“Holy guacamole,” breathed Jim.
Carlos studied the water. The expression on his face was serious. “We’re going to have to go straight through it,” he said. “I don’t want us trying to go around, particularly not on the down slope side. The ground is way too wet, and we’d risk sliding down the mountain.”
“But, it’s a ginormous puddle of muck, like a bottomless sinkhole!” Kareem protested. “We’ll all get soaked up to our knees!”
“Getting wet can be dangerous, especially once the sun goes down and it gets cold,” said Carlos. “The trouble is, I don’t think we have a choice. There’s just no room to go around. We have to go straight through.” He tucked his pants into his boots. “I’ll go first.”
By now the older boys in the cluster and their counselors had caught up so that all of the Orange-You-Glads were gathered to watch Carlos wade cautiously into the puddle. Zack could feel the rest of the hikers press in close.
“It’s slippery,” Carlos reported from about halfway across. He kept walking, slowly, arms outstretched for balance. He lifted up one foot and set it down carefully before picking up the other foot. When he reached the far side of the puddle, Carlos turned around to face the guys.
“It’s not too bad,” he reported. “The water never went over the top of my boots. So, here’s the plan. Birch Cabiners, you come through first. You older guys from Spruce, hang back. Everybody, take it slow.”
Carlos was right, Zack thought a couple of minutes later when it was his turn to slog through the mud pit. It was slippery underfoot. And it was a weird kind of slippery, like the mud was trying to make him lose his balance by grabbing on to his feet and holding on. Zack kept his gaze focused on Carlos. It was good to have a goal.
“Great job, guys,” Carlos said, as Jim, the last Birch Cabiner, finally reached the other side. “Keep going down the trail a little, will you? I don’t want us to get all bottled up. There’s a curve just ahead. Go around it and then stop. Stick together. I’ll stay here to be sure nobody slips and falls in the mud. After they’ve crossed, I’ll send the guys down to you.”
“Okay, Carlos,” Erik said.
The Birch Cabiners followed the path that curved close to the mountainside, their boots squishy with puddle water and their legs spattered with mud. They had all rounded the curve so that Carlos and the other hikers were no longer in sight, when CRACK!
Zack’s head jerked upward at the loud, sharp sound. What was that?
Crack! Crack! Snap!
“What was that?” Kareem shouted. “What’s going on?”
“I think . . .” Zack began.
That was as far as he got. Above Zack’s head, he heard a noise that sounded exactly like someone moaning.
“That’s not good,” Sean said. “That cannot be good.”
“But what is it?” Jim asked. “Where’s it coming from?”
Frantically, the hikers looked in every direction, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. Beneath Zack’s hiking boots, he felt the path begin to shake.
Boom. Boom! Rumble! BOOM!
“It’s coming from behind us!” Jim shouted.
“Let’s run back to Carlos!” Zack yelled.
He raced back toward the mud puddle. The other guys were right behind him. All around them, the whole world was going wild. The earth shivered and shook beneath their feet. Rocks and plants came bouncing down the hillside. Zack dodged a huge rock and kept on going. He skidded around the bend in the path and practically collided with Ibrahima, one of the guys from Spruce Cabin, who was running toward him down the path.
“Follow me!” Ibrahima shouted as he passed Zack and the other boys without stopping. “Come on.”
But Zack and the other Birch Cabiners hesitated. They could see Carlos wading into the puddle to help Foley, who had slipped and fallen.
Then, Crrraaaack!
Above the mud puddle, the hillside split apart. Before Zack’s horrified gaze, a great tongue of mud and rocks and plants thundered straight down in a nightmarish cascade, a lava flow of mud and earth, rocks, boulders, and uprooted trees.
“Look out!” Zack shouted.
But there was no way that anyone could hear him. Zack couldn’t even hear himself! The great roar of the landslide seemed to eat up every other sound as the huge, wet mountain of earth swallowed the path, creating a giant, impassable wall that divided the Birch Cabiners from Carlos and the other counselors and all the older boys, except Ibrahima.
Chapter Nine
“CARLOS!” Zack shouted.
He staggered forward. Zack could feel Jim tugging on his arm. He turned toward him.
Jim’s eyes were as big as moons. His lips were moving, but Zack couldn’t understand a word. Zack tried to pull away, desperate to get to Carlos, but Jim held on tight. He shook his head back and forth from side to side, mouthing, “You can’t get to Carlos. Stay back.”
And then, as suddenly as it had started, the landslide stopped. Everything was very, very quiet. Zack and Jim stared at one another. They were both afraid to move a muscle.
“Do you think it’s over?” Jim whispered.
Slowly, as if any sudden movement might trigger another slide, Zack nodded. “I sure hope so.”
“Guys,” Zack heard a voice behind him gasp. He and Jim spun around.
Erik was clambering to his feet. Sean and Kareem were helping him up. They were muddy and wet, but they were all right.
“We’re cut off,” Jim began. “Carlos and everybody else but Ibrahima is on the other side of the landslide. They can’t hear us or get to us. We . . .”
“Where’s Ibrahima?” Erik choked out.
Ibrahima!
The Birch Cabiners ran down the rock-littered path and around the curve. Ibrahima was lying on his side in a muddy twist of the path. He was spattered with wet mud, and he wasn’t moving. He couldn’t move. One leg was pinned under a heavy, cruel-looking tree trunk, and he was entangled in a web of twisted branches that held him fast.
Zack threw himself down at Ibrahima’s side while the other Birch Cabiners pulled the tree away. “Ibrahima!” Zack said.
Ibrahima moaned. He opened his eyes, then closed them again, as if he were drifting in and out of being awake.
“Come on, you guys,” said Zack. “Help me lift the trunk off his leg.”
Frantically, all the boys worked to free Ibrahima from the muddy earth and fallen tree. Once his legs were uncovered, they pulled him forward as gently as they could.
Zack collapsed onto the path. He was breathing hard.
“We have to get some help. Help!” Sean shouted. He turned back toward the slide. “Can anybody hear us? Help. Help. HELP!”
Zack lifted his head to listen. He thought he heard a faint sound, as if somebody was trying to answer but was too far away for the words to be heard or to make any sense at all.
Zack got to his feet as the truth began to sink in.
“Jim’s right,” he said. “We’re on our own.”
“But we can’t be on our own,” Kareem protested. “That’s not supposed to happen.”
“I don’t see anybody else, do you?” Erik snapped.
“Guys,” Jim said. “Chill.”
“What do you mean chill?” Kareem said. “I can’t chill! I don’t want us to be on our own!”
“Nobody wants that,” Jim said.
“So, what are we going to do?” Sean asked.
He looked at Erik.
“I don’t know,” Erik said. “Maybe we should just wait here until someone comes to find us.”
“No,” Zack shook his head. “We can’t do that. It’ll take too long. Ibrahima needs help.”
“We all do,” said Sean. “Remember what Carlos said? It’ll get cold at night. And we’re all muddy and wet, especially Ibrahima.”
“So, how are we supposed to move him?” Erik asked. “We can’t just pick him up. And we don’t have a stretcher or anything.”
“No,” Zack said. The
word came out slowly, even though his mind was working in hyper-drive.
Come on, Zack, think! he told himself. Carlos had called him a good problem-solver. It was time to prove him right. What would The Outdoor Adventure Guide advise? Zack thought hard, and the memory of an illustration from the Guide swam into his head. The illustration showed a sledge made of tree branches that could be used to drag heavy weights . . .
“Could we drag him, maybe?” Zack said, as if he were thinking out loud. “What if we put him on something and pulled him?”
“Drag him?” Sean asked. “On what?”
“I don’t know,” said Zack. “Branches? Or does anybody have a tarp?”
“I do,” said Erik. He pulled a thick canvas tarp out of his backpack. “Carlos asked me to pack it in case of rain.”
“That’s it then,” said Jim.
It took about five minutes of huffing and puffing, but finally the tarp was on the path and Ibrahima was on the tarp. He’d groaned once or twice and winced with pain as the guys moved him, even though they’d moved him as gently as they could. Now the stranded hikers stood around the tarp, sucking in air and staring down at Ibrahima, who lay still, with his eyes closed, breathing hard.
Now that they were actually putting his plan into action, Zack was starting to have doubts. Just getting Ibrahima onto the tarp had been hard. Were the five of them really strong enough to pull him all the way back to safety? They didn’t even know how far away from safety they were.
Zack had been wrong about the skunk. If he was wrong about this, the consequences were much more serious—maybe even life and death.
“Okay,” Erik said. “So, what’s the plan?”
Zack took a deep breath. This will work, he thought. It has to, for Ibrahima.
“There are five of us, right?” Zack said. “So, that’s two on each side of the tarp.”
Erik nodded. “And one to take Point,” he said, “to scout out the path so we’ll know what’s ahead.”
Zack felt a rush of relief. Erik was more than solidly behind him on this; he was contributing to the plan. He looked at the other Birch Cabiners. “What do you think, guys?”
“I think it’s a good plan,” Jim spoke up right away. “You came up with it, Zack. Why don’t you take first Point?”
“Everybody else good with that?” Zack asked.
One by one, the hikers nodded.
“Okay,” said Zack. “Let’s go.”
“One, two, three, PULL! One, two, three, PULL!”
Zack’s arms ached. And his back ached. He had no way of knowing how long they’d been dragging the tarp. But the sun was inching its way slowly down the sky. In just another couple of minutes, it would go behind the mountain. It would start to get colder. And darker.
At least it isn’t raining, Zack thought. And the fact that the path was muddy had turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The wet ground made it easier to slide the tarp.
“Hey, you guys!” Kareem was Point and now he came dashing back to the main group.
“What is it?” Sean asked. “Trouble up ahead? Please don’t tell me there’s another landslide.”
“No,” Kareem shook his head. “Just the opposite. There’s a clearing. I think it might be a good place to stop and rest.”
“That is good news,” said Erik. He seized an edge of the tarp. “One, two, three, PULL!” he said.
The tarp slid forward, the longest distance on one pull yet.
It really helped, Zack thought, to have a definite goal in mind—especially if the goal was a rest.
“We made it!” Jim exclaimed a short time later. “Phew!”
“You can say that again,” Sean said.
“We made it. Phew!” Jim repeated.
Sean groaned.
Making it to the clearing was helping everyone feel better. The light was fading fast, but the guys dragged Ibrahima to the biggest patch of sun. Now, they were going through their backpacks, checking out their food and water supplies.
“Anybody have an extra sweater or sweatshirt?” Zack called out.
“I have a sweater,” Kareem said. He unzipped his backpack. “My mom made me promise to bring it on the wilderness trek. We never go back on a promise in our house. I’ve been feeling kind of stupid lugging it all this way.”
“No, that’s great,” Zack said. He took the sweater and tied it around Ibrahima’s head. Next, he spread his own sleeping bag over Ibrahima like a blanket. Ibrahima shivered, but said nothing. Then Zack asked, “Now, how about a pair of socks?”
“I can help with that,” said Sean. “I brought extra extra socks.” He brought his socks over and Zack slid them onto Ibrahima’s cold hands. Sean went on, “We’re dividing up the food. You should come and get some.”
“In a minute,” Zack said. He tried not to sound as nervous as he felt.
Erik came over and crouched next to Zack. He waited until all the other guys were busy putting on dry socks, gulping water, or eating. Then he said, “What’s the matter?”
“I’m really worried about Ibrahima,” Zack confessed. “He feels so cold. And I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty tired, and so are the rest of the guys. It’s getting dark. I just wish I knew how far away we were from help.”
“We can’t hike safely in the dark. Maybe we should camp here tonight,” Erik began, “and then . . .”
“Guys!” Jim suddenly shouted. He was all the way across the clearing. “I think I see a light.” Jim pointed. “There—through those trees. Hey! Hey, we’re over here!” he yelled.
All of a sudden, everybody started shouting at once. Some of the guys dashed off down the path toward the light, waving their flashlights wildly and hollering as loudly as they could.
Then, “Aaaaoooo!”
The woods rang with a familiar howl.
“That’s Cookie!” Zack shouted. “C’mere Cookie. We’re over here, boy.”
“Woof. Woof. Aaaooooo,” Cookie answered.
A moment later, Cookie bounded into the clearing. Skeeter, P. L., and what looked like half the rest of Camp Wolf Trail were right behind him. Everybody was talking at once, swinging lanterns and calling out to one another.
Cookie launched himself straight at Zack.
Zack threw his arms around Cookie and fell back onto the ground while Cookie licked his face happily.
“When Carlos and the other hikers got back to camp and told us that you’d been separated from them, we didn’t know which path you’d take,” said P. L.
“We knew we’d need a good tracker,” said Skeeter. “So, I told Cookie to come find you, and I knew he would.” Skeeter smiled down at Zack. “After this, I may have to change that rule about not feeding the dog. It turned out to be a very good thing that Cookie thought you sneaked that piece of bacon to him. When you dropped it, you didn’t know it, but you were saving the day!”
Cookie bounded over and licked Ibrahima’s face. Ibrahima opened his eyes and looked around.
“Ibrahima!” Jim shouted. “You’re all right!”
“I have socks on my hands and a sweater tied around my head,” Ibrahima said weakly, grinning a crooked grin. “How all right can I be?”
“Okay, everybody,” P. L. said. “I’ll save the speeches for later. But for now let me just say, great job. I am totally amazed and impressed that you guys made it this far. You really kept your heads.”
“Yeah,” Erik piped up. “And we used our heads for a change too. Thank goodness!”
“I can see that,” P. L. said with a smile. “Now, the camp bus and van are waiting for us at the top of the next rise. The counselors will carry Ibrahima to the van and drive straight to the infirmary so that Doc Rosa can take a look at him. The rest of you, gather your stuff and head up to the bus. Dry clothes and a nice, hot, special late dinner are coming right up, soon as you get back to camp.”
“What are we having?” Erik asked.
“What else?” Skeeter looked first at Erik and then at Zack and grinned. “Spag
hetti and meatballs.”
Chapter Ten
Later that night, Zack and Jim walked back to Birch Cabin. They were warm and dry, and their stomachs were full of their special late dinner of spaghetti and meatballs. Best of all, Ibrahima was safe and sound. He was staying in the infirmary overnight, but Doc Rosa said that he’d be just fine.
“Hey, guys!” a voice behind them called. “Wait for me.”
Erik sprinted up. For several minutes, the three boys walked in silence.
“There’s something I want to say,” Erik finally burst out. “Actually, two things. Thank you, and also, I’m sorry. Really, really sorry.”
“You’re welcome, and what for?” Zack said.
“It’s kind of hard to explain,” Erik said. “I thought we were a great team today, didn’t you?”
“I did,” Zack said. “I thought we were awesome. I wasn’t sure you’d want to do anything I suggested ever again after . . . you know . . .”
“But that’s just what I mean,” Erik said. “That’s why I want to say I’m sorry. I really acted like a jerk, but you didn’t hold it against me.”
“Why would I want to do that?” Zack asked. “Besides . . .” He smiled at Jim. “That’s what friends do. They don’t stay mad at each other, right, Jim?”
“Right,” Jim laughed.
All of a sudden, Zack stopped. Erik and Jim were so surprised that they kept on walking a couple of steps before they caught on.“What’s up?” Jim asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Zack said happily. “That’s the whole point. I just suddenly realized that we still have the rest of this week and all of next week to go!”
“I know!” Erik said. “That is the best feeling.”
“Yeah!” said Zack. He took a couple of running steps to catch up with Erik and Jim, thinking, What’s even better is the feeling that I’m right where I belong. At Camp Wolf Trail, with friends.
Boys Camp Page 5
