Bear Adventure (14 page)

It wasn't half an hour. It took Amazon a gruelling hour to reach the top. It was one of those very annoying big hills (or small mountains) that is made up of a series of ridges, each one looking convincingly like it might be the last. She never really had to do any proper climbing, but she often had to scramble on hands and knees to get up the trickier sections.

What made it all rather worse was that, for the first time since they'd flown into the mountains, it began to rain. And with the rain the temperature fell. Climbing on dry rocks can be fun: climbing on wet rocks never, ever is. Amazon began to regret that she hadn't brought proper climbing boots, or at least some stout walking shoes, rather than just her trainers. And she was cold.

She looked at her hands. They were filthy. She had planned to wash in the beaver pond that morning, but being attacked by wolves can drive little issues like personal hygiene out of your mind.

She kept checking behind her, but the same system of ridges that obscured the summit also soon took Frazer and the others beyond her sight. She hoped they'd all be OK in the rain. She'd grown very fond of the little boy and the little bear in the short time they'd been together.

The next ridge was the toughest so far. It was steep and wet, and the cold had grown more intense. Winter was coming, she sensed. Up here there was a constant nagging wind that cut through her clothing. Her TRACKS expedition outfit was waterproof and windproof, but Amazon really wished she had a couple more layers to keep her warm.

The last few metres to the top of the ridge were horrendous. It now suddenly did feel a little like real mountain climbing, as she hauled herself up, needing to find both hand- and footholds. She looked quickly back again, and was delighted to see, for the first time in ages, the distant figures of Frazer, Ben and Goldilocks. They were playing a game of tag down there. She thought about shouting and waving, but she needed both her hands to avoid a nasty fall.

She finally scrambled to the top of the ridge, and looked to see how difficult the next one would be.

And what she saw made her sigh.

There was nothing. Or, rather, there was everything. She was at the top. The wide world fell away in every direction. From up here Amazon could
see the endless forests of pine and fir. She could see dozens of lakes, and countless streams and rivers. She could see the flatter land beyond the range of the coastal mountains. And there, behind her, perhaps some nine or ten miles away, was the grey magnificence of Mount Humboldt. She carefully took her bearings. It was due west.

Perfect.

No complications, nothing to forget or muddle up. Amazon saw that, if they followed one of the streams that flowed not far from where Frazer and the others had stopped, they would be taken almost straight back to that mountain. And once there it would be easy to pick up the trail back to camp and the reassuring presence of Uncle Hal. It was a long road back, and a tough one, but knowing that they were going the right way was in itself a huge boost: nothing saps the energy like the fear that you've taken a wrong turning and all your efforts are futile.

She'd almost forgotten the binoculars hanging round her neck. She hadn't needed them to work out the way back, but now she used them to scour the land for any sign of life – whether it be the hunters skulking out there to kill, or, as she dreamed, her parents. She could imagine them sitting together round a fire, arm in arm, thinking of her just as she was dreaming of them.

But it was impossible. The world was so huge. There were so many thousands of square miles of
wilderness. The binoculars were actually worse than just looking with her own two eyes – they took her in too close. It would take years to check out the full view like this. She let them fall back around her neck. She had a last look at the view, taking in all its magnificence and grandeur under the glowering grey skies.

OK, enough grandeur, Amazon told herself. It was going to be a long journey back to the camp, and she had no intention of spending another night with the wolves for company. She began the awkward journey back down the hillside.

And then she stopped.

Something had registered with her subconscious mind. What was it? She had already clambered down a couple of tricky metres. She glanced back at the summit, thought about ignoring the little mind-worm in her head and carrying on back to the others, groaned and climbed again those nasty, knuckle-grazing metres.

She stood again on the flat top of the mountain – a space no bigger than a kitchen table – and turned slowly round, trying to bring into focus what it was that was needling her.

There.

In a valley between two lower hills. Something strange about the trees. Something not natural.

She put the binoculars to her eyes again and twisted the focusing ring. Blurred and then sharp.
Suddenly the trees that had been so far away seemed almost close enough to touch.

Yes, there definitely seemed to be a pattern. The trees had been cut and arranged in a way that looked man-made. It almost reminded Amazon of Frazer's lean-to shelter that had protected them the previous night. The branches of the spruce and pine seemed to form a roof. A roof over what? She refocused the binoculars. There, a glint of something just projecting from the boughs. She took the binoculars away and looked with her naked eyes. Was there also a lighter grey showing up against the slate grey of the sky? Something that could be a wisp of smoke?

Once more she looked through the binoculars.

And now she was sure that she knew what it was, lying there beneath the deliberate camouflage of the branches.

A tangle of wreckage. A tangle of wreckage in which Amazon could make out something long and slender …

It was a plane.

A plane that had crashed.

And there, above it, a tendril of smoke from a dying fire.

That could mean only one thing …

Her head spun and she so nearly fell from that flat mountaintop. She boiled and bubbled with excitement, hope and fear.

She looked towards Frazer and the others. They seemed so far away. But something – some special sense – told her that Frazer was looking at her. She waved her arms frantically. And yes, he waved back. He could see her. She screamed at the top of her voice.

‘PLANE! MY PARENTS' PLANE!'

Frazer waved again. She heard his voice calling back, but couldn't make out what he was saying.

Amazon looked back to the plane. The slope on that side of the mountain was smooth and easy. She
could literally run down that hill, the way she had countless times as a girl in the English countryside, right into the waiting arms of her dad. She could get down there to her parents in minutes. The alternative was the difficult and dangerous and time-consuming journey back down the tough side to the others, and then the agonizingly slow trek round the mountain to the crash site. And what if something happened to Ling-Mei and Roger in that time? There were bears, wolves, cougars … She would never forgive herself.

She waved again at Frazer, getting his attention. She pointed back down to where the wreck was. She tried to signal that she was going to go straight down to it, and that he should follow the line of the mountain round to meet her. Again Frazer waved back.

It was enough for Amazon. He'd understood. He would meet her there. It's what she wanted to believe. Without another thought, she plunged down towards the plane, towards her longed-for reunion with her mum and dad.

Frazer looked up at Amazon. The steady drizzle was in his eyes. He wiped them clear with the sleeve of his jacket. His cousin was waving, and he sensed that she was shouting something. Was it a warning? He waved and shouted back.

‘Are you OK, Zonnie? What can you see?'

He could tell that she was excited. Or agitated. Or frightened.

‘Can we go home now, please,' whined Ben. He was soaked to the skin and shivering. Frazer had tried to keep them all warm by playing tag, but the little boy was even more tired than he was cold.

‘Soon, little guy,' he said. ‘Real soon. Amazon is just trying to find the right path. You just carry on being a brave soldier. Remember, you're the guy with the spear.'

Ben looked at the spear in his hand, and then threw it away.

‘Don't want the spear. Don't want you. Don't want Zomazon. Want my mommy and my daddy.'

The little boy then cast himself down on the bleak, shelterless hillside and cried his heart out, his sobs echoing off the hard rock.

Frazer moved to comfort him. He got there in a second, but Goldilocks was there before him, nuzzling at Ben's neck and face. Frazer crouched over both of them, trying to share his warmth, using his body to protect them from the rain.

When he next looked up to where Amazon had been at the top of the mountain, he saw nothing but huge grey skies, and the looming black of storm clouds. Even as he looked, he felt a change in the texture of the rain that had been falling. It was harder now – not in the sense that more of it was falling. No, it was harder because it had undergone the subtle change from rain to sleet.

And those black clouds above them could mean only one thing. That the sleet was going to turn to snow. The first big fall of the season.

‘Where are you, Zonnie?' he said to himself, hoping that he would see her again soon as she came over one of the ridges.

‘Where are you?'

Amazon didn't climb, walk or even run down the side of the mountain.

She flew.

Her feet moved so quickly that they barely made contact with the ground. It was a miracle that she didn't trip or slip and fall. Had she done so, it might well have been fatal. She could have slid, gathering momentum until she crashed into one of the boulders that littered the slope, and broken her neck.

But this was not Amazon Hunt's time to die.

She was down the mountain in twenty minutes. Another ten took her to the opening of the gully where the wreck was. The smoke from the fire was gone now, either obscured by the trees or drowned out by the rain.

No, not rain, sleet now.

She called out, her voice harsh and cracked with emotion.

‘Mum, Dad, I'm here! I'm here!'

She felt like a tiny child again, in need of their comfort and protection, but also like a hero, their rescuer, the person who had come to save them.

‘Mummy!' she screamed again, as she ran through a stream, the freezing water splashing unnoticed over her legs. She couldn't see the wreck any longer, but she knew that it was here, just beyond this bend in the gully.

Her lungs ached, but ached in some remote place, some unimportant part of her, so she ignored the discomfort and sped on.

And there it was, hidden beneath the overhanging branches: the tangle of torn metal.

The plane was tiny – smaller than the little floatplane that Uncle Hal had flown them in on. Amazon ran past the wheels of the undercarriage, which had been torn off in the crash-landing. A crash-landing she was now imagining all too vividly. She saw that the windscreen had been shattered, and the tail section completely sheared off.

‘Mum! Dad!' she called again. But already she knew that her shouts were futile.

There was nobody here. She was alone, beside a wrecked plane in the middle of the Canadian wilderness. The sleet struck heavily against her face and mingled with the tears. It was hopeless. So hopeless. Her parents were dead and gone.

Dead and gone.