A Week in the Woods (14 page)

Mark imagined the commotion. People running around, searching all the cabins, calling his name. And Mr. Maxwell would probably be in tons of trouble for letting a kid get lost.
Lost! That's a good one,
thought Mark with a smile.

But then he thought,
Maybe they've called the police. And Leon and Anya. And my parents. Because they think I'm lost. And maybe the school will have to cancel the whole program, send all the kids home tomorrow so they can search. For me.

And that brought Mark to a complete stop at a bend in the trail. The seriousness of what he was doing struck him full force. He was mad at Mr. Maxwell, but he didn't want to ruin the week for everyone else. Plus get himself in more and more trouble.

Mark sat on the trunk of a big fallen pine tree that lay along one side of the trail. He shrugged off his pack and unzipped the outer pouch. He rustled through his
school papers until he found what he wanted: the map Mrs. Farr had handed out in social studies. It was a map of the whole park. It wasn't printed very clearly, but Mark found the Barker Falls Trail. He identified the spur that he'd seen a while back that headed off to the right. It went about a quarter of a mile to a tent platform.

And sitting there studying the map, Mark saw a way back. But it wasn't just a way back. It was a way
out,
out of the mess he'd started to stir up. The map showed a trail that looped off to the left from the main trail and wound back down to the campground. This loop trail ended up on the far side of the main lodge, away from all the cabins and the council clearing, almost to the parking lots.
Perfect!
he thought.
I take that trail back down, spend the night close to the campground, and then show up in the morning! All I have to do is wander out of the woods over by the parking lot—maybe act like I got lost!

And then Mark thought that maybe he should let himself be found tonight.
No sense making everyone worry all night. All I have to do is find that trail. It's right here on the map. It has to be close by.

Happy with this decision, Mark allowed himself another drink of water and the rest of the energy bar he had nibbled on earlier.

As he stood up and turned around to pull on his pack, Mark saw the trail. It was right there, just behind
where he'd been sitting. The big pine tree had almost hidden it, but now Mark saw it clear as day, angling off to the left. He stepped up onto the log, jumped down on the far side, and set off along the trail, his heart much lighter and his mind at peace.

* * *

At five o'clock Mr. Maxwell stopped to catch his breath and evaluate the situation. As he ran down the facts, he counted them off on his fingers.

Fact: I've come about three and a half miles from camp.

Fact: No boy in sight.

Fact: The trail's getting harder—steeper and rockier.

Fact: Mark has to be close now, he has to be worn out.

Fact: It's cloudy, but it won't start to get dark until seven or so.

Fact: If I find Mark in the next hour, we can get back to camp before dark.

The last two facts got Mr. Maxwell moving again. Time was running out. It was going to get cold tonight, probably down below freezing. In an hour he'd have to turn back whether he'd found Mark or not. That would mean the boy would have to spend the night alone on the mountain. And Mr. Maxwell found that thought unacceptable. He fastened the top button of his jacket and set off again, picking up his pace.

Ten minutes later Mr. Maxwell lost Mark's tracks. No boot prints. Doubling back about two hundred
yards, he found the problem. A big pine tree had been cut down and the log had been laid along the left side of the main trail. And there were Mark's prints. Mr. Maxwell could see that Mark had sat down and taken off his pack. Then he'd stood up, stepped up onto the log, and gone off onto the other side. He'd taken the side trail.

Mr. Maxwell looked at the tracks, and then looked at the trail heading off to the left. And he took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

Mr. Maxwell knew that trail. He'd hiked it lots of times. It was a loop trail. It looped around back to the campground, but not directly. That trail went across the side of the mountain and then up steeply to a high ridge before it cut back down. The views were beautiful, so beautiful that the trail had been overused—too many hikers. And then the heavy spring rains had caused some serious erosion. Some dangerous erosion.

The thick pine log had been laid across the head of the trail for a reason. That trail had been closed for three years.

Mark was glad Anya had made him take his stocking cap.

He'd been hiking on the loop trail for about half an hour. A stiff breeze had come up, making the brisk air feel much colder. He'd had to stop and fish the hat out of the zippered compartment on the top of his pack, and now his ears were warm again.

The scrub oak trees on either side of the trail still held some of their dry leaves from the previous fall, and when the gusts swept up the hillside, the rustling sound reminded Mark of waves breaking along a beach. The bare branches of the maple and birch trees swayed and tapped against each other, and high overhead where the wind was stronger, the pine trees waved and sighed.

Mark noticed from the start that this loop trail
wasn't nearly as wide as the main trail had been. He had to keep a sharp lookout for the markers. The ones on this trail were blue, and there weren't as many of them. Sometimes they were almost hidden by tree branches. A few times when the trail wasn't obvious, Mark searched until he found the next little blue circle, or the next splotch of faded blue paint on a rock. And it didn't help that in some places the pine and hemlock trees were thick enough to dim the fading daylight.

Mark tried not to think about it, but his pack had begun to feel heavier. A lot heavier. Mark knew he was getting tired. He knew he was slowing down some, too.
But that's okay,
he thought.
I'm just going back to the campground, and even if it gets dark, I've got a flashlight. And the trail is mostly downhill, right?
So Mark ignored his body's call for rest. He kept pushing ahead.

As Mark walked out of a thick grove of birch and hemlock trees, the trail made a sharp turn to his right, angling up across a stretch of mostly open hillside. Only a few scruffy oaks and low junipers clung to the slope. The climb would be steep, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was that the trail wasn't really a trail anymore. It looked more like the rocky bed of an uphill river. Where the trail used to be there was a crazy jumble of granite boulders, some of them as big as washing machines. To go up that way, Mark saw he'd
have to pick out a path either above the gullied trail, or just below it.

Or,
he thought,
I could find a different way.

Mark dug the map out of his pants pocket and unfolded it. He saw the sharp turn that the trail took on the map and thought,
So that means I'm right here.
The trail headed uphill for a stretch, then went left for a half mile along a ridge, and then the trail turned left once more and went almost straight downhill toward the campground.

Mark looked uphill at the boulders. And then turning left to face the hemlock and birch grove, he thought,
According to the map, if I just go straight that way, then in about half a mile I'll come to the trail again, the part that heads down to the campground. Then I won't have to fight my way uphill at all.
It seemed simple to Mark, especially since he was tired and hungry and his legs and feet and shoulders were hurting. Then he thought,
Still, I'd better use my compass.

So he took off his pack once more, pulled his compass out of the front pouch, and did some quick thinking. The map showed that the uphill part of the trail was heading north. Then at the ridge, the trail made a left turn, which meant it would be heading roughly west; and since the trail turned left again to go downhill, that would mean it was running almost straight south.
So from where I'm standing,
Mark said to himself,
I go west, and that'll take me directly across to the downhill part of the trail. I get to the trail, and turn left, which is south. Simple.

With a groan Mark heaved his pack up onto his back and fastened the buckles and straps. He looped the lanyard of his compass over his head. Then he opened the cover of the compass and turned the whole thing until the red end of the magnetic needle lined up with the N on the case. Then keeping the compass still and steady, Mark turned himself until north was to his right, and he was facing toward the letter W on the compass case—due west.

And then Mark started walking. Working his way westward, Mark found that the going was a lot harder. It wasn't like walking on a trail. He had to duck under low branches, step over fallen limbs and trees, and push his way through tangled brush. His framepack felt even heavier, and it kept getting caught on things as he worked his way forward. There were occasional rocky stretches where there was less brush, but picking his way among the rocks and outcroppings wasn't easy either.

Mark had checked his compass every thirty steps or so. He had also taken care not to drift downhill to his left as he walked across the shoulder of the mountain. When large outcroppings or dense brush had pushed him off course, he had always adjusted for the detour and gotten himself going due west again—
straight toward the trail that would lead him back to camp. And Mark had tried his best to count his steps and estimate his distance. He had done everything right.

That's why, after thirty minutes of walking, Mark couldn't understand why he hadn't found the trail yet. After forty-five minutes he began to wonder if his compass was working properly. And after almost an hour Mark thought maybe Mrs. Farr's map was wrong. So he stopped to look at it again.

But it wasn't the map's fault. And Mark's compass wasn't to blame. It was the forest. The forest had tricked him—that, plus his own inexperience.

A more experienced hiker would have known that a log laid across a trailhead means “trail closed.” If Mark had known that, then maybe he wouldn't have been looking for a trail that was wide and clear and worn away like the other one had been. And if Mark had known that the trail he was trying to find had been closed for three years, then he might have kept a more careful lookout for it. Because three years is a long time in the forest.

For the past three years every tree and plant alongside the unused trail had stretched its branches out into the open space, reaching for more light—first the ferns and the scrub oak and the blueberry bushes, then the evergreens and the hardwoods. And on the trail bed itself the winged maple seeds and the pine cones
and the acorns and the layers of roots had been hard at work, trying to reclaim their ground. The seedlings and the runners had sent their roots into the boot-softened soil to soak up the water that pooled on the path after every rain. Without the almost daily pounding of hiking boots, new plants and shoots had grown and flourished.

And that's why, at the particular place where Mark had crossed the downhill leg of the loop trail, his eyes saw only more forest.

After looking at Mrs. Farr's map and then looking at his watch again, Mark realized that somehow, somewhere he must have missed the trail. So he made a good decision. He decided to backtrack. He turned himself around, checked his compass, and headed due east.

As he walked, Mark thought back to Saturday, just two nights ago. He'd gone outside after dinner to mess around down by the little pond behind his house, and he'd watched the sunset at about seven fifteen. It had stayed light for quite a while after that. That's because on Saturday the sky had been clear. Not today. Today the clouds were thick and dark. It was only quarter of seven, and the daylight was fading fast. And it was also getting colder.

Instinctively Mark picked up his pace. He wanted to find the trail down to the campground before dark. Mark took forty steps, and stopped to check his
compass. Another forty steps, another compass check.

It was when Mark stopped to check his compass the fifth time.

From far ahead and uphill, sort of off to his left, he heard something.

“Maaark . . .”

At first he thought he had imagined it. Someone shouting? Mark stood still, pulled off his stocking cap, and held his breath.

“Maaark . . .”

No mistake this time. Someone was calling his name.

And Mark was sure of something else. That voice? That was Mr. Maxwell. Yelling his name.

Quick anger surged up in Mark's chest. To be tracked down and caught by Mr. Maxwell! To be led back to the campground, to be dragged off to the blue pickup truck and driven home! To face suspension and all the rest of it!

Mark turned and started running, blindly running, running anywhere, just away. Away from that voice, away from that man.

“Maaark . . .”

Rushing fiercely, rushing wildly, Mark pushed through the brush and charged downhill. Jumping over logs and boulders, he slapped the low branches aside as he thrashed forward.

“Maaark . . .”

Mark didn't realize how tired he was, but his body knew. He was asking too much of it, pushing too hard and too fast. The slope of the land pulled him forward, demanding split-second decisions. As he jumped down a four-foot drop, Mark expected his legs to absorb the shock of the landing. They refused.

It wasn't a bad fall, but gravity and speed and the weight of the framepack made it a hard one. Mark got his hands up in time to keep from smashing his face on the rocky ground, and he felt a chunk of rock bite into the heel of his left palm.

Mark lay still, sprawled and panting.