Lost Cipher

by Michael Oechsle

  Alex drifted off almost as soon as his bag was zipped, but Lucas lay awake for a long time, listening at first to the rustling sounds of the other boys in their nighttime nests, then to the soft hum of insects in the meadow and the whisper of the night breeze rippling the nylon roof of the tent.

  Without the distraction of the other campers, Lucas realized he’d gone the whole day without thinking of his pa. It was the longest he’d done that since the soldiers had come, and it didn’t feel right, not thinking about him. A sudden wave of guilt washed over him. He’s the only reason I’m even here, and I forgot him. He wondered if that was how it would be, his pa slipping further and further away until he’d never remember him again, like he never even had a father. The thought left him lonely and cold. He suddenly longed to touch his pa’s backpack, the place where it said Whitlatch, but the pack was outside the tent, and he knew the rustling would only wake Alex.

  So instead he stared up at the sky through the tent door and listened to a pair of owls calling to each other across the meadow, a cold tear trickling into his ear. Later, when the sky was speckled with a billion stars and the owls had gone silent, Lucas wondered if the owls had found each other or if one had simply vanished into the night.

  They ate breakfast with a bright planet hanging in the hazy pink of the eastern sky and broke camp just as the sun rose. By midmorning, they were tromping single file across a narrow ridge topped with tilted slabs of rock erupting beside the trail like the petrified fins of some giant, prehistoric dragon. Aaron explained that these were the Preacher Rocks that gave the wilderness area its name.

  “Why do they call them the Preacher Rocks?” The question came from somewhere near the front of the line of backpackers.

  “Well, if the story is true,” answered Aaron, “an old preacher got himself struck by lightning up here. His wife told his congregation that he came up here to get closer to God, but the pick and shovel they found next to his body told a different story. They say he told a friend that he knew for certain that the treasure was up here somewhere in these very rocks. Of course, he never found any treasure. But I suppose he did get closer to God.”

  George was at the back of the line and spoke quietly, so only Lucas and Alex could hear. “Sounds like a good way to go if you ask me. Nice and quick. I wish my mom had gone like that. Her cancer just shriveled her up like a skeleton. She was pretty much dying for two years.”

  Neither of the boys said anything at first. These weren’t the kind of details Lucas needed to hear, and again he wondered how George could even talk like that about his mother’s death.

  “My dad says my mom died pretty quick,” Alex finally said.

  Alex hadn’t even wanted to mention his mother just two days ago, so Lucas was surprised that it had come out. Still, he didn’t push Alex for details.

  Instead, George did it for him. “How’d she die, Alex?”

  Alex paused a few seconds before he finally answered. “Car accident. Coming home late from work one night. It was during a big storm. I guess nobody could see too good. They never did figure out if it was my mom or the other guy who crossed the line, but they hit”—Lucas heard Alex’s voice catch on the last words—“head-on.”

  Lucas knew what was coming next.

  “What about you, Lucas?” asked George.

  “What do you mean?” he replied, knowing exactly what George meant.

  “It was your dad, wasn’t it?” Alex asked.

  “Good guess,” Lucas said without offering any details. There were secrets about his family that he wasn’t about to let out.

  “He was a soldier, wasn’t he?” George guessed. “That’s where you got the pack, right?”

  “Gee, you’re a real detective, ain’t you, George?”

  “Was it in Afghanistan?” Alex asked. “I’ve got an uncle over there right now.”

  “Did he get shot?” George asked a little too eagerly.

  “Did I even say he died over there?” Lucas responded, an edge to his voice that he hoped would end their questions. He didn’t want to invite the images back into his head, but there didn’t seem to be any way to keep them out, not with all the talk of dying.

  “Sorry, Lucas,” said George.

  “Look,” Lucas replied. “He went quick. A lot quicker’n shrivelin’ up with cancer.” But then he realized how mean that sounded, so he quickly added. “Sorry, George.”

  “No. No, you’re right,” agreed George. “Quicker is better.”

  George was trying to sound strong—they all were—but Lucas figured George’s mind was fixed hard on an image of his mother becoming a skeleton for two long years. And Alex was probably thinking about his mother dying trapped in a twisted car, a rainstorm washing blood out onto the road. But these images were quickly pushed from Lucas’s head by an explosion, a smoking wreck, and the screams of soldiers. And his pa running toward the screams down a dusty road. Before he knew it, he was glad Alex and George were behind him, so they couldn’t see the tears streaking his face.

  CHAPTER 13

  A little after noon, the trail entered what seemed like an endless field of boulders. They had to rely on the counselors’ memories and occasional cairns, little stacks of stones left by other hikers, to keep them on course. Aaron explained that these would be the last wide-open views of the trip, so they agreed to take a long break and eat lunch. Just after they dropped their packs, Maggie and the first members of the girls’ group crested the same knob heading in the opposite direction. They’d already stopped for lunch, so after a few greetings and a quick meeting between the counselors, the girls moved on across the boulder field.

  From their lunch spot on top of a truck-sized boulder, Lucas could see across to another ridge paralleling theirs, perhaps a half mile away. The ridge was topped with the same kind of tilted rocks they’d been through that morning. Some of these had broken off from the top of the ridge and tumbled down the cliff face into the trees. Examining these fallen boulders, Lucas spotted a dark depression in the rock face just above the tops of the trees. From where he sat, it looked like it bored straight into the mountainside. Like the mouth of a cave.

  He immediately thought of the treasure and how Beale and his men had buried it in their secret mountain vault. Lucas knew it was a stretch, but for all he knew, maybe the preacher had been searching for a cave just like the one he was looking at now.

  He elbowed Alex in the arm and whispered, “Check it out. Down at the bottom of those rocks.” He didn’t point, not wanting the others to see what drew his attention. “What’s that look like to you?”

  At first Alex didn’t see it, but he followed Lucas’s eyes to the base of the rocks. “You mean that hole? I thought you saw something good, like a bear or something.”

  “Shhh. Keep it down.” Lucas pointed with his eyes at Aaron and Rooster sitting just a few boulders away. “I don’t want them to hear.”

  “Hear what? About some hole in the rocks?” Suddenly, Alex realized what Lucas was thinking. “You’ve got to be kidding,” he whispered. “There’s no treasure in that hole.” He looked down into the steep, thickly wooded ravine that separated them from the other ridge. “Even if you wanted to go see it, how would you get over there?”

  George looked up from his lunch. “Go see what?” he asked loudly, spitting out crumbs of trail mix.

  Lucas rolled his eyes. “Jeez, George, pipe down. There’s a cave over in those rocks. Maybe it’s what that preacher was looking for.”

  George peered across the ravine. “Sure, I see it. But if I can see it, so can anyone who ever walked on this trail. It’s not exactly a secret, Lucas.”

  “How do you know?” Lucas asked. “It took us a day and a half to get out this far. And that’s only because we came from the camp. Who knows how long it would take from somewhere else. And maybe it’s been hidden until one of them fallin’ rocks opened it up.”


  “It’d take like an hour to cross over there and get back,” Alex warned. “How are you even gonna get away without Aaron and Rooster knowing?”

  Lucas was thinking about it when George spoke up. “Oh, that’d be easy,” he whispered. “We could just pretend somebody’s gotta go.”

  “Go where?” asked Alex.

  “Not where,” replied George. “What. As in dispose of some hazardous waste. You know, drop the Browns off at the pool?”

  Lucas and Alex looked at each other and groaned disgustedly, but George went on. “Like, I could say I gotta go, and you guys are staying behind to make sure I don’t get lost. We could even tell them the country boy here is gonna find me the right kind of leaf to use for toilet paper.”

  “Good one, George,” laughed Lucas.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” whispered Alex. “Who’s ‘we’? I’m not leaving the trail. Remember what Aaron said about wandering off?”

  “Yeah,” Lucas added. “I don’t need no help. Y’all would just slow me down anyways.”

  George shook his head. “But Aaron isn’t going to let you stay back on your own. There’s no way. And it’d be stupid for us to wait right here when the three of us could all go check out the cave.”

  “Count me out,” said Alex.

  “Really, dude?” said George. “Even after Lucas here stood up to Zack for us?”

  “For us!” whispered Alex. “Don’t you mean for you?”

  “So I’ll stay back with him. You can cover for us.”

  “You mean lie.”

  “Whatever,” replied George. He turned to Lucas. “Wanna go for it?”

  “Oh, I’m goin’, and if y’all want to help, just don’t mess it up.”

  Lucas was feeling the same way he had when he’d decided to get back at Zack—like he didn’t care one way or the other if he got in trouble with the counselors. Before his pa died, he’d never been in any real trouble. But now it just didn’t seem to matter.

  “You know,” said Alex, “chasing after that treasure—which isn’t even there—isn’t exactly the same as sticking up for George. And we’ll probably get tossed out of here if they catch us.”

  Lucas wanted his friends along, but he acted like he didn’t even hear Alex. Instead he focused on Aaron and Rooster. They were putting away their water bottles and telling the kids around them to pack up. Soon everyone in the group was rising, stuffing away their trash and shouldering their packs again.

  “Whatever,” Alex finally said. “What’s it matter, anyway?”

  Just then Aaron called to them. “Let’s go, boys. We’ve got five more miles ahead of us.” A few other boys moaned loudly.

  George didn’t hesitate. “You mind if I run off to a tree first. I sorta gotta go.” Aaron looked skeptical, so George grimaced and did a frantic little dance. “Number two,” he added.

  Everyone but George, Lucas, and Alex already had their packs on. The other boys groaned at the idea of having to drop theirs again and wait for George.

  “Jeez, we’ve been here like a half hour already,” Zack whined, “and you wait till now?”

  Before anyone dropped a pack though, George said, “Just go on. I can catch up. You’ll probably want to clear the area first, anyway.”

  A few of the boys chuckled. “Nasty,” added one of them.

  Lucas piped up. “Alex and I can stick around with him.”

  Aaron glanced at Rooster, and Lucas thought for sure he would tell the younger counselor to stay behind with them. But George reached into his pack and pulled out his personal roll of toilet paper. “Boy Scout motto—be prepared,” he chirped, turning and winking at Lucas.

  The joke seemed to lighten up Aaron.

  “Stick together and hurry up. Look for the cairns up ahead. We’re not going to slow down for you.” He turned back to the front of the line and started walking. “And make sure you bury that stuff,” he hollered back over his shoulder.

  Alex and Lucas pretended to point out a suitable spot for George to go, but no one was watching. Soon the rest of the boys and Rooster had fallen in line, and the colorful caravan of backpacks began to disappear among the boulders.

  Lucas pointed to their own packs lying on the rock next to them. “Leave these right here. That way we’ll spot ’em when we come back up and know where to pick up the trail. Y’all ready?”

  “I guess we better be, huh?” answered Alex. “Somebody’s gotta keep you two from killing yourselves.”

  CHAPTER 14

  The three friends quickly made it down to the base of the cliffs where they’d seen the cave. They scrambled up some fallen boulders until they came to an overhanging slab of rock about a dozen feet from the forest floor. There were plenty of handholds in the little cliff, so they hauled themselves up and over the lip of the ledge until they were facing back into a deep shadow cast by a rock roof. From across the ravine, with the sun in front of them, the overhang’s shadow had looked like an endless tunnel, but from here at the opening they could see it wasn’t more than twenty feet deep.

  Alex took a few steps inside the little cave. “Looks like we aren’t even the first here,” he called out, pointing to the ground.

  A crude fire ring sat far enough under the ledge to be sheltered from the weather. The ceiling above the ring of stones was charred black from smoke, and a few rusted cans were scattered among the ashes. The camp looked like it hadn’t been used for a hundred years.

  “Could still be where the preacher camped when he was looking for the treasure,” offered George.

  “I don’t know,” replied Lucas. “If he’d a had a little shelter like this up here, why would he have been outside gettin’ hit by lightnin’?” He moved deeper beneath the rock, until he had to squat to go farther. Suddenly he called out again.

  “Dang!” he cried, backing out of the darkness and into Alex.

  “What? What is it?” asked George.

  Lucas pointed to the back of the cave. “Take a look.”

  At first they’d looked like only a scattering of bright, white sticks glowing in the gloom. But moving closer, Lucas had recognized them. Bones.

  “This is somethin’s house,” he said. “Whatever it is probably still lives here. Some of these look pretty fresh.”

  Most of the bones were tiny, while a few others looked like ribs, almost big enough to be human. Whatever used the cave ate everything from mice to deer. A few still had scraps of fur clinging to them, and the dirt around them was stirred up.

  “Do you think it’s a bear?” George asked.

  Lucas squatted next to a long, knobby bone and examined the ground. He whistled under his breath.

  “I can’t believe it,” he said. “Look here.”

  Alex bent down next to him, but George hung back.

  “Four toes and about as big as a baseball,” Lucas said, pointing at an arch of round depressions in the dust. “Know what that is?”

  “How would we know?” exclaimed George in a hush, like he was afraid someone—or something—might hear. “All I know is it eats meat. And we’re meat. And we’re sitting in its dining room.”

  Lucas was still mesmerized by the print. “It’s a painter track,” he said.

  “What’s a painter?” asked Alex.

  “A painter. You know, a big ol’ cat ’bout the size of you and me.”

  “Oh, you mean a panther?”

  Lucas laughed. “Painter. Panther. Yeah, same thing. We call ’em painters around home. They’s supposed to be long gone from all these mountains. But a lot of folks around my grandpa’s say they’s still up here. They say they hear ’em some nights. My grandpa even showed me a print once, but even he wasn’t too sure. But this here can’t be nothin’ else. I seen bobcat prints, but this here’s way bigger.”

  “Maybe that print’s really old,” said George, his voic
e quaking a little.

  “Naw,” said Lucas. “The wind would’ve blowed it away eventually. It can’t be older’n week or two.”

  “Great,” said George. “Can we go now? I’d rather not add my bones to the pile if it’s okay with you.”

  Lucas walked away from the track toward the daylight and began scooting off the ledge to head back. “I don’t know, George,” he said. “I bet Aaron and them will probably be pretty interested to know they’ve got a real painter up here.”

  “Sure,” offered Alex, “maybe he’ll be so happy he’ll go easy with our kitchen duty.”

  They dropped down the side of the ravine and back into the thick woods, roughly retracing their steps to the other side. Before they were halfway back, Alex spoke up.

  “What would you guys do with a treasure like that anyway?”

  “That’s easy,” said George. “I’d open up a whole chain of pizza restaurants all over the country. Each one would have a special table just for me and my friends that no one else could ever sit at. Then I’d buy one of those big luxury campers, the ones that are like the size of a bus, and a driver to take me and my friends to any one of my restaurants, any time we wanted.”

  “Oh, sure,” said Alex, “I’ll bet your dad would just let you travel the country with no grown-ups around.”

  George snorted. “Are you kidding? He’d probably be glad to get me out of his hair. More time for him to spend at work or on the road. Like I said, that’s all he does anyway.”

  “Yeah, but…pizza? That’s all you would do with all that money?” asked Lucas.

  “Got a better idea?”

  Lucas didn’t answer at first. He knew exactly what he would do with the treasure, but he wasn’t going to let Alex and George in on the sorry state of his life back in Indian Hole.

  “I’d think of something,” he finally spit out.

  “I know what I’d do,” said Alex. “I’d buy me a plane. That’s what I always wanted to do—fly. Not with someone else doing the flying, but with me at the controls.”