Escape from Fire Lake Page 6

  Mike slowly inched forward on his belly until he was within target range. He suddenly sprang to his feet and charged forward—kamikaze style—the spear held high in both hands over his head.

  “Yaaaaa!” he screamed, plunging the spear downward with all his might.

  By nightfall, Mike had the lizard cleaned and roasting on an open spit over a campfire. Lying on his side, he tossed a small twig onto the embers and playfully ruffled Jake’s fur.

  “You ever been camping, Jake?” Mike asked, staring deeply into the flames. “It’s great.”

  Mike thought back to the warm memory of his last camping experience. It had been several months before the “accident.” His father had taken him up high into the mountains for a father-son weekend away. They had sat around a fire, just like the one he now stared into, cooking their dinner in the clear mountain air.

  “Somehow, the food just tastes better,” Mike said in reflection. “And the water—man, it’s so clear . . . and cold . . .”

  His voice trailed off as more memories came flooding back. Mike remembered the camping trip as if it had only happened yesterday. It was as if he could almost hear the babbling of a clear mountain stream.

  He and his father had stood side by side, idly chatting as they fished from the bank. Mike had been lucky enough to get the first bite. And it was a big one! His fishing pole had bent as if it were about to break under the great weight of the thrashing trout. It was all Mike could do to just hang on to it.

  His dad jumped around excitedly and shouted his encouragement. “C’mon! Stay with it, Son!”

  “Uh, Dad, maybe you’d better . . .” Mike gestured for his dad to take the pole.

  “No way! This is your battle, Mike. Don’t give up now! You can do it! . . . There you go! Just like I taught you. Ease back on the pole, then reel in some line.”

  Mike smiled as he remembered his dad’s enthusiastic coaching. It was always his father’s loving encouragement that pushed him beyond what he thought were his limits. Now that he was older, Mike realized that his father had been constantly teaching him lessons about life, as if he knew their time together was limited.

  Mike wondered how his father might advise him in his present situation. Suddenly, another old memory materialized in his mind.

  It was the same day they had gone fishing. Only now it was night, and Mike lay alongside his dad, enjoying the warmth of his own sleeping bag. As Mike gazed up at the countless stars, his dad read a psalm as a closing devotional before they fell asleep.

  “The Lord is my shepherd,” he began, “I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”

  A loud crack from the campfire brought Mike back to the present. But the words his father had read from the Bible still echoed in his head. “For you are with me,” Mike slowly repeated, taking comfort in each word.

  Jake whined and cast an eager eye at the sizzling lizard meat.

  “Oh, all right,” Mike said, reaching for the stick that held it over the fire. “It ought to be well done by now.”

  Mike held the smoking, charred remains in front of him by both ends of the skewer. He took a careful sniff and involuntarily shuddered. Even though his stomach’s aches were getting worse, he wondered if he actually could go through with it.

  He looked toward heaven to offer a prayer. “Lord, for this”—he could barely bring himself to say the word—“meal . . . I give You thanks. Amen.”

  Mike swallowed hard and gave the meat one last inspection.

  “It still looks like a lizard, Jake!” he complained. “I wonder what the people back home would do if they ordered a hamburger and it came out still looking like a cow?”

  Jake tilted his head to one side and licked his chops.

  “All right, you try it!” Mike tore off a hind leg and tossed it to Jake. “But don’t expect much of a bone to chew on.”

  Jake carefully sniffed at the meat for a moment and then began eating. Within a couple of seconds, he had polished off his portion and was looking to Mike for more.

  “So, it meets your approval, does it?” Mike pulled the meat up close to his mouth. “Now, I guess it’s my turn.”

  Mike closed his eyes and tried to think of chicken. He decided he’d better do it quick, rather than think about it too long. He quickly bit down hard and tore off a large chunk. His eyes steadily watered as his mouth chewed on the rubbery meat.

  “Well, it doesn’t taste quite like chicken,” he noted between shudders. “Tastes more like burnt lizard. But I guess under the circumstances, it’ll have to do.”

  Although he didn’t enjoy one bite, Mike forced himself to eat until he was full. He knew that he’d need every ounce of strength he could muster to make it through the next day. Especially now that he was without water.

  He went to sleep that night hanging all of his hopes on the flare gun that he had found. Maybe tomorrow I can signal a plane!

  Chapter 9

  MIKE AND JAKE SLEPT SOUNDLY that night under the wing of the airplane. They both needed the rest badly after what they had been through the day before. And luckily no sandstorm ever materialized to disturb them.

  Mike slept so peacefully that he even had a dream. Just like his present situation, he was lost in the desert. Only this time, his father came and found him, and he flew Mike and Jake home in his F-16. It was a warm, happy dream that made Mike smile even as he slept.

  As the first rays of dawn slowly crept across the desert, a familiar noise made Mike stir from his deep sleep. He slowly opened his eyes and tried to identify what he was hearing. It was a kind of low, droning noise, like a distant . . . plane!

  Mike’s eyes popped open, and he scrambled to his feet. He ran out from under the wing and frantically searched the sky for the source of the sound.

  It took him a few moments, but he finally spotted it. Just above the northern horizon a small plane was floating along the rim of a distant peak.

  Mike raced back to the airplane, shouting to Jake. “It’s an airplane, Jake! I think it’s a search plane! Our search plane!”

  Mike’s hands fumbled as he tried to open the orange canister. He finally unscrewed the two halves and dumped the contents to the ground. He quickly grabbed the flare gun and turned to run, but then remembered that he needed the flare cartridges. He raced back in a minor panic and snatched a handful of flares. Then he ran back into the open, attempting to load the gun on the way. Jake followed after him barking excitedly.

  “Come on. Come on!” he mumbled, trying to load a flare into the chamber. It slipped from his hand and fell to the ground. As he reached down to pick it up, he stole a quick glance at the distant search plane. It was headed away.

  Slamming the flare into the chamber, Mike snapped the breech closed and raised the gun high into the air. Squinting his eyes and turning his face away from the muzzle, he slowly squeezed the trigger until the hammer fell.

  What he expected to hear was a large explosion, followed by a whoosh as the flare rocketed away. But the only noise that met his ears was a small disappointing poof, followed by a slight fizzling sound.

  Mike continued to hold the gun in the air, expecting something more to happen. When it didn’t, he slowly lowered the pistol and examined the barrel. A pitiful wisp of smoke slowly floated into the air.

  “It was a dud!” he said in bitter disbelief. “A lousy dud!” He threw the gun to the ground and fell to his knees in defeat. In the distance he could hear the last hums of the plane as it faded away.

  He tilted his head back, looked to the sky, and shouted a plea: “I could use a little help down here!”

  Jake slowly approached his master and nuzzled him with his nose.

  “It’s okay, Jake. Maybe another will come along close enough to spot us,” Mike said, trying to bolster both their spi
rits. “In the meantime, we’ve got to keep moving and find some water.”

  Josh poured himself a tall, cool glass of water and offered Seth a toast. “Hey, amigo! Here’s to the completion of another successful business venture!”

  “Here, here,” answered Seth, raising his own glass.

  The two robbers had made it home to Las Vegas and now stood amid their stolen goods in a warehouse they had rented. It was big enough to back the truck into and offered seclusion from prying eyes. Once they had all the loot tallied, they would bring in a professional fence, someone who would sell it all on the black market for a small but substantial fee.

  Josh walked between the unloaded boxes, admiring his handiwork. “Not too shabby, Seth. Especially for our first time out.”

  “How much did we get?” asked Seth, dangling his feet off the back of the truck.

  “Five grand and some change. About what you’d expect from a Podunk bank, but we’ll get fifty times that for the statue.” Josh gestured for Seth to hand him the gym bag. “Let’s have another look at that little darlin’.”

  “What’s it made out of, solid gold?” Seth said, throwing the bag over to him.

  “Uh-uh, jade.” Josh reached in and pulled out the teak box. “Some famous sculptor carved it. Collectors are nuts about it because of its history. And now it’s going to make us rich.” Josh ran his hands slowly over the smooth grain of the wood and then gently unhooked the latch. “Come to Papa!”

  When he opened the box, Josh’s mouth dropped open, and he let out an audible gasp as if he were in some kind of pain.

  “What is it?” asked Seth, sensing that something was terribly wrong.

  Josh held the empty box open for Seth to see, and his face twisted in rage. “The kid!” he screamed.

  By noon, Mike could already feel his strength steadily draining away. He knew that it was the lack of water getting to him. Living in the desert, Mike had quickly learned to always bring an ample supply of water along when venturing out. Although under normal conditions the human body could survive for days without water, in the desert’s burning heat, a person could become dehydrated within a matter of hours.

  The last time he even had a taste of water was nearly twenty-four hours ago. And with each passing hour the merciless sun continued to exact its deadly toll.

  A dull headache was growing more intense, and Mike found it harder to focus his thoughts as the day wore on. His eyes felt like dry, scratchy marbles in his head, and his tongue became bone dry. His lips were cracked and swollen. Large sun blisters that he had earned the previous day peppered his bright red face and were growing worse.

  “Wait’ll Mom sees me.” Mike started to smile, but it made the cracks in his lips widen. “Won’t I be a sight for sore eyes.”

  Mike forced his legs forward. He still carried the orange canister from the plane. His jacket was tied loosely around his waist.

  He knew he had to take his mind off his misery, or it would get the best of him. He tried quizzing himself aloud on baseball trivia he had picked up. “Longest game ever: twenty-six innings; Boston Braves, Brooklyn Dodgers; 1920. Uh, best lifetime ERA . . .”

  Jake faithfully limped along beside him, his tongue hanging out of his mouth, his head hanging low.

  Mike picked up a pebble and put it in his mouth. It was an old American Indian trick that he had once read about in a book. He remembered that if someone sucked on the pebble, it would cause him to salivate and help stave off his thirst. It worked for an hour or so, but pretty soon his mouth dried up again, and he spit the pebble back out of his mouth.

  The desert before them was a sea of flickering waves of heat. Mike felt like a living gingerbread man in the world’s biggest oven. He didn’t know how much more of this he could take. But for the time being, he had to push on. He had no other choice.

  Smitty and Pop stood on the shoulder of the road studying maps of the region that they had laid on the tailgate of Smitty’s truck. They had followed the money trail as far as it would take them. Now that it had come to an end, they were trying to figure out what it all meant.

  “Smitty. What does your police sense tell you? I mean, have you got any hunches?” Pop asked.

  Smitty paused and wiped the back of his neck with a bandana. His shirt was showing large sweat stains from the unrelenting heat. “My guess is that they didn’t know they had Mike with them,” he began. “Otherwise, how else would he have access to the money bags? Since the trail seems to end here, then he must have been discovered. And that leaves us with two possibilities.”

  “Which are?” Pop was almost afraid to hear the answer.

  “Either they took him with them, which would serve no purpose, or they got rid of him out here somewhere.”

  “Got rid of him? But Mike would have made it to a town by now if they just dropped him off. Unless . . .” Pop couldn’t help but face the possibility he had been trying to drive out of his mind for the past two days. Mike might have been killed.

  Smitty saw the look on Pop’s face and tried to dismiss his fears. “Pop, from the little we know about these guys, they’re not murderers. Look, I know it’s like grasping at straws, but maybe they dropped him off somewhere where he couldn’t—”

  Smitty was interrupted by a call on his police radio. “Sheriff Smitty? This is County Search and Rescue. Do you copy?” a voice asked through a field of static.

  “Smitty here.”

  As Pop waited for Smitty to finish, he noticed Spence, Winnie, and Ben returning on their quads.

  “Affirmative, Charlie. Keep working the north ridge. We’re covering the plateau from Fire Lake Junction. Smitty out.” Smitty tossed the handset onto the seat and walked back to the rear of his truck just as the kids pulled up. “See anything?” he asked them.

  “Nope, same as before,” Spence explained. “The trail seems to end around here.”

  Smitty pushed his hat back on his head and went back to studying the maps. “Where is he?” he said to no one in particular.

  “If it’s all the same, Smitty, we’d like to go look on our own,” Winnie suggested. “There’s a dirt road up ahead that looks worth exploring. I mean, if that’s okay.”

  Smitty looked to Pop for his opinion. Pop thought it over for a moment and then nodded his approval.

  “Okay,” Smitty said, pointing a finger at them. “But I don’t want to have to come looking for you, too. Stay together and report back every twenty minutes on your walkie-talkies. You hear me?”

  “Yes, sir. We will,” Spence said, patting his radio.

  Winnie took the lead for the others to follow. “C’mon!” she yelled, heading out into the desert.

  Spence and Ben peeled out eagerly after her, leaving Smitty and Pop in a cloud of dust.

  “Every twenty minutes!” Smitty called out after them.

  Chapter 10

  MIKE TRIED TO PUSH HIS BODY to keep on going, but it was past the point of fatigue and was starting to fail him. He stumbled along, his breathing labored and raspy. His tongue was swollen and felt foreign in his mouth. It was all he could do just to keep his feet under him.

  He tried to focus his eyes on what lay ahead. A steep, foreboding hill loomed before him. Just a few days ago he could have run to the top of it without being winded. Now it seemed as impossible to climb as Mount Everest. He knew that there was no way he could make it to the top; there was no way he could possibly find the strength. His reserves were all tapped out. But he had to try.

  He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. The rest of his focus was aimed at just keeping his balance. He had come to the grim realization that if and when he fell, he wouldn’t be getting back up.

  The words of Psalm 23 came drifting back to him. “The Lord is . . . my shepherd,” he haltingly slurred, “I shall not . . . want. . . . He makes me . . . lie down . . . in green . . . pastures—”

  Mike’s world began to spin. The colors of the desert seemed to dim and turn to shades of gray. Before he
even realized that he was falling, he had hit the ground like a felled tree. He lay flat on his face where he had fallen, not moving. Jake crawled over and curled up next to him. Even he knew what this meant.

  Within a few minutes Mike regained a state of semi-consciousness. He was aware that he had been trying to do something—something he had left unfinished—but he couldn’t remember what.

  Then he remembered the psalm. He had been quoting the psalm. Something told him that he had to finish it. “Though . . . I walk . . . through the valley . . . of the shadow of . . . death,” he mumbled, “I will fear . . . no evil . . . for you . . . are with me.”

  After he completed these words, Mike was filled with a warm inner peace. The tenseness in his muscles slowly began to relax, and his eyelids slipped closed.

  “Mike!” He knew the distant voice immediately. It was his dad’s! “C’mon, stay with it, Son. This is your battle, Mike.”

  “I tried, Dad. I really tried,” Mike managed to hoarsely whisper out loud.

  “Don’t give up now! You can do it! Stay with it, Son! Ease back on the pole, then reel in some line.”

  “But it’s so hard.”

  Jake crawled forward at the sound of Mike’s voice. He whimpered a few times and then nudged Mike with his nose.

  “Camping is . . . great, Jake,” Mike said with a weak smile on his face. “You oughta . . . try it sometime.”

  His thoughts floated back to the camping trip. They were in sleeping bags around the campfire again. His dad was just finishing up Psalm 23.

  “. . . and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” His father closed the Bible and looked reflectively into the fire. “This is a great psalm. It tells us that God will be our strength.” His dad paused for a moment and looked into Mike’s young eyes. “I won’t always be there for you, Mike, but God will.”