CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Steam rose up from the cup of hot fir needle tea I’d boiled on the one-burner stove. I breathed in the Christmasy scent and took a long sip, felt it travel down and warm my insides. I’d taken down the rain catcher and then spread Mom’s sleeping bag in the back of the truck, so I could sit with my back against the metal toolbox and the sun reflecting off the truck windows. It was a beautiful day, the sky that hard-to-name blue and sun streaming over the wet trees, making everything shine. The road steamed too, as the sun heated it.

My cooler and bucket were full to the brim with rainwater, and for a few minutes, as the sun beat down on me and I drank my tea, I felt happy, really happy. I had eaten the second piece of granola bar, the last of the sunflower seeds and two mints. Strangely, I didn’t feel hungry. I knew I had to find more things to eat, but for now, I felt fine. I had a moment of guilt for feeling good when Mom and Dad were who-knows-where, but I forced that idea out of my head, took in the sparkling forest, breathed in deeply the fresh scent of the morning.

Ever since I was little, I had wanted to have adventures in the woods. On my walks to school, I looked up at the soft, sage-covered hills around Penticton and imagined myself climbing them, up past the tree line where the only trails were made by animals foraging for food. I read books about plants and stars and clouds and how to tie knots and use a compass and capture small game. Now, here I was, and all the lessons I’d learned had to be put into practice.

I gazed out at the sparkling forest again. I pictured a helicopter rising over the treetops, circling and kicking up debris as it hovered to land right in front of the truck. Mom, then Dad would jump out, ducking low to avoid the whirring blades, running for me with their arms open.

The road stretched away from me, a long, narrow ribbon being swallowed by sky. My heart began to thump wildly. Where was everybody? What was taking so long? The balloon-y feeling of panic shot up from my chest and into my head, making the road, the truck, the sky swim before my eyes. I was alone out here, surrounded by miles and miles of forest. I felt like I was the only one in the whole world.

Don’t, I told myself. Deep breaths. The sparkling trees, remember? Practicing my skills. Then Grandma’s voice came in my ear again: “Make a plan.”

I had a plan. I took a sip of tea. My hands trembled. I had a plan. Today I would improve my camp. I made a vow that I would not spend another night in the truck. It was too uncomfortable, too cold and too lonely. At least outside I could sleep near the fire; I could stretch out with the three sleeping bags for warmth, listen to the sounds of other animals moving around me who were also trying to get through the night.

I swallowed the last of my tea and stood up. I needed to make a shelter. And then I stopped, looked out at the long road and I made another vow. I would stop daydreaming about rescue. A rescue could come today or it could come tomorrow. Meanwhile, I had to survive. That was up to me and no one else.

An ax would have come in handy, but I had no ax. I walked into the woods looking for something to make my shelter. I remembered my survival book, went back for it and leafed through the pages until I came to the drawings of shelters. I could build the teepee, the debris hut, the thatched hut or the lean-to. I chose the lean-to. It made the most sense for the materials I saw around me.

I figured I needed five branches for the frame I had in mind. Two of them needed smaller branches on them, like crutches, to act as braces. In spite of the rain, the forest under the canopy of branches seemed dry. When a breeze came up, the branches trembled and shimmers of moisture shook down through the sunlight. I breathed in a deep breath of the washed-clean air, spicy with forest smells. It was a beautiful day.

Working my way back toward the rise of land I had climbed on that first day, I saw that it made a natural boundary that let me know where I was, and although the trees sometimes obscured the truck from there, I knew just how to find my way back to the road. In fact, I realized that if I followed the edge of this boundary in both directions, I couldn’t get lost. I’d mark my spot where I needed to turn in to get back to the truck. I gathered some rocks and built a little cairn, then planted a big crooked branch in it. Later, I could tie my fluorescent-orange T-shirt to it so I could see it from a distance.

South, the way Dad had gone, the brush was thicker, but there weren’t as many tall trees. After a few minutes of walking, I found what I was pretty sure was a saskatoon berry bush. Though I checked each branch carefully, I found no dried berries on it. There were a few hardened like leather in the grass beneath the bush and I popped these into my mouth and sucked on them to soften them.

A dead branch lying along the slope looked about the right size for what I needed. As I reached for it, my eye caught something out of place in the bright green moss of a clearing a few feet ahead. When I got closer, I saw what it was: the picked-clean bones of a carcass scattered in the leaf debris.

It looked like a deer carcass that had been killed not too long ago, a day or two maybe. I recognized part of a rib cage and a leg bone. Something had cornered it here—a cougar? A coyote or a wolf? Maybe the strange squawking bark I’d heard the other night had come from here.

The breeze that shivered through the leaves suddenly seemed lonely. The bright, winking day, the peep of birds carrying sticks to their nests, it all went on as if nothing had happened here, as if Mom and Dad were not missing and I was not out here on a road far from everywhere, far from everyone who cared about me.

Oh, don’t turn on the waterworks again. That came from the sensible side of me, the one who knew better, who knew that I could survive this if I kept my head. It made me laugh out loud, and my laughter sounded odd there in the quiet woods.

I had a lot of nicknames besides Frozen Francie. When you have a name like Francie, people find a lot of rhymes for it: Fancy Francie, Francie Dancey, Francie Pantsy and the double-special Francie Dancey Underpantsy. They didn’t bother me. They were just word games, as Mom explained. But if I had to have a nickname, I’d prefer something better.

I decided to call this voice Fierce Francie. She would help to keep me calm. She would remind me that it wasn’t enough to make the vow to stop wishing for rescue once; it would have to be made over and over again.

The bones of the deer would slowly disappear, buried by fallen leaves and new growth that would shoot up in the rain. It would take a long time for them to decompose. I picked up the leg bone and drew it under my nose, taking a whiff. It didn’t stink, which meant it was still fresh. I’d eaten deer before, when Grandma made stew from the meat Grandpa’s hunter friends gave them. But there was nothing left to eat on this. It was just a bone. A fresh one.

I once bet Mom that there was nothing healthy about Jell-O. (I was in bed sick and she was trying to make me eat it.) Turns out I was wrong. Mom had looked it up and triumphantly told me that Jell-O was actually made of animal bones, which turn into gelatin when boiled in water. That’s supposed to be good for human bone growth. For losing the bet, I had to eat the Jell-O—lime flavor. Bright green. At the time, I wondered what could be worse than lime Jell-O. It tastes nothing like real limes. But what I wouldn’t give now for a great big bowl of it. And it gave me an idea. Maybe I could use the bone for soup. If I could break it open, there would be marrow in it. It might not be too gross if it was boiled. I tucked the leg bone into my jacket and went back to gathering branches for my lean-to.

By early afternoon, the pile of sticks I’d found was starting to look like a decent shelter. I’d built it just long enough for me to lie down in, with a foot of extra room in case I wanted to store something. On top of the frame, I placed more branches lying side by side, as tight as I could make them. Now to strip some live fir limbs to lie on top of the frame and to add to the floor of my shelter to keep me dry and comfortable.

The work made me hungry and I decided to take a break to make my soup. I’d found some dried-up kinnikinnick berries, which didn’t taste like much, but I knew they’d been used by Indigenous people so they must be healthy. Some fir needles and plantain would add some flavor and color.

My survival book confirmed that I could eat the bone marrow if I could get to it. It took a few tries, but when I wedged the bone between two rocks and smashed it with another rock, it shattered into three pieces. Again, I gave it the whiff test. It smelled fine. So I picked out the splinters and threw the big pieces into my pot.

I still had two full canisters and one part canister of fuel, but if I left my soup to simmer on the burner, I figured the fuel wouldn’t last long. And I didn’t know how long I’d need it to last. So I rekindled the fire and waited for it to get hot enough to have some good cooking coals. Doing these things, taking responsibility for myself, made me feel better—strong.

I was trying to decide whether to lay the tarp over my shelter when I heard the distant low rumble of an engine. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, or even what it was—a vehicle, a plane or a helicopter? It was distinct, but far away.

I ran for the fire and threw more wood on. Then I tore some of the fir boughs from the roof of my lean-to and threw those on too. A plume of blue smoke began to rise up. I needed more. I didn’t want to smother the flames, but I needed big billows of smoke that someone could see from far away, hopefully get curious about and come to investigate.

But I overdid it. The boughs must have been wetter than I realized. The flames underneath faltered and went out. Running out to the road, I stood still and listened. It was still there, faint but steady like a tractor working a field on a sunny afternoon. It could be logging machinery; there could be a crew working nearby. If so, I had to get their attention.

I ran back to the truck and pulled open the door. I reached in and jammed my hand on the horn. It wasn’t as loud as it should be—was the battery dying? I doubted it could be heard more than a few hundred feet away. What else could I use? I had a whistle somewhere. But they’d have to be very close to hear a whistle. Would the sound carry more than a horn? I couldn’t think of anything else.

I tumbled into the backseat, bumping my shins on the gearshift, and I dug through my pack, the contents spilling out everywhere. Where was the whistle? Why didn’t I have it around my neck where it should be to be of any use? Stupid. Something metal clinked in among the crumpled clothes. I threw the stuff aside and noticed a slight gap where something had gotten lodged in the crack of the seat I was kneeling on. I slipped my fingers down into the space and felt cold metal. My fingers curled around the edge of something, and I pulled it out.

Mom’s flashlight lay in my hand.