Redwood Bend

they’d had someone lost in the mountains around Payne. Never a little kid.
He pushed on, going mainly uphill. He could hear Katie calling Andy’s name, her voice getting more and more faint as he walked. When he could barely hear her, he began to call out Andy’s name. After each time, he would stop and listen, but nothing came back at him.
He had nothing to go on except a narrow, overgrown path, but all around it was thick overgrowth and he thought if he were a little half pint like Andy, he’d take the path rather than tackle the thickness of the woods on each side. He went up, then around, then down, then up, leaving markers along the way—three stones in a triangle, a branch cut with the knife, a pile of pine cones. The path was winding upward around a hill. It was getting dark back in the trees and he couldn’t hear Katie anymore; there were no other voices calling out.
His watch said six; some of the trees were so tall the sun was almost completely blocked. He got out the flashlight and began to step a little more softly, carefully, shining the light on and off the trail, calling Andy’s name, telling him to make a sound. “Say something so I can find you,” he encouraged. And sometimes he just said, “I’m coming, Andy. I’m coming.”
Dylan thought he should’ve been ready for something like this—Andy was the curious and impulsive one. Adventurous. Mitch was more methodical; a plotter. Mitch was the thinker, Andy was the doer. Andy was the one who would get some harebrained notion like finding out where the bear lived and then just walk into the forest. He could’ve gotten turned around, tried to go back to the cabin but instead went deeper and deeper. He wasn’t sure when he came to know them so well, but he knew he was right.
He looked at his watch. Six-thirty.
There would still be light on the roads and in town, but back here it was deep dusk, quickly growing darker by the minute. He called, then listened, then walked, then called again.
And he finally heard something. He shined the flashlight into the trees and what did he see but the bear family on the left side of the trail. Shit. Mama glared into the light, her eyes reflecting yellow. She made a sound. It didn’t sound like an angry sound, more like a bored I dare you sound.
And there, on the right side of the trail, not nearly far enough away, he saw him, facedown beside a dead tree, burrowed half under the rotting trunk. He could be dead, he was that still.
Dylan crouched, sitting on one boot heel, partially concealed by a big bush, watching Andy and Mama Bear and her cubs. He knew she could smell him, but as long as he didn’t get any closer she apparently didn’t much care. He turned off the flashlight and listened carefully so he could hear if she approached him, but they all just waited in silence. His eyes adjusted to the darkness and there she was, surrounded by her three big balls of fur, right on the other side of the path. Andy wasn’t separated from the bears by more than twenty feet. He might as well have been right on top of them.
And then Andy lifted his head briefly. He tried to move but it appeared his foot was caught by the heel, stuck in a crack in the dead tree, holding him there. Dylan smiled—Andy was playing dead. Although it must’ve hurt to have his ankle twisted as it was, he was facedown and still. He didn’t see Dylan. He put his head back down and Dylan didn’t move.
Another half hour passed while the night darkened and Mama settled herself in a semisheltered batch of bushes, rotting trunks and big trees. She was licking her pads and claws like a contented zoo animal. And finally she quieted. Dylan gave her another ten minutes. Then he dared to do the only thing that came to mind. He tried to get to Andy.
He took the longest and quietest strides toward the boy that he could manage—a good twenty long strides through the growth. He fell to the ground, covering Andy with his body. “Don’t move, no matter what,” he whispered.
“Dylan, I—”
“Shhh,” Dylan shushed.
And then he heard her; sticks were breaking, leaves were crunching. Was she curious or angry? Then he could smell her, like she’d been in the garbage somewhere. And he heard her sigh and snort. She was dangerously close and he prayed Andy wouldn’t move or speak. And then there was a movement, a rustle very nearby, and then a sharp, scalding, terrifying streak of pain shot across his back and he reared suddenly in agony, a