Lost Cipher (8 page)

CHAPTER 16

The storm was on top of the boys much faster than they expected. They had just crossed back over the little creek at the bottom of the ravine when the first big drops began splattering the woods. Halfway up the other side, the trees began to swirl, and the wind roared so loudly they could barely hear each other. Just as hailstones the size of marbles began pelting the rocks, they scurried up to the base of the cliff and dove for the cover of the cave. Within a minute, the hail turned to sheets of blinding rain, and thunder boomed off the ridge so close that Lucas thought it might send a chunk or two of the mountain down on them.

The three boys huddled close to the edge of the cave, just out of the rain. When a bolt of lightning hit so close that the hair on their arms stood up, Lucas and Alex scooted farther beneath the ledge. But George still refused to go back into the darkness where the bones were scattered.

They sat watching the storm for a long time before anyone spoke. “How long do you think this is going to last?” Alex asked Lucas.

“Who knows,” answered Lucas. “Maybe a while.”

“So what are we going to do?” asked George.

“Only thing we
can
do is stay right here for now. If it lets up quick, we can go back to where we was at, see if anyone's lookin' for us. If it keeps on like this”—Lucas shrugged—“I guess we're here for the night.”

“For the night?” asked Alex, laughing nervously. “You're kidding, right? We don't have our sleeping bags or anything.”

“Or food,” added George

“Well,” said Lucas, “I don't think we'll be gettin' too much sleep in here anyhow, so we don't exactly need our sleepin' bags. And water…” He grinned. “We got plenty of that.”

He picked up one of the rusty cans left by the fire ring and set it under a steady stream of rainwater pouring off the rock over their heads. Within seconds the can was full, and Lucas rinsed out the rusty mixture and set it back under the stream.

“Wonderful,” muttered Alex. “At least
you're
right at home.”

The smile dropped from Lucas's face. It was one thing for somebody like Zack to call him a hillbilly, but he didn't expect it out of Alex.

George didn't even notice the sudden change in Lucas. “Yeah, and what are we gonna eat?” he pleaded. “I'm starving already.”

“Dang, George!” replied Lucas angrily. “When
ain't
you hungry!?” He picked up a fist-sized rock and stared at the younger boy. “Besides, the way I see it, if I get to starvin', I got plenty to eat.” He looked at Alex. “I mean, me bein' a dirty ol' hillbilly and all, I'm liable to eat just about anything, ain't I?”

“I didn't mean it, Lucas,” said Alex. “I guess I'm just pissed at myself for going along with this.”

“Yeah, and I'm tryin' to make the best of it,” said Lucas. “Look, we ain't gonna die, y'all. We just gotta be smart from here on out.”

“But won't Aaron just call for help?” George asked hopefully. “He's got to have a cell phone.”

Lucas shook his head. “He probably can't even get a signal in these mountains. And even if he could, there ain't no way somebody's gonna come lookin' for us in this storm. And they ain't gonna be lookin' after dark neither. So we make the best of it and wait for mornin'. Then we—”

“Then we
what
? What if they don't know where to look for us? What if they just find our bones in here a month from now?” George motioned over his shoulder at the back of the cave. “Like those.”

“They'll know where to look,” said Lucas. “They're gonna look over where we got lost in the first place. And when they do, we'll be right there waitin' for 'em.”

Three hours later, the wind had eased some, but the rain was still a steady downpour. The storm brought the darkness on quickly, and soon the only light came from the distant flashes of lightning in the east or from George's watch, which blinked on every time he nervously checked the time.

Lucas tried to start a fire by striking the lid from one of the tin cans against a flat rock. Every once in a while he sent a spark or two into the small pile of dry twigs and leaves they'd collected from the back of the cave, but he never got more than a feeble glow.

“Don't matter anyhow,” he said, giving up. “Even if I got it goin', there ain't enough dry wood around here to keep a fire all night.”

Eventually the boys tried to make themselves as comfortable as possible, lying on the rock slab at the opening of the shelter and staring out into the blowing trees. They were protected from the wind, and the flat rock beneath them still radiated a little warmth from the day's sun. Alex found a long, stout stick and sharpened it by rubbing one end on the rock—in case the panther came around, he said. In the flashes of lightning that lit up their primitive shelter, Lucas told him he looked like a caveman with a spear.

For a good hour, Lucas tried to get comfortable, but between the hard rock, the wind, and worrying about being back on the opposite ridge at first light, he knew he'd never sleep. Eventually Alex fell silent next to him and even George stopped rustling around and moaning about his empty stomach. Just when Lucas assumed both of his roommates had managed to drift off, Alex whispered to him.

“Lucas, you still awake?”

“Yeah.” He sat up and looked to where Alex was lying, just a shadowy lump in the dark of the cave. “This rock don't exactly make a great bed.”

“I was still wondering about your dad. Like, was he really a soldier?”

Lucas didn't respond at first, afraid of where the talk about his pa might take him. But George shifted in the darkness and prompted him too.

“Yeah, Lucas, did he really fight in Afghanistan?”

Lucas hadn't thought about his father, for the afternoon at least, and now he felt the guilt all over again. He had
wanted
to be distracted at the camp, to have something else to think about besides that terrible moment he'd come out of the woods and seen the soldiers' car—and the days after when he'd learned from his grandparents what had happened to his pa. But it wasn't right, not thinking about him at all. He'd lost his dad's pack, and now he couldn't even keep him in his head. It seemed only right to talk about him now, to say
something
about him, to bring him all the way back to the front of his mind and then some, even if it meant seeing pictures in his head that he wished he'd never see again.

“He wasn't always a soldier,” Lucas finally said. “When I was a baby, he was a Scout Sniper in the Marines, but until the mine shut down a couple years back, he was workin' security for the mining company. He always said that protectin' the company's money was a lot safer than diggin' their coal, safer than bein' a soldier even. I guess he seen too many of our kin get killed or hurt bad down there, like my grandpa gettin' his leg crushed. He didn't want me growin' up without no pa.”

He picked up one of the sticks he had gathered and tossed it out into the darkness beyond the ledge. “Guess that didn't work out too well.”

“So he went back into the Marines?” asked Alex from the darkness behind him.

“Not at first,” replied Lucas. “When the mine closed, it pretty much killed the town near us, so there weren't any real jobs around Indian Hole. So my pa started leaving me with my grandpa and grandma a lot. He'd work all week in Charleston or Bluefield—those are the bigger towns a few hours from Indian Hole—and then come home on the weekend to see us. But then the Marines started offerin' good money for people like him, people with his kind of experience. He figured if he was gonna be away from home anyway, it might as well be for better
money.” Lucas stopped for a second and rubbed at his eyes. “Left the day after Christmas.”

“I bet your mom hated him being gone so long,” said George. “My mom always hated it when my dad was working on the road, and he wasn't ever gone more than a week.”

Lucas snorted out half a laugh. “I ain't got a ma. Never had one, really. Supposedly she ran off when I was about a year old, the first time my pa was in the Marines.”

“Jeez, that's terrible, Lucas,” said George softly.

“It's all right. Heck, it's probably why me and my pa got along so good. Maybe 'cause we kinda needed each other.” Saying it made Lucas's eyes well up again, and suddenly he had to swallow hard to keep his voice steady.

“He had me when he was pretty young, so sometimes it was almost like havin' a big brother instead of a pa. And I ain't got no brothers or sisters, so we did a lot together, just me and him. He taught me how to shoot when I was little, so we hunted together since I was maybe eight or so. And we got us a good-sized creek down at the bottom of our mountain, so we used to fish a lot too.”

The tears were running down his cheeks now, so he was glad when George spoke up again. In the darkness, his voice sounded lonely and far-off, like he was lost in memories of his own. “Sounds like you had a way better dad than me, Lucas.”

Lucas listened as a gust left over from the storm shook the rain from the trees outside the cave. “Maybe,” he said.

The younger boy laughed, but there was no smile in his voice. “Seriously. All that stuff you did together? My dad never does that stuff with me. Never has, never will. He's all about work. Twenty-four seven. Most of the time he's on the road too. I guess it just didn't matter so much to me when my mom was alive, but I was stupid enough to think he'd change. Like maybe somehow he'd need
me
more or something.”

His voice cracked when he said the last part, and it was a few seconds before he started up again. “Now he says he's got to work even more because we don't have her to help with the money. But that's bull. I think he just wants to avoid me or something. I know it's not the same as you, Lucas, but sometimes I feel like both of
my
parents are gone too.” He sniffed back his tears and added, “At least when your dad went away, it was to take care of you.”

Alex had been listening quietly. “So he never came back, did he, Lucas?” he said.

Lucas didn't respond at first—not just because the answer was obvious, but because the words cut him even deeper somehow, lost like he was in the dark and lonely mountains.

“Well,” said Alex, “I bet he at least died like a hero, Lucas. Beats getting killed in some stupid car wreck like my mom.”

He knew exactly how his pa had died, but he'd never told it to anyone. But now, it was as if the dark loneliness of this one night was focusing the terrible pictures in his mind so starkly that he had to tell someone just to rid his head of them. Way in the east, lightning flashed, too far now to hear the thunder.

“Yeah, he
was
a hero,” he began, knowing he'd never get it all out without bawling but not caring any more. “That's what them two soldiers even told my grandma the day they come up our road to tell us. That's all they could say, but we learned the rest later. That he was in a convoy, and I guess he rolled right past a bomb set up in a junked car next to the road.” He paused to wipe his eyes with his T-shirt.

“Funny thing is, that one didn't get him. But it got the truck behind him.” His voice was already breaking and he was having trouble getting a full breath of air, but he forced the words out. “He was…supposed to wait for the bomb guys to come…and check for more bombs in the road, but…but they said he couldn't stand to hear the screamin' from the guys in the truck…Those were his friends back there. So my pa…he just ran.” As Lucas said it, he saw his father's face more clearly than he had since the day of the soldiers.

“He ran to help his friends!” The last part of it came choking out of him, and he put his face in both hands and sobbed.

George and Alex didn't say anything, and it was a full minute before Lucas could speak again. When he did, he was still crying some, still choking on his breath.

“He got killed…by a bomb right there in the road…All we got to see of him…was a coffin with a flag on top of it…” It was a picture he'd never shake, that and the little movie in his head, the one of his pa running down a sandy road toward a burning truck.

“So he
was
a hero, Lucas,” said George quietly. “A real hero.”

Lucas sniffed and sucked in a shallow breath. “Yeah, he was,” he said, “and I wish he'd been a coward.”

He stood up, wiping his nose with his arm, and paced to the other side of the ledge. He wasn't talking so much to Alex and George now as he was to the black wilderness itself.

“I mean, why'd he always have to worry about someone else? Like goin' off to fight. That wasn't for him. He said that was so I'd have choices. Well, you know what choice I woulda made? I woulda chose a pa who ain't dead!” He yelled it out at the forest, but it was his pa he was screaming at now, and he knew it. “Just…one…stupid…time! Why'd you have to worry about somebody else!? You shoulda been worryin'…about
m
e
!”

His last words echoed out of the mouth of the cave and died out in the blowing trees. Lucas sat down hard on the rocks and drew his knees up close to his face. After that, there was only the sound of the wind and his tears.

CHAPTER 17

When he finally stopped crying, Lucas lay back on the rock, his arms folded over his eyes. He knew he'd embarrassed himself in front of George and Alex, but somehow he felt better for it, like something that had been trying to bust out of his skull for months was finally gone. It suddenly came to him that he'd never felt so tired in his life. It was late now, probably after midnight, and the hiking had tired him out good. But it was spilling his guts about his father that had drained the last drop of energy from him.

Alex sensed that it was okay to speak again. “I'm sorry I asked, Lucas,” he whispered.

“Yeah, we won't talk about it anymore,” George added.

“Nobody made me tell it,” said Lucas, his voice steadier now. “And maybe I'm glad I did anyway.”

“So I guess you'll be living with your grandparents for a while, huh?” asked Alex, eager to change to subject.

Lucas laughed. Who else was he going to live with? The only question now was
where
.

“What's so funny?” asked George.

“Yeah, I'll be living with them. Fact, we're gonna have a lot of money too. Not as much as our ol' buddy Zack I bet, but enough that I'll be livin' in a real house somewhere.”

“Why's that?” Alex asked.

“'Cause my grandparents are sellin' our mountain to the minin' company. And then it's gonna get torn up so bad my pa probably won't even recognize it when he looks down from Heaven.

“Shoot,” he went on, “I guess now you know why I didn't feel like talkin' about no buried treasure yesterday. Y'all want pizza and airplanes. Heck, I'd take that money and get us that real house too. Maybe one with a room just for me, with a real bed like I used to have. And I'd get us a truck that ain't rusted full a' holes too. And some real doctorin' for my grandpa's leg. But most of all, I'd save our mountain from bein' torn to hell. That's what my pa wanted, and it's the only thing I know I want for sure. Ain't exactly some rich kid's dream, is it?”

It wasn't the only reason he'd refused to talk about the treasure. He knew that hatching some fantasy about the rest of his life would only force him to wonder about his
real
future—a hole that right now was only getting deeper and darker, threatening to swallow him up forever.

Just then, a long scream split the darkness.

It was distant but clear, rising over the wind. It sounded like a woman in terrible pain, crying out for help.

Lucas knew immediately what it was, but from the cave in the mountains in the middle of the night, it was the scariest sound he'd ever heard.

Alex jumped to his feet and scrambled for his stick, and George whispered, “Holy crap!”

Lucas didn't even sit up. “Y'all hear that?” he asked, trying to sound calm.

“Of course we did!” replied Alex. “What was it!?” Like George, he was whispering, as if whatever made the noise would somehow hear him, even from far away.

Lucas sniffed the last of his tears away. “The painter, I guess.” He was thankful the big cat had screamed when it did. No more talk about parents, at least not tonight.

“You mean the same thing that left those tracks?” Alex said in a panicky voice. “In here?”

“My grandpa told me they sound just like a woman screamin'. That's about the only thing it could be.”

“Guys,” whispered George, “I think I peed in my pants. Seriously.”

Alex ignored him. “Maybe it's somebody yelling for us, back on the other ridge.”

“Nope,” said Lucas, “ain't nobody up here in the dark. If they was, we'd have seen their lights over there. Besides, that didn't come from over where we was at. More like from up behind us somewhere.” He got up and stood at the opening of the cave, listening for another scream.

“Great!” said George, the panic rising in his hushed voice, “It's probably coming back home from a night of hunting. And we're sleeping in its bedroom!”

“Naw, even if it is comin' this way, it'll smell us in here way before it gets too close. That'll be enough to keep it away.”

“And what if it doesn't?” asked Alex.

Lucas sat down next to him, still facing the dark forest in front of the cave. “Then I guess we got one more reason to stay awake.”

The panther screamed again, clearer this time. Lucas felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck, but this time it was more from the thrill of hearing it than any fear.

“That was closer, wasn't it?” George asked.

Lucas didn't respond. Instead he stepped over to the fire ring and started collecting some of the smaller stones. He placed them in a small pile where the others were sitting, and he sat again.

“What are those for?” asked George.

“Look, y'all,” Lucas said calmly, “that painter ain't comin' around here tonight. But just in case he does, all we got to do is make a lot of noise and throw a few rocks at him. My grandpa's always said they's pretty much scaredy-cats, especially if more'n one person's around.”

Alex grabbed a fist-sized rock in his throwing hand and held his makeshift spear tight in the other. He sat down next to Lucas, the three of them waiting to hear the scream again.

When they finally did, it was even closer. In fact it seemed to come from the ridge just above them.

“I thought you said it wasn't coming around here tonight,” George whispered frantically.

“It just ain't smelled us yet, that's all,” said Lucas. “It don't know we're down here. The wind's blowin' from behind him, right over the ridge and out into these woods.” He picked up a couple more rocks from the fire ring. “But I guess it'd be smart to keep at least one pair of eyes peeled all night. I can take first watch.”

He tried to sound brave, but as much as he wanted to see a real live painter up close, seeing one from a pitch-black cave in the middle of nowhere wasn't his first choice. He knew he wouldn't sleep much anyway, if at all.

“I'll stay up with you, Lucas,” said Alex, moving closer to his friend.

“Me too,” said George. “I'm too hungry to sleep anyway.”

“Sure,” said Alex, “too hungry. That's it.”

“Shut up,” replied George. “I'm serious.”

For the next half hour they sat quietly, listening for the panther. It screamed only once more, above them again but more distant. Not long after, Lucas heard George's breathing change, and he knew the younger boy had drifted off. Minutes later, Alex lay his stick down and fell asleep too.

For another half hour, Lucas stared into the shadows at the edge of the cave. Far on the horizon, out over the tidewater or maybe even the ocean, the lightning from the storm still flashed dimly. Finally, he lay back on the rock and watched the clouds above him drift apart to reveal a dense blanket of stars. The forest became still enough to hear the soft buzzing of the insects, and long before the sky began to brighten in the east, he fell asleep and dreamed, for the first time in months, of him and his father, together, down by the little creek below the trailer.