Backcountry

by Pamela Beason

  “I remember Kyla saying Chris had some drinking issues in the past, and I know things get pretty rough sometimes on the fishing crews in Alaska. But none of that seems really major.”

  She was always too willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. “That’s all major enough. Other charges could be missing because Rawlins hasn’t been caught at anything else,” he reminded her. “You said you didn’t know him well.”

  “I don’t. But I know...” Her voice caught in the middle of the sentence. “I knew Kyla.”

  “We can never know what’s in another’s mind, Summer. We can only judge by what they tell us.”

  During the brief pause that followed, he heard his own pedantic tone, and he felt insulted on her behalf. What a jerk he could be.

  But then she only said, “Message received,” and changed the subject. “Guess what? So far we’ve seen mountain goats. And gray jays that ate out of the kids’ hands. And wildflowers are still blooming up here.”

  “Nice. I wish I could see all that.” He loved this about Summer. She was so alive, she lived in the moment. She appreciated every flower, every bird, every animal, even the bugs. When he was away from her, his brain got bogged down by all the bad things that had ever happened and all the bad things that still could.

  He heard only a staticky silence on her end. “Are you still there?”

  Nothing. “Summer?” Had she lost reception or something? “What’s going on?”

  “Shhh!” she shushed him. That was followed by another long pause. Finally, she said, “I was listening to something moving through the woods.”

  His heartbeat sped up. “What?”

  “Don’t worry. It was probably a deer, or maybe a bear. I was afraid it might be one of my crew on walkabout, or maybe someone else camped nearby. One of the girls said she felt like she was being watched today.”

  “You mean there are strangers out there with you at night?”

  “I suspect Ashley made it up. But yes, Chase, there might be other backpackers out here. We can’t reserve the whole mountain range. But I’m pretty sure it was only some sort of critter.”

  “Pretty sure?” That meant she hadn’t actually laid eyes on whatever had made the noise.

  “Yes, Mr. FBI, I’m reasonably sure. Humans are not the only species that wander around here, you know. Anyway, whatever it was is gone. You can holster that pistol now.” He could feel her smile through the phone. “Are you going to be able to come back here for my break?”

  He groaned, hating to disappoint her. “The ASAC denied my request; I’m not on her favorites list right now. Gotta be back in Salt Lake working then. Sorry.”

  “That’s okay. I’m only off for only a couple of days, and I can’t keep asking you to come out here anyway. You’re not made of money. After I get paid for this job, I’ll come to Salt Lake, or we can meet somewhere in between when you get time off.”

  “We’ll work it out,” he reassured her. “Summer, be careful out there.”

  “Always. I should go make sure my teenage criminals are still in their tents. Te quiero, mi amor.”

  He was happy to hear her say she loved him. He hoped it was only his imagination that she sounded a bit sad at the same time.

  Chapter 8

  The next morning, they were all ready to move on, and Sam led them up a narrow trail over a steep pass. Then she asked Maya to lead the group down the valley to a long lake while she brought up the rear, pausing now and then to glance back on the trail. Ever since Ashley mentioned the feeling of being watched, Sam couldn’t rid her mind of that disturbing idea.

  The highlight of their hike was the discovery of a lush crop of ripe huckleberries. The time of year was right, so when she first noticed the red-tinged leaves, she checked for the small dark fruits that were mostly hidden near the ground. Taylor was the first to glance back and notice Sam pushing the berries into her mouth.

  “Are those edible?” the tall girl asked.

  “No.” Plucking another berry, Sam popped it between her lips.

  Taylor snorted and then squatted to begin her own search. “Blueberries, guys!”

  They all stopped.

  “Huckleberries, to be precise,” Sam told them. “Close cousins to blueberries.”

  Gabriel trotted toward them. “Save some for me!”

  “Look around,” Aidan advised.

  After scanning the area for a few seconds, Olivia exclaimed, “They are everywhere!”

  “They just grow out here?” Justin asked.

  The naiveté of the urban teens never ceased to amaze her, but Sam managed to stifle a sarcastic retort. Instead, she reminded them that all food came from the wild before humans domesticated animals and plants.

  “Can we, like, graze, Cap’n?” Gabriel’s lips were already tinged blue with juice.

  “Like, why not?” she said. “Set down your packs, crew, and we’ll feast on nature’s bounty. That’s the beauty of being out here. Our schedule is determined only by the sun and the weather, and me, of course. Today we have time to savor each moment. All we have to worry about is getting to camp before dark.”

  Taylor inhaled, thrusting out her chest. “These berries even smell purple.”

  “Like grape Kool-aid.” Justin sucked in a breath and held it like he was toking on a joint.

  “That’s actually the lupines.” Sam waved a hand at the mostly wilted stems of purple flowers that bloomed in bunches along the side of the trail. “They’re past their prime, but still fragrant. And this—she waggled the white furry seed head of a plant between her thumb and forefinger—“this is pasqueflower, which has pretty white flowers earlier in the season. At this stage, it is sometimes affectionately called ‘mouse-on-a-stick.’”

  “On a stick? Ugh. Someone call the SPCA.” Ashley shoved another handful of berries into her mouth.

  They’d been sitting in the sunshine for nearly an hour among the huckleberries, collecting and eating handfuls, when Sam noticed Nick’s gaze was glued to a spot halfway up the opposite hillside. The boy’s expression was solemn; she couldn’t decipher the emotion underneath. She followed his line of sight, and spotted a dark shape half hidden in the vegetation on the other side of the lake.

  Nick’s eyes met hers. She raised a finger to her lips, indicating that this was a secret between them, for now.

  It took another ten minutes for anyone else to notice. “Wait a minute!” Ashley abruptly stood up and stared in that direction. “Is that a bear?”

  Justin pushed himself to his feet. “What was your first clue?”

  Ashley shoved him. “Uh, it looks like a bear, doofus.”

  “Don’t call me a doofus.”

  “If the blue lips fit—”

  Justin pursed his lips at her and made a kissing sound.

  Olivia was staring across the valley, her face anxious. “It’s moving!”

  “Bears do that a lot.” Nick.

  “It won’t come over here, will it?” Olivia wadded the hem of her T-shirt in her hands.

  “Not likely; not while we’re here,” Maya reassured her.

  Gabriel squinted. “Is it a grizzly?”

  “What do you think?” Sam asked. “What’s the difference between a grizzly and a black bear?”

  “Grizzlies are brown,” said Justin.

  “Some black bears are brown,” Aidan informed him. “Or red. Or even blond.”

  Justin frowned. “No shit?” He tossed a chagrined look Sam’s way. “I mean, no gex?”

  “Grizzlies have humps,” Nick said. “And they’re usually bigger, and their faces are dished.”

  “Dished?”

  “They sort of dip in between their foreheads and their noses.” Nick demonstrated by swooping a hand down from his hairline to the tip of his nose.

  Taylor turned to Sam. “That right, Cap’n?”

  “Nick is correct. Black bears have straighter noses and no humps on their shoulders. So which kind is that?” She handed Taylor her binoculars. />
  The girl studied the bear for a minute. “Black bear. Yikes! It’s staring right at me.”

  “Probably not,” Sam told the group. “Bears have pretty poor eyesight. That bear might be facing you and it might hear us or even smell us, but from that distance it probably can’t tell what we are. And just for your information, crew, we have very few grizzlies in the Cascades. We’d be lucky to see one.”

  Olivia shivered. “I hope we’re not that lucky. I saw a TV show about a woman who had her arms eaten off. I don’t want to go on solo tomorrow.”

  Day Seven was the first of two overnight periods when the kids were supposed to be spaced out in their individual tents to spend twenty-four hours alone.

  “You’ll have your whistles, and Aidan or Maya or I will check in with you to make sure you’re okay.”

  “But will you check in with Martini before or after the bear does?” Justin smirked at Olivia.

  “Enough,” Sam said. “We have had bears all around us for the last week. No problems, right? What do you think that bear is doing right now?”

  They all stared at the bear for a moment, and then turned to stare at her.

  “Planning its attack strategy?” Justin suggested.

  “Yeesh, you guys! That bear’s eating huckleberries, just like we are. Get a grip.”

  They watched as the bear ambled up through the vegetation and shuffled over the crown of the hill.

  “Oh, crap.” Maya stood up and held a hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun as she focused on the area to the left of where the bear had disappeared.

  Gabriel followed her gaze. “Is that the same hunter?”

  A camouflage-wearing man had climbed to the top of a boulder across the way. Sam grabbed her binoculars back from Taylor and pressed them to her eyes. She couldn’t be absolutely sure it was the same guy, but this man was slender and he had a long dark ponytail, just like the previous hunter they’d seen. The rifle and scope slung over his shoulder looked the same.

  She tried to reassure the group. “I can’t tell if it’s the same man. If he’s traveling across country, like hunters often do, it’s not so unusual that he might see us again.” Although they had hiked many miles of trail, they actually had stayed in a fairly small area in terms of square miles.

  Aidan was glued to his binoculars, suddenly as rigid as a guard dog.

  Even with her binoculars, Sam couldn’t see enough detail to be sure, but it seemed as if the hunter was staring right at her. He raised a hand into the air, signaling that he saw them.

  Her stomach did a somersault.

  The man’s rifle remained dangling from the strap over his shoulder, clearly in safety mode, but just seeing the hunter and weapon again made the hair prickle on the back of her neck. Was he by himself? Did he have comrades hidden in the brush? If she were hiking alone, she’d hike fast and far to lose him. But now she was painfully aware that she was responsible for the safety of eight young people, including four beautiful teen girls. She couldn’t hustle them an extra five miles and hide them all in the bushes.

  Her crew kids’ heads were swiveling as if they were following a tennis match: they faced the hunter on the ridge and then anxiously glanced back to the other teens. Nick appeared to be holding his breath. Olivia was chewing her thumbnail.

  The hunter lowered his hand and then slipped down off the boulder, vanishing from view.

  “It’s okay,” she told everyone. “He’s being responsible. He waved to let us know that he sees us and won’t shoot in this direction.” Please let that be true.

  The stranger could be a friendly, conscientious hunter. However, even if that was the case, it seemed likely that he was tracking that bear, and she had no desire to see him kill it. She didn’t want the kids to witness that, either.

  “C’mon, Aidan.” She tapped him on the shoulder. He finally lowered his binoculars, but his expression was still tense. “Stand down,” she told him. “He’s gone.”

  She shouldered her backpack. “Grazing time is over, crew. Pick up your packs and let’s move on toward camp.”

  * * * * *

  No gunshots interrupted their evening, so apparently the hunter had either not seen the bear, wasn’t out to kill it, or had hiked in the opposite direction. Sam hoped for all three.

  After breakfast the next morning, she prepared the crew kids for their first solo campout, handing them plastic garden spades, packets of food, and coils of parachute cord. “You have your fire starter kits, you can heat up food in your metal bowls. You all know how to make a fire now. There are no bear boxes where you’ll be staying, so follow the same rules we used in the camps where we needed to; don’t leave any food or anything that smells like food out, seal it in your Kevlar bag and hang it up high.”

  Gabriel leaned toward Taylor and growled, “Bears.”

  “Keeping your food out of the reach of mice and coyotes is every bit as important, Gabriel,” Sam chided him. “One of us will come to check on you during the daylight hours, and we’ll come get you to regroup at noon tomorrow. If you get into trouble, blow your whistle and we’ll come running. None of you will be very far away, but stay close to your tent. Enjoy this time alone.”

  “Can’t wait.” Justin’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

  Olivia regarded the spade in her hand. “Is this what I think it is?”

  “Probably,” Maya told her. “That’s a personal dig-your-own toilet kit.”

  Ashley drawled, “Yippee.”

  “But what will we do out there?” Gabriel whined.

  “Spend your time writing in your journals. You might plan something to share with the group,” Sam suggested. “You should also think about the contracts you’re going to make with your families. Envision where you want to be in five years and plan how you’re going to get there.”

  Justin snickered. “Mars, spaceship.”

  Sam pushed the remaining supplies back into the bear sack. “Aidan, Maya, please take Justin and Ashley to their solo camps. I’ll stay here with the rest until I see you coming back.”

  As soon as she spotted Aidan returning toward the camp, Sam led Olivia to her assigned site in a small copse of alders near a stream that fed into the lake.

  The girl seemed fearful. “What if a bear comes into my camp?”

  “That probably won’t happen, but if it does, you know what to do.”

  “Bang on a pan, yell?”

  “That’s right. And if it doesn’t go away, blow your whistle.” Sam didn’t tell her those instructions would most likely work with a black bear, but might not scare off a grizzly. The odds of encountering a griz here were slim.

  Sam, Maya, and Aidan left the crew kids in their solo camps for eight hours, then divvied up the task of visiting them all before dark. Sam chose her two favorites, Nick and Ashley.

  She found Nick’s camp neatly set up, his tent on a small rise away from the trees. The boy had collected stones to make a fire ring. A few coals smoldered within the small circle when Sam arrived. She found Nick sitting cross-legged in front of a downed tree. The dark rotting wood was covered with ruffles of bright orange fungi, and Nick was sketching the scene.

  She studied the drawing in his journal. “That’s really good.”

  “You don’t need to check on me.” He didn’t look up.

  “We’re checking on everyone, just like we promised.”

  Abruptly, he leapt to his feet, tossing his journal to the ground. Yanking up first his shirt and then his sleeves, he showed her his flat abdomen and his forearms. “I’m not cutting.”

  “I didn’t expect you to, Nick. You promised me you wouldn’t.”

  “Yeah.” His frown was defiant. She had no idea what was going on in the boy’s head. She was glad she didn’t have one of these mercurial teens waiting for her at home. Cats were mysterious enough.

  After asking if he had any questions or wanted to talk—no and no—she wished Nick a good night and left for Ashley’s camp.

  At first sh
e couldn’t find the girl anywhere close to her tent. She searched the nearby woods. No sign of Ashley. She circled the area. Shit, had the girl taken off? The counselors had warned her of this possibility. Why hadn’t she seen it coming? She was pacing back and forth, working herself into a panic when a small crackling sound caused her to raise her head.

  Ashley had shimmied up the trunk of an alder that leaned into two upright trees. She sat on a branch overhead, an amused expression on her face.

  Sam took the same route up and perched a few feet away.

  The girl had painted muddy stripes across her cheeks that transformed her into a slightly crazed warrior woman, especially in combination with her purple-tipped hair. She grinned at Sam. “Almost got away with it.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Hunger Games,” Ashley said.

  Fortunately, Sam understood the reference. The movie heroine had climbed a tree to avoid a group of killers. “Good thing you’re not really on the run, isn’t it?”

  Ashley made a scoffing sound and stared off into the distance, where three thin columns of smoke rose into the sky. “Looks like the others are cooking dinner. Guess I’d better get to that.”

  They climbed down.

  “Are you okay alone?” Sam asked.

  “I’ve been alone most of my life.”

  Sam had a sudden impulse to hug the teen, but took her leave instead.

  After Sam reunited with Aidan and Maya, the three staff members shared stories of what the crew kids were doing in their individual camps.

  “Gabe is creating the story line for a new game,” Aidan told them. “I barely escaped hearing about all the subplots for Episode Three. He’ll probably be up to Episode Ten by dawn.”

  “What’s it about?” Maya asked.

  “You’ll both hear all about it before this is over, I’m sure.”

  “I think Olivia’s going to fast or eat her food cold so she won’t have to come out of her tent,” Maya said.

  Sam frowned. Would the shy girl be terrified camping alone in the dark?