The white Dodge Dart, its bumpers and windows covered with a thin layer of fine reddish dust, sped down the forest service road toward Aspen Lake. The windows of the car were up, the air conditioning on, and the stereo was cranked up almost to the pain level. Matt McDowell, bouncing around on the ripped upholstery of the back seat, leaned forward, sticking his head between his two friends in the front. "How much farther?" he yelled.
Jack Harrison shook his head, unable to hear above the noise of the stereo.
"I said, how much farther is it?" Matt screamed.
"Another ten minutes or so!" Jack screamed back. "It's pretty far in!"
Matt sat back in his seat and looked out the window at the passing scenery. Although he had heard about Aspen Lake since his nursery school days, he had never been there. The most inaccessible lake on the Rim, it could be reached only by taking a narrow untended forest service road; what used to be an old logging trail. His father had never been willing to drive the road--he said he didn't want to ruin his truck--so they had always gone to Crest wood and Sherman lakes instead. And since Matt was still too young to drive, he'd never had any way to get there. Until now. Until Jack and Wayne had invited him to come along with them on an overnight fishing trip; their last of the summer.
An antlered buck, standing stock-still near a puddle of muddy water at the side of the road, looked up suddenly as they approached then bounded away into the trees. Matt watched it disappear into the forest. He had never been on a camping trip alone before, without an adult, and he was a little nervous. He was conscious of the fact that the last sign of civilization they'd passed had been a small bait and tackle store back on the main highway, a good thirty miles behind them.
If something should happen, if one of them got bitten by a rattlesnake or broke his leg or choked on his food or something worse, they wouldn't be able to get help. The store was a forty-five minute drive away from the lake on this road, and it probably wasn't even open at night. Way out here, they could scream all they wanted and no one would hear them. Since this was a weeknight and not a weekend, there probably wouldn't even be any other campers around. And of course there was no phone and no electricity.
No electricity.
That was what he was really worried about, though he wouldn't admit it to Jack or Wayne. There was no electricity out here. No lights. When the sun went down, it would be dark. Completely dark. They'd have a campfire for a while, but they'd have to make sure it was extinguished before they went to sleep so it wouldn't start a forest fire.
They'd be all alone.
In total darkness.
Matt felt a rush of goose bumps cascade down his arms just thinking about it. He turned around and looked through the dusty rear window at the sky. It was clearing already, the storm clouds moving off the Rim toward Randall, but Matt knew from what everyone told him that it often rained at night on the Rim, that a second storm, a storm that would never reach the town, often unleashed its fury on campers around the lakes.
And he'd only brought his sleeping bag. He had no tent.
He might have to sleep in the car.
Jack turned the stereo down for a second, heavy metal guitars fading into a drone that offered a perfect counterpoint to the humming of the rebuilt engine. "We're almost there," he said.
Matt leaned forward and looked through the front windshield. Around them, the pine trees were thinning out, being subtly replaced by white-trunkedaspens. The ground, previously a dusty red gravel covered with a layer of brown pine needles, was becoming green, grassy.
Before them, through the round thickly-clustered leaves of the aspens, he could see the shimmering blue of the lake. "Where are we going to camp?" he started to ask.
But Jack had turned the stereo up again and couldn't hear him.
They camped on the south side of the lake underneath a small outcropping of rock that Jack said would protect them if it rained.
They were not directly on the shore of the lake but were separated from the water by a clump of boulders and several trees. The car was parked off the edge of the road, several yards up an incline from the camp.
Although the lake had supposedly been stocked the day before, none of them got even a bite in their attempts to fish, and after trying several spots and several different types of bait, they decided to give it up. The rods, reels, and tackle boxes were dropped next to the car, and Jack opened the car door and turned on the stereo. He popped in an old Black Sabbath tape, and the opening strains of "Iron Man" blared through the door speakers, assaulting the silence.
They walked back down the dirt path to the campsite.
Matt sat on a fallen log, staring out at the lake and listening to the music. Jack read a car magazine. Wayne lay on his back on a rock, looking up at the passing clouds, then jumped off and began pacing around the cleared campsite. "I'm bored," he said.
Jack laughed. "Fine. You can pick up wood. We need to get some if we're going to have any kind of fire tonight."
"Fuck that."
"Suit yourself." Jack went back to his magazine. "But it's going to get awfully cold tonight. And I'm not collecting wood."
"I'll do it," Matt said.
Wayne looked from Matt to Jack, smiling, "He'll do it."
Jack shrugged. "Fine."
Matt slid off the log and brushed off the back of his pants. His fingers felt something sticky on the material, and they came away with small smears of sap on their tips. "Damn," he said.
Wayne looked at him. "Sap?"
Matt nodded.
"Those pants are gone. There's no way you can get sap out. I've ruined more pants that way."
Matt looked at Jack. "What do I use to carry the wood?"
"Your hands," Jack said.
Matt started up the hill. He passed the car on the road and continued climbing. There were a few small twigs on the ground, but no branches big enough for burning. He headed toward the top of the ridge in search of other, more promising trees.
Overhead, the sky was clouding up again. The dark gray clouds were moving visibly, propelled by airborne winds, billowing, growing thicker. Matt didn't have a watch, but the sun was already starting to go down and his stomach was making whirring sounds of hunger, so it was probably around four or five o'clock. Soon it would be dark.
Above him, on the top of the hill, he thought he saw something move.
"Hello!" he said loudly. He didn't know if it was human or animal, but it didn't hurt to be on the safe side. He wasn't wearing hunter's orange, and he didn't want to be accidentally mistaken for a deer or a bear and shot by some nearsighted hunter. "Hello!" he yelled again.
He reached the top of the ridge and used his hands to pull himself up the last steep little cliff.
The crest of the hill was flat, like a mesa. Most of the trees here had either been cut or had fallen over and there was plenty of good firewood for the gathering. Matt looked around him. Ahead, other hills and other valleys alternated in an endless progression atop the Rim. To the sides, his hill continued, the trees getting thicker and thicker until they finally obscured his view completely. He picked up a nice sized branch, long dead and completely dry, then dropped it.
This would probably be his first and only trip up this hill; he would have to be careful about the wood he chose. His picks would have to last them all night.
He looked around for the hunter, but he couldn't see anyone. Perhaps it hadn't been a hunter after all. It might not have even been human.
Perhaps he had seen a deer or an elk or some other large animal.
Or a bear.
No, it couldn't have been a bear. It wasn't possible. He looked around tentatively, carefully. If it had been a bear he had scared it off.
He quickly started picking up branches.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw something move.