Crow Mountain (21 page)

H
ope read aloud as Cal worked to make the cabin more comfortable.

‘I'll find something to eat in the morning.' He shook out the blankets and started to make up a bed in front of the fire he'd lit in the hearth. The little house, despite the cool night air coming in through the broken window, was tolerably warm, with the stove and a log fire burning. Hope came and sat on the bedding, cross-legged. Buddy sat with her.

‘He's not taking her back.'

Cal sat next to them, rubbing Buddy's ears. ‘Well, it is a long way, and he's just done the journey.'

‘That's not the point and you know it,' Hope said.

He sighed. ‘I'm trying to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. Like he says, he could have done anything he wanted
to her by now, but he hasn't.'

Hope smothered a yawn. ‘Hmm.'

‘Tired?'

‘Yes. I wish I had a toothbrush.'

He got up and went to the kitchen cupboard, looking inside and opening things. When he found what he wanted, he returned with one of the cups.

‘Old backwoods trick. Salt and a wet cloth. Scrub your teeth and rinse your mouth.'

They spat the salty water off the porch, looking up at the moon.

‘Gross.' Hope winced.

‘Gross but effective,' Cal corrected, wiping his mouth.

Back inside, they huddled down in their clothes beneath the quilt and the blankets. After their night in the open, sleeping next to each other didn't seem a big deal. Their empty stomachs growled and Hope shivered, tugging the rolled-up smock beneath her head.

‘You're cold?'

‘Freezing.'

He put his arm around her, her back to his chest, and pulled the coverlet tighter. ‘Better?'

‘Much, thank you.'

It wasn't warmer, because Cal was almost as cold as she was, but it was definitely much better than him not having his arm around her, so Hope reasoned with herself that it wasn't really a lie. Buddy lay down at their feet as she fell asleep, exhausted, one hand on the cover of the diary, the other
slipping inside Cal's on the quilt.

Soon after dawn, Cal nudged her. ‘Cooper? You're on me. And I need to get up.'

‘Sorry,' she mumbled, sleepy, and realizing she was sprawled across him. Pulling away, she curled in on herself into the covers.

Cal and Buddy went out immediately. Hope rubbed her eyes and sat up; it was another beautiful day. Going outside, she took a pee in the woods behind the house and washed her hands and face in the stream. When Cal returned, he brought more foraged duck potatoes, as well as water. His hair was wet and his shirt stuck to the definition of his chest.

Cal broke the silence as they finished eating, setting some aside for later. ‘I was thinking that they must have been in Fort Shaw pretty much the first year it existed officially. It was just a military outpost called Camp Reynolds before then.' He checked on the water, which was finally coming to the boil. ‘Wish I could have seen it. Read some more to me?'

By the time the coffee was made, Hope was breathless with excitement. They picked up their cups and went outside to the porch, sitting on the step.

‘
Hot, frightened perspiration trickled down inside the cold, wet shirt, making me shiver. What had I done? I knew nothing of how to survive in the wilderness—
' Hope broke off, looking out at the meadow. ‘I'm frightened for her.'

‘As long as
you
don't run off down the mountain, everything will be fine. Let's find something to eat.' He took the diary from her hands and put it on the porch, pulling her to
her feet.

‘Where would I go?' Hope looked at the vast wilderness around her. ‘And what will we find?'

‘You'll see.' He picked up the rifle and slung it over his shoulder.

‘Wait.' Hope went inside, taking the diary and returning with the satchel, looping it around her neck. ‘We might be able to use this.'

‘Good thinking.'

They walked down the mountainside, Cal scanning the ground.

‘What are you looking for?'

‘A lot of these flowers are edible. I'll pick some later. They won't give us calories, but they might make things more interesting.'

Through the forest, they walked to the lake. Hope was hot by the time they reached the shoreline. She splashed some water on her face and yelped at the chill.

He grinned. ‘It does stay pretty cold. But you know what that means?'

She shook her head.

‘It means the fish are good eating. Trout, mainly.'

‘But how are we going to catch fish?'

He held up his hand and waved his fingers. ‘With these.'

She wrinkled her nose. ‘People can't really do that, it's just in films.'

‘O ye of little faith,' he mocked, walking along the shoreline to where the stream from the cabin let out. It was wide and
more powerful this far down, and looked about waist-deep. The banks were made up of scrubby grass and plants. Cal lay down on his stomach, looking into the clear water and Hope lay down next to him, resting on her elbows. Buddy lay down too, then crawled to lay his belly over Cal's lower back.

Cal glanced over his shoulder. ‘Jeez, Buddy, you're a real help.'

The dog's face was split in a wide, panting grin. Hope stifled a giggle. A stiff breeze gusted from the lake and far out, towards a small island covered with dense pine, white-capped waves bounced. All around them, huge crags rose up and the pine trees shifted. The stream ran swiftly.

‘There, do you see?' Cal pointed, moving to his left a little.

Hope wriggled up next to him, watching. ‘No . . .'

‘Big trout, about six inches below the surface, facing into the stream. Just under that rock ledge.' He slipped his hand into the water, approaching the fish slowly. With his hand underneath its belly, he touched it carefully.

‘How long does it take?' Hope whispered.

‘Hard to tell. You don't know if it's going to work until you try to land it,' he whispered back. She watched, fascinated. A few minutes later, Cal tensed. ‘Buddy, get up, you great lump.' Buddy stood instantly and retreated a couple of paces. ‘Well, here goes nothing.'

He sat up, flinging the fish on to the grass then picking up the rifle, and hit the trout once, hard, on the head with the butt. Hope flinched.

‘Sorry, should have warned you,' he panted, more from
adrenalin than exertion.

The fish lay, inert and glistening on the bank. It took an hour to catch another one, during which time Hope dozed in the sun next to Cal's warm shoulder, head on her folded arms. When he was finished they walked back up the mountain in companionable silence. Butterflies flocked around them to the spring flowers and birds sang.

‘I can't stop thinking about them. I mean' – Hope gestured to the mountain – ‘this place has hardly changed since they were here.'

Cal nodded, thinking. ‘Look, up there. To the left of the cabin. See it? All those broken rails? I guess that's the corral.'

Hope followed his finger. ‘I see it.'

Back at the cabin, Cal went down to the stream to prepare the fish. It didn't take him long and he came back with both of them threaded on to a stick. Hope was sitting on the porch, reading the diary, Buddy at her feet.

‘Hey, you can't read it without me,' Cal protested. Taking the fish inside and resting the stick over the sink, he came back out and sat next to her. ‘Well, what's happening?'

‘Nate's not speaking to her. He kind of told her he loves her, I think, and she didn't understand, or pretended not to. And she can't survive out here without him, so she's stuck. Like a prisoner.'

‘Worse prisons to be in.'

Hope looked out at the view, hunched over her knees. ‘How come he was there to rescue her when there was no one else for miles?'

‘You think he was following them?'

‘Maybe. Maybe he caused the accident.'

‘Why would he?
How
could he? It was only by a fluke she survived. If he wants her, why take that chance? It'd be like me deliberately crashing the rig to get you up here.'

Hope laughed. ‘Was that why you kept insisting on the seat belt?'

He smiled and shook his head. ‘Know what, Cooper? With that imagination you
should
be a writer.'

For much of that day, they sat, absorbed in the diary and watching the clouds throw shadows across the mountain.

Hope broke off for a second, voice a little hoarse. ‘So, you think they'll know we should have arrived by now?'

Cal nodded. ‘About now. Problem is, they're used to me taking my time, so they probably won't start to worry until nightfall when I'm not answering my phone. Or you yours. Second problem is, there's not much reception up here anyway, miles and miles without it. Only kicks back in when you drop out of the national park. Might not cause them to think anything's wrong.'

‘So when will they start looking, do you think?'

He thought about it. ‘Tomorrow, maybe.'

‘So they'll find us tomorrow?'

‘Maybe, if they start looking during the day. Mom's pretty laid back. She may even wait until nightfall. I reckon we've got maximum another forty-eight hours before someone gets here.'

Hope sighed. ‘OK.' She smoothed her hands over the front cover of the diary. ‘At least we have this to keep us occupied.'

He nodded, running a hand over Buddy's coat. The dog panted in the sun. She picked at a splinter on the edge of the step, diary on her knees.

Cal spoke first. ‘Tell me about your friends.'

‘My friends? Well, there's Lauren. She and I have lived on the same road for ever and we hang out a lot when I'm home. She goes to normal school and she's great. But she's got lots of other friends, obviously, and she invites me to stuff but I get shy in big groups. And Scott's a genius and the funniest person I know. We spend the weekends together mostly.'

‘Scott?'

‘Yeah. He's another home-schooler, but that's because he's too clever for ordinary school and on the autism spectrum and his dad's some sort of professor of quantum mechanics or something. I met him on a Spanish conversation course last year.'

Cal studied Buddy's ears. ‘So why not date Scott?'

‘Well, I could . . . I suppose, if I wanted to play third fiddle to gaming and extremely freaky Japanese comics.'

They laughed for a long time. The afternoon was cooling and Cal got to his feet. ‘I'm going to check the stove's still alight, then rig up a spit out here for these fish.'

With a flat stone he scraped a small pit, then created a fire with a burning log from the stove. Hope searched for forked sticks that would support a spit and they banged them into the earth with the stone. It took a couple of hours to get up to
heat, but by the time the sun went down it was burning bright orange in the centre. The sunset was beautiful, spreading a reddish glow over the meadow and the lake. Hope wound her hair into a loose knot at the back of her head.

‘How do you get it to do that?' Cal asked.

‘What?' she asked, surprised.

‘Stay up like that, without pins.'

‘Oh, I don't know,' she said, both blithe and uncertain under his scrutiny. ‘It just kind of does.' She went inside and fetched a pan of water to boil the duck potatoes. By the time they were ready, Cal had gathered some greenery.

‘Fireweed. It's good. I eat it sometimes on the ranch if I see it.'

Hope put down the tin plates. Her stomach growled ferociously. Cal began to ease pieces of fish off with his knife, checking it was cooked. He put a couple on her plate, next to the duck potatoes. He helped himself to more. Hope sat down, cross-legged, next to him and picked up her plate.

They didn't speak, both too hungry to do anything other than concentrate on the food. Hope ate everything, including the fireweed. ‘This really is tasty.'

They took their empty plates and washed them and their greasy hands in the creek before coming back to sit close to the fire.

‘Can I ask you something?' Hope said.

‘Sure.' He banked the flames.

‘Why didn't you finish high school? Because it looks from the stuff in the crates in the barn that you're like . . . clever and
everything. And you were good at football.'

He was silent for a while. ‘Not that clever. And not that good. I made a big mistake.'

Hope waited.

He took a breath. ‘There was this guy, Tyler Cross, we were on the team. He was getting hazed, real bad. You know what hazing is, right?'

Hope nodded. ‘Bullying.'

‘Yeah, well, for some reason, the guys just had it in for him. And I didn't like it, but I said nothing. Coach said nothing, no one said anything at all. Then we were up for a few big games in our class. Tyler just couldn't keep it together, kept missing easy passes. Had a lot to do with what was going on, I thought. Anyway, Dan and Steve Hart, the idiots with the plastic cup? Dan's the chief's son, Steve's Dan's cousin. They were at the centre of it all, ragging on Tyler the whole time. Then one day, we'd lost at home to Billings. I mean,
Billings
.' He looked at Hope. She shrugged. ‘Never mind. And then in the locker room, they're really going for Tyler. I was rushing to get home because I had chores, and then I see they've got him on the floor, stripping him off, and they've got a gallon pack of glue, and this sack of feathers. So then I knew it wouldn't have mattered if we'd won or lost, because they were going to do it anyway.'