Connect the Stars (18 page)

“The Fearless Four,” said Kate fiercely. “All for one, and one for all.”

“There's no I in team,” declared Aaron.

“Except in Spanish,” I added.

We all smiled.

“Dudes, we got this!” said Louis, and for the first time since we'd woken him up, his voice wasn't shaking at all.

After we were all settled in eating oatmeal with dried fruit, Jare went back to his tent the way he always did, possibly to devour a spectacular breakfast created from his private stash of food, possibly to wear a new gully in the ground with more cage-stereotypy pacing. I wondered if Jare was like the guilt-ridden guy in the Edgar Allan Poe story who was plagued by the sound of his murder victim's heart; then I wondered if Daphne even had a heart; then I felt instantly bad about wondering this. When Daphne was around, almost nobody could stand her, but now that she was gone, the other campers and I felt a kind of solidarity with her. Like, sure, she was an evil, cold-blooded bully, but she was
our
evil, cold-blooded bully. And no matter who she was, she didn't deserve to be disappeared.

As we'd planned, Aaron and I sat at the far edge of the group, as close to Jare's tent as we could without obviously invading his space. Cyrus and Edie sat at the opposite end of camp, while Kate and Louis were stationed at different points in between. When we'd all been eating for about five minutes, I signaled Kate, who signaled Cyrus, who ran across the campsite toward Jare's tent. As he passed us, he
shut one of his licorice-black eyes in a conspiratorial wink, and Aaron and I gave him a quick thumbs-up.

“Jare, Jare!” cried Cyrus as he ran. “Something's wrong with Edie!”

In a couple of minutes, Cyrus reappeared with Jare. As they walked, Cyrus hovered around Jare like a dragonfly, talking a mile a minute. Jare wasn't exactly rushing, but I also noticed that he was moving a lot faster than he had the last time Edie had been in trouble.

“She didn't want me to tell you,” said Cyrus, wiping at his eyes as he and Jare passed us, “because she wasn't sure how bad it was going to be, and she didn't want to inconvenience you for nothing. But I'm really worried!”

He gave a convincing sob, but after they'd passed, he darted a mischievous look at us over his shoulder. Louis watched until Jare and Cyrus were all the way on the other side of the campsite and then nodded at us. Casually, we set down our plates and slipped away.

Jare's tent was big enough for us to stand inside, and the rain cap was off, so plenty of sunlight filtered through the side mesh. Luckily, it appeared that Jare hadn't repacked his backpack yet. Sitting outside the pack were some smaller sacks, a few boxlike containers, and what looked like a tiny plastic suitcase, but that was it. As big as he was, Jare could carry more than the rest of us, but not a lot more.

“You start on that side, and I'll start over here,” I told Aaron.

“We need to move fast,” said Aaron, already opening up one of the bags. “And listen for Kate's whistle.”

“You're sure you don't know what a satellite phone looks like?” I asked.

“Nope. Sorry.”

I opened a metal box with a strong latch that looked like a miniature version of the bear-proof food containers we'd seen at the various campsites. The latch was complicated, and my nervous fingers struggled clumsily with it for what felt like an excruciatingly long time before the box popped open. When I saw what was inside, I stifled a laugh. There was some fresh fruit, but mostly the box was full of Twinkies, honeybuns, and single-serving boxes of Froot Loops.

“You found something?” asked Aaron.

“Just Jare's secret junk-food stash,” I said. “Would it be wrong to steal a Twinkie?”

“Definitely,” said Aaron.

For several more minutes, we frantically searched.

“There's nothing in the stuff on my side of the tent that looks like a phone,” said Aaron.

“Same here,” I said.

Then I opened the tiny plastic suitcase, and it was not
just a phone but what looked like a mini communication station.

“Found it!” I said.

“Okay, let's get out of here and call!” said Aaron.

Our campsite was at the base of a steep hill, and at the bottom of it, in back of Jare's tent, sat a big boulder that appeared to have rolled down a long time before. Aaron and I crouched behind it and opened the satellite phone case again. It seemed oddly old-fashioned and complex, but in a not-high-tech way. There was a compass-looking gadget, switches, buttons, and some antenna-type pieces that unfolded.

“This looks like it's from the Revolutionary War or something,” I whispered in exasperation, and then I snapped, “And, no, you don't have to tell me that the phone wasn't yet invented during the Revolutionary War era.”

“I wasn't going to,” said Aaron.

“Sorry. Rushing makes me grumpy.”

“This sure doesn't look like any phone I've ever seen,” said Aaron.

He picked up the handset, held it to his ear, and shook his head. He pushed some buttons. “Nothing. There must be an on switch somewhere or something.”

I started messing with the buttons and switches on the phone, desperately trying to make it work. “Ack! He's
going to show up any minute!” I hissed.

And that's when a voice from above said, “I'm already here.”

Aaron and I both jerked our heads back to look, and instantly I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach. There was Randolph, standing with his hands on his hips and smiling the nastiest smile I'd ever seen.

“You guys are
so busted
,” he said through his smile. “I can't wait to see what Jare does when he finds out you were trying to steal his stuff.”

Aaron stood up. “You don't understand,” he said.

Randolph's smile vanished. “Shut up. You think I'm stupid? You think I don't understand?”

“That's not what he meant,” I said. I stayed crouched by the phone. “Work!” I told it. “Just work!”

“Get up, dumb girl,” said Randolph.

“No,” I said. “I need to figure this out.”

Just then, a high, piercing whistle sliced the air. Kate. Jare was on his way!

“Listen. Please,” I said, looking up at Randolph. “You can't tell Jare.”

Randolph gave a snide chuckle and put his hands on the sides of his mouth, as if to yell.

“Audrey, we have to tell him what's going on,” said Aaron, talking fast and seeming to catch sight of something
over Randolph's head. “Jare's coming, and he's mad. Really mad. I can tell by the way he's walking.”

“You don't have to tell me nothing,” said Randolph. “I already know what's going on.”

“Yes, tell him!” I said, banging on the phone in frustration.

Aaron blurted it out: “We think Jare killed Daphne. We're trying to call 911.”

Randolph grabbed Aaron by the front of his shirt and yanked him closer. “What? Liar! Daphne ran away!”

Aaron said, “Oh, shoot. Jare sees us. He
sees us.
Take the phone and run, Audrey!”

I slammed the tiny suitcase shut. There was no time to latch it. I jumped to my feet, getting a glimpse of Jare striding toward us, kicking up dust, looking like a mad bull—or a herd of mad bulls—and I tucked the suitcase under my arm like a football and took off running in the only direction there was to run: straight uphill.

“Hey!” I heard Jare yell, his voice terrifyingly close. “What the heck is going on?”

I glanced over my shoulder and saw Aaron tug himself free from Randolph.

“Don't look back!” he shouted, waving me onward. “I'm right behind you! Just go, go, go!”

Adrenaline surged through me like electricity. It was
punishing terrain, but I realized that being smaller and nimbler than Jare, I had a better chance of outrunning him on a stony, uneven uphill than I would have on the flat desert floor. It occurred to me that I had no plan, no direction, no idea what I would do even if I could manage to lose Jare. It also occurred to me that I was literally running for my life. But I shoved those thoughts away and tried to make my body into a machine whose only job was upward, upward, upward.

I could hear footfalls behind me, and I prayed that they were Aaron's, not Jare's. Aaron had gotten a pretty good head start, but Jare was so big, so strong, so angry. Sweat trickled into my eyes and burned them, and once I fell and felt the sharp rocks cut my one free palm, but I kept going. When I got to the top of the hill, I was so relieved that I pitched forward and almost landed flat on my face. But I scrambled up and allowed myself one glance behind me. Aaron was about twenty yards back, and Jare wasn't far behind.

“He's getting closer!” I screamed.

“Keep going!” shouted Aaron.

“Stop!” bellowed Jare.

My breathing was loud and raucous in my ears, and I was bone tired. For a moment, I considered just letting Jare catch me, because at least I'd get a rest before he did—but
then I thought of my parents, how much they loved me, and suddenly it was like all of home was inside my head: Janie and the hallways at school and Dean Amory and the cool, green woods. And I understood that I liked my life, that I wasn't anywhere close to done with it, and I felt this knowledge flow like strength into my legs and arms and back, and before I even knew I'd gotten up, I was running, running across the flat mesa at the top of the hill, my legs pumping, my ponytail swinging, the phone still safely under my arm.

But then a terrible, unexpected thing happened: the mesa ended. I skidded to a stop just inches from the edge and gazed desolately down. It wasn't a cliff, exactly, but it was such a steep, drastic drop and so pitted and stony that I knew there was no way I could ever run down it without breaking my neck.

“Audrey, keep running!”

I spun around to see Aaron tearing across the mesa, with Jare so close—no more than twenty feet—behind him.

“I can't! It's too steep!” I cried. I swiveled my head crazily from side to side, looking for an escape route that just wasn't there. I could have taken off in another direction, but I knew that running around the top of the hill made no sense. Jare would catch me in the end.

“Aaron, he's right behind you!” I screamed.

Then Aaron did an amazing thing. He stopped. And spun around. He ducked his head and, in a low crouch, ran
toward
Jare instead of away from him, toward the furious, charging animal Jare had become, and he threw all of his gangly weight against the center of Jare's wide chest. I saw the shock on Jare's face at impact, but he didn't fall, just staggered backward. Aaron was the one who fell, flopped sideways like a rag doll, and lay still, and I was afraid his neck was broken and wanted to watch for him to move or get up, but there was Jare, not running now, but striding toward me, wild-eyed, unstoppable.

“Everyone knows!” I shouted. “We told everyone in the camp what you did! Even if you kill me, you won't get away with it.”

“Give me the phone!” boomed Jare. His hands were clenched into huge fists at his sides.

“It's over! Use the phone to turn yourself in!”

Jare was close now, close enough to push me over the edge. Emptied of hope, I just stood my ground and waited for the shove. But the shove didn't come. Jare reached out and yanked the phone away from me.

“Stupid kids!” he spat, and just like that, all my fear vanished. It was replaced by a cold fury.

“Yeah, we're kids,” I said. “Look at yourself. A big guy
like you, going around hurting kids. You're pathetic.”

Jare narrowed his eyes. “What?”

“Is that what Pepin thought too?” I asked him. “Back in high school? Is that why you hated him so much?”

Jare's face changed. “Pepin? George Pepin?”

I heard a shout come from the other end of the mesa, but my eyes stayed locked on Jare's.

“Did he call you a coward?” I said. “Humiliate you? Is that why you killed his daughter?”

Confusion clouded Jare's eyes. He shook his head. “What? No. You don't understand.”

“What did Pepin do to make you hate him so much?”

Jare straightened and said, “George Pepin is my best friend. I would never hurt him or his kid.”

Truth.
Truth.
It hit me so hard I gasped. Even though what he was saying made no sense at all, it was stone-cold true.

Jare slumped and rubbed his forehead. “I was trying to help. I was only trying to help.”

It happened so fast. The words were barely out of Jare's mouth before: pounding footsteps, Randolph hurtling headlong across the mesa, howling, “You! Killed! Her! You! Killed! Her!” He was unhinged, clawing the air as he ran, a human torpedo, headed straight for Jare, who didn't even have time to turn around to see what was coming.

“No!” I screamed.

But it was too late. Randolph hit Jare squarely between the shoulder blades. The phone flew over the edge first; then, with a long, awful, drawn-out “Ahhh!” Jare fell too. I thought Randolph would roll down next, but he landed with a thud at my feet, and everything in the world went dead still and wretchedly silent. I covered my face with my hands, scared to look, and eventually felt someone standing next to me. I uncovered my eyes to see Aaron, his lip bleeding, his terrified eyes trained on the downward slope. I was so glad he was alive that I put my arms around him and buried my face in his shoulder. He didn't move, just stood as if frozen, staring down the hill.

“Is it bad?” I asked.

In a hoarse whisper, Aaron said, “Bad.”

I looked. Scattered along the side of the hill were pieces of the satellite phone, and at the bottom, his body oddly twisted and motionless, the kind of motionless that looks permanent, lay Jare.

El Viaje a la Confianza

IT TOOK LESS THAN THREE seconds for the desert to shatter Jare. At first I was afraid it had killed him. But after we scrambled down the slope, I saw his chest rising and falling and I could feel his pulse, and as Audrey crouched next to me, his eyelids fluttered open. “I can't walk,” he whispered. I could tell he was in agony from the way the skin around his eyes had gone white under his tan. He glanced over my shoulder. “Somebody make Louis sit before he falls down,” he gasped, pointing at Louis, who'd staggered down the hill behind us.

Louis did his best not to collapse at the spectacle of Jare's leg, which protruded at an angle it had no natural right to protrude at. The rest of the campers, who must've gotten curious about the shouting, began to trickle over the edge of the embankment. Randolph had disappeared.

Edie handed Louis her water bottle and sat him on the nearest rock.

“Who,” Jare said, “thinks they are tough?”

We all glanced at each other. Since Jare had made it crystal clear that he didn't think any of us were tough, it seemed like sort of a weird question. “I know,” said Jare softly. “That's kind of a weird question. But I need help. And it's gonna take somebody tough.”

“I'm tough,” Kate volunteered.

“Kate
is
tough,” agreed Enod.

“Enod,” said Jare, “run back to camp for the first-aid kit.” Jare turned to Kate. “Okay, Little Miss Sun—okay, Kate,” he said, his eyes fluttering upward in agony as he dug a Swiss Army knife out of his pocket. “Ready?”

Kate nodded.

“I'm pretty sure it's a compound fracture,” said Jare. “'Cause of all the blood. So could you please slice off my jeans above the knee? We need to have a look.” Kate did it. She tried to not hurt him. What she slowly uncovered brought tears to her eyes, but she resolutely sawed through the fabric and dropped the shredded pieces of blue jean in the dust beside her, and when she was done, she waited for instructions.

Unfortunately, Jare had passed out from the pain.

“What do we do?” asked Kate, keeping her eyes off Jare's leg.

I'd once read part of a Red Cross first-aid manual while recovering in the lifeguard shack at Splashview Swim Club after one of the guards had to “rescue” me because I did such a wicked belly flop, I ran into a little trouble swimming to the ladder. The pictures of compound fractures were so horrible I could barely look at them, because a compound fracture happens when not only is your leg broken so crazily it bends like you have an extra, sideways knee, but also the jagged pieces of bone stab through your muscle and rip a gash in your skin from the inside. Like Jare's. The lifeguard, who was a little peeved at me anyway because I'd made him jump in and ruin his hair, saw what I was staring at and took the manual away, but not before he turned green.

“I don't know,” I said. “We have to wait for Jare to wake up.”

Enod called down from the lip of the drop and tossed the first-aid kit to us.

Slowly Jare stirred. “Take this,” whispered Jare, handing Kate a huge gauze square from the kit. “Press on the gash as hard as you can. Keep mashing until I stop bleeding. I might pass out again. Actually, I kinda hope I do. But keep
on it. Only . . . your hands are sort of small. You're gonna need help.”

“I'll help,” said Kevin Larkspur. “I want to be a doctor when I grow up.”

This was another thing Jare would've scoffed at ordinarily, but things were not ordinary. “Good man,” murmured Jare as they pressed the gauze against the break. “Hoo. That hurts.” As they squeezed, he closed his eyes and fell silent, but he stayed conscious. After a while, the bleeding slowed, and Jare handed Kate another square of gauze, a tube of antiseptic, and a roll of adhesive tape. “Wrap that baby on there tight, and maybe we can keep enough germs out to stop gangrene from setting in,” he said.

“Gangrene?” cried Kate. “We have to get you out of here. Quick.”

“We have to get us
all
out of here,” rasped Jare. “Quick.”

“How are we going to do that?” asked Audrey.

“
You
are going to do that,” replied Jare. “By applying the lessons you've learned along el Viaje a la Confianza.” Maybe we didn't look like we thought this would be a real game changer. “Oh, come on,” he cried, gritting his teeth as he propped his leg on a rock made of sea-snail fossils. “Just because I'm a loser and a blowhard doesn't mean I haven't taught you anything!”

I guess I looked surprised when he called himself a
loser. “Aaron. Come on. With a brain like yours, you've gotta remember my statistics. Dontcha? Then you know. It's okay to say it. I'm a loser.”

“You're a loser!” piped up Cyrus.

“I didn't mean say it right this second,” muttered Jare.

“Sorry,” said Cyrus.

“I hope you guys realize something. You're fortunate. Blessed in a way I never was,” Jare went on. “Things are hard for you. All the time. You're lucky.”

“Then I guess
I've
had about all the luck one guy can stand,” cracked Louis.

Jare started to laugh, and then he froze and turned green. And decided not to laugh. “Sadly,” he wheezed, “I always had it easy. Easy in Hillside, Montana. Easy in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And then one day in Cleveland, Ohio, when things got tough, it took me less than half an hour to become professional football's all-time loser. You guys, though, you've been up against it your whole lives. You had it rough back home, and once you got here, I made sure to keep the problems coming. This might be hard to believe, but even when I was acting like a colossal jerk, I was teaching you something: not to fold in the clutch. And I guess today is when we find out if you absorbed my lesson.”

“Whoa, Jare. You were a good guy all along?” called Randolph, gazing down from the precipice. “This is blowing
my mind.” Smashing Jare's leg hadn't exactly transformed him into a model camper. In fact, he seemed like more of a jerk than ever.

“The flatulence of an underfed gnat,” called back Jare, “would blow your mind.” He started to laugh again, and grimaced, and turned white. “Note to self. Laughing. Really hurts.” Shifting to find a position he could bear, Jare spread out a map. “Audrey and Aaron, you're going for help. There's a ranch twelve miles up the trail with two cowhands living in it. It'll be a slog, but all you've got to do is stick to the path and keep walking. Two good people should make it before sundown. The rest of you are going to strike camp and bring it down here, since I can't go back up that hill. And we'll all hold the fort until Audrey and Aaron send help.”

“But what if Audrey and Aaron don't make it in time?” asked Edie. “We've barely got enough water for the rest of today.”

“I know,” said Jare. “I was planning for us all to be at the ranch by tonight. Our next supply cache is there.”

After a pause that gave me a chance to think about how far we were from help, and how tired, hungry, thirsty, and puny we were in a land that had been bone-dry and full of rocks hot enough to kill mastodons and mountain lions for millions of years, Jare said, “I think we've got a high
likelihood of survival. But we can't make even one more mistake. And by ‘we,' I mean myself. I definitely made a mistake or two.”

“Does one of your mistakes explain where Daphne is?” asked Audrey.

Jare sighed. The last of the bluster leaked out of him as he slumped against the rocky bluff. “I was trying to
help
Daphne. And her dad. He's my old buddy George Pepin. George had a close call this spring. Barrier Reef. Unruly sharks. Caused him to turn over a new leaf. Felt bad about how he'd handed over custody of Daphne all those years ago without a fight, regretted the way he'd neglected her ever since. Wanted to make amends, treat her to a summer of adventure. And of course, that mother of hers wasn't gonna let it happen.

“So we hatched a plan where Daphne could rendezvous with him from here, make it look like she ran off. I faked the trail in the wrong direction in case the authorities decided to get involved, and I made sure you guys discovered it. Meanwhile, Daphne was gonna hike the other way on an old sheep path. Her dad planned to kayak down the river to meet her at the trailhead by an abandoned farm, and then, right before they vamoosed to Mexico, they were gonna call me on George's satellite phone. I thought our plan was pure gold.”

“Except for one little detail: it was a felony. Kidnapping. Her dad doesn't have custody,” I pointed out.

“I know Daphne's mom. She'd never prosecute George, because even if she thinks he's a loser, she knows Daphne loves him. If he went to prison, it would break Daphne's heart,” replied Jare.

“And another little detail,” threw in Enod. “It didn't work.”

“There
is
that,” allowed Jare.

“So how long ago were you expecting their call?” asked Audrey.

For the first time ever, Jare's voice was so quiet, I could hardly hear it. “About twenty-four hours ago.”

“Something happened to Daphne,” said Louis.

“She must not have made it to the rendezvous point,” Jare added wearily.

“How do you know something didn't happen to her
dad
?” asked Cyrus. “Maybe
he
never made it.”

“Dude kayaked the length of the Amazon. Twice. Once in each direction,” said Jare. “He's solid.”

“So why didn't he call when Daphne didn't show?” I asked.

“Good question,” replied Jare, but he didn't really seem to think there was anything good about it. “I think she must've gotten behind schedule. But guess what: the Terminator
up there smashed my phone, so there's no way to tell.” He pointed to Randolph, squatting on his rocky perch.

“What if George got to the meeting point, and when Daphne wasn't there, he went looking for her?” asked Audrey. “And got lost? What if they're
both
in trouble?”

“Why are you asking all these questions?” shot back Jare.

“Because
we're
going to find Daphne,” I said. “And her dad too, if he's lost with her.” Audrey nodded.

“Our whole team,” added Kate.

“Right,” agreed Louis.

“Then who's going to the ranch?” asked Jare.

“Enod and Kevin,” Audrey replied. “You said two good people can make it to the ranch by midnight. Enod and Kevin are better than good. They're great.”

“Thanks, Audrey,” said Enod.

“Don't get all mushy on me, Enod,” said Audrey.

“Sorry,” said Enod.

“I can't let you guys go after Daphne,” said Jare. “I already lost one camper. I can't lose four more.”

“We're going,” I said.

“No,” said Jare.

“How are you going to stop us?” wondered Louis.

“That's a conundrum, all right,” admitted Jare, gazing at his leg. “I could order the other campers to band together
and detain you.” He gazed around at Cyrus, Edie, and the rest, who stared back at him with wide, round eyes. “Or not. Okay. If you gotta go, you gotta go.”

We inventoried the water left in camp. Six and a half gallons: three to share among the ten people staying behind, a gallon and a half for Kevin and Enod, and two gallons for Audrey, Kate, Louis, and me. We figured this was fair. “Enod,” said Jare. “You and your buddy keep your brains in gear, and this time tomorrow, everybody will be enjoying a nice tall glass of ice water delivered by law-enforcement helicopter.”

He turned to Audrey, Louis, Kate, and me. From his front pocket, he dug a tattered map. “This isn't much good,” he said. “All it shows is where Daphne is supposed to be. Which, as we know, is actually where she isn't. But it's better than nothing. Now be careful. I really couldn't stand it if I lost any more of you. And Kate, you can leave the railroad spike here.”

“Thanks, Jare,” said Kate. “You're turning into a big softy.”

“Searing pain will do that to you,” replied Jare.

As we slowly crossed the dusty pan in the direction Daphne had taken, searching for some sign of her, I could feel the
ground rise a tiny bit to the left and to the right, as if, out there somewhere so far away I couldn't even see it, the desert was shrugging its shoulders. And as we pushed on, I realized our route was leading us into a vast downward funnel as big as an entire county back in Pennsylvania. Soon I could see stony hills miles and miles away to the east and west, rising higher and closing in on us as we made our way south. And above the hilltops to our right, I spied a puffy white cloud.

“That's the first cloud I've seen since we got here,” observed Louis.

I knew all these things added up to something, even if I didn't know what it was. And I could sense by the way Audrey, Kate, and Louis scoured the landscape that they knew something waited out there too. I knew now not to go digging in a file cabinet in my brain for a bunch of facts that would give everybody the illusion I had it all figured out. I knew to stay quiet and keep watching, walking, and thinking, because I realized there was no shortcut to the answers we were after. But I knew the Fearless Four would figure out everything we needed to know when the time came.

Two hours into our rescue effort, as the sun really began to beat on us, Louis spotted one of Daphne's unbelievably red hairs snagged on a yucca, undulating like a tiny
pennant on the rising heat waves. He stopped and plucked it off the greeny wooden spray of spines. “Hers,” he said.

Kate shrugged out of her pack straps. “Anybody want an orange?” she asked.

“You've got oranges?” marveled Audrey.

“Jare gave me a bag from his secret stash,” she said. “He told me not to tell you until we were on the trail.”

“You are the Queen of the Fearless Four!” declared Audrey. “Now don't be a stingy queen! Give me an orange!” Kate bestowed one upon her.
“Mmmmmmm,”
Audrey moaned as she bit in and orange juice spritzed through the hot, bright morning.