Joe and I knew that for a fact. Black Bear Mountain had nearly done us in a few times, and we were experienced outdoorsmen.
“They pay well, though.” Dan shrugged.
“What about the one Amina said just got back?” I asked.
“Oh, the big fella with the buzz cut?” Dan asked. “That guy wasn’t like the others. Came with his own ATV and all the right gear. You could tell he knew his way around the woods. Real in shape too. Decked out all in camo with a fighter-jet sticker on his truck, like he might have been in the military or something.”
“How’d the hunt go? Did he find anything?” Joe asked casually.
“Don’t know. I didn’t take him. He booked a room and used us as base camp, but he knew exactly where he was going and didn’t want a guide. Not real chatty, either. Just kept to himself. I asked him if he found anything when he got back, and he said to mind my own business.”
“Did you get a name?” I prompted.
“He told the desk John Smith, but he was weird. We usually keep a credit card on file for all our guests, but he said he didn’t have one and paid in cash.”
I didn’t have to look at Joe to know we were thinking the same thing. A secretive guy with a military bearing and a generic name like John Smith who paid cash probably wasn’t really named John Smith. It sounded like an alias, and people who use fake names usually have something to hide. I made a mental note of it. If Dr. K wasn’t safe and sound in his research station, we’d be looking into it more.
“We’d better get a move on,” I said, grabbing the helmet from the handlebar of my ATV and slipping it on. “We won’t reach the research station before dark if we don’t make up some time.”
Dan gave a nervous look back at the lodge. “Yeah, um, I actually have some bad news for you guys. We’re kind of shorthanded with Casey and Steven gone. I was booked this afternoon by a paying guest, so I’m only gonna be able to take you to the foot trail at the base of the mountain before heading back.”
“So you’re not guiding us all the way?” I asked. How many more surprises was this expedition going to have? We hadn’t even left the lodge yet, and the only way it had gone was sideways.
Joe and I had extensive wilderness survival training, we’d mapped the seven-hour hike-and-climb ahead of time, and we’d come prepared with all the gear we thought we might need—after last time, we weren’t taking any chances. But the “trails” on Black Bear Mountain were a lot closer to natural game trails than the neatly kept, easy-to-follow “nature trails” most hikers are used to. The terrain was as rugged as it gets and easy to get lost in. Or hurt. Sure, we were prepared, but it was the kind of trek you didn’t want to do for the first time on your own if you could help it.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” he said guiltily. “I’ll get you where you need to go on the ATVs, but I’ve gotta bail on the hike up the maintain. If you guys want to cancel and not go at all, I’ll understand.”
The way he said it, it sounded like he was hoping that was what we’d do.
“Oh, no, we’re going,” Joe said right away. “With you or without you.”
“We’re prepared,” I said confidently. At least that’s how I hoped it sounded. It had taken all our skill and a good bit of luck to survive our last trip to Black Bear Mountain.
“Sure, sure, okay,” Dan said defensively. “Casey said you’re experienced hikers, and you’ve been up to Black Bear before, so you know the basic lay of the land, right? We bushwhacked and marked a new trail, so as long as you stick to that, you won’t get lost. I’ve got pitons and rope ladders in place on the short verticals you have to scale, but Casey said you’ve done some climbing, too, so that shouldn’t be a prob. You can radio from the old ranger station when you get there to check in and coordinate when you want me to come back to get you.”
“Let’s do this,” Joe said, starting up his four-wheeler.
“You need a quick how-to on the ATVs before we get going?” Dan asked, slipping on his helmet.
Joe snapped his visor closed. “This isn’t the first time we’ve gone off-road.”
“Then follow me,” Dan said, starting his up and accelerating across the field.
We followed Dan’s lead along the river for a couple of miles before cutting off onto an off-road trail through the forest. The trail was a great new addition that hadn’t been there on our first trip up to Black Bear Mountain. As concerned as I was about what we were leaving—Jones recovering in bed—and where we were going—Dr. K possibly missing on the mountain—watching the woods zip by from my ATV was exhilarating enough for me to lose myself in the moment.
Joe whooped it up in front of me as he caught air and splashed down in the creek ahead of us. The hybrids were way quieter than the gas version, especially when you were going slowly, but they were still loud enough that you had to yell to be heard when you were booking it like we were. I had to admit that I still felt a little guilty about disturbing the wildlife, but with Gonzo out of town, this was our only way to our destination. It was also a whole lot of fun.
“Whoo-hoo!” I hollered as my ATV sailed through the air into the creek.
The next hour passed in a blur of thrilling off-roading and breathtaking scenery. For a bumpy off-road ride, it couldn’t have gone more smoothly. Dan seemed nervous, though, and turned his head to look behind him every few minutes.
We emerged from the woods onto a path running alongside a large clearing leading to the foot of the mountain. In a few minutes we’d be there.
Telltale gnaw marks near the base of some of the trees clued me in that there was a beaver pond nearby. The stumps the beavers leave behind when they chew down trees to build their dams look a bit like spiked poles jutting out of the ground, and it was pretty cool to see their handiwork.
We reached the pond a minute later. Dan zipped past it with Joe not far behind.
I saw the shadow sweeping down over the trail before I saw the tree. The groan of the trunk snapping was loud enough that I could hear it over the engines. It took my brain a split second to compute what was happening. A split second may seem fast, but it wasn’t fast enough to save my brother from riding straight into the path of the falling tree.
“Joe! Watch out!” I screamed as the large oak plummeted toward him.
5 TIMBER!
JOE
FRANK’S SCREAM REACHED ME AN instant before the tree did. A few feet more and my ATV would be directly under it as it came crashing down. My first impulse was to hit the brakes, but as fast as the ATV was moving, stopping in time wasn’t an option. The only thing left to do was speed up. I accelerated as much as I could. And then I closed my eyes.
The impact sounded like a cannon shot and set the ground shaking behind me. Which meant that I was still alive!
I opened my eyes, hit the brakes, and swung my ATV around to see Frank skid his to a stop just in time to keep from crashing into the oak now blocking his path. We both whipped off our helmets and said at the same time, “Are you okay?!”
We nodded at each other from either side of the fallen tree.
“Whoa, are you guys both all right?” Dan yelled, racing back toward us and pulling to a stop.
“Well, I think we solved one mystery,” I said. “If a tree falls in the woods and someone is there to almost be crushed by it, it definitely makes a sound.”
“I’d laugh if my heart weren’t pounding so fast,” said Frank, climbing off his ATV. “I thought it was going to crush you, for sure.”
“You nearly crashed into it too,” I reminded him. “It could have flattened us both.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time in the woods, but that’s the wildest random act of nature I’ve ever seen.” Dan walked over to look at the split base of the tree, where it looked like a beaver had chewed either end nearly into spikes. “The beavers must’ve left just enough wood there to keep it standing when they stopped. I guess us zooming by like that was all the shaking it needed to tumble over.”
“That’s
what it looks like on the surface,” Frank said, reaching down and yanking at something by his feet. “Under the surface, there’s a trip wire.”
“A what?!” Dan gawked.
I examined the nearly pointy stump left sticking out of the ground. When I looked closely, teeth marks weren’t the only marks I saw.
“The beavers chewed only part of the way. Someone used an ax to do the rest.”
Dan looked back and forth between Frank and me. “I—I don’t understand.”
Frank gave the tripwire a twang. “Either you have some super-industrious beavers, or this is sabotage.”
“Sabotage?!” Dan gasped. “But why?”
“Either someone has a really sick idea of a practical joke—” Frank began.
“Or someone knew we were coming and laid a trap to take us out,” I finished.
“Looks like they set it up expecting multiple vehicles, so when the first one came through, it would catch the wire and the force would pull the tree the rest of the way down to fall in the path of the other riders,” said Frank.
“But who would do something like that?” Dan wondered nervously.
“Someone who knew we were on our way to Black Bear Mountain to check on Dr. Kroopnik and didn’t want us to find him,” I speculated.
“This is out of control. You can’t go up there by yourselves,” Dan insisted.
“We wouldn’t have to if you hadn’t bailed on us,” I said.
“No way I’d go up there with you now, even if I didn’t have to get back,” he said. “Bears and mountain lions, I’m cool with. People who set traps to take me out, no thank you. You two aren’t thinking straight if you don’t hop on those ATVs and follow me back to the lodge. You won’t even have cell phone service to call for help if anything else happens.”
The look of determination on Frank’s face said it all. Any doubts I’d had about Aleksei’s fears that Dr. K was in danger vanished with Frank’s discovery of that trip wire. We’d set out to make sure our friend was safe, and that was exactly what we were going to do.
“Not a chance,” I said.
Dan shook his head like we were delusional as he unstrapped our packs from the back of his ATV. “The lodge isn’t going to be liable if you go up there and some killer comes after you.”
“We’ll take our chances,” said Frank.
“Suit yourselves.” Dan gunned his ATV around the fallen tree and headed back the way we’d come.
“Well, that’s not how I envisioned this expedition starting,” Frank said as we watched him vanish into the distance. He pulled a pad and pen from his pack and pinned it to the fallen tree. “To let any other hikers who come along know the ATV trail may not be safe.”
Using the smaller, less used paths, we rode slowly the long way around the beaver pond to avoid any other possible traps and stayed off the main path until we reached the foot trail at the base of the mountain. We stowed the ATVs in the brush beside the trail, grabbed our packs, and stepped into the woods.
“With all these setbacks, I don’t think we’re going to make Dr. K’s research station before the sun starts to set.” Frank sighed. “Is it just me, or did you think Dan was acting squirrelly even before that tree fell?”
“He sure seemed nervous about something, especially the way he kept looking behind him on the way here,” I agreed. “Do you think he could have been in on the trap?”
“Riding past that tree would have been a pretty big risk to take, but he was the first one to go, and it was rigged to fall on whoever was behind him,” Frank said.
“He seemed as shocked by it as we were, though,” I countered.
“Doesn’t mean he wasn’t acting,” said Frank.
I took a second to consider it. “He did seem pretty intent on us not coming up here.”
“To be fair, this expedition does seem a little reckless,” Frank said. “You know, seeing as someone is trying to drop trees on us and all.”
“Whoever it is might still be lying in wait somewhere along the trail, so let’s stay sharp,” I warned.
Like Dan had said, there were trail markers tacked to the trees along the path. The terrain was steep, rugged, and slow going, but I love a good wilderness challenge, and I would have been stoked about every second of it under normal circumstances. Our circumstances definitely weren’t normal, though. Not with Dr. K missing and the possibility of treasure hunters trying to kill us. A hike this difficult requires close attention to every step—especially when it might be booby-trapped—and it didn’t help that we also had to stay on high alert for potential perps lurking in the woods.
Rays of sun poked through the dense canopy of trees, splattering the forest floor with blotches of light. The direction of the beams and quality of the light changed as the day went on until the light started to turn golden.
“It’s closing in on sunset and we still have a few more hours of hiking to go,” Frank said, peering up at the patches of sky visible through the canopy of the pine grove we were in.
I peered ahead at a steep ledge that was going to require some climbing. “That bad boy could be tricky, and we probably don’t want to tackle it in fading light.”
I took a look around the pine grove. The incline wasn’t bad, and there was a little clearing off to the side where we could safely make a fire.
Frank was thinking the same thing. “Let’s camp here for the night and get started again at first light. I don’t like the idea of leaving Max out there alone any longer than we have to, but it won’t do him any good if we get ourselves hurt or lost in the dark.”
“Great minds, bro,” I said, unzipping my bag. “I’m excited to try out our new hammocks. Stealth mode is going to come in extra handy if someone really is out there hunting us. Once we cook dinner and put out the fire, it will be like we vanished.”
Instead of a conventional tent, we’d packed two tree tents, which were basically hammock-tent hybrids. If anybody—or anything—came looking for us on the ground, we’d be safely tucked away above their heads, suspended between two trees all snuggly in our cocoons.
We wouldn’t be the only thing suspended between two trees, either. So would our food. As soon as we were done eating, we wrapped everything up in a “bear” bag and hung it ten feet off the ground and well outside our camp. Black Bear Mountain didn’t get its name by accident, and we’d learned last time how much trouble a hungry bear could cause if it wandered into camp. Black bears were rarely a threat to humans, but they had great sniffers and weren’t above mooching a pack of hot dogs or flapjacks off unsuspecting campers.
There was one more precaution we took, and this one was more for predators of the human variety. We’d walked the perimeter of our campsite before the sun sent, and we’d both been keeping an ear out for any suspicious sounds in the woods. We couldn’t be certain, but if anyone was out there spying on our camp, they’d hidden themselves well.
We stashed the rest of our gear on the ground nearby, camouflaged under some brush, doused the fire with water from a nearby brook, and climbed up into our hammocks. With all the danger we were facing, I expected to have trouble falling asleep, but we’d burned a lot of energy on the hike, and I was out cold the instant I closed my eyes.
When I opened them again, it was to the sound of Frank’s snores. At least that’s what I thought at first. Only these weren’t coming from the tree next to me—they were coming from below. Then it hit me that I’d heard a similar sound on our last trip as well, and it wasn’t snoring. It was grunting. And it was coming from a bear.
Okay, so it’s more than a little unnerving to have a bear rummaging around right under you. Logically, though, I knew it wasn’t really a threat, especially with us up in a tree without any food on us. I took a deep breath, silently gave thanks for our hammocks, and decided to leave the bear alone instead of trying to make a lot of noise and scare it off. Sure, that might work, but it would also call all kinds of attention to ourselves. If there was a human predator out there lurking in
the woods, we might as well just start shouting, Come and get us, bad guys! Nope. Better just to let the bear rummage around and be on its merry bear way.
It was when I heard the sound of fabric tearing that I realized what it was rummaging through. The packs with all our gear!
6 HONEY BEAR
FRANK
GET AWAY, BEAR! GET!” ARE not the words you want to wake up to while camping.
I probably would have tumbled right out of my hammock if the tent flap hadn’t been zipped. It took me a confused minute to get the zipper undone and poke my head out. When I did, I saw Joe’s flashlight beam focused on the ample rear end of a large black bear as it lumbered out of the pine grove, carrying something in its mouth.
“Wait! Get back here, bear! That’s ours! We need that!” Joe yelled.
“Uh-oh,” I muttered as I shone my own flashlight down at bits and pieces of chewed-up gear scattered on the forest floor. “That was the pack with all our survival gear, wasn’t it?”
“Including my Swiss Army knife,” Joe groaned, climbing out of his hammock and down the tree to inspect the aftermath of the bear’s raid. “I don’t get it. We made sure there wasn’t any food left in those bags at all.”
I climbed down after him, carefully shining my light around the grove to make sure we were alone.
“At least he only ran off with one of the packs,” Joe said, holding up a torn but otherwise intact backpack. “Too bad the one he left is the nearly empty one where we kept the hammocks and the bear bag with the food. The maps, GPS, water purification filters, and the rest of the stuff we brought to help us stay alive out here is gone.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. We were careful to wrap all our food up tightly before packing it, but if either bag had residual food scent on it, it would be that one.”
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