Crimson
I heard Robert honk the horn, so I hefted a twelve-pack of sodas under each arm and went out to meet him. He got out and opened the trunk of his dad’s Honda for me. So I could unload my cargo. Then I hopped in the backseat where Reina was already waiting.
“Mountains, here we come,” Amber said in the front passenger seat.
I, for one, was definitely ready for a day in the mountains. A day with nothing but nature and fresh air. I needed a distraction, not only from the weird incident last night with the guy who possibly followed me home, but also from the phone conversation I had with Haley this morning. Most of it had been about school and friends and petty problems, but it ended on the same note as every other—with my upcoming trip to New York.
“Crimson, have you even thought about what’s going to happen once you get to his house?” she had asked, forever trying to dissuade me. “What do you really expect to happen?”
“I don’t know, Haley,” I had replied. I didn’t want to think about that. The truth was, I had no idea what was going to happen after I came face to face with Nicholae. I could only see a bright and clear path from this moment to two weeks from now when I got to his house. Anything past that seemed void, insignificant. I just had to meet him, and I would decide in the moment what to say.
“How can you just jump into this?” she had chided. “You really need to understand that there is a fine line between bravery and foolishness.”
“I know you don’t approve,” I’d said calmly. “But I have to do this. Why are you so worried about it anyway? I’m not asking you to go with me or anything.”
“Crimson, you’re my cousin. You’re the sister I never had. I care about what happens to you…”
“Crim, Earth to Crim?” Robert called back to me from the driver’s seat.
“Huh?” I asked, turning away from the window I’d been staring out of to meet his gaze in the rearview mirror.
“I asked you what we should listen to,” Robert repeated his question that I had missed the first time.
“Oh, sorry,” I said. “Something we can dance to. Like Rhiana.”
“Dance?” Reina asked. “But we’re in the car.”
“Girl, haven’t you ever heard of drancing?” Robert asked her. “That’s where you dance and drive at the same time.”
“Robert’s a pro at it,” Amber said with a giggle, and Robert turned up the music and began to demonstrate.
The drive was filled with music and laughter, which was good because most of it was down a long straight road lined for miles with pecan groves.
We slowed down as we came to a single-lane bridge, after which the road rounded toward the south. The scenery subtly changed as the mountains spanned out before us. There were open valleys on both sides that dipped and rose to touch the mountains, various shades of green interrupted by jutting naked beige rock formations.
As the road took us into the mountains and between the hills, the terrain changed from desert to forest, the mesquites becoming evergreens and the soil shifting from powdery, rusty orange to gravelly brown.
We drove to the top of the picnic area, to Mt. Wrightson, and parked at the third parking level. We got out and went in search of a free table. It was a bit past one o’clock now, and the mountains towering on either side of us offered no shade yet, allowing the sun to bear down on us with full force through the thin air.
“I found a good table, guys,” Amber called. “Go ahead and bring the stuff over here.”
We emptied the trunk and hauled the contents to the table.
“So, hike first?” I asked everyone.
“You guys go ahead,” Amber said. “I’m gonna set up lunch and just enjoy being outside. I’m not much of hiker.” She shrugged.
To be honest, it was a wonder we got her to come up here at all—she much preferred being indoors, the bookworm that she was.
So, the rest of us went for a short hike, up the path that trailed the wash. It was so beautiful out here. The wash had a nice little stream trickling through it, birds were chirping all around us, and I even saw flickers of deer scampering in the distant bushes as we trampled through their domain.
“We should get back to Amber before she eats all the food,” Robert said after a good half-hour trek.
“I agree, I’m getting hungry,” Reina said.
“Okay, well, how about you guys head on back,” I said. “I want to walk just a bit further and see if I can find the source of the stream. I might be able to catch of glimpse of some wildlife.”
“Are you sure?” Reina asked.
“Yup, I’m really not even hungry yet,” I said. “All this fresh air is filling me up, I guess.” I laughed, and then took a deep breath of it.
“Okay, just don’t get lost,” Robert teased.
“Not likely,” I said, scrunching my nose at him. “I’m just gonna follow the wash. I’ll catch up in a bit. Just don’t let Amber eat all the marshmallows—I want s’mores later.”
Robert saluted me with his index and middle finger, then he and Reina turned and began to climb back down.
I looked up the wash with a smile on my face. This was what I needed. Some one-on-one time with nature. It was cooler now, and the woods were much clearer in the gray-blue light of the sky, under the shade of the mountain. The water that flowed eternally down the wash whispered a chimerical song. I could smell all the wonderful scents of the trees and flowers, of the water, and even the moss. I could hear crickets chirping and little critters scurrying in the trees.
I followed the stream up the wash, up the southern part of the woody mountains, until the water flow came to curious stillness at the top of the stream. I was stumped. The water just disappeared right here. How on earth was it flowing farther down if the water at this point was still unless there was an underground stream feeding into it somewhere?
This sucks! I was hoping to find a big pond or at least a larger river, maybe even a little waterfall. And I definitely was not ready to head back yet. I reached into my pocket for my phone to check the time, but it wasn’t there. I must have left it in my bag—not the smartest thing to have done. Oh well, I’ll keep going and just turn back when it starts to get dark. I might still find that waterfall yet.
I continued forward, delighting in the crunch of the leaves under my feet. There were a lot more spiders now, scurrying across the rocks as I stepped on them, some even jumping from rock to rock. This is way more spiders than I ever wanted to see in my entire life, and hopefully, they will be the last.
I heard a rustling to my right, and, startled, automatically turned to see what it was. A squirrel scurried up a tree. I had never seen a squirrel up close before. I ran up to the tree to see it, but it was much faster than me and raced up to the top.
Then I saw something a few meters behind the tree that I wouldn’t have seen if the squirrel hadn’t caught my attention. An ascending rock formation divided the western wall of the wash. It had the shape of an inverted triangle all the way up through the hill it cut into, the flattened slabs meeting at opposite angles, creating a v-shape. It looked as though it was another outlet for water, maybe another little stream that fed into the wash.
It looked dangerous and arduous to climb. It appealed to me—I wanted to climb it, to conquer it and see where it led. The prospect was exhilarating.
I ambled across the wash and stopped before the shelving crag. After taking a deep breath, I lifted one foot onto the first slab and began to climb. It was surprisingly easy after that first step. If I kept a quick momentum and didn’t stop between steps, gravity didn’t pull on me much, and my feet didn’t have a chance to slip. It was kind of like walking up a natural staircase, where each step was slanted and inverted slightly. Once I got to the more leveled ground, I looked back at what I had just successfully climbed. It would be so much harder going back down than it was going up! But that would make for a fun challenge.
I turned forward again and looked at the narrow beck ahead of me. It had leveled off so much more now as I had reached the top of the hill. I brushed my hair back behind my ear and excitedly followed the earthly trail of the rivulet.
If there was this little extension up at this height, then it, too, must also meet the source of the stream, even if the water wasn’t currently flowing here. This would certainly lead me to that waterfall.
I looked up at the sky through the canopy of the trees, and it was still that pretty blue. But the shadow of the western mountains had covered more ground; the sun would be setting soon, and as soon as it started to get dark, I would have to head back no matter what.
I froze, altering my breathing to make it as silent and undetectable as possible—a deer was absently grazing on the grass. It was so incredible! The deer was a beautiful golden brown, with black spots on its back and a puff of white at its tail. I couldn’t see the head because it only had its rear to me.
This might be my one and only chance to get close to one of Mother Nature’s more beautiful creations. I slowly and gently lifted my left foot and placed it silently on the ground before me. Then my right, then my left, then my right. I was so close now, and it still hadn’t heard me. But what was I going to do now?
I didn’t have a chance to think about the answer to that question. I felt the familiar scratching in my nose and knew that, no matter how hard I tried to hold it back, it would still come.
I sneezed loudly, reluctantly, and the deer immediately dashed off until it was out of sight.
Damn! Stupid Mother Nature and her wicked sense of humor.
I sneezed again, forever unable to sneeze less than twice in a row and was pushed backward with the force of it. But there was no earth to catch the heel of my foot when I stepped back. Gravity had me now, and it was angrily yanking me down.
When I landed, I fumbled around, trying to understand what had happened. I looked up and saw that I had fallen into a trench I had not seen before, for it was well hidden by a young tree. The place I had been standing was about three yards above me, and I was grateful to be in one piece.
But as I reoriented myself, I felt sharp pains in various places.
The first I was aware of was my arms, which had been cut by the prickly branches of the tree as I first started to fall. I examined them, and there were deep scratches on both my upper arms and one on my right elbow.
The next pain that I became aware of was my butt and lower back, which had smashed onto the jutting rocks down here.
I looked in front of me and saw that this trench opened up to a new stream, whose source was coming from an opening in the bottom of the trench just behind me. I could feel the water soaking into my jean shorts now.
I bowed my head in humiliation, glad that no one was here to see this. Not only had I sneezed myself off a small cliff, but now it looked as though I had peed my pants.
It wouldn’t be hard to find my way back from here. I just had to find a way to climb back up to the hill and then follow the beck back down to the wash. I was definitely done with explorations.
I stood up.
That’s when I felt the third and worst pain of them all. My left ankle panged in agony and it wouldn’t move when I tried to lift it. I looked down at my foot, and it was stuck crookedly between two sharp rocks, which were already cutting into my skin.
I gingerly bent over and tried to maneuver it out between the rocks, but that only made it cut deeper. I couldn’t keep the groan behind my lips. I tried again and again to free my screaming ankle, but all my attempts to alleviate the pain just made it worse. The seriousness of my situation sunk in, and so did the fear. If I keep doing this, I thought, I could permanently damage my ankle, and this pain is already too much to bear. I can’t do this by myself!
“Help!” I yelled as loud as I could. “Somebody help me!”
I had no idea if anyone could hear me from here. I tried to picture in my head just how far I was from the picnic site, and I couldn’t imagine my voice carrying that far.
I eased myself back into a sitting position and continued to yell and bellow for help. I was beginning to panic.
I looked up at the sky, which was darkening from crystal blue to azure. Surely the others would know something was wrong by now. Yes, they would come looking for me. And if I kept yelling, they might hear me. But I had gone so far off the trail, they might never look for me here. No, can’t think like that. They have to find me.
The pain in my ankle turned into a constant rhythmic throb. My blood dripped into the water, trailing down and blending into the stream. The smell was already bringing mosquitoes. I just hoped that it wouldn’t bring anything bigger.
I tried calling out every few minutes, but my throat constricted and dried as the tears welled up. It was getting really dark now, and soon I wouldn’t be able to see anything. Why did I leave my phone behind? Why did I even venture off at all? Damn my curiosity!
I started shivering with the growing darkness, partly from the cold and partly from my terror. I called out one more time, already hopeless. I had no way of knowing how much time had passed. The sky was completely black now, save for the crescent moon in the center and the hundreds of millions of stars that sprinkled the night. It was frigid and quiet, and every noise made me flinch, which only caused me pain.
Nobody was going to find me, not tonight at least. If the others had gone off looking for me, they hadn’t thought to look in this direction. After all, what sensible person would? My only hope was to get through the night and pray for rescue in the morning.
So, I sat in silence, resting my head on my knees and trying to relax. It didn’t last long, though, for a new sound intruded on my panic; it was the sound of splashing water. It started a few feet away, slowly coming closer. I kept my widened eyes glued to the stream at the opening of the trench, not breathing for what might be coming around the corner.
A black nose peeked around the corner just above the surface of the stream. Then a paw landed on the shallow water, a large furry black paw easily the size of my head. The nose slowly came farther out from the corner, revealing more of the enormous animal that was following my scent. Its black eyes found me crouched into the trench, and the bear fully emerged from the edge of the trench.
The bear moved its paw forward, and I jerked and squeaked in fear. At the sound of my fright, the bear opened its long mouth, revealed its white teeth that shown in the darkness and let out a harrowing, guttural roar. All the blood in my body rushed to my head at once, and I became swallowed by an unconscious pitch-blackness that had absolutely nothing to do with the night.