Leaving Blythe River: A Novel (11 page)

Chapter Ten: Help

Two days after his father disappeared

The following evening, just as the sun hit a long slant on its way to going down, Ethan heard a rhythmic sound out front on the dirt driveway. Then it stopped, and he couldn’t decide if he should ignore it or go find out who—or what—was there.

He walked to the window and pulled back the curtain.

His neighbor Sam was sitting on the back of a saddled mule in Ethan’s driveway. It wasn’t Rebar he was riding. It was a shorter, stockier mule. Sam’s cowboy boots didn’t seem to hang far enough above the ground in their stirrups, and the mule’s front end took up a bizarre amount of space between those jean-clad legs.

Sam must not have seen Ethan pull back the curtain, because he just sat his mule, a few yards from the front porch, staring off into space. Actually, they both looked off in the same direction, man and mule, as if thinking the same deep thoughts.

Sam wore an old cowboy hat, which he took off and hooked over the saddle horn. Then he scratched his bare scalp as he stared.

It seemed strange to Ethan that Sam had chosen to ride down his driveway before turning into a statue. Behind his neighbor, Ethan could see the sun nearly touch the horizon, off to the west where the land was flat and there was a proper horizon for the sun to touch.

He walked to the front door and opened it.

Sam looked over at him, but nothing more. He didn’t dismount his mule. He didn’t squeeze its sides and ride closer. Ethan thought the older man looked hurt somehow. Not on the outside. Not injured. He looked as though he might be nursing an insult or a slight, or just couldn’t reconcile himself to the world in that moment.

Ethan walked closer.

“Is it okay to get near this mule?”

“This one, yeah,” Sam said. “Dora’s like a kitten.”

“What brings you up here?”

“Down here, actually,” Sam said. “I been up riding the Blythe Range all day. Thought I could help with this search thing. Not sure if I did any good or not. Probably not.”

It was dawning on Ethan, gradually, that Sam had not come here for no reason. Also that whatever was weighing the man down was about to be delivered to Ethan, who likely would have the same look on his face afterwards.

“Still wondering why—” Ethan began.

“Dave didn’t want to come.”

“Why not?”

“He didn’t want to be the one to tell you.”

Ethan felt as though something struck his chest, something sharp. As though an arrow pierced him there.

“He’s dead? My dad?”

“No. Not as we know of. But . . . I guess . . . compared to
that
, what I got to say might not seem like such bad news. The search is called off.”

“Because . . .”

“They just don’t think he’s out there. They were never sure that damn wilderness was the last place he’d gone anyway. Now that they’ve combed it for two days, they don’t believe they’re doing anybody any good. They think he just ran off without you, guy.”

“I know that.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. The ranger told me so. More or less. But he said they’d keep looking. Because it’s life or death if he
is
out there.”

“Well, there’s one more piece of the puzzle, Ethan. Something about a recent cash withdrawal your dad made from the bank. More than just normal walking-around money. I think they said it was five hundred bucks. That was the last straw, I think. Now they figure they did their due diligence. Dave said to tell you to get your stuff together. He’s gonna ask your mom to make some arrangements to fly you home.”

So that’s it for this place,
Ethan thought. He shielded his eyes against the setting sun, which glared into his pupils when he tried to look up at Sam. He touched the mule’s neck without really thinking or knowing why. It felt sweaty and damp.

So I get out of here. And that’s good.

Except it made his throat tighten to think of going back to the city. And something else stole his joy over going home: What if his dad was out there? Out in the wilderness alone? There was a recurring thread of doubt in Ethan’s mind as to whether Noah was indeed out there. But in a deeper sense he truly believed it. The bigger question was whether he was out there alive.

Was he really going to get on a plane and just leave him there?

“Thanks for coming by to tell me,” Ethan said.

“Hated like hell to be the one,” Sam said. “Sitting here thinking and I’m still not quite sure how they roped me into that.”

Ethan jolted out of sleep, coming to consciousness sitting up in bed in the pitch-dark. His face felt cold, and his chest was so tight he had to work to draw breath.

It was nothing new or unusual. Every few nights since that awful night in New York, Ethan had been blasted out of sleep by what he could only assume was a fearful dream. But he never knew what he’d dreamed. He could never remember.

He turned on the weak little lamp by his bed. It was eleven thirty.

With one hand on his heart to concentrate on slowing its beating, Ethan thought what he always thought in such moments. He thought about the word “help.” The way it had struck him in the police station that night. The way it had soothed him. It continued to soothe him—the idea that there was help somewhere. That somebody would help him. Even in the middle of the night, halfway into a wild wilderness, with his father gone and not a soul around to provide the help in question, the word still carried comfort.

That’s when it hit him.

It was a mental image more than it was a thought. Suddenly he could imagine himself inside the mind of Noah Underwood. It really didn’t matter how fit you were, Ethan now knew, or what a take-charge kind of guy you’d always been. Ethan’s father was scared out there. He was human, so he was scared. If he was alive.

He needed help.

Ethan pushed the dog off his legs and swung out of bed, hopping on the cold wooden boards of his floor. He hadn’t bothered to make a fire or run the heater because it was only getting down into the forties overnight the past couple of nights. He threaded his way into the kitchen in the dark, grabbed the cordless phone by feel, and took it back to bed with him.

He dialed his home number by heart, then turned off the light.

The moon was big and bright, maybe three or four days before full, and he could see it through his bedroom window—see the spooky moon shadows of the fence posts. He thought he saw a shape move in the dark, off in the distance, but it was much smaller than a bear. A coyote, maybe, or somebody’s dog too far from home.

He heard the first few rings on the line.

It was late there. The middle of the night. He would wake her, there was no doubt about that. But the thought caused him no hesitation. This simply needed to be done.

She picked up.

“Ethan? What is it?” Her voice was tinged with panic, yet dulled by sleep. It was a strange combination. “Did they find him? Is he—”

“No,” Ethan said. Surprisingly calm. “No, they still didn’t find him. He’s still just gone. And I knew what you’d think when I called so late, and that it would scare you, and I’m sorry. I just had to talk to you. I had to call.”

A medium-length silence. Ethan pictured her sitting up, trying to shake cobwebs out of her brain. He decided to picture her as confident and radiant and pretty—the way she always had been. Not the way he’d last seen her.

“Okay,” she said. “Talk away.”

“It’s not why I called, but how’s Grandma?”

“Not good.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I can’t fly home yet. That’s why I called. To tell you that.”

“Why can’t you?”

“Because he’s all alone out there. He needs help.”

“That’s what the rangers are for. That’s what search and rescue is for. They’re pros. They can do their work just as well with you in New York.”

“Oh,” Ethan said. “They didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“They called off the search. Last night.”

“Why?”

Her voice teetered just on the edge of screechiness, and it struck Ethan that she was scared, too. What if everybody was scared, most of the time? What if it wasn’t only Ethan? Maybe everybody else just handled it better. Or were better liars in that department.

“They just don’t think he’s out there. They think he took off and left me.”

Then he wondered why he hadn’t told her about the cash withdrawal. Maybe because it made it sound like he should give up and fly home.

“But they don’t know that for a fact. They can’t prove that.”

“Which is why they brought in search teams and dogs and planes and combed that wilderness every minute the sun was up for two solid days. Even though they didn’t really think he was out there. But now they figure they did enough to prove their point.”

Another long silence. Ethan’s eyes had adjusted to the dim of the moonlit night, and he could see the edges of the mountain peaks through his window. He imagined again how it would feel to be lost out there. It made him shiver briefly.

“I could make some phone calls,” she said at last. “I don’t know if it would do any good. But I could try.”

“Thanks.”

“But I still don’t see why you shouldn’t come home.”

“Because . . . if they’re not going to look in the wilderness, then I think
I
need to.”

“Honey. That’s really sweet. Especially after everything that happened this year with your dad. But it’s not a very realistic thought.”

“I know,” Ethan said. “I just need to do it anyway.”

“Do what, though? What exactly would you do? Wander around out there and get lost yourself?”

“No, I’ve got a better plan than that. We have this neighbor. Sam. He runs a pack service. He has riding horses and mules that can carry packs or people. He takes people up into those mountains all the time, so he knows the place like the back of his hand. I did him a little favor, so he said he owed me one. He said he’d take me up there.”

“You’re right,” she said, “that’s a better plan. But I still don’t know how you think the two of you are going to find him if the professional search teams can’t.”

“I actually don’t,” he said. He felt sure, and it felt good to feel sure. He hadn’t felt sure of himself, even of his words, in as long as he could remember. “I
don’t
think we’ll work some magic and find him. I just think I have to try. I can’t leave here without knowing I tried. When we’ve been looking for him longer than anybody could survive out there anyway,
then
I’ll be able to live with myself if I give up and fly home.”

Another long silence.

“It feels good to hear you talk like this,” she said.

“I know,” Ethan said. He didn’t say more about that, or need to.

“I guess it’s not a bad thing to take a trip into the wilderness if you do it the right way like that. And for such a good reason. But be careful.”

“Right. Because I’m such a wild risk taker.”

She laughed, but it was a bitter, subdued sound. “Tell me the name of this person you’re going with. I want to check him out.”

“Friendly Sam’s Pack Service.”

“Okay, good. I’ll call the ranger and tell him not to scoop you up and ship you home just yet. Call me and tell me when you’re going. Call me the minute you get back. Keep me posted, okay? Relentlessly posted.”

“Okay,” he said.

And it was settled, just like that. And with it, Ethan’s life felt reasonably settled, too.

He hung up the phone and actually got back to sleep.

Chapter Eleven: Huff

Three days after his father disappeared

Ethan forced down the last bite of his cereal. It didn’t taste like anything. None of the other bites had, either. Probably nothing would have.

He set his bowl in the sink without even bothering to rinse it.

“Oh, crap,” he said out loud, in the general direction of Rufus. “We have to walk all the way down to Sam’s house with no bear spray again. Or with expired bear spray. I wonder which is worse. Maybe the expired stuff isn’t totally useless . . .”

Then his eyes landed on his father’s gun case. It sat in the living room, near Noah’s bedroom door. It held a deer rifle and a twelve-gauge shotgun. And his dad never kept it locked, because he knew Ethan wanted nothing to do with it.

Ethan’s father had tried to take him hunting. Once. When Ethan was thirteen. Upstate, in the woods. Ethan had not only hated every moment they spent camped in that dense, spooky forest, but had resolutely refused to point a gun at anything—animal, vegetable, or mineral. Noah had been smart enough not to try such a thing again.

Ethan settled on the shotgun, because it held five rounds. He didn’t trust himself to hit anything with a single-shot weapon. Also because it sprayed shot in a wide pattern. If something was close enough, hitting it would almost be the default outcome. And if it wasn’t, he would have no reason to pull the trigger.

Still it felt radical to walk out of the house with a loaded weapon. But not as radical as walking through grizzly country with nothing. No form of defense.

“Come on,” he said to Rufus, who was all too happy to hear the words. “Let’s go see Sam.”

Ethan sat on Sam’s front porch steps, leaning back against a railing post and feeling the sun bake down on him. It felt good. Comforting.

It was the only thing that did.

“Why did I think he’d be home?” he asked Rufus, who looked into his face and wagged nervously. “I just assumed he would be home. I guess I figured, when you live out here . . . where else would you be? I mean, he’s not at the movies. He didn’t go to a comedy club. Or the mall.”

He leaned forward and peered around into his neighbor’s driveway, surprised that he hadn’t thought to do it sooner.

“His truck is here. So he must have gone out on foot or on horseback. Or muleback.”

Ethan stood and trotted down the steps. He made his way through the yard to the stock corral, bending over to hold on to his dog’s collar so Rufus wouldn’t get himself kicked or stomped. He still held the shotgun tightly in his other hand.

He leaned on the rail, Rufus clutched between his knees, and tried to decide if one of the horses or mules was missing. Which was probably pointless, he realized, because he didn’t know how many there were, and he didn’t know most of them on sight. He knew the chestnut yearlings and two of the mules, Rebar and Dora.

It seemed Dora was missing.

“You think he went out looking for Dad again?” Ethan asked his dog. “Even though the rangers won’t look anymore?”

That would be awfully nice if he did,
Ethan thought.
But probably not.

Ethan hated to get his hopes up too high about that. Probably Sam just had a customer. Went up into the mountains with somebody who wanted to do a pack trip. Ethan again wished he knew how many horses and mules there were. Then he’d know if some were missing. But he didn’t. And besides, Sam might have just taken one person up there. Ethan would never figure out if
one
horse or mule was gone.

A bad thought came up from Ethan’s subconscious and lodged firmly in his brain. So bad he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. Not even to his dog.

If Sam was off on a pack trip, he’d likely be gone for days.

Ethan sat down hard in the dirt.

“I think we might be screwed,” he told Rufus.

He sat a minute or two, the sun baking through his hair and onto his scalp. He should have worn a hat. He should have brought a bottle of water.

“Come on,” he said to his dog after a time. “I guess we’ll just have to go home.”

He let himself and Rufus out through the gate, latching it carefully behind them. Then he walked down Sam’s driveway in utter defeat.

When they reached the road again, Ethan almost made a right and walked downhill to Jone’s house. Even though he wasn’t sure which house was hers. But he could knock on a few doors. If the doors weren’t hers they would likely belong to Marcus, whom it wouldn’t hurt him to meet, or to somebody who was gone until later in the summer anyway. He wouldn’t be bothering anybody.

But the idea of her coming to the door gave Ethan heartburn. Just that—just her answering his knock and seeing who it was, and then standing there, arms crossed over her chest, waiting to see what he’d come to say. At least, he figured her arms would be crossed over her chest. It seemed like a Jone way to wait.

And then he would have to ask her a favor. Not a little favor, either. Not “May I please borrow some sugar?” A massive favor. “Will you please drop what you’re doing and form a search team with me? Go out into the wilderness, maybe for days? With the grizzly bears? To find a guy the professional searchers can’t find, and who I can’t prove is even up there at all?”

Ethan sighed and turned toward home.

A few yards short of his own driveway, Ethan found himself filled with a radical thought. It was terrifying and exhilarating, all at the same time. It made him feel bigger inside, as if his lungs held more air than they ever had before.

He looked down at Rufus, who looked up into his face.

“We could just go up there,” he said. “Just walk up there ourselves.”

He stopped in the road to think the idea through.

He could go into the house and get a hat and a jacket. Just in case they were still out when the sun began to set. He had a backpack. It was more of a school backpack than a wilderness pack. Still, it would hold the jacket and some snacks and a few bottles of water.

“I have a shotgun,” he said out loud. But not really to the dog. Actually, he didn’t know whom he was addressing. “I’m not sure why I’m so afraid of wild animals if I’m holding a loaded twelve-gauge shotgun.”

He would have to be extremely careful not to get lost. He had no way of telling anyone where he’d gone, so he had no safety net against taking a wrong turn and losing the trail. But he could memorize his surroundings. He could even bring his smartphone. It wouldn’t get reception up there—hell, he couldn’t even get reception at the house—but he could take pictures of landmarks and use them to find his way back. If the trail became hard to follow, he could always turn around and head home.

Rufus wagged by his side, anxiously waiting for Ethan to make some kind of move. It seemed to worry the dog to simply stand in the road doing nothing.

“Now for the big question,” Ethan asked out loud. Rufus wagged harder. “Will it do a damn bit of good?”

Probably not, he knew immediately. If his dad had been in plain sight within a few miles of the trailhead, he would have been found days ago. But Ethan could call for him. Maybe he was lying hurt somewhere, and would recognize Ethan’s voice.

It was longer than a long shot, he knew. Ethan figured the chances of anything good coming of this plan were next to nonexistent. But at least he’d be moving forward with some kind of plan instead of standing still.

And there was something else, something more pressing. A better reason. Ethan would know he’d been brave enough at least to try. Everyone would know he’d been brave enough at least to try.

His mother would be proud of him.

He pictured himself telling her,
Mom. I went up there. Alone.
And in that moment of imagining, he was the son she’d always wanted him to be. And if he ever saw his dad again, maybe even Noah would have to admit to some pride in Ethan.

No one would ever dare think he was a coward again.

He looked back down at Rufus.

“You want to go for a
real
walk?”

The dog exploded into happy motion.

“Wait. Not yet. Let me just go in the house and get a few things.”

He thought briefly of leaving a note. Then he realized there was no one to leave it for. No one would read it if he failed to come home.

Less than a mile up the hill from his house the rutted dirt road curved around behind a hill and widened out, ending in an unpaved parking area. It was big enough to accommodate maybe ten cars.

No cars were parked there.

Ethan stopped dead in the road, and Rufus bounded ahead without noticing.

Maybe this is a terrible mistake,
Ethan thought.

As he looked at that empty trailhead parking lot he was struck with a frightening truth: He was about to be utterly alone in a mountain wilderness. And nobody would know he was there.

“Rufus!” he called, and the dog stopped and bounded back.

He almost told the dog they were going to turn around and go home. But he could see the trailhead from where he stood. It was clearly marked by a wooden sign with letters burned in—a list of distances to intersections with other trails, and to camps and mountain peaks. And the trail was wide and obvious and looked easy to follow.

“Maybe we’ll just go in a little way,” Ethan told his dog.