Darwin Expedition

The Darwin Expedition

Diane Tullson

orca soundings

Copyright © Diane Tullson 2007

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage
and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without
permission in writing from the publisher.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Tullson, Diane, 1958-
The Darwin expedition / written by Diane Tullson.

(Orca soundings)

ISBN 978-1-55143-678-4 (bound).--ISBN 978-1-55143-676-0 (pbk.)

I. Title. II. Series.

PS8589.U6055D37 2007    jC813'.6      C2006-906611-6

Summary:
Following an accident on a remote logging road, Liam and Tej must call on all their resources to survive the elements and escape the bear that is following them.

First published in the United States, 2007

Library of Congress Control Number:
2006938694

Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

Cover design: Doug McCaffry
Cover photography: Getty Images

    Orca Book Publishers                   Orca Book Publishers
PO Box 5626, Stn. B                                PO Box 468
    Victoria, BC Canada                         Custer, WA USA
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www.orcabook.com

Printed and bound in Canada.

Printed on 100% PCW recycled paper.

010 09 08 07 • 5 4 3 2 1

Thanks to Andrew Wooldridge at Orca Book Publishers for having the right words, and to Shelley Hrdlitschka and Kim Denman, always, for their help with the manuscript.

To R.J. and R.J., with love
.

Rain is a sheet of water on the windshield of the pickup truck. Lead gray, the sky appears in brief arcs as the wipers slam back and forth. The forestry road clings to an old avalanche slope, and the roadbed is under what must be a foot of mud. Tej's truck wheels spin and the side windows disappear in a spray of mud. Tej white-knuckles the steering wheel.

“Might be too early in the spring to be on this road, Tej.”

“We're almost through,” he says, his teeth clenched.

“We could turn around.”

Tej throws me a look. “We'd waste hours going back, Liam. We do not want to do that.”

Through the mud on his side window I peer down at the stump-strewn slope. The truck fishtails, and suddenly I'm getting a good view of that downhill run.

“You're too close to the edge!”

Tej cranks the steering wheel. Plumes of mud plaster the side of the truck. I feel the back end slew, then drop, as a wheel catches the crumbling shoulder. I'm pushed into the seat, like I'm in a dentist's chair that's tilted. Tej mats the accelerator. The engine whines as the back wheels start to spin. Then the truck lurches backward. I cram my foot against the floorboards, as if that will make the truck hold the road. Tej mutters a curse and the wheels grab, and then they slip again. The truck tips and I lean toward Tej, who is flattened against his side window. We're both
swearing now. As the truck starts to roll, Tej's Coke can leaves the cup-holder and hangs in the air an instant before erupting on the dash. Coke runs up the inside of the windshield, and then it streams sideways as we continue to roll.

My teeth slam against my tongue and I taste blood. My shoulder and then my head crack against the side window. Old snow in the ditch swipes the side window and fills it with white. Then I see trees, and sky, and I know we're going over again. That's when I close my eyes.

I don't know how many times we flip, but when we stop, we're suspended upside down in our seat belts. At some point the air bags blew and now droop from the dash. The air feels dense and it's too quiet. I take a careful breath and wait—for the truck to roll again or careen down the mountain, but it doesn't. We're stopped. I heave open the door, and then I push up on one hand against the headliner of the truck, easing the pressure off the seat belt so I can unbuckle it. I tuck my head and
roll. It isn't pretty, but I manage to get out of the truck.

My legs liquefy, and I grab the door to steady myself. The truck's front end is jammed solidly against a three-foot tree stump. Good thing, because otherwise we'd be tinfoil at the bottom of the mountain. I stumble around the steaming undercarriage and haul open Tej's door.

His hair is hanging in black spines and his dark eyes are the size of quarters. He's scrabbling with the seat-belt buckle.

“My truck.”

“I'm fine, thanks for asking.”

Tej gets his buckle undone, and for a second I think about letting him drop on his head. But I pull him from the truck. He wobbles a bit, and then he stands, looking at the truck, at the crumpled steel and the twisted bumper, at the tailgate plowed upside down in the mud.

“Wrecked,” he says. “Totally fubar.”

I wait for Tej to say something more but he is silent. His eyes are wide open, staring. I shuffle my feet. “You can fix it.”

Tej gives himself a shake. “Not here, obviously. We need a tow truck.” He yanks his hood up on his blue rain jacket and brushes the hair out of his eyes. After a minute he fishes his phone out of his pocket, opens it and then closes it again. He doesn't have to tell me: There's no service this far into the bush.

The daylight is almost gone. I say, “Maybe we can get a ride out on a logging truck. We could come back tomorrow to get the truck.”

“We were on this road most of the afternoon and didn't see a truck. Something tells me we won't see one anytime soon, not with this rain, not even if they use this road anymore.”

It was Tej's idea to take the old logging road. Like he can read my mind, he says, “We could have waited the entire long weekend for them to clear the accident off the main highway.” He shoves a duffel bag under the truck out of the rain. Our gear was in the bed of the pickup. Tej's snowboard is scattered in pieces. I can't
even see mine. Rain is running down my neck.

“Maybe they'll send someone.”

“Who? Our parents? “ Tej kicks a sleeping bag under the truck. “Our parents think we're on the highway to Whistler.”

“I mean when we don't call. They'll get worried and start looking for us.”

Tej shakes his head. “I never call. My parents expect that I'll be okay or that I'll deal with it.”

“I call. Sometimes a few days late, but I always call.”

“Well, I'm not sitting here for a few days waiting for an imaginary rescue.”

Tej reaches into the truck and grabs a road map from the overhead console, only now it's on the floor, of course. Rain drills the map as he unfolds it. As he studies the map, his eyebrows knot.

“So?”

He folds the map. “If we stay on the forestry road, we can walk out in a couple of days.”

My tongue is sore where I bit it and I
chomp it again. “Walk? For a couple of days?”

“Or we can go cross-country. It won't take more than a day, max.” He points with his thumb down the mountain. “We'll drop down over the next ridge and hook up with the main road. Then we hitch a ride into town.” He pushes the rest of the gear under the truck and scrambles in after it. “We'll leave in the morning.”

I watch his feet disappear under the truck. “How do you know which way to go?”

His voice is muffled. “The forestry road runs east of the main highway. We walk west.”

“You don't think it's a bit more complicated than that?”

I hear Tej crack a Coke, then a spraying sound, then Tej curses. I guess the Coke is a bit shaken up. I stick my head under the truck to find Tej wiping his hands on my sleeping bag. I crawl in and grab it from him. Under the truck the rain pings like we're in an oil drum, but it's dry
Reasonably dry. Tej has taken the most sheltered spot, next to the tailgate; I'm sitting in a small stream of rainwater that runs under the bed of the truck.

“Shove over,” I say.

He shakes his head. “It's my truck.”

“It's not much of a truck anymore.”

“You're an idiot, Liam.” But he shifts his legs so I can move in beside him. Now my ass is out of the water, anyway. I rummage in a duffel bag and pull out a sandwich. It's slightly mashed but it's food—my school lunch from hours ago. I take a big bite and then offer him the sandwich. He waves it away. He says, “Tomorrow at this time, we'll be in a Whistler hot tub with a couple of Aussie babes of questionable virtue.”

“I'll be happy when I'm back in Tremblay with Jordan.”

Tej yawns. “She's probably not wasting any time thinking about you.”

I ignore the barb in his voice. I poke him in the side and say, “A little jealous?”

He snorts. “Not of her. Not of anything in Tremblay.”

He drains the Coke, belches, draws his sleeping bag around him and lies down. He fits this space better than I do—I have to keep my knees bent. The bed of the pickup is uncomfortably close to my face and makes me feel like I'm in a coffin.

I say, “Chances of us getting to Whistler are about as good as you ever meeting any babes.”

“How long have we been friends, Liam?” He doesn't wait for me to answer. He says, “Since first grade. Now we're in twelfth grade, so that's what?” He pauses and pretends to count on his fingers. “Twelve years? In all those years, when have I ever been wrong?”

Tej doesn't know the meaning of wrong, which isn't the same as never being wrong. I say, “You don't know anything about hiking through the mountains.”

“It's not exactly Everest, Einstein. And I've done some hiking.”

“You've hiked. Yeah, right.” Tej spends every waking hour at school or studying. He got early acceptance at three big universities.
He says I should go with him, get a job, share a place. “People disappear in the mountains, Tej.”

“You want to sit here and wait for someone to find us? They'll find our sorry skeletons. No way. We'll walk out.”

I finish the sandwich and wish I had another one. Could be Tej is right. Could be that tomorrow at this time we'll be sitting in McDonald,s with a tray of burgers AND the Aussie babes.

The light is gone and it's so dark I can't see Tej. I can't see my hand in front of my face. It's so dark we could be in a coffin. Panic creeps into my throat and I take a deep breath.

Tej's voice is quiet, calm. “We'll be fine, Liam.” I feel his hand on my shoulder, a touch so quick it could be accidental, and then it's gone. “Trust me. I know what I'm doing.”

“It's barely drizzling now.” Tej, ahead of me, peers up at the sky from under the hood of his jacket.

Dense cloud drapes the alpine meadow. The mountaintops are invisible. Everything looks gray.

Tej says, “We're making good time. We should be out to the highway by late afternoon.”

Late afternoon. I shift my backpack to a different sore place on my shoulder. My
feet are soaked and my shoes gnaw the back of my heels. “I'm starving.”

Tej rolls his eyes. “We ate breakfast.”

“Two granola bars are not breakfast.”

Actually, I'm more thirsty than hungry. I stick my tongue out to collect drops of rain. “And that was hours ago.”

We're following a trail made by about a zillion elk as they traversed the alpine meadow from the valley where they wintered. The soft earth of the meadow is dug deep with their tracks. Far across the valley, the north-facing mountain slope is still covered in snow.