Wilder Boys (14 page)

Jake had to agree.

Since they didn't have any cooking utensils, they skewered the fish on sticks and held them over the fire.

“This is like roasting marshmallows,” Taylor said. “Only better.”

“Yeah,” Jake said, giving Cody a scratch with his free hand. Already, his mouth watered at the prospect of eating his first real meal in two days. The boys had cooked bluegill at camp the previous summer, but they'd had a frying pan and butter for those. They weren't sure how long a trout was supposed to cook, so they held the fish over the flames until the skins had turned crisp and black. Then they began picking the flesh off with their fingers.

“Oh, that's
good
,” Taylor moaned, slurping down a bite.

“Yeah,” said Jake. “Right now I'm pretty sure it's the best food on earth!”

Taylor laughed and fed a couple bites of fish to Cody, who sat begging for more.

“Best of all,” he said, “that lake is full of fish. When we're done, let's go back and get some more.”

“No arguments here,” said Jake.
If we'd gone much longer without decent food, we'd be finished,
he thought.

Just then, though, a loud voice called, “Hey, you! What are you doing over there?”

“Crap!” Jake said, leaping to his feet, followed immediately by Taylor and Cody.

A man in a dark green pants and a gray button-down shirt stepped out of the trees only thirty feet away.

“What are you boys doing here?” the ranger repeated, approaching them.

Cody growled softly.

“Uh, nothing,” Taylor said.

“We were just building a campfire to keep the mosquitoes away,” said Jake.

“Do you have a backcountry camping permit?”

“Uh—” Taylor began, but Jake cut him off.

“We didn't realize we needed it,” said Jake. “Can you give us one?”

The ranger studied them. “How old are you boys, and where are your parents?”

“They're, um, camping back down the road. We're supposed to join up with them later.”

The ranger frowned. He said, “Well, you're breaking about five park regulations right now, including camping without a permit, building an open fire in an undesignated location, having a dog in bear country, and from what I can see, fishing without a license. I don't suppose you have one of those either, do you?”

“We lost it,” Taylor blurted out.

Great,
Jake thought.
Why not just tell him that Cody ate it?

The ranger made a small murmuring sound and then said, “I see. Well, in that case, I think we need to put this fire out. Then you boys will have to come with me.”

Jake's heart thundered.

If we go with him, he'll figure out who we are and send us back to Bull. We'll never find Dad.

“We didn't mean to do anything wrong,” Jake said.

“I'm sure you didn't,” said the ranger. “But rules are rules.”

“Can we just get our stuff? It's right over there.” Jake pointed toward their shelter.

The ranger nodded. “But make it snappy. We've got to put out this fire.”

“O-okay. Thanks.”

Jake, Taylor, and Cody walked toward their shelter. Jake could feel the ranger's eyes following them, and then heard the ranger speaking on his radio.

“Jake, what are we going to do?” Taylor whispered.

“How fast can you run?” Jake whispered back.

They reached their shelter and quickly stuffed their packs with their belongings.

“What about the berries?” Taylor whispered.

“Leave 'em. We can find more.”

“You kids ready yet?” the ranger called.

Jake glanced over to see the man walking toward them.

“Now!” Jake shouted. “Fast!”

17
The boys set off running, Cody close behind. They scrambled through some trees and made their way back down to the lakeshore. The ranger hollered at them again, and Jake thought he heard footsteps, but when he looked back, he saw that the man had given up the chase. Instead he was talking into his radio.

“We've got to find someplace to hide—and fast!” Jake told his brother.

“Yeah, but where?”

Jake quickly studied the lakeshore in front of them. It ran east–west, but a steep mountain slope came down to meet it from the north, leaving only a thin strip to walk along.

An easy place to get trapped by another ranger.

Their only other choice was to follow one of the creek
drainages that dropped down to the lake. Jake didn't know where it led, but he made a quick decision.

“C'mon,” he told Taylor. “Up here.”

“Where's this go?”

“I don't know, but if we stay next to the lake, they'll catch us for sure.”

They hurried up the rocky ravine. Though a few trees clung to the ridges above, the stream bed and its banks were rocky and exposed.

“Do you think they'll send a helicopter to find us?” Taylor asked, reading Jake's mind.

“I don't know,” said Jake, already gasping from the climb.

Must be the altitude,
he thought. The Tetons weren't Mount Everest, but they had to be a lot higher above sea level than Pittsburgh.

Taylor's chest also heaved with the effort. Only Cody seemed to take the climb in stride.

They kept following the little stream as it grew even steeper. Soon they found themselves at the base of a large scree field. To their left, the route kept climbing up to a moonscape of rock and snow. Without a tree in sight, there was nowhere to hide.

Not a place we want to get stuck,
Jake thought.

To the right, however, the brothers could see a small ridge that might just lead to somewhere better.

“What about up there?” Taylor pointed, panting.

Jake took another thin gulp of air. “Uh . . . yeah.”

The trio left the stream and began scrambling up the steep slope on their right. It was tough going. The scree slid out from under their shoes, and they were soon using both their hands and feet to make their way.

“I feel like a mountain goat,” Taylor said, gasping.

Jake was sucking in too much air to answer. After fifteen minutes, though, they reached the upper section of the ridge. The boys paused, exhausted, and collapsed onto the rocky ground.

“Wow,” Jake said.

From where they sat, they looked down on a small valley. Even though it was July, a snowfield filled more than half of it. Below that, a small stream of meltwater flowed down the valley, eventually entering a lake much larger than any they'd seen so far.

“Is that Jackson Lake?” Taylor asked, pulling his water bottle from his pack. He took a big swig and then handed it to his brother. Jake also gulped noisily from the bottle, and then he took out the topographic map he'd gotten at the ranger station.

Taylor crowded in to look over his shoulder while Jake traced their route.

“Yep. That's Jackson Lake, all right,” said Jake.

“Man, it's huge!”

“According to this map, it's about five miles across and ten miles long.” “Do you think this is where the waterfall is?” Taylor asked. “The one Dad told us to find?”

“Maybe,” said Jake. “But I don't know how we're going to find it. I don't know what Dad was thinking. ‘Look across the moose's neck'? I mean, c'mon.”

“Well, there's gotta be moose down there,” Taylor said.

“Sure, but I don't think Dad was talking about a real moose, do you?”

Taylor shrugged. “Only way to know what he meant is to start searching.”

Jake sighed. He knew Taylor was right, but looking at the size of the area they had to cover made him feel more doubtful than ever that they could find their father.

“Let's go down to the lake and set up a new camp,” said Taylor. “I want to catch some more fish. I could have eaten ten of those!”

“It's too risky,” said Jake. “Even if they don't send a helicopter, the rangers will be looking for us by now. We'd better find someplace to hide tonight.”

Taylor nodded reluctantly. The boys and Cody began descending the other side of the ridge. They walked down to the snowfield and, just for fun, crunched their way across it. Then they followed the snowmelt stream down through a small shallow valley toward Jackson Lake. Instead of continuing down to the lake, however, they turned north and walked toward another rocky ridge. On their left, they saw an even larger snow and ice field.

“Is that a glacier?” Taylor wondered.

Jake again consulted the map. “Yeah, I think it is.”

“Wish I had a camera,” said Taylor. “Mom would never believe that her boys were standing beneath a real live glacier.”

At the mention of their mother, both boys fell silent.

Is she even alive?
Jake thought, but he kept his question to himself.

They continued walking, climbing the next steep rocky ridge. Again, it was a tough slog, and again, the boys stopped at the top, gasping for air. Below them, though, they saw a hidden depression—a cirque carved by long-gone glaciers, according to their father's journal.

“You think we should hide down there tonight?”

Jake glanced up at the sky, and for the first time noticed heavy clouds rolling in.

“Yeah,” Jake said. “It'll be dark in a couple of hours.”

Making their way into the cirque proved easier said than done. The boys had to carefully pick their way down the steep slope, and both brothers slid on the loose rock several times. Only Cody remained sure-footed, and he kept turning around as if to say,
What's keeping you slackers?

They made it into the cirque just as real darkness began closing in and, almost immediately, the temperature began falling. The trio explored the area for some sort of shelter, but they didn't find much. Eventually they found a rock overhang—not even a cave—that just might offer some protection. Unfortunately, the gathering clouds immediately put that to the test.

Jake felt a fat drop of water hit him on the bridge of the nose. Several more followed. Then frozen pellets began raining down on them.

“Hail!” Jake said. “Quick, into the cave.”

The boys ducked under the overhang and put on every piece of clothing they owned. As they were pulling on their raincoats, several pieces of hail tumbled down their necks and under their T-shirts.

“Brrr!” Taylor said, but both he and Jake started laughing. “One minute it's hot, the next, there's hailstones! Can you believe it?”

Even though he'd never experienced it before, Jake had read how unpredictable mountain weather could be. He, Taylor, and Cody burrowed even deeper into their shelter.

Suddenly the brothers saw a flash, like a giant camera going off. Two seconds later, a deafening blast shook the glacial cirque. Taylor and Jake looked at each other, astonished, while Cody burrowed deep between them.

Almost immediately, they saw a bolt of lightning strike the ridge on the opposite side of the cirque, and another cannon blast of thunder assaulted them.

“Man, this is better than the fireworks back home!” Taylor shouted over the roar of the storm.

Jake nodded, but he wasn't enjoying the display quite as much as his brother.
What would Mom think, knowing that we were here now? If we'd stayed in Pittsburgh, at least we'd have food and a warm bed.

Then he thought of Bull.

No,
he corrected himself.
That psychopath would have found a way to get to us. As rough as this is, we're better off here—no matter how dangerous it is.

The boys continued to watch the spectacular lightning show. At one point, they saw a brilliant blue-white bolt strike a tree on the opposite ridge. He couldn't tell for sure, but Jake thought he saw the tree glow orange and shatter the instant the lightning hit it.

When the storm finally moved on, it left the tiny valley eerily quiet. Then Jake heard something that made him snap to attention.

“Jake, did you hear that?”

“Yeah—what was it?” Jake murmured. The boys listened hard and then heard the cry once more, clearly this time.

“Jake!” Taylor said, straightening up. “Someone's calling for help!”

18
With Cody in the lead, the brothers scrambled out from under their overhang. By now the clouds had cleared, and the light from the waxing quarter moon illuminated the area with a surprisingly brilliant glow.

“Which way was it coming from?” Jake asked.

“Across there, I think. Near those trees.”

The boys made their way to the other side of the cirque and paused, listening.

“Help!” a strained voice called out.

Following Cody, the boys reached the edge of a small group of trees at the base of a rocky slope. There, they found a man lying on the rough ground, his right arm pinned under a boulder the size of their dishwasher back home.

Cody barked and ran up to the man, then licked his grizzled face.

“Geez!” Taylor exclaimed. “What happened?”

The man grunted in pain. “Wouldn't believe me if I told you. Can you get this rock off me?”

“Yeah, sure! Help me, Jake!”

Together the boys squatted on either side of the man and reached under the edges of the boulder.

“On three,” Jake said. “One, two, three,
lift
!”

The boys grunted together, pushing off with their legs.

The boulder didn't budge.

“Don't think you're gonna get her like that,” the man said. “Get the rope outta my pack.”

A few yards away lay a large well-worn internal frame backpack.

“Right pocket,” the man instructed.

Jake unzipped the side pocket of the pack and pulled out a length of nylon climbing rope.

“Either of you know how to tie a bowline knot?” the man asked.

“We both do,” said Taylor. “We learned it at camp last summer.”