A Week in the Woods (13 page)

The ranger nodded understandingly, both men feeling a little embarrassed at the sudden burst of emotion. “Sure. Absolutely, Bill. Go talk to him. Or, if you want, I'll go to his cabin and bring 'im so you can talk here. Be more private, if you want.”

Mr. Maxwell nodded toward the parking lot. “Thanks, but he's right over there in my truck. Been sitting there sweating bullets for half an hour now.”

The ranger said, “Well, go on, then. You've got good news for him, right?”

“I sure do. Good news.” Mr. Maxwell stood up and reached out a hand, and the ranger took it in a strong handshake. Looking the man in the face, Mr. Maxwell said, “I owe you for this, Jim. I owe you a lot.”

“Nah, forget it, Bill.”

Walking across the parking lot, Bill Maxwell knew what he was going to do. First he was going to apologize. He was going to tell Mark he was proud of him. He was going to tell Mark that loyalty is just about the finest quality a person can have. He was going to tell Mark how badly he had misjudged him—about a lot of things, probably. And he was going to ask the boy to forgive him.

Mr. Maxwell rounded the back of his truck, a big smile on his face, and he took three quick strides and grabbed the handle of the passenger-side door.

But then he froze. He didn't open the door. And he stopped smiling.

Mark wasn't in the truck.

Walking back past the gatehouse, Mr. Maxwell forced himself to give the ranger a smile and a thumbs-up. But that wasn't how he felt. Mark wasn't in the truck.

So the first thing Mr. Maxwell had to do was go to Mark's cabin and see if maybe he'd swung back there. Maybe Mark had forgotten something. Or maybe he'd be at the washrooms. That made sense.

Fifteen minutes later Mr. Maxwell had looked everywhere he could think of—the Raven's Nest, the other cabins, the washrooms, the lodge, the kitchen, the campground roadways, everywhere.

Back at the gatehouse Mr. Maxwell told the ranger that he hadn't found the boy. Then he asked, “Would you have seen him if he went to my truck out there in the lot? I mean, could he have walked past here without you noticing, do you think?”

The ranger heard the fear in Mr. Maxwell's voice.
He didn't answer right away. Narrowing his eyes, he said, “Bill, are you thinkin' that this boy's run off? 'Cause if he has, then we've got a real problem. I haven't been sleepin' any this afternoon, but if you're askin' me could a kid have slipped by here and got down the entrance road and out onto the state highway, then sure, he could've done that. So I'm telling you that we need to jump on this, like right now. 'Cause we've got some bad possibilities, and then we've got some terrible ones. Like if he went out to the highway and somebody picked him up.”

Mr. Maxwell felt the sweat break out on his forehead. “Listen, Jim. Give me twenty minutes, okay? I just want to make a quick pass back through the campground, and if I don't get any news, then I'll turn it all over to you, okay?”

The ranger rubbed his chin a second or two and then said, “Fifteen minutes. You get back to me in fifteen minutes with good news or I've got to start makin' phone calls.”

“Fair enough, Jim. Thanks.” And Mr. Maxwell was out the door at a trot.

On his first quick search, Mr. Maxwell had been past all the girls' cabins, but he hadn't talked to all the chaperones and teachers, hadn't actually asked if anyone had set eyes on Mark Chelmsley carrying a bright yellow backpack, headed toward the parking lots. Now he was asking.

The grown-ups in the first three cabins hadn't seen
a thing. Then in the Pine Cove cabin he talked with Mrs. Leghorn. She was sitting in a chair close to the woodstove, her long red coat tucked around her legs, her stainless steel coffee cup in her gloved hands.

“Mark?” she said. “Yes, I saw him. I was walking to the kitchen for some coffee, and he went across the path. Had that big thing on his back.”

Mr. Maxwell's heart took a leap, but he kept his voice calm and low. “Were you at the lodge when you saw him?”

Mrs. Leghorn shook her head. “Not quite. I was almost to the council clearing, in the woods on this side of it.” Motioning with her hands, she said, “I was walking this way, toward the lodge, and he cut across ahead of me at the near end of the clearing, kind of going that way.”

Mr. Maxwell leaned forward. “You're sure about that? He wasn't walking toward the road?”

Mrs. Leghorn shook her head. “No, I'm sure. He wasn't headed toward the road at all.”

Mr. Maxwell knew Gray's Notch State Park almost as well as he knew his own forty-five acres. And he knew that if Mrs. Leghorn and Mark had crossed paths where she said they had, and if Mark hadn't been heading for the road, there was only one other place he could have been going.

Mr. Maxwell said, “Listen, Elsa, I need you to do something for me, right now, okay? I need you to walk
to the gatehouse as quickly as you can and tell the ranger that I've found Mark, all right?”

Taking a last sip of coffee, Mrs. Leghorn stood up and said, “Of course, Bill. Was he lost or something?”

Mr. Maxwell nodded. “Sort of. Tell Jim—that's the ranger—tell him that Mark walked up the Barker Falls Trail, and that I've gone to fetch him, and that we'll be back soon, all right? Got that?”

The math teacher nodded. “Barker Falls Trail.”

Mr. Maxwell said, “Right,” and with that he turned, rushed out the door, veered to the left, and began jogging toward the trailhead at the east edge of the council clearing.

* * *

Mark eased himself down until he was sitting on a boulder, his breath coming in rough gasps. For more than an hour he'd been pushing himself pretty hard. He unhooked the straps, shrugged off his pack, then bent down to get a water bottle. Unscrewing the cap, he took a long drink. Right away he wished he hadn't.
I should probably be more careful with my water.
He dug into his pack and pulled out an energy bar. He opened the end of the wrapper, took one bite, then carefully tucked it away again.

Mark was in good shape, so it didn't take him long to catch his breath. After about two minutes he stood up and stretched. His right heel felt a little warm, but he didn't think it was starting to blister. Besides, there
was no time for first aid, not now. He picked up his pack, settled the pads on his shoulders, fastened the strap across his chest, and then snapped the buckle of the waist belt.

He looked back at the rocky ravine he had just climbed, and then ahead into the pines and the leafless groves of maple and birch that covered the rising ground on both sides of the trail. Suddenly Mark felt small.

It wasn't like feeling small compared to another kid. It wasn't like feeling small in the crowd during a Knicks game at Madison Square Garden. This was different, a new kind of small.

High overhead a crow called, and Mark tipped his face up to scan the gray sky above the treetops. A second crow answered the first, and he saw them both, winging north.
Or is that east?
he asked himself.

Mark wasn't sure. He almost reached for his compass, because then he could figure it out. Wouldn't be hard to do. Then he could at least be sure of something.

Because Mark wasn't sure of much at that moment. He wasn't sure if anyone would find him. He wasn't sure if anyone was looking yet. He wasn't sure how far he had walked since the last trail marker.

But glancing at his watch, he was suddenly sure of one thing: It was two minutes after four, and if anyone
was
coming after him, he didn't have time to be standing around.

Mark turned and started walking uphill again.

* * *

“I'll get in less trouble than you would.”

That's what Mark had whispered to Jason in the Raven's Nest. And at that moment, Mark felt sure it was true.

This whole thing is stupid anyway. It's not like I was waving the knife around or trying to kill someone with it. I didn't even know the thing had a blade! And if Mr. Maxwell had found Jason with it, would Jason be getting sent home? No way. This is about me and Mr. Maxwell.
Mark had felt sure of that, too.

And how much trouble am I really in? After all, this isn't even my school, not really. Or my town. Suspended for a week? Or even for the rest of the year? So what?
That's what Mark had told himself in the cabin as he rolled his sleeping bag and gathered his things.

But when he had gotten outside, when he had started walking toward the parking lot, Mark didn't feel so confident. Walking on the path, dragging his boots on the ground, scraping up a small heap of pine needles with every step, Mark felt the weight of the situation pressing in from all sides.
What are Mom and Dad going to say about this?
he asked himself.
And what if Mr. Maxwell or the principal calls Runyon Academy? What then?

And then there was the fact that he was going to miss the whole Week in the Woods. Walking on the roadway now, a deep wave of self-pity surged up in
Mark's chest, and he had to gulp hard to keep from letting out a sob.
It's not fair!
he raged, and the feeling was so intense that for a moment Mark thought he had screamed the words out loud.

Then a thought stopped him in his tracks.
I've got to go and wait in Mr. Maxwell's truck? That's because he's going to drive me home himself! He wants to! He wants to rub it in and watch me squirm, all the way home!

Turning to his right, Mark looked around. There was no one in sight. Then at the edge of the council clearing Mark saw the big brown display board he had looked at earlier during the scavenger hunt. It was the starting point of a ten-mile trail that went up to a waterfall.

Mark walked toward the trailhead, his stride getting longer and more purposeful with every step. He didn't hesitate, didn't falter, didn't slow his pace. And as he passed the display board and saw the first red trail marker nailed to a tree twenty yards ahead, he said to himself,
If Mr. Maxwell wants to get rid of me so bad, then he's gonna have to find me first!

Mr. Maxwell stopped jogging once he got to the trail. He didn't want to work up a sweat, didn't want his shirt to feel wet. It wasn't that cold yet, only about fifty, but he knew the temperature would drop as the trail went up Gray's Mountain toward Barker Falls. Plus the sun would be going down. And damp clothes in cold weather means trouble for a hiker.

Mr. Maxwell settled into a steady pace, counting on his longer stride to quickly eat up the distance between himself and Mark Chelmsley. He did the mental calculations.
Soft suburban kid, carrying a pack, walking uphill—can't be making more than three miles an hour.
At every bend in the trail Mr. Maxwell expected to see Mark sitting on a log, worn out and footsore, waiting to be rescued.

He had no doubts about being on the right trail.
Even if the boy hadn't been one of the first hikers on the trail this season, and even if his child-sized boots hadn't left distinctive ridged prints on the softer pieces of ground, Mr. Maxwell would still have been able to follow Mark's trail as easily as a trucker follows the highway. Tracking was one of his specialties.

Mr. Maxwell was proud of his woodcraft. He felt he understood nature. He knew the outdoors from both sides.

On the theoretical side, he had studied nature as a scientist. He had learned about the plants and creatures of the great northern forest. He had learned about the processes that shaped the landscape. He had learned about the systems of the natural world and how they worked together.

On the practical side, he understood the day-today rhythms of nature. He had that quiet understanding of the woods and mountains that comes only after years of experience on the ground.

Some of Bill Maxwell's friends didn't understand how he could be so concerned about conservation and still be a hunter. That's because they didn't get up with him at four in the morning on a crisp fall day and leave the house with nothing but a hunting bow and one razor-tipped arrow. They didn't hike with him for two hours in the predawn silence, watching for deer spoor, finding the right place to wait, sometimes for five or six hours, a place where he could blend with
the woods, notice every motion, every change in wind direction, every small sound, waiting for a buck to step into his line of sight.

They didn't understand that moment of silently fitting the arrow to the string, slowly drawing it back past his right ear, muscles tensed, aiming at that spot just above the front shoulder of the deer. It wasn't a moment of selfishness. It was a moment of admitting his connection with all of nature, of admitting his dependence on it. It was a moment of gratitude, of reverence for life.

And those people who disapproved of hunting didn't understand that for years now, after taking aim, Bill Maxwell would slowly ease the bowstring back to a straight line, make a small noise, and smile as the startled deer bolted into the brush. He didn't take the food nature offered him because he didn't truly need it. He only needed to know that the food was still there.

Mr. Maxwell usually did his best thinking as he walked alone in the woods. It usually calmed him down and helped him clear his mind. Not today. Today his thoughts were a tangle of fear and worry. And most of all, guilt.

Pigheaded idiot, that's what I am,
he said to himself.
Got all bent out of shape because some eleven-year-old kid wouldn't jump through hoops for me. Had to be the big tough guy and get back at him. Way to go!
And the farther Mr. Maxwell walked along the trail, looking down now and then at the small boot prints of the boy, the worse he felt.

* * *

Mark was alone with his thoughts too.

For a long time he had held on to his anger. He focused only on keeping up his pace. But after more than an hour and a half, Mark realized that someone
must
be looking for him by now. But of course, no one would know where to start.