Count Me In (14 page)

They searched along the bank, trudging through layers of branches and thick silt, until they finally found the canoe under some huckleberry bushes. It was scratched, but otherwise in good shape.

“Time to get going,” Cedar said. “We'll get it when we come back.” Halfway up the trail, they stopped for a water break. Tabitha lay down with her head on her pack and stared at the treetops. Everything felt different from the first trip up the mountain. She knew where they were going. Her legs didn't ache. Her shoulders were used to the weight of the pack. There was something else too, but she couldn't quite place it.

She laughed out loud when she figured it out.

“What?” Cedar said.

“There aren't any mosquitoes.”

“The frost killed them.”

Tabitha stretched her arms and legs. It felt great to be alive. “Good for the frost.” She lifted a pinecone from the forest floor. “Did you know that pinecones are an example of the Fibonacci sequence?”

“The what?”

“The Fibonacci sequence. You know. One, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen. Didn't you study it in math?”

“Maybe. It sounds sort of familiar,” Cedar said.

Tabitha held up the pinecone. “The spirals at the base of a pinecone always come in Fibonacci numbers.” She traced the spirals. “See, if you count them this way, there are eight.” She reversed directions. “If you count this way, there are thirteen.”

Cedar grinned. “You are so weird. But that's cool.”

Their next stop was the lake. Tabitha realized she'd been holding her breath, expecting Max to come bounding across the beach to greet them. But the lake was still. Not even a ripple broke the surface.

Cedar turned up the path to the hut. Tabitha followed, her shoulders drooping. She'd been so sure they'd find Max. Had she come all this way for nothing? It had been eight days since she'd lost him. She'd been kidding herself. Of course he hadn't survived.

As they approached the hut, Tabitha's pace slowed. Her senses prickled, feeling the air for the bear, as if she had antennae that would perceive it in the bushes.

Something whined.

Tabitha stopped. “Cedar, something's up there.”

“Probably a squirrel.”

“That wasn't a squirrel. What if it's the bear?” Tabitha whispered.

They heard it again.

“Maybe it's a bear cub,” Tabitha said.

Cedar stopped. “It sounds like a whimper. I think it's under the steps of the hut.”

Suddenly, Tabitha knew what it was. Putting aside all thoughts of the bear, she pushed past Cedar and ran for the stairs. She threw her pack on the ground and crawled underneath. Curled in a ball, snuggled amongst the bushes, lay Max. A very dirty, skinny, but otherwise healthy-looking Max.

“Max!” Tabitha shouted. The dog pushed himself to all fours and climbed on top of her, pushing her to the ground. She laughed as he licked her face. “I knew I'd seen you!” She wrapped her arms around his belly. “You must be starving. You're so skinny.”

Cedar hurried up behind her. “Max!” Tears wet his eyes. Max trampled over Tabitha in his rush to get to Cedar, and the two of them rolled on the ground in a joyful reunion.

After a few minutes Cedar sat up and furrowed his brows. “I didn't believe you, Tabitha. And now we don't have enough food for Max.”

Tabitha grinned and reached for her pack. She pulled out the bag of dog food that she'd bought on the way to the bus. “I was thinking positively.”

Max leaped for the bag and tried to grab it from her hands.

“Oh no you don't,” Cedar said. “You'll get sick if you eat that all at once.” He held Max back as Tabitha poured the pellets into a plastic container she'd brought. Max slurped them up in three seconds and came looking for more.

“You can have more later,” Cedar said.

Tabitha stuffed the bag of dog food back in her pack. “Maybe we shouldn't go to the top now.”

Cedar eyed Max. “He can make it to the ridge. This is our only chance. We'll grab all the stuff on the way back.”

“Right. I guess we'd better go then.”

They shouldered their packs and started up the trail. Tabitha marked off sites in her mind as they passed—the spot she'd lost Max, the place she'd seen the bear the first time. Soon, however, they were around the lake and beginning to climb into new territory. Max trotted beside them, no worse for wear after more than a week on his own. Tabitha wondered if the squirrel population at the lake had gone down.

Cedar climbed in silence. Tabitha imagined the weight of Bruce's ashes pulling at his pack. Was he feeling guilty about scattering them without Tess and Ashley? Should she stop him?

After about forty-five minutes, the trail flattened. Cedar stopped beside a large boulder.

“This is the spot.”

Tabitha turned to look behind her. The view was stunning. Lake Lovely Water glistened below them, surrounded by mountain peaks mottled with cracked blue glaciers. Streaks of yellow and orange trees ran through the forests like rivers.

“My dad loved this view. Sometimes he'd hike up here before anyone else was awake, just to drink his tea and watch the sunrise.” Cedar sat on the boulder, staring at the red peak of the hut. Tabitha crouched beside him, stroking Max's fur.

“Let's do this,” Cedar said. He opened his pack and pulled out the box of ashes.

Tabitha stepped away to give him room. She couldn't believe he was really going to do it.

He held a finger in the air to check the breeze, then motioned her over with his head. “You should help.”

“Me?”

Cedar nodded. “After what we've been through, Dad would have wanted you to be a part of it.”

Tabitha swallowed and stepped forward. Cedar began to lift the lid off the box. Just before it opened, she grabbed his arm. “Stop!”

Cedar jerked back. “What's wrong?”

“You can't do this. It will kill your mom and Ashley. They'll never forgive you.”

Cedar wrapped his fingers tightly around the lid. “We have to end this. We need to move on.”

Tabitha gripped his arm. The sun gleamed on the peaks behind him. “You can still move on.” She swept her free hand in a circle, gesturing to the lake and the peaks. “It's about your memories. Not the ashes.”

Cedar didn't let go of the lid. He stared hard at Tabitha for a long minute. Max nuzzled his legs. Tabitha held her breath.

He nodded. “I guess you're right.” He held the box to his chest and turned toward the lake. After a moment he closed his eyes. He mumbled under his breath. Tabitha thought she heard the word
goodbye.
She stepped back and crouched to hug Max.

Several minutes later, Cedar wiped his cheeks with his sleeve. He stood and put the box in his pack.

Tabitha stepped forward and squeezed his hand. “Let's go home.”

Cedar parked the van in front of his house. Tabitha noticed her parents' car parked in the driveway. She was going to be in so much trouble, she didn't even want to think about it. But right now they had something more important to do.

Ashley opened the front door and ran out to meet them.

“This better be good, Cedar,” she said. “Everybody's freaking in there.”

Tabitha smiled and opened the van door. Max bounded out to greet Ashley, almost knocking her down. For once, her cousin was speechless. She stared from Max to Tabitha, to Cedar and back again, as Max licked and pawed her.

“How…What?” she stammered.

Cedar grinned. “Looks like you owe Tabitha an apology. She found him. Knew he was there all along.”

Tabitha held her breath, waiting for Ashley to lose it, to say that she was the one who hadn't wanted to leave.

But Ashley stayed quiet. After a moment she looked Tabitha straight in the eye and smiled. “Thanks.”

Tabitha nodded. Good enough.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

While the characters in this book are fictional, some of the events are based on the experiences of Jane Millen and her family on their hiking trip to Lake Lovely Water in the 1980s. I am indebted to Jane, my friend and hiking partner, for sharing her story with me and allowing me to change it to suit my purposes. I have taken some liberties with the setting, keeping some details as they would have been thirty years ago (there is a tram across the river now) and modernizing others (no cell phones in the eighties). All mistakes are mine.

Many people helped bring this book to fruition. Thanks to: Nona Rowat for sharing
Family Stories,
her book of memories about the trip; Merilyn Simonds, writer-in-residence extraordinaire, for invaluable feedback; Paulette Bourgeois and Laisha Ronsau for help with early drafts of the story; my editor Sarah Harvey for her eagle eye. Thanks also to Stella Harvey, Sue Oakey, Nancy Routley, Libby McKeever, Katherine Fawcett, Mary MacDonald, Rebecca Wood-Barrett, Lisa Richardson and Pam Barnsley of the Vicious Circle, without whom this story would be sitting in a drawer.

Many thanks to the staff, students and parents at Spring Creek Community School for their interest in and support of my writing.

And a huge hug to my family, for their faith in me, their unfailing support and their love.

SARA LEACH is a writer and teacher-librarian in Whistler, British Columbia. She loves hiking the nearby alpine trails with her husband and two children. Fortunately, they have never been stranded in any mountain huts, although they have endured many rainy days. Sara's first book for Orca was
Jake Reynolds: Chicken or Eagle?
To learn more about Sara, please visit saraleach.com.