скачать книгу бесплатно
Traipsing through the woods with Miss Spoiled Brat looking for nuts and needles. Somebody put me out of my misery. Not exactly what I’d anticipated for my weekend. Coolidge with my buddies and rodeo queens were suddenly sounding better by the second.
I didn’t slow my pace to match Riley’s, either. Let her try and keep up.
I’d spotted a few aspen trees and even an alligator juniper near the entrance to the campsite on the bus ride in, which was one of the reasons I’d taken us in this direction. I’d bet Jay Hawkins wouldn’t have known that. Couldn’t Riley just shut up and trust me?
“Okay. Where are we going, exactly?” Riley called out. The thick trees swallowed her voice. She trailed a good five yards behind me.
I lifted my arms in case it wasn’t obvious. “Um. Three guesses?”
“Ha. Ha.” Her footsteps quickened across the dirt and dry leaves. “If I knew, I wouldn’t keep asking.”
I didn’t slow my pace.
“Wait!” she said. Her footsteps pattered faster behind me and I figured if I sped up any more it would probably be more than a little cruel. Not that she didn’t deserve it, especially after the last remark, spoken in the tone of someone used to getting her way all the time.
“I saw some aspens over here,” I said without turning, anxious to be done with this scavenger hunt.
“Where?”
“Just follow me.”
She closed more distance between us. “But aspen leaves are sixth on our list.”
I stopped and she practically crashed into my back. “So?” I spun around to face her.
“So maybe we should do them in order.”
My voice grew higher. “Why?”
She looked up at me, wide-eyed. “So we can make sure we get everything.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It makes perfect sense to me.”
“Figures.” I turned and started walking again as Riley jogged.
It ended up being farther than I thought, but we finally reached the entrance to the campground. Cars and trucks chugged along the highway in front of us.
“Just one aspen leaf, right?” I asked Riley, reaching up to a branch to pluck a decent-sized one.
She studied the list again. “Doesn’t say. Let’s take a couple, just in case.”
I rolled my eyes but said nothing as I plucked two green aspen leaves. In a few months, the leaves would turn golden-yellow and drop to the forest floor. I decided against sharing that tidbit with Riley, especially since she was practically fainting over finding all the items on the list. This girl had serious chill issues.
“What should we put them in?” she asked.
“Unless you brought a backpack, we only have our pockets. I’ll put them in mine—”
Riley raised a palm, stopping me. “What if they get crushed?”
I dropped them inside the front of my jeans pocket. “Take it easy, Berenger. They’re leaves, not museum pieces.”
She looked back at me as if I’d just slapped her.
I chuckled to hide the last-minute remorse in my tone. “I’m sure Mr. Romero won’t mind.”
“I noticed that Jay brought his backpack—”
“Jay,” I muttered. Again with Jay Hawkins! “What’s the use in bringing a backpack if you aren’t smart enough to find any of the stuff on the list?”
“Are you saying Jay’s not smart?”
Ugh. She didn’t really want to know my answer.
“’Cause he’s in all AP classes. Otherwise he wouldn’t be here—”
I interrupted her again. “Good grades doesn’t always mean smart.” Smart aleck, more like it.
“And he led that school drive last year to collect new sneakers for the homeless.”
“Purely for show.” And to get another photo caption for himself in the yearbook.
“Well, it doesn’t hurt, Sam.”
“Save it, Riley.” I lifted both my palms at her. “I know all about Jay’s compassion and brilliance.” I wondered if Riley would change her tune about Jay if she knew how he’d teased Peter during freshman year gym class, taunting him about being so skinny. He’d called Peter a totem pole. He’d tried to tease me, too, until I’d put on six inches and twenty pounds the next semester. That had shut him up real quick. Ever since, Jay had resented everything about me, including my growth spurt. I was pretty certain it bugged him that I had a higher GPA than him. Last year I’d overheard him say to another guy—loud enough for me to hear, too—that I received special treatment from teachers, which I totally did not. I worked as hard as he did, probably harder. It had been my experience off the Rez that there was no reaching guys like Jay Hawkins.
Riley closed her eyes, briefly, as she steadied herself with a loud exhale. “Look, I’ll carry the leaves. My pockets are bigger.” As if to prove it to me, she lifted the front pockets of her pink sweatshirt with her fists still balled inside. I had to admit, they did look pretty roomy. In one of the pockets, the top of a water bottle peeked out.
“Okay,” I said, backing away. “You can carry the prickly pear needles. If you want, you can carry a whole handful of those.” I meant it as a joke, but Riley wasn’t laughing.
Her hands left their pockets and moved to her hips. “What exactly is your problem?”
“No problem,” I said, turning toward the four-lane road. We had to cross it to reach the pine trees. “Just trying to be helpful.” My sarcasm was a little excessive, but I hardly cared, especially after she’d continued to defend Jay Hawkins. After this scavenger hunt was over, our partnership would end. I’d see to that.
Riley didn’t follow me this time. She just yelled at me as I kept moving. “You know, this is supposed to be a leadership retreat. We’re supposed to work together. We’re supposed to be leaders.”
“So lead,” I said as I kept walking. “Where to next?”
She didn’t answer me. I heard her jeans swish as she jogged across the dirt to catch up. But this time she didn’t catch up and jog alongside me. She charged toward the highway like she was some kind of world-class runner. A line of cars sped up the mountain. They weren’t going that fast, but fast enough.
“Hey. Wait up,” I said. Now it was my turn to catch up to her. Fast when she needs to be, I noted. Convenient.
Riley caught an opening between the cars and darted across the highway to the other side. She ran toward a ranger station that overlooked the entire Mogollon Rim, which also happened to be where the drop-off to the valley below was the most extreme. The tiny parking lot surrounding the ranger station was empty, probably because everyone was on the other side of the campground, fishing. Or looking for stupid forest stuff, if they were part of our school group. “Hey, wait up!” I yelled again, but my voice was drowned out by the engine noise of cars and trailers racing down the highway.
I had to wait a few minutes. At least twenty cars passed before I got an opening in the traffic. Then I ran to the other side of the road, but Riley was gone.
Gone, where?
“Riley!” I called out. In front of me stretched the Mogollon Rim. All I could see were the tops of pine trees, a million triangles in every direction. They swayed like green waves in the wind. I wouldn’t be able to see the little mountain towns below until I reached the edge, and even then the towns were miles below, tiny brown and red roofs dotting spaces between green pine trees like Monopoly pieces. I ran to the Rim, expecting to find her near the edge beneath the trees gathering pinecones.
But no Riley.
I stood frozen on the Rim. The wind whipped through the treetops and against my ears. Cold, dry air filled my mouth, stealing my breath as I called Riley’s name. The only thing that came back was the muffled echo of my own voice.
I ran along the edge but it was empty. Nothing but red dirt, pine trees and enough pinecones littering the ground to fill a football stadium. So where was she? There hadn’t been enough time for her to run very far. She might be fast but, sorry, I was a lot faster.
Was she crazy enough to climb a tree?
Possibly.
My eyes swept across the trees dotting the edge. Their skinny green leafy branches danced in the wind. I paced along the edge, scanning the trees, and then looked down. The drop was nearly vertical. More pine and scraggly juniper jutted out from the side of the mountain like deformed arms.
I cupped my mouth with my hands and yelled again. “Riley!” My heartbeat kicked up a notch. “Not funny! Where are you?” Of all the girls here this weekend, how had I gotten saddled with her?
And then I heard a muffled squeak, somewhere below me. I tilted my head, trying to focus on the sound, trying to place it. Was it an echo? An animal? But from where? I squinted and scanned the side of the mountain, but it was like staring into the bottom of a murky ocean. I saw only endless greens and browns...and then a sliver of hot pink.
“Riley!” I yelled again, walking as close to the edge as I could without my toes curling over. I cupped my mouth, screaming her name as loud as I could, squinting through the branches and leaves. How had she gotten down there? “Stupid girl,” I mumbled as dirt crunched beneath my feet. Rocks rolled beneath my toes and I had to stop myself from slipping over the edge.
Riley’s voice was faint, but I made out two words. “Help me.”
11
Riley
The moment I opened my eyes, the world spun in slow motion.
I lay on my back, staring up at pine trees as tall as city skyscrapers. Their skinny brown trunks swayed in the wind like they could snap at any second and bury me forever. The sharp pine smell filled my nostrils.
I didn’t know how long I had blacked out, but the smell must have coaxed open my eyes. Pine needles, pinecones, pine everything was scattered everywhere. Green-and-brown needles stuck to my hair and sweatshirt sleeves.
I couldn’t have been out for longer than a few seconds. I’d been reaching out to a tree branch for the perfect pinecone, number two on the scavenger list. All of the ones scattered on the ground were moldy-looking or broken. I needed to pluck the right one. I’d only needed to stretch forward a few inches to reach it....
Then, whoosh! My right foot had skidded across a layer of pebbles, and I’d tumbled over the edge of the Mogollon Rim. Next thing I knew, I was lying flat on a piece of rock that jutted off the side of the mountain like a shelf.
Dumb idea, obviously, reaching for that pinecone. If I had only taken one of the many zillion covering the ground, I wouldn’t have tumbled down this mountain and found myself staring up into the sky—and into Sam Tracy’s most assuredly I-told-you-so face. I couldn’t see any of his features, just the black and coppery outline of his head. But how was I supposed to know loose gravel lay hidden beneath a carpet of pine needles?
“Sam!” I yelled the moment I heard him call my name. “Help me!” I could guess what he was thinking about me now. The words crazy, irrational and unstable came to my mind. No doubt he could add a few more nicknames to my Hello, My Name Is tag, which, miraculously, was still stuck to my chest.
“I’ll get some help!” His deep voice floated down to me.
I breathed hard, looking all around me. My arms and legs were stuck in branches at the base of a thick pine tree. Suddenly I was less worried about broken bones than I was about bears and mountain lions. The shiny brochures about Woods Canyon had mentioned the wildlife in the area. Certainly all sorts of animals could scale up and down the side of the mountain as easily as I had somersaulted down it, right? “Wait!” I yelled up to Sam, my voice dry and raspy. Yelling burned my chest. “Don’t leave me!”
But Sam’s face disappeared from the sky. I started to hyperventilate; my hands turned ice-cold and my whole body began to shiver, a slow rumble at first that quickly morphed into full-on panic. My eyes clouded with tears.
I tried to calm down. Maybe I could get myself out. I began to wiggle my fingers and then my toes. When I sat up and leaned forward, a sharp pain shot up my back. Hot tears dribbled down my cheeks. I wiggled my toes again and then raised each leg. It hurt to lift my right leg. My crying turned to silent sobs, the kind where your whole chest heaves in and out. Why had I ever signed up for this stupid conference or retreat or whatever it was called? I caught tears with my tongue.
Then a branch snapped.
My body froze, including my breathing. I tilted my head, listening for movement. Above me, enormous black birds flew in a circle. I untangled my arm from its branch so my fingers could sweep the ground for a stick, a rock, anything hard or heavy. All I could reach was dirt and more pinecones. It was as if the pinecones multiplied times ten every time I blinked. My only weapons were a pink cell phone with no service, a granola bar and a water bottle.
Snap! Crack! The sounds drew closer.
I reached inside my front pocket for my granola bar. Maybe I could throw it and buy myself some time.
But from what? And, where?
Pine needles and pinecones rained down all around me.
I squinted into the wind, anxious to see what predator was moving toward me. The wind howled louder, messing with my mind. It was like I was being slowly surrounded. I began to picture a hungry pack of coyotes, or wolves. Or bears. Lots and lots of hungry bears...
My heartbeat echoed all the way to my temples. Goose bumps snaked up my back. I reached inside my pocket for the water bottle. It was the heaviest thing I had on me and better than nothing.
Snap, crack, snap!
I lifted the water bottle over my head.
And then a set of gray antlers appeared from behind a trunk, followed by a head.
A deer—or maybe it was an elk—peeked at me with beady black eyes from between two pine trees. It lifted its long snout toward the sky, its nostrils sputtering. If not for its antlers, it would have blended into the tree trunk.
“Oh, god.” I exhaled. I wondered whether to throw my water bottle at it. I wondered whether it was alone. Maybe I was about to be trampled by a stampede. Panicked, I inched back a fraction against the tree trunk. If I moved back far enough, the lower branches might hide me. But my whole body hurt when I moved even just a few inches. Instead of screaming at the animal and flailing my arms, I simply froze, watching the animal watch me.
The elk lowered its antlers toward the dirt and moved forward. Straight for me.
It took one step, then another, lumbering toward me like it had all the time in the world.
Was this elk psycho? Shouldn’t it be afraid of me? But then, why would it be? It was as wide as a horse, maybe even bigger.
Carefully, I brought my arm back, readying my water bottle.
Snap, crack!
More pine needles floated down from the sky.
My head jerked right just as a flash of blue and black tumbled from above.
A set of feet landed with a loud thump between me and the elk.
Sam.
For a big guy, he moved amazingly fast.
Sam whistled, that loud kind mastered by jocks and gym teachers, his fingers spread in his mouth like a triangle.
The elk’s ears sprang to attention like pop-up tents before it fled in the opposite direction, hooves clattering across the rock and then back up the mountain until the sounds disappeared into the wind.
“Did you see that?” I screamed, gasping for breath. “I think it was going to attack me!”
