Lost Cipher

by Michael Oechsle

  “You can’t even fly one though,” said George.

  “Duh. Dude, I’m thirteen,” replied Alex. “I can’t even drive a car. But with all that money, I could take all the flying lessons I wanted. Heck, I could probably open up my own flight school. In a couple years, I’d be awesome at it.”

  At the bottom of the ravine, they stepped over a tiny creek not more than two feet wide and climbed up through the trees toward the base of the ledge where they’d started. Alex and George chattered about being rich while Lucas focused on finding the easiest route through the underbrush and back up the rocks to the ledge.

  They never saw their three packs—because they were now hidden deep in a dense thicket of laurel on the floor of the forest, far below the rocks.

  CHAPTER 15

  Half an hour after leaving the panther’s cave, the boys pulled themselves up over the last small cliff, expecting at any moment to see the three packs they’d left behind. Instead they saw nothing but rock.

  “So where are the packs?” asked Alex.

  Lucas looked back at the route they had taken from the cave. He could see the overhang across the ravine. It looked like the same view as when they had first seen it from their lunch spot.

  “They’s supposed to be right here. I guess we’re just off a little.”

  “But this is where we ate lunch,” said George. “This rock. I know it. Our footprints ought to be around here somewhere.”

  “Ain’t no footprints on rocks, George,” replied Lucas.

  “Then maybe this isn’t even where we were! Maybe we’re lost!

  “Jeez, George,” said Alex. “Give Lucas a chance to think. I mean, we’re not lost. Right, Lucas?”

  Lucas wasn’t too crazy to hear Alex depending on him already, and he was just about sure they were on the exact same ledge where they’d seen the cave, but he put up a good front.

  “Yeah, just take it easy, George,” he said. “We ain’t lost. The packs have gotta be close.”

  Lucas examined the ground for any sign that they’d been there, but even where the surface wasn’t solid rock, it was too gravelly to reveal any prints. In some places, the gravel looked stirred up, but he couldn’t be sure. He’d tracked lots of deer back on his mountain, and he knew how to tell plenty of other animals from their prints, but finding a trail across a ridge that was more rock than dirt was a different story.

  “Maybe a bear dragged them off,” offered Alex. “I mean with all the snacks George was packing in his.”

  “Sure,” said George glumly, “blame the fat kid.”

  “Naw,” said Lucas. “A bear wouldn’t have hauled off all three of them. Plus he would’ve torn ’em up right where they was at. There’d be somethin’ left to see. It’s all right though. We’ll just start looking. They’re around here somewhere.”

  They split up and searched among the boulders for another half hour, always staying within sight, or at least shouting distance, of each other. But there was no sign of the packs. Worse yet, not even Lucas could find anything that looked like a trail across the rocks. Aaron had told them to follow the cairns, but every time Lucas thought he’d found one, it was just a few rocks lumped together, not the neat little stacks they’d seen before.

  It was more than an hour since they’d sneaked away, and Lucas couldn’t believe that Aaron or Rooster hadn’t come back for them. He began to worry that they were so far off the trail they couldn’t even hear someone calling. Or maybe one of the counselors had come back when they were still across the ravine and now they were looking somewhere else.

  Half an hour later, Lucas gave up looking. He’d even ventured out on his own, far out of earshot, to where the field of rocks ended and the mountaintop turned to forest again. But he returned exhausted and no closer to finding the packs or a trail. It seemed the longer he searched, the more uncertain he was about the way out. If this were his mountain back home, he’d have known exactly where he was and how to get home, but this pile of boulders was nothing like his mountain. He’d relied on someone else to get him out to the middle of nowhere, and now two other kids were relying on him to get them back.

  Before long, he saw Alex in the distance, shaking his head and holding up his hands to tell him his luck had been no better. George had stopped looking long before the other two. They found him sitting alone on a rock, wiping tears away with his sleeve. Lucas and Alex sprawled out on the same rock, and for a few minutes, the only sound was George’s soft blubbering.

  “Sorry, George,” Lucas said finally. “Sorry I got you into this. Both of you.”

  George sniffed and shrugged his shoulders. “It’s not like you had to twist our arms. I just can’t believe we could get lost so quick.”

  “What about a person?” asked Alex. “I mean, maybe we’re not the only ones up here. Maybe someone’s been following us and stole the packs.”

  Lucas thought about it, but it just didn’t make any sense. “What kind of thief is gonna want to carry our packs all the way out of here? Plus, Aaron said we’d probably have the trail to ourselves, and I believe him.”

  “Maybe not,” said George. “Maybe somebody lives close to here. Like that creepy old man Aaron was talking about.”

  “Aaron said that old man shoots treasure hunters,” said Lucas. “He didn’t say nothin’ about him sneakin’ around stealin’ backpacks full of kids’ dirty clothes and candy bars.”

  “What about Zack then?” said George. “Maybe he did something with them?”

  The thought had already crossed Lucas’s mind. “Naw, I definitely saw him up near the front of the line when everyone left. And I watched him the whole way. He never even looked back at us.”

  “Me too,” said Alex. “No way he could have sneaked back here without Aaron or Rooster or somebody seeing him.”

  “So what are we going to do?” asked George finally. He didn’t seem to care that he sounded helpless.

  “Anybody got their phone?” asked Alex. “Mine’s in my pack.”

  “Mine too,” said George. “It was dragging my pants down when we were walking. What about you, Lucas?”

  “Ain’t got one.” He was looking over Alex’s shoulder. “But it looks like the first thing we gotta do is get off these rocks.”

  “I thought that’s what we’ve been trying to do for the last three hours,” whined George in a small voice.

  “I ain’t talkin’ about that. I’m talking about that.”

  Lucas pointed to the west. The sky was a wall of ominous purple, crowned by towering white thunderheads. A breeze that smelled of rain came from the direction of the storm. “That’s maybe an hour away,” said Lucas. “If we don’t wanna end up like that preacher, we’re gonna need to be down in the trees somewhere.”

  “Where are we gonna go?” asked Alex.

  “Well, if we can find our way back to it in time, I know one good place to take cover.”

  “No way, not there,” George protested, shaking his head. “There’s got to be a better place.”

  Alex’s expression told Lucas that he wasn’t exactly thrilled with the idea either.

  “Look,” said Lucas, trying to calm them down, “that painter’s probably miles from here. Even if we don’t get hit by lightnin’, it’s still fixin’ to rain buckets. I’d rather be cozy and dry in that hole than mess with a storm up here on top.” He pushed himself off the rock and started back to where they would have a view of the other ridge.

  Alex followed reluctantly. “Cozy?” he said. “You call that cozy?”

  George stayed on his rock at first, sniffling and rubbing the last of the tears out of his eyes. “This can’t be happening,” he muttered. But a low growl of thunder shook the ridge, and a few seconds later, he was following Lucas and Alex back to the ravine.

  CHAPTER 16

  The storm was on top of the boys much faster than they expecte
d. They had just crossed back over the little creek at the bottom of the ravine when the first big drops began splattering the woods. Halfway up the other side, the trees began to swirl, and the wind roared so loudly they could barely hear each other. Just as hailstones the size of marbles began pelting the rocks, they scurried up to the base of the cliff and dove for the cover of the cave. Within a minute, the hail turned to sheets of blinding rain, and thunder boomed off the ridge so close that Lucas thought it might send a chunk or two of the mountain down on them.

  The three boys huddled close to the edge of the cave, just out of the rain. When a bolt of lightning hit so close that the hair on their arms stood up, Lucas and Alex scooted farther beneath the ledge. But George still refused to go back into the darkness where the bones were scattered.

  They sat watching the storm for a long time before anyone spoke. “How long do you think this is going to last?” Alex asked Lucas.

  “Who knows,” answered Lucas. “Maybe a while.”

  “So what are we going to do?” asked George.

  “Only thing we can do is stay right here for now. If it lets up quick, we can go back to where we was at, see if anyone’s lookin’ for us. If it keeps on like this”—Lucas shrugged—“I guess we’re here for the night.”

  “For the night?” asked Alex, laughing nervously. “You’re kidding, right? We don’t have our sleeping bags or anything.”

  “Or food,” added George

  “Well,” said Lucas, “I don’t think we’ll be gettin’ too much sleep in here anyhow, so we don’t exactly need our sleepin’ bags. And water…” He grinned. “We got plenty of that.”

  He picked up one of the rusty cans left by the fire ring and set it under a steady stream of rainwater pouring off the rock over their heads. Within seconds the can was full, and Lucas rinsed out the rusty mixture and set it back under the stream.

  “Wonderful,” muttered Alex. “At least you’re right at home.”

  The smile dropped from Lucas’s face. It was one thing for somebody like Zack to call him a hillbilly, but he didn’t expect it out of Alex.

  George didn’t even notice the sudden change in Lucas. “Yeah, and what are we gonna eat?” he pleaded. “I’m starving already.”

  “Dang, George!” replied Lucas angrily. “When ain’t you hungry!?” He picked up a fist-sized rock and stared at the younger boy. “Besides, the way I see it, if I get to starvin’, I got plenty to eat.” He looked at Alex. “I mean, me bein’ a dirty ol’ hillbilly and all, I’m liable to eat just about anything, ain’t I?”

  “I didn’t mean it, Lucas,” said Alex. “I guess I’m just pissed at myself for going along with this.”

  “Yeah, and I’m tryin’ to make the best of it,” said Lucas. “Look, we ain’t gonna die, y’all. We just gotta be smart from here on out.”

  “But won’t Aaron just call for help?” George asked hopefully. “He’s got to have a cell phone.”

  Lucas shook his head. “He probably can’t even get a signal in these mountains. And even if he could, there ain’t no way somebody’s gonna come lookin’ for us in this storm. And they ain’t gonna be lookin’ after dark neither. So we make the best of it and wait for mornin’. Then we—”

  “Then we what? What if they don’t know where to look for us? What if they just find our bones in here a month from now?” George motioned over his shoulder at the back of the cave. “Like those.”

  “They’ll know where to look,” said Lucas. “They’re gonna look over where we got lost in the first place. And when they do, we’ll be right there waitin’ for ’em.”

  Three hours later, the wind had eased some, but the rain was still a steady downpour. The storm brought the darkness on quickly, and soon the only light came from the distant flashes of lightning in the east or from George’s watch, which blinked on every time he nervously checked the time.

  Lucas tried to start a fire by striking the lid from one of the tin cans against a flat rock. Every once in a while he sent a spark or two into the small pile of dry twigs and leaves they’d collected from the back of the cave, but he never got more than a feeble glow.

  “Don’t matter anyhow,” he said, giving up. “Even if I got it goin’, there ain’t enough dry wood around here to keep a fire all night.”

  Eventually the boys tried to make themselves as comfortable as possible, lying on the rock slab at the opening of the shelter and staring out into the blowing trees. They were protected from the wind, and the flat rock beneath them still radiated a little warmth from the day’s sun. Alex found a long, stout stick and sharpened it by rubbing one end on the rock—in case the panther came around, he said. In the flashes of lightning that lit up their primitive shelter, Lucas told him he looked like a caveman with a spear.

  For a good hour, Lucas tried to get comfortable, but between the hard rock, the wind, and worrying about being back on the opposite ridge at first light, he knew he’d never sleep. Eventually Alex fell silent next to him and even George stopped rustling around and moaning about his empty stomach. Just when Lucas assumed both of his roommates had managed to drift off, Alex whispered to him.

  “Lucas, you still awake?”

  “Yeah.” He sat up and looked to where Alex was lying, just a shadowy lump in the dark of the cave. “This rock don’t exactly make a great bed.”

  “I was still wondering about your dad. Like, was he really a soldier?”

  Lucas didn’t respond at first, afraid of where the talk about his pa might take him. But George shifted in the darkness and prompted him too.

  “Yeah, Lucas, did he really fight in Afghanistan?”

  Lucas hadn’t thought about his father, for the afternoon at least, and now he felt the guilt all over again. He had wanted to be distracted at the camp, to have something else to think about besides that terrible moment he’d come out of the woods and seen the soldiers’ car—and the days after when he’d learned from his grandparents what had happened to his pa. But it wasn’t right, not thinking about him at all. He’d lost his dad’s pack, and now he couldn’t even keep him in his head. It seemed only right to talk about him now, to say something about him, to bring him all the way back to the front of his mind and then some, even if it meant seeing pictures in his head that he wished he’d never see again.

  “He wasn’t always a soldier,” Lucas finally said. “When I was a baby, he was a Scout Sniper in the Marines, but until the mine shut down a couple years back, he was workin’ security for the mining company. He always said that protectin’ the company’s money was a lot safer than diggin’ their coal, safer than bein’ a soldier even. I guess he seen too many of our kin get killed or hurt bad down there, like my grandpa gettin’ his leg crushed. He didn’t want me growin’ up without no pa.”

  He picked up one of the sticks he had gathered and tossed it out into the darkness beyond the ledge. “Guess that didn’t work out too well.”

  “So he went back into the Marines?” asked Alex from the darkness behind him.

  “Not at first,” replied Lucas. “When the mine closed, it pretty much killed the town near us, so there weren’t any real jobs around Indian Hole. So my pa started leaving me with my grandpa and grandma a lot. He’d work all week in Charleston or Bluefield—those are the bigger towns a few hours from Indian Hole—and then come home on the weekend to see us. But then the Marines started offerin’ good money for people like him, people with his kind of experience. He figured if he was gonna be away from home anyway, it might as well be for better money.” Lucas stopped for a second and rubbed at his eyes. “Left the day after Christmas.”

  “I bet your mom hated him being gone so long,” said George. “My mom always hated it when my dad was working on the road, and he wasn’t ever gone more than a week.”

  Lucas snorted out half a laugh. “I ain’t got a ma. Never had one, really. Supposedly she ran off when I was about a ye
ar old, the first time my pa was in the Marines.”

  “Jeez, that’s terrible, Lucas,” said George softly.

  “It’s all right. Heck, it’s probably why me and my pa got along so good. Maybe ’cause we kinda needed each other.” Saying it made Lucas’s eyes well up again, and suddenly he had to swallow hard to keep his voice steady.

  “He had me when he was pretty young, so sometimes it was almost like havin’ a big brother instead of a pa. And I ain’t got no brothers or sisters, so we did a lot together, just me and him. He taught me how to shoot when I was little, so we hunted together since I was maybe eight or so. And we got us a good-sized creek down at the bottom of our mountain, so we used to fish a lot too.”

  The tears were running down his cheeks now, so he was glad when George spoke up again. In the darkness, his voice sounded lonely and far-off, like he was lost in memories of his own. “Sounds like you had a way better dad than me, Lucas.”

  Lucas listened as a gust left over from the storm shook the rain from the trees outside the cave. “Maybe,” he said.

  The younger boy laughed, but there was no smile in his voice. “Seriously. All that stuff you did together? My dad never does that stuff with me. Never has, never will. He’s all about work. Twenty-four seven. Most of the time he’s on the road too. I guess it just didn’t matter so much to me when my mom was alive, but I was stupid enough to think he’d change. Like maybe somehow he’d need me more or something.”

  His voice cracked when he said the last part, and it was a few seconds before he started up again. “Now he says he’s got to work even more because we don’t have her to help with the money. But that’s bull. I think he just wants to avoid me or something. I know it’s not the same as you, Lucas, but sometimes I feel like both of my parents are gone too.” He sniffed back his tears and added, “At least when your dad went away, it was to take care of you.”

  Alex had been listening quietly. “So he never came back, did he, Lucas?” he said.

  Lucas didn’t respond at first—not just because the answer was obvious, but because the words cut him even deeper somehow, lost like he was in the dark and lonely mountains.