Pack Trip (5 page)

K
ATE AND
C
HRISTINE
were in charge of pitching one of the tents at the campsite. Stevie and Amy were attempting to put up the other one.

“I think this thing attaches to this,” Stevie said to Amy. She held a piece of nylon tent in one hand and pointed to a clip on the tent frame with the other.

“I thought it went over there,” Amy said.

“Maybe,” Stevie said thoughtfully.

Tents were not Stevie’s strong point. Somehow she’d always managed to evade this job on sleep-outs. Tonight she obviously wasn’t going to be so lucky, but it was clear she had a soul mate in Amy.

“Look,” Amy said. “If we just clip everything we see to the nearest grommet, that should do it, right? After all, the instructions probably say the darn thing can be assembled by a six-year-old. If we add our ages together, we’ll equal about four six-year-olds.”

Stevie giggled. That kind of thinking made sense to her. She began attaching tent to frame as fast as she could. Within about five minutes the whole thing looked more or less like a tent.

“Nice job!” Amy said, congratulating herself.

Stevie agreed. “Not bad work for a bunch of six-year-olds.”

“Is that the best you can do on that?” Eli asked. He stood on the far side of the tent with his hands on his hips, regarding their final product.

“Looks pretty good to me,” Stevie said, defending their work.

“If it looks right to you, I guess that’s what matters most,” Eli said. “I’m going to be sleeping in the other tent. This here’s the girls’ tent, so you can have it just the way you want it.”

“We do. Oh, we do,” Amy said. “Now, where’s the creek where we can soak our feet, and any other sore spots?”

“Right over there,” Eli said, pointing to the far side of the campsite. “Just past the place where you’re going to help make dinner first.”

L
ISA AND
S
ETH
were in charge of finding kindling for the camp fire. It wasn’t a difficult task. They were camping in a wooded area, and the ground was littered with dry sticks. They worked side by side without talking much for a while, filling up a bag with the twigs.

Lisa wanted to say something, but Seth seemed preoccupied.
There were times, she had learned, when silence was the best conversation. She waited.

“I’m worried about Amy,” he said at last. “She’s so upset all the time that it’s like she has no control over what she does.”

“I can tell,” Lisa said.

“You can?”

Lisa nodded. “Sure. The things she did today were pretty wild, and the stunt on the downhill path was downright dangerous. Nobody who was thinking straight would do those things. It’s like she doesn’t care—”

“That’s exactly it,” Seth said. “She doesn’t care. It’s because of our parents, see,” he began. Then he paused, apparently trying to collect his thoughts.

Lisa wondered what their parents could have to do with Amy’s irresponsible behavior.

“They’ve split up,” Seth said.

Lisa remembered that Seth had mentioned that their
mother
had a stableful of horses. He hadn’t said anything about their father.

“Dad has his own company in Chicago, and he works all the time. Mom left a year ago and got married again right away. Her new husband is an investor or something, and he runs all of his business out of what he calls his ranch. It’s about a million acres.”

Lisa had the funny feeling that Seth’s statement about the acreage of his stepfather’s ranch wasn’t much of an exaggeration. She didn’t think about that for long, though. Instead she thought about how awful she would feel if her own parents were to get divorced. There would be no family trips, no family meals, no more jokes around the barbecue grill. Holidays would be divided between her parents, and then there might even be new step-parents to cope with. It would be terrible.

She shook her head to ward off the thought, and her heart went out to Seth and Amy, who were actually enduring all the awful things that were racing through her mind.

“Oh, wow,” Lisa said. “That must really be tough. I can just imagine how much I would hate it if it happened to me.”

“It is tough,” Seth said. “And Amy has had a bad time trying to get used to it. She’s always been a little wild, but ever since the split it seems like the only person she can count on is me.”

Lisa stuffed a few more twigs into the sack. It was almost full. She looked around for a place to sit. A fallen tree provided a bench, and Seth sat down next to her.

“That makes it doubly hard on you, then, doesn’t it?” Lisa asked.

“I guess so,” Seth said. “I usually just think about how tough it is on Amy, though.”

That was so selfless of him, Lisa thought. There he was, with his own worries about his parents, and all he can think about is how hard it is on his sister. Her heart went out to him. Lisa was sure that there must be something she could do to make things easier for Seth. After all, he deserved to have somebody look out for him. And if things went better for Seth, they’d surely be better for Amy.

“How’s the twig supply?” Seth asked, changing the subject.

Lisa looked into the bag. “We’re about done, but I suppose we could pick up a few more, just in case.”

They stood up and walked deeper into the woods.

“We’d better get extra. This stuff will burn up in no time,” Seth said, handing Lisa another handful of twigs.

“What do you mean?” Lisa asked.

“It’s dry,” he said. He took a couple of twigs and crushed them in his hand. “It’ll go fast.”

It took only a few more minutes to fill the rest of the bag. Then the two of them headed back for the campsite.

The woods were dense on the mountainside, darkly shaded by tall evergreen trees that provided a smooth forest
floor and cushioned their footsteps. Lisa listened for familiar forest sounds. Here and there birds called to one another. The fresh breeze whistled through the pine boughs. Then she heard something else. It was a loud, shrill call.

“Listen!” Lisa said excitedly.

“What is it?”

“I think it could be a bobcat,” Lisa said.

“A lion!” Seth exclaimed.

“No, a bobcat. It’s a kind of lynx. They live in woods like this.”

“Are you sure?”

“No,” Lisa said. “They do have a sort of screechy cry, but sounds can get distorted from echoes off the mountains. Let’s be quiet. Maybe we’ll hear it again.”

“Let’s not wait,” Seth said. Lisa was surprised. He was clearly afraid.

“If it is a bobcat, he’s no threat to us,” Lisa said. “They would never attack humans. Of course, I wouldn’t want to get between a bobcat and its supper.…” She said it to tease Seth, but it had a stronger effect than she had expected.

“I’m out of here,” he said. He dropped the bag of sticks and fled, leaving an astonished Lisa behind.

She picked up the bag and ran after him. “Hey, slow
down!” she called. “There’s nothing to worry about—except that you’re going the wrong way. Seth! This way!”

Eventually Seth stopped and turned around. Lisa showed him the path and led him straight back to the campsite. They didn’t hear the animal cry again, and Lisa was a little disappointed. She was hoping to find out what it was. However, considering Seth’s reaction, she figured it was just as well.

“Y
OU SHOULD HAVE
seen her!” Seth said at the camp fire that night. “She wasn’t scared at all. There we were, in the middle of nowhere, and there’s this incredible screech of a—get this—lion! And he sounds hungry! Does Lisa flinch? She does not! Cool as can be, she takes my arm—she couldn’t have held onto my legs, they were shaking so hard—and she keeps me from running right toward the beast. Lisa Atwood is really something!”

As if to emphasize his point, he clapped her on the back. Lisa blushed. It didn’t seem to her that she’d really done much for Seth. In spite of what he said, the biggest danger they’d faced in the woods was him running in the wrong direction.

“Of course she’s really something,” Carole said. “We’ve always known that.”

“Hear, hear,” said Stevie.

“My hero!” Amy declared, but Lisa sensed more than a touch of sarcasm in her voice.

“Come on, guys, you’re embarrassing me,” Lisa said. “It was just a bobcat if it was anything—”

“Speaking of scary things,” Amy began. “Isn’t it time to talk about something else? Like were you guys listening to the radio in the car yesterday about the escaped monster?”

“You mean the half-human thing that’s been in the asylum since it ate all those raw chickens?” Stevie chirped in.

Amy nodded solemnly. Stevie grinned to herself and winked at Amy. This was Stevie’s kind of story. In her opinion the very best camp-fire stories always began with some kind of creepy monster loose nearby and known to be attracted to fire. She and Amy obviously agreed on that. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t even had the radio on in the car yesterday, and it didn’t matter that everybody sitting around the camp fire that night knew they were making it all up. Stevie would have bet almost anything that the hairs on the backs of a few necks around the camp fire were standing straight on end. Number one on her list was Amy’s brother, Seth.

“And every time they catch it, they put more bars on its cage,” Amy continued. “But nothing is strong enough
to hold it captive for long. It has this compulsion to stalk its prey by firelight.”

Nearby something startled one of the horses, and it whinnied loudly.

“What was that?” Seth blurted out.

Stevie stifled a giggle.

“Oh, probably nothing,” Amy said.

“Don’t worry, Seth, it’s just a story,” Lisa told him. He seemed to calm down, but she noticed that later, when Eli suggested that a couple of them check on the horses before they got into their sleeping bags, Seth didn’t offer to go.

Lisa understood. Seth had had a very rough time with his parents’ divorce. He felt a lot of responsibility for his sister. What he really seemed to need the most was somebody to take care of him. It was a good thing she was there.

S
TEVIE SHIFTED IN
her saddle. It was still early morning, and the pack trippers were already on their way, in spite of the fog and the chill morning air. Stevie hadn’t slept very well. Neither had anyone else in the girls’ tent. The problem was that the tent had lots of openings that let in the chilly breezes. All night long the girls had grumbled about the way the tent had been set up. Amy insisted that it wasn’t their fault. It was just that the tent hadn’t been properly made. It was
supposed
to have all those air holes in it, to let in breezes on hot nights. Nobody, including Stevie, believed that story any more than they had the one about the monster. Stevie had kept her
mouth shut. Nobody would have heard what she said anyway, since she was curled inside her sleeping bag.

Now they were back on the trail. Stevie was still chilled, and she couldn’t wait for the morning sun to dry up the fog and bake them warm again.

The trail followed the long rolling valley, rising and dipping with the foothills of the mountains that surrounded the area. There were surprises with every rise. They were crossing an open prairie, which was covered with short grass and crossed here and there with rivulets that fed larger streams. Soon, Stevie could see, they would be entering another forest area and on the other side of that—well, she’d just have to wait and see.

The most astonishing aspect of Victoria Pass, however, was the constant presence of the mountains that surrounded it. To either side the prairie gave way to steep hills, then to thick evergreen forests above, and then, reaching to the sky, craggy mountainsides finally became snowcapped. The mountains were omnipresent, yet so distant that they seemed almost mystical.

“I’m afraid that if I blink, they’ll disappear,” Stevie said to Christine, who was riding next to her.

Christine smiled. “Sometimes I think that mountains are nature’s way of reminding us that the earth has been around a lot longer than we have.”

“They do have that effect, definitely,” Stevie agreed.

“And the wind, too—the
cold
wind,” Christine added. Stevie didn’t say anything. “Like the wind that came into our poorly assembled tent last night.”

“Really? I didn’t notice anything,” Stevie said finally. She had the funny feeling that Christine didn’t believe her.

C
AROLE COULDN
’
T DECIDE
which she liked best: the meadow part of the trail or the wooded part. She loved the vast view from the high mountain meadow, but she also loved the pine smell of the forest. She discussed the issue with John.

“Yes,” he said.

“Yes, what?” she asked. “Which do you like best?”

“Yes means I like them both.”

Carole laughed. “Yes” was a good answer to the question.

It was getting warmer. Carole removed her windbreaker and her sweater and tied them around her waist. She was glad for the cowboy hat that kept the bright sunshine off her face and neck and out of her eyes. Soon she was rolling up her sleeves and wishing for a cool breeze.

From the front of the line, Eli began singing. He had a
nice voice, which carried back to the other riders. Soon Carole and the others joined in on the familiar cowboy song, “The Streets of Laredo.” Carole had never been much of a singer and always found herself embarrassed to sing in public, even in groups, but there was something suggestive about the even beat of the horses’ footsteps at the walk that made singing seem like a logical activity. When Eli moved them up to a trot, they changed songs, shifting to the brisker “Camptown Races.”