Lost Cipher

by Michael Oechsle

  “Well,” said Alex, “I bet he at least died like a hero, Lucas. Beats getting killed in some stupid car wreck like my mom.”

  He knew exactly how his pa had died, but he’d never told it to anyone. But now, it was as if the dark loneliness of this one night was focusing the terrible pictures in his mind so starkly that he had to tell someone just to rid his head of them. Way in the east, lightning flashed, too far now to hear the thunder.

  “Yeah, he was a hero,” he began, knowing he’d never get it all out without bawling but not caring any more. “That’s what them two soldiers even told my grandma the day they come up our road to tell us. That’s all they could say, but we learned the rest later. That he was in a convoy, and I guess he rolled right past a bomb set up in a junked car next to the road.” He paused to wipe his eyes with his T-shirt.

  “Funny thing is, that one didn’t get him. But it got the truck behind him.” His voice was already breaking and he was having trouble getting a full breath of air, but he forced the words out. “He was…supposed to wait for the bomb guys to come…and check for more bombs in the road, but…but they said he couldn’t stand to hear the screamin’ from the guys in the truck…Those were his friends back there. So my pa…he just ran.” As Lucas said it, he saw his father’s face more clearly than he had since the day of the soldiers.

  “He ran to help his friends!” The last part of it came choking out of him, and he put his face in both hands and sobbed.

  George and Alex didn’t say anything, and it was a full minute before Lucas could speak again. When he did, he was still crying some, still choking on his breath.

  “He got killed…by a bomb right there in the road…All we got to see of him…was a coffin with a flag on top of it…” It was a picture he’d never shake, that and the little movie in his head, the one of his pa running down a sandy road toward a burning truck.

  “So he was a hero, Lucas,” said George quietly. “A real hero.”

  Lucas sniffed and sucked in a shallow breath. “Yeah, he was,” he said, “and I wish he’d been a coward.”

  He stood up, wiping his nose with his arm, and paced to the other side of the ledge. He wasn’t talking so much to Alex and George now as he was to the black wilderness itself.

  “I mean, why’d he always have to worry about someone else? Like goin’ off to fight. That wasn’t for him. He said that was so I’d have choices. Well, you know what choice I woulda made? I woulda chose a pa who ain’t dead!” He yelled it out at the forest, but it was his pa he was screaming at now, and he knew it. “Just…one…stupid…time! Why’d you have to worry about somebody else!? You shoulda been worryin’…about me!”

  His last words echoed out of the mouth of the cave and died out in the blowing trees. Lucas sat down hard on the rocks and drew his knees up close to his face. After that, there was only the sound of the wind and his tears.

  CHAPTER 17

  When he finally stopped crying, Lucas lay back on the rock, his arms folded over his eyes. He knew he’d embarrassed himself in front of George and Alex, but somehow he felt better for it, like something that had been trying to bust out of his skull for months was finally gone. It suddenly came to him that he’d never felt so tired in his life. It was late now, probably after midnight, and the hiking had tired him out good. But it was spilling his guts about his father that had drained the last drop of energy from him.

  Alex sensed that it was okay to speak again. “I’m sorry I asked, Lucas,” he whispered.

  “Yeah, we won’t talk about it anymore,” George added.

  “Nobody made me tell it,” said Lucas, his voice steadier now. “And maybe I’m glad I did anyway.”

  “So I guess you’ll be living with your grandparents for a while, huh?” asked Alex, eager to change to subject.

  Lucas laughed. Who else was he going to live with? The only question now was where.

  “What’s so funny?” asked George.

  “Yeah, I’ll be living with them. Fact, we’re gonna have a lot of money too. Not as much as our ol’ buddy Zack I bet, but enough that I’ll be livin’ in a real house somewhere.”

  “Why’s that?” Alex asked.

  “’Cause my grandparents are sellin’ our mountain to the minin’ company. And then it’s gonna get torn up so bad my pa probably won’t even recognize it when he looks down from Heaven.

  “Shoot,” he went on, “I guess now you know why I didn’t feel like talkin’ about no buried treasure yesterday. Y’all want pizza and airplanes. Heck, I’d take that money and get us that real house too. Maybe one with a room just for me, with a real bed like I used to have. And I’d get us a truck that ain’t rusted full a’ holes too. And some real doctorin’ for my grandpa’s leg. But most of all, I’d save our mountain from bein’ torn to hell. That’s what my pa wanted, and it’s the only thing I know I want for sure. Ain’t exactly some rich kid’s dream, is it?”

  It wasn’t the only reason he’d refused to talk about the treasure. He knew that hatching some fantasy about the rest of his life would only force him to wonder about his real future—a hole that right now was only getting deeper and darker, threatening to swallow him up forever.

  Just then, a long scream split the darkness.

  It was distant but clear, rising over the wind. It sounded like a woman in terrible pain, crying out for help.

  Lucas knew immediately what it was, but from the cave in the mountains in the middle of the night, it was the scariest sound he’d ever heard.

  Alex jumped to his feet and scrambled for his stick, and George whispered, “Holy crap!”

  Lucas didn’t even sit up. “Y’all hear that?” he asked, trying to sound calm.

  “Of course we did!” replied Alex. “What was it!?” Like George, he was whispering, as if whatever made the noise would somehow hear him, even from far away.

  Lucas sniffed the last of his tears away. “The painter, I guess.” He was thankful the big cat had screamed when it did. No more talk about parents, at least not tonight.

  “You mean the same thing that left those tracks?” Alex said in a panicky voice. “In here?”

  “My grandpa told me they sound just like a woman screamin’. That’s about the only thing it could be.”

  “Guys,” whispered George, “I think I peed in my pants. Seriously.”

  Alex ignored him. “Maybe it’s somebody yelling for us, back on the other ridge.”

  “Nope,” said Lucas, “ain’t nobody up here in the dark. If they was, we’d have seen their lights over there. Besides, that didn’t come from over where we was at. More like from up behind us somewhere.” He got up and stood at the opening of the cave, listening for another scream.

  “Great!” said George, the panic rising in his hushed voice, “It’s probably coming back home from a night of hunting. And we’re sleeping in its bedroom!”

  “Naw, even if it is comin’ this way, it’ll smell us in here way before it gets too close. That’ll be enough to keep it away.”

  “And what if it doesn’t?” asked Alex.

  Lucas sat down next to him, still facing the dark forest in front of the cave. “Then I guess we got one more reason to stay awake.”

  The panther screamed again, clearer this time. Lucas felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck, but this time it was more from the thrill of hearing it than any fear.

  “That was closer, wasn’t it?” George asked.

  Lucas didn’t respond. Instead he stepped over to the fire ring and started collecting some of the smaller stones. He placed them in a small pile where the others were sitting, and he sat again.

  “What are those for?” asked George.

  “Look, y’all,” Lucas said calmly, “that painter ain’t comin’ around here tonight. But just in case he does, all we got to do is make a lot of noise and throw a few rocks at him. My grandpa’s always sa
id they’s pretty much scaredy-cats, especially if more’n one person’s around.”

  Alex grabbed a fist-sized rock in his throwing hand and held his makeshift spear tight in the other. He sat down next to Lucas, the three of them waiting to hear the scream again.

  When they finally did, it was even closer. In fact it seemed to come from the ridge just above them.

  “I thought you said it wasn’t coming around here tonight,” George whispered frantically.

  “It just ain’t smelled us yet, that’s all,” said Lucas. “It don’t know we’re down here. The wind’s blowin’ from behind him, right over the ridge and out into these woods.” He picked up a couple more rocks from the fire ring. “But I guess it’d be smart to keep at least one pair of eyes peeled all night. I can take first watch.”

  He tried to sound brave, but as much as he wanted to see a real live painter up close, seeing one from a pitch-black cave in the middle of nowhere wasn’t his first choice. He knew he wouldn’t sleep much anyway, if at all.

  “I’ll stay up with you, Lucas,” said Alex, moving closer to his friend.

  “Me too,” said George. “I’m too hungry to sleep anyway.”

  “Sure,” said Alex, “too hungry. That’s it.”

  “Shut up,” replied George. “I’m serious.”

  For the next half hour they sat quietly, listening for the panther. It screamed only once more, above them again but more distant. Not long after, Lucas heard George’s breathing change, and he knew the younger boy had drifted off. Minutes later, Alex lay his stick down and fell asleep too.

  For another half hour, Lucas stared into the shadows at the edge of the cave. Far on the horizon, out over the tidewater or maybe even the ocean, the lightning from the storm still flashed dimly. Finally, he lay back on the rock and watched the clouds above him drift apart to reveal a dense blanket of stars. The forest became still enough to hear the soft buzzing of the insects, and long before the sky began to brighten in the east, he fell asleep and dreamed, for the first time in months, of him and his father, together, down by the little creek below the trailer.

  CHAPTER 18

  In the morning, the three boys climbed up to the ridge above the cave. A pocket of mud between the rocks held a single panther track, confirming that the big cat had been just above them for at least part of the night. There was no sign of it now, but with evidence so fresh, even Lucas couldn’t shake the feeling that the panther was close, eager to reclaim its den from the three intruders.

  They agreed it made no sense to stay in the cave, and with the fresh track right where they stood, Alex and George were anxious to move on.

  “We could go back over and try to find the trail again,” Alex suggested. “If they’re looking for us, that’s where they’ll end up.”

  “So where are they then?” countered George. “And we looked for the trail for hours over there yesterday. We keep looking, and we could end up even more lost on that side.” Even from this distant vantage point, it was impossible to tell where the trail crossed the boulders.

  “What do you think, Lucas?” asked Alex.

  “I’m for gettin’ out of here, one way or another,” Lucas said. “I ain’t scared of no painter, but it could be a while before anybody comes lookin’.

  “What do you mean?” asked George.

  “Well, Aaron and Rooster weren’t supposed to get back to the camp until today some time. Even if one of ’em started hurryin’ back, it could be pretty late before word gets out. If there ain’t enough day left, they might not start lookin’ for us till tomorrow morning.”

  “Great,” said George, sounding like he might start crying all over again.

  Lucas scanned the other nearby ridges, but there wasn’t a single sign of civilization. The valleys to either side of their ridge were blanketed in thick folds of forest for nearly as far as he could see. But far below in the morning haze, he spied a few openings of pasture and a handful of buildings.

  He turned back to the others. “There’s that little stream we crossed in the bottom of the ravine. It’s got to flow into something bigger. If we just keep followin’ water, we’re bound to end up on someone’s farm. Can’t be more’n five or six miles out of these mountains. We’d probably be at a house with a phone by the time Aaron and them even got back to camp.”

  “Five or six miles,” groaned George. “Are you kidding me?”

  “It’s all downhill, George,” Alex said. “I say let’s get moving. Besides, we’re never going to find a real meal standing around up here.”

  George shot him a look. “Really? Food? You really think that’s all I think about?”

  Lucas and Alex looked at each other, smiling for the first time in a day.

  “Whatever,” George conceded, “let’s just go.” He began walking back toward the ravine.

  “Don’t worry, George,” said Alex. “I bet Lucas here can rustle you up some roots and berries along the way. Maybe even a tasty bug or two.”

  “Fantastic,” muttered George.

  They clambered back down the rocks and into the damp forest. In a few minutes, they’d found the stream, but before they started to follow it, Lucas stopped them.

  “Wait a second,” he said. “I think we ought to go back up to where we thought the trail was and leave some kind of message. You know, if they come lookin’ up there.”

  The others agreed, so they climbed the opposite side of the ravine once more. Up among the boulders again, Lucas picked up a sharp stone and handed it to Alex.

  “Here,” he said. “My writin’ probably ain’t as good as yours. Especially with a rock.”

  “What should I write?” Alex asked.

  Lucas thought for a second. “How ’bout ‘downstream’ and then scratch an arrow pointin’ that way.” He pointed down the valley where the little creek flowed.

  Alex scrawled the word into the flat side of a big boulder in foot-high letters. Under it, he scratched a long arrow. He had to go over the whole thing three times to make it stand out enough that a searcher might see it. Still, it was hardly visible from more than a few yards away. So they gathered several large stones and piled them into a crude pyramid on top of the message rock.

  “Maybe that will get their attention too,” said Lucas.

  The three boys stood up and looked at their handiwork. To Lucas, the signal still looked lost in the wide boulder field. Alex must have been thinking the same thing. “Well, I guess it’s something,” he said.

  They worked back to the creek and began picking their way downstream. At first, the walking was easy. The little creek had only cut a small rut through the woods, and the forest floor along its side was level and clear. But when the mountainside steepened, the tumbling watercourse exposed boulders, and the boys had to probe their way more slowly.

  In less than a mile, the creek joined a slightly larger stream, and the forest around it grew thicker with tangles of dark evergreens. Soon they were alternating between both sides of the stream and the water itself, whichever offered the easiest path.

  Lucas’s boots were quickly waterlogged, but he didn’t care. He just wanted off the mountain.

  After a couple miles, the stream became deep enough that they began to spot small trout in some of the little pools. They stopped at one pool long enough to watch the fish. They were only five or six inches long but colorful, their moss-colored sides shimmering with golden spots.

  “At least if we really got stuck here, we’d have somethin’ to eat,” observed Lucas.

  “Yummy,” grumbled George, “raw fish.”

  Even though Lucas hadn’t eaten in nearly a day, he had to agree with George. But watching the trout hover in their crystal pool sparked the thirst in his throat. Alex must have been feeling the same way because he started to scoop some of the creek water to his lips. Lucas stopped him.

  “I wouldn
’t do that if I was you.”

  “Why? It’s springwater, isn’t it?” Alex protested. “People pay three bucks a bottle for this stuff at home.”

  “It might be safe, but even mountain water’s got some bugs that’ll get in your gut and make you wish you was never born. You’d make it out of here, but you’d probably spend the next week on the toilet. I wouldn’t chance it. Least not yet.”

  “How do you know all this stuff?” George asked.

  Lucas shrugged. “Heck, what else am I supposed to know about?” He spread his arms out wide. “I mean, I got a mountain just like this here in my backyard.”

  Just saying it reminded him of what he stood to lose. Losing the mountain, like losing his pa, was like losing a part of him. He knew every game trail and every spring. Knew where the old stone foundations of his ancestors’ cabins sat with hundred-year-old trees growing smack in the middle of them. He knew the darkest parts of the forest, where the best mushrooms sprouted and where the thickest patches of huckleberries grew at the edges of meadows near the top. He knew the best climbing trees and the outcrops of ancient granite where a boy could lie for hours on the warm rock and watch hawks drifting overhead or listen to the chatter of ravens. Now there’d be no use for knowing any of it.

  “Yeah, but there’s kids in my school from the country,” said George. “They’re not all that smart about the woods and stuff. Not like you are.”

  Lucas gazed around at the forest. “I don’t know. I guess my pa taught most of it to me. They said nobody knew them mountains like him. And he was a scout in the Marines, so he was used to bein’ out on his own, findin’ his way around. That was how he said he liked it. But he said a lot of it was stuff my grandpa taught him, and his pa taught him. And a lot of it, well, he said it was in our blood, knowin’ our way around the wilderness. My grandpa says it’s the Indian blood in us, from way back when one of my kin married one of the last Indians livin’ in our mountains.” He looked around at the deep hollow they were in. “’Course, right now, I ain’t so sure it’s doin’ us much good.”