was far from expert at it, but he’d learned how to land lightly, knees bent, and how to go into a roll and come back up running. With parkour you could almost fly over eight-foot-high walls or rough wilderness bou
lders.

  He only paused twice to listen for the whomping of rotor blades from the sky. The first time he paused, the sound was growing more distant. The second time, the helicopter could no longer be heard. But Nick didn’t slow his pace. When he reached the woods, he leapt over fallen trees and ducked under branches, avoiding open places where a footprint might be left behind. Half an hour later he saw the edge of the river through the trees.

  He stopped then. Leaving the shelter of the forest without carefully scanning what was ahead would be foolish. The riverbed itself was at least fifty yards wide, but the river was only flowing in the middle of it. Nick could see berry bushes on the other side of the stream. Even from this distance, it was obvious they were laden with red fruit. Another time he would have crossed the shallow stream and lost himself picking berries. But not now.

  Aside from the lazy, late-summer flow of the river, he saw nothing moving. But upstream he saw something that brought the ghost of a smile to his lips.

  CHAPTER 10

  The Riverbank Cave

  Nick slid down the pebbled bank that offered the quickest access to the river’s edge. Because of that cold he’d felt coming on, he was breathing a little heavier than usual. But otherwise he felt fine. He was thirsty, but he didn’t stop to drink. He was headed for what he’d seen as he scanned his surroundings—a potential hiding place a hundred feet upstream. It had been barely visible from the angle where he stood. Where the river had made a quick bend, the water seemed to have cut under a huge spruce tree that leaned over the stream. He couldn’t tell how large the shadowed place he was seeing under the tree might be, but it might be deep enough.

  Avoiding the sandy places, he ran lightly over the exposed bedrock bed of the river. The stream seemed to have been twice as wide as it was now, its level probably dropping soon after the spring thaw. When he reached the huge old spruce and bent to look, he saw that luck was still with him. He dropped to his knees and crawled in. He’d found yet another natural shelter. It was not a stone lean-to, like the place he’d left behind on the mountaintop, but a ten-foot-deep cave shaped from the wash of current against sand. Because the water level had dropped with summer, it wasn’t the least bit moist inside. The floor was packed dry earth. Five feet overhead, it was roofed with living roots, and light filtered in through a space between two of the widest ones.