Dan Versus Nature (24 page)

Suddenly, a branch cracks loudly to our left. We all whip our heads toward the sound.

“Max? Barbara?” Hank calls. He sounds hopeful, like he expects them to show up carrying breakfast trays piled high with pancakes, bacon, and coffee.

But when they don’t respond, Hank’s expression becomes wary.

“Hello?”

The bush we’re watching comes alive, leaves rustling, branches shaking.

“Oh crap,” I say, vaulting to my feet. “It’s the bear. It’s come back!”

“Everyone stay calm,” Hank whispers, grabbing the remaining arrow and standing. “Get behind me. Slowly and quietly. Don’t draw attention.”

“What about our stuff?” I whisper back.

“Let the bear have it. It’s all crap.” Charlie leans forward and slowly plucks his camera from the pile. “Everything but this.”

“And these,” I say, stealthily grabbing my sketchbook, pencils, the baby sweater, and the Calamine lotion.

The four of us start skulking backward, our eyes glued to the quivering bush.

“Are you sure r-running wouldn’t be a b-better idea?” I stammer.

“If it shows itself,” Hank explains, “then, yes, we get the hell out of here. But right —”

The bear bounds from the bush.

Hank falls and screams in pain. Charlie trips over him. My foot catches Charlie’s leg, and I go down on my back, Penelope landing on top of me.

“Get up! Move!” Hank shouts, scrambling to get to his feet.

For a millisecond it crosses my mind that there would be worse ways to die than with a cute girl splayed on top of me, her face inches from mine.

But then Penelope leaps off me, and I suddenly find the will to live again.

I heave myself up and glance back to check how close the bear is.

Except . . . it’s not the bear.

It’s . . . a deer. A
baby
deer. A cute little fawn, cocoa colored, with tiny white dots stippling its back. Stumbling around on stick-thin legs.

“Guys! Hold up! It’s not the bear.” I laugh, tears welling in my eyes. “It’s a deer. A tiny baby deer.”

The others stop and turn to look.

“Thank Jesus.” Hank laughs. “I don’t know if my heart can take much more of this.”

“Aww,” Penelope says. “It’s Bambi.”

“Shhh.” Charlie holds a finger to his lips, tiptoeing back toward camp. “Nobody move. I want to get a picture of this for the paper.” He raises his camera to his eye as he moves forward. “Our female readership goes insane for this sort of thing.”

He skulks toward the fawn, which has started nibbling on some grass, seemingly unperturbed by our presence.

“Pick up the pace, Ansel Adams,” Penelope stage-whispers. “We haven’t got all day.”

Charlie fiddles with the focus, takes a few shots, then slinks even closer.

“I wonder where its mom and dad are,” I whisper.

“Nearby, probably,” Hank says, craning his neck to try to locate them. “Thankfully, deer parents aren’t as aggressive as, say, bear parents.”

Charlie adjusts the focus once more and snaps another series of pictures.

“Jeez, Charlie,” Penelope says. “It’s a fawn, not the temple of Borobudur.”

Charlie scoots just a little bit closer. Any nearer and he could reach out and pet the thing.

He squats to get a fawn’s-eye view and clicks a couple more photos. He looks over at us with a big, doofy smile and raises his eyebrows like,
Can you believe how amazing this is?

And that’s when the giant paw shoots out of the bush — swiping the head off the fawn and sending a spray of blood across Charlie’s face and camera.

“Holy shit!” I scream, stumbling backward. “Charlie! Run!”

“Where is it? Where is it?” Charlie cries, stumble-running along, tripping over his own feet.

“I think . . . we lost it,” I say, puffing and panting, obsessively checking over my shoulder as we tear through the forest.

“The bigger and more pressing question,” Penelope says, slowing to a walk, “is where are
we
?”

“We’re all . . . safe,” Hank rasps, hobbling. “That’s all . . . that matters right now.”

“Yes, but,” Penelope says, “is there any possibility that we’re heading in the right direction?
Id est,
toward the lake?”

“Oh, right.” Hank stops. He presses his hand against a tree for balance, leaning over to catch his breath. “That’s . . . yes. Something . . . I hadn’t considered.”

Charlie, Penelope, and I gather around Hank’s tree.

“Let’s just . . .” Hank wheezes, “get our . . . bearings for a second. Is everyone . . . OK?”

“I’ve got deer blood in my eye, so no,” Charlie says, wiping a red smear from his face. “I’m probably going to contract Lyme disease. Possibly hepatitis E. Or worse, granulocytic anaplasmosis.”

“You’re lucky to be alive at all, Charlie,” I say, surprised to find myself still clutching the sketchbook, the pencils, the baby sweater, and the tube of Calamine lotion to my chest.

Charlie shoots me a you’re-an-idiot stare. “Not so lucky if my brain starts wasting away from transmissible spongiform encephalopathy.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Penelope says. “I think a bit of vacuolated gray matter might be just the thing you need to improve your personality.”

“And I think,” Charlie counters, “that you . . . that you’re . . . that maybe . . .” He grabs his head. “Oh, God, it’s starting already.”

Penelope grins. “You see. A marked improvement.”

“OK, everyone. Let’s just calm down.” Hank swallows and straightens up. “Now.” He scans our surroundings. “We need some landmarks. Does anyone recognize any of this?”

The four of us glance around. Trees and more trees. Bushes and downed branches. Dirt and grass and rocks. Nothing even remotely distinctive.

“Perhaps we should retrace our steps,” Penelope suggests. “Return to camp so that we can embark from a place of familiarity.”

“To be honest,” Hank says, rubbing the back of his neck and blushing, “I’m not really sure which way camp is. We did a sort of serpentine thing.” He looks over his shoulder. “Besides, that’s twice that we’ve managed to escape with our lives. I don’t think we want to tempt fate by getting anywhere near that bear again.”

“What about the supplies?” I ask. “I mean, there wasn’t a lot, but there was some stuff we could have used. Penelope’s flashlight for sure.”

Hank shakes his head. “Definitely not worth risking our necks over. We’ll have to get by without them for the next few days.”

“This is a nightmare.” Charlie removes his glasses and rubs his eyes. “Thank God you’ve got survival experience, Mr. Langston. That’s the only thing keeping me from totally freaking out right now.”

A bird suddenly flutters from the bushes. Charlie squeals like a girl and clutches Hank’s arm.

“Yes, well, nobody should freak out,” Hank says, staring at Charlie’s hand. “That’s one of the top survival rules: Keep calm at all times.”

Charlie laughs nervously and releases his grip on Hank’s arm.

“All right,” I say, tucking the lotion, tiny sweater, and pencils into my sweatpants pockets and gripping my sketch pad under one arm. “Which direction do you suggest we go?”

Hank points ahead. “Let’s continue on this way. And, uh, listen out for running water. Maybe we can find that stream again. I bet if we follow the water downstream, we run into our lake eventually.”

Hank grabs a large branch. He stabs it into the ground, testing its strength. Satisfied it’ll support his weight, he begins totter-marching forward.

Charlie, Penelope, and I trudge along behind him.

In search of water.

We walk for hours, mostly in silence.

Charlie is clearly suffering from PTSD or something. He kept flinching and shrieking at every sound or sudden movement, till finally Penelope suggested he take some pictures to soothe himself — although, truth be told, I think she just wanted to shut him up. Still, the photography therapy appears to be working, as Charlie seems to have slipped into a sort of meditative state, his camera glued to his glasses.

I’ve drifted to the back of the pack. I need to clear my head too — to shake off the remnants of the bear attacks and also rethink my plans for scaring off Hank, now that Charlie is dazed and my supplies are lost and this trip has suddenly become much more life-threatening.

Another hour or so goes by, and Charlie slows and joins me at the back of the pack.

“How you doing?” I ask.

“Better,” he says. “Now that I’ve refocused.”

“Refocused?”

“Yes. On us. Our situation. And Hank.” He caps the lens on his camera. “I believe that we’re going to have to go back to basics here. Return to our roots.”

I stare at him, confused. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about going
Rocky III
on him.” Charlie screws up his face. “Or maybe it was
Rocky V.
Whichever one it is where he’s lost the eye of the tiger and needs to rediscover it. The killer instinct.” He shakes his head. “Anyway, the point being, I no longer have any of my harassment kit at our disposal. No mayonnaise packets, no personal lubricant, no fake blood, no emetics, diuretics, or laxatives, and no more deer-in-heat urine. Which means we’re going to have to extemporize.” He scans the forest. “Get creative and use what’s around us. What’s available.”

“Yeah, I don’t know.” I crane my neck and watch Hank limping along up ahead. “I’ve been thinking, too, and I’m not sure it’s such a good idea to punk him while he’s trying to get us back to the lake. We can take up the cause again when we get home.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Charlie says. “You’ve got your opponent on the ropes here. You don’t let up and allow him to convalesce. You come out swinging. You go in for the kill. The knockout punch. Put him down for the count.”

“Yeah, I get it. Rocky. Boxing. But things are kind of effed up right now, Charlie. And personally, I’d really like to get out of here alive. I’m not so keen on making it more difficult for Hank to help us do that.”

“Listen to me, Daniel,” Charlie insists. “I know we’re in deep. You’re talking to the guy who nearly got his head pawed off by a killer bear. But that just makes the situation even riper. This is life-and-death we’re talking about: Lost in the woods. The bear attack. That little stunt you pulled with the arrow — which was pure brilliance, by the way. Dangerous, but inspired.”

“It was an accident,” I say.

“Right, yes, of course.” He waves this off. “Whatever. It makes no difference. The point is everything is heightened now. If Hank felt a sense of responsibility before, it’s tenfold now. That’s only going to intensify his feelings of helplessness and frustration. I’m telling you, by the time we board Clint’s plane, Hank will have already mentally packed his bags and formulated his ‘Dear Jane’ letter to your mother.”

I shake my head. “I don’t know, Charlie . . .”

“Yes you do,” he says. “In your gut you know I’m right. What’s the point of surviving all of this if Hank still plans to marry your mom and take you away from me — and Erin?”

I sigh. “What did you have in mind?”

Charlie grins. “That’s my boy. OK, I’ve come up with a few ways to adapt some of our original scenarios. But I’ve also got some new ideas, based on the particulars of our situation —”

“Maybe we should get Penelope on board,” I interrupt.