CHAPTER SIX

“Listen, listen, listen!”

“I’m cold.”

Mom put her finger up for me to be quiet. She had the window open and her head cocked, partway out.

“I don’t know what’s going on but I know there’s someone out there.”

The noise I heard was close and loud, a high-pitched beep, beep, beep, beep, continuous, maybe ten times, then nothing, just the rush of a breeze moving high through the trees.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It sounds like some kind of tracking device. Or the signal when a truck is backing up. I don’t see any lights.”

The sky had cleared and was crazy with stars, more than I had ever seen, so many that the black looked almost brushed with light. We held our breath, listening.

Then it came again, a steady, high tone that sounded so familiar to me. But I couldn’t put my finger on it. I counted more than thirty beeps, almost no pauses between them, except in one place, almost a hiccup, and then silence.

“Hello!” Mom called out the window, scanning the woods. “Hello! We’re here!” She got out.

“Francie, get your flashlight. We’ll shine it into the woods so they can see us.”

I found my flashlight where I’d left it on the dash and climbed out of my sleeping bag.

“Give it to me. Hurry up.” Mom flicked it on and swept the trees, first in a low arc then a high one. “Hello, hello! We’re over here!”

She flashed the light on and off. “What’s the signal for SOS?”

“Three short, three long, three short.”

Mom fumbled with the flashlight and dropped it. It rolled away and went out. I felt with my hands on the rocks and found it again, gave it a knock with my fist and it came back on.

I flashed three short flashes, then three long, then three short again into the bush.

“Do it again. Keep it up. I’ll turn on the truck lights.”

As Mom went around and got in the truck, the sound came again, but this time I heard something slightly different. The noise stopped after every few beeps and then there was the slightest change in tone, followed by a little bark. Then I knew that the sound was not something human at all, but a bird.

Before I could turn to tell Mom what I’d heard, a mighty blast of the truck’s horn shattered the quiet. I nearly jumped out of my boots. I clapped my hands over my ears. Three short, three long, three short blasts reverberated off the mountains and seemed to rock the ground.

When the horn stopped echoing through the trees, Mom said, “Anybody out there will hear that.”

“I think it was a bird,” I said quietly. “The beeps we heard.” I was careful not to add “Mom.”

“That was no bird.”

“I’m pretty sure it was. I heard it again just as you got in the truck.”

“I heard it, too.”

“It made a barking noise.”

“I’ve never heard a bird make a noise like that. It was an electronic noise. Like a timer of some kind.” Mom came around to stand next to me.

I wanted it to be an electronic noise, but I knew it wasn’t. Mom hadn’t heard clearly what I’d heard.

We listened again and the woods now roared with the silence, like the sound of the truck horn had shocked everything into stillness. Even the breeze had dropped. She took my hand and squeezed it.

“I’ll leave the truck lights on for a while so they can find us.”

But I had the feeling that she knew what I knew, that the beeping was not the noise of someone coming to rescue us.

It was almost morning. The stars had begun to fade in a gray light that seemed to seep into the sky like a dirty cloth rinsed in clean water. Back in our sleeping bags with the truck windows open, we tried to stay awake and listen. Mom fell asleep first. I shut off the truck lights. There were no more beeps, and I had almost nodded off again when a distinct, sharp crack of a branch snapped me awake again. It was close, in the trees just beside the road. Another one, and the low alders shook with movement. A flash of fear thundered in my blood, my heart knocking crazily against my chest.

I was about to shake Mom awake when an animal stepped from the trees. It had a big rack of antlers and it stepped onto the road, alongside the truck, and stared at me. I stared back at it. It was bigger than a deer, with a tan body and black neck; I thought it was probably an elk, which I had seen once when we drove through Banff. It just stood there looking at me, wondering what I was, and I looked back. I wanted to ask it a question, like, “Where did you come from? And do you know where the nearest highway is?” He put his head down and walked on, heading in the direction Dad had gone. I watched him until he disappeared into the trees and the birds began to wake up.