Redwood Bend

Katie calling and he called from time to time, but this all felt so inadequate. He added a rather paternal warning to his call. “Andy, if you’re hiding, you have two seconds to come out or you’re in big trouble!”
Not so much as a rustle.
If he was nearby, Andy should have heard them call his name—but he hadn’t responded. He hadn’t called back. Had it now been ten or fifteen or twenty minutes? How far and which way? He looked at his watch. It was just barely after five—they had at least three hours of sun, but it would start to get dark too soon, especially in the woods. He went back to the cabin. He broke through the heavy brush into the clearing.
Mitch was standing on the porch by the cabin’s front door, looking scared and upset, as if he bore the weight of this disappearance, as if it was all his fault. Dylan wondered if he was feeling the pain of separation, as well.
Dylan called out to Mitch. “Mitch, do me a favor—empty your school backpack for me. I need to borrow it. Hurry up.” And then he went to his Harley, parked at the tree line beside his leased truck. He opened up one of the side pockets and began to pull things out just as Katie came back into the clearing. “Katie, I want you to call Conner and Jack Sheridan and tell them Andy is lost. Give them the details. Tell them we need to search in the woods around the cabin before dark.” His saddlebags were stuffed with emergency and camping gear; he pulled out a large flashlight and Katie gasped. “Just make the calls—it’s dark back in the trees.”
He found a silver emergency thermal blanket and the thing he was looking for—a large, sheathed, serrated hunting knife. He pulled it out and affixed it to his belt. It wouldn’t do him much good against an animal, but it was handy when it came to tangles of vines or illegal traps, if there was such back in this forest.
Mitch brought him the backpack. The kid’s eyes were scared as he handed it to Dylan, so he crouched and ruffled the kid’s hair. “Don’t worry,” he said softly. “We’ll find him. Now can you go get me a couple of bottles of water from the cabin? Please?”
He nodded and ran to the task. Dylan loaded up the little backpack. It was much too small to wear on his back, but he could sling it over one shoulder. It wasn’t a good idea to go more than a hundred yards into unknown territory or strange forest without a little emergency gear handy—you never know when you might have trouble finding your way back.
“Water?” Katie said, having overheard him ask Mitch. “You’re taking water? Oh, my God!”
“Katie! Easy! It’s in case I get lost. I don’t know this area any better than you do! Did you call Conner?”
“He’s coming. Jack said he’ll round up some people. Oh, God. That knife!”
“It’s for stubborn branches or tight spaces. Now you can call to Andy from the clearing close to the house but I want you to keep Mitch close—we don’t want two of them lost.” He looked at his watch. Had it been almost a half hour? Not good. “I want you to tell whoever comes first that I’m going that way—the direction we saw the bear and her cubs go. There’s a path, a little overgrown, and it’s not near a road. Tell them Andy’s been missing from the front yard since just before five.” He walked toward the porch and Mitch bolted out the door with two bottles of water. He smiled and gave Mitch a pat on the shoulder. “Thanks, buddy. Stay with your mom, please.”
“Can you find him?” Mitch asked.
“Sure we’ll find him.” Then he turned to Katie. He gave her a quick kiss. “Keep your head. Don’t panic. Just stay close to the house with Mitch. If Andy turns up before I do, try blasting the air horn as a signal.”
“Please, Dylan,” she said softly. “Please.”
“If I’m any judge of this place, pretty soon there will be a bunch of guys helping. You can keep calling to him—maybe he’ll get turned back in the right direction and hear you. Listen carefully in case he calls back, but if he does, don’t go running into the woods. Sounds bounce around in the forest and you might go in the wrong direction. We don’t need you and Mitch lost. If you hear him, just call back so he has something to walk toward. Got that?”
“Got it.”
He turned and loped into the forest, a five-year-old’s backpack slung over one shoulder. It had been a long time since he’d ventured into uncharted territory like this and about ten years since