Chapter 37
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SEVEN
Luke Young groaned as he sank into his camp chair, despite the grin that spread across his face.
He absolutely did love camping with his family, and though he hadn’t brought all of his little kids and his wife this time, it still felt just as rewarding as he watched Corrine throw her fishing line back into the stream.
“Everyone has their pole out now,” he said, glancing over to the only other adult on this trip: Bailey’s boyfriend, Reeves Durham.
Oh, and he was the Teton Mountain Man, and utterly at ease in the wilderness which currently surrounded them. Luke had enjoyed texting him for the past couple of weeks, and the man was just as easygoing in real life as he’d been via message.
Reeves smiled over to him. “There’s nothing like fishing in a mountain stream.”
He’d arrived a few hours ago, got his tent and gear set up, and started a fire to make lunch—mac and cheese with hot dogs for the kids, and gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches for himself and Luke—before Luke had gotten the two tents set up and the kids settled inside them.
He’d be sleeping in a four-man tent with Corrine, both of them on cots, as Luke had gotten too old to sleep on the ground.
Three teen boys—Eric, Lars, and OJ—would be sleeping in the tent next to his in sleeping bags, and Reeves had set up on the other side of the fire in a two-man tent, a pad on the ground, and his bedding on top of that.
He’d set up tripods, and OJ hadn’t left the man’s side for more than the time it took him to run to the outhouse down near the parking area.
Reeves had acknowledged that he wouldn’t film Corrine or any of the other kids, and Reeves had gone one step further and not pointed the camera at Luke either. He’d gone ahead to scout the hike to the stream, and he claimed to have done his filming here already.
OJ had done a little bit of Reeves down the bank, away from the others, but now all the camera equipment had been put away.
Luke found all of it quite exhausting, if he were being honest, but he’d taken enough PR classes and dealt with millions of people around the world to know enough to keep his mouth shut.
This was what Reeves did for a living, and Luke couldn’t fault him for that.
He looked over to the other man and found him watching the western sky. Luke looked that way too but didn’t notice anything amiss.
“Do you ever go anywhere without the cameras?” he asked.
Reeves turned his attention toward Luke, a somewhat surprised expression filling his face. “Not camping or hiking,” he said. A frown tugged down his eyebrows. “The videos are only thirty to fifty minutes of a thirty-six-hour trip. It’s not too bad.”
“Yes, but you film way more than that.”
“True,” Reeves nodded, and he seemed to be thinking about something, as he didn’t immediately speak again.
Luke wasn’t sure what had possessed him to bring it up, and he looked back out to the river where Lars had bent over and splashed Eric.
Mav’s son had no problem being dirty or roughhousing, and Luke thought it best to let boys be boys.
Several minutes passed in silence, wherein Luke drank in the beauty of nature and the goodness of family.
Reeves got to his feet and headed up the bank a bit, his gaze stuck on the southwest sky. Luke once again looked that way, shocked to see big, puffy, gray thunderheads moving in.
Reeves turned around, his expression harder than before. “We’ve got to get away from this stream.”
Panic rose through Luke, and he got to his feet too.
“Come on, OJ,” Reeves called. “Eric, Lars, Corrine, out of the water! It’s time to be done fishing.” He moved toward the kids, and despite their protests, got them out of the water quickly.
Luke had barely regained his focus before it seemed like the clouds had come half the distance toward him.
“I need everyone around me,” Reeves said, and he looked over to Luke.
Luke jumped into action and moved toward him. “Come on, guys, let’s listen to Reeves.”
He had a first-aid kit in his pack, as he never went camping without it. He had no idea what kind of survival equipment Reeves had brought. Please let him have anything and everything we need to make it through this quick-moving storm.
Luke eyed the clouds again as he prayed. The wind picked up ahead of the clouds, and they continued to advance as a solid wall of dark gray. Reeves turned his back on them and spread his arms out, bringing the kids closer.
“I need everyone to listen to me,” he said. “There’s a storm moving in right now.”
Corrine looked up into the sky. “It’s blue sky, Reeves,” she said.
“Hush,” Luke said.
“The water has already started rising in the stream,” he said. “And we had to cross it to get over here, which means we’re not going back that way.”
Luke looked out to the stream, and he couldn’t tell at all that it had risen. He frowned as Reeves continued, and he told himself to tune in, so he would know how to help keep everyone safe and be able to help Reeves.
“We’re going to leave our fishing poles here, because we don’t want to have anything too tall, and you’re going to listen to me, and you’re going to go where I tell you to go, immediately when I tell you to go there.”
Reeves looked at Luke, something powerful in his gaze that had even Luke nodding. “It’s going to rain or hail, and that means we’re going to get wet.”
“And when you get wet, guys, you get cold,” Luke said, picking up all the pieces Reeves was laying out.
“So drop your fishing poles over here,” Reeves said. “And let’s get our jackets and ponchos on right now.”
Corrine looked at Luke with wide eyes, but she moved immediately. The three boys stood there and stared, and Reeves said, “Guys, right now.”
He led the way over to his pack, which he opened calmly, and pulled out a sweatshirt and put it on. “Put on an extra layer, because the temperature is already dropping.”
Luke couldn’t feel that either, but as Luke handed OJ his pack and then unzipped his own, a loud clap of thunder filled the sky. He hurried to help Lars and Eric with their outer layers as well, and then he got their packs on and their ponchos over all of it.
Reeves hadn’t moved since the clap of thunder, and Luke stepped next to him. “What do you see?” he asked, trying to remain as calm and neutral as possible.
“It’s what I didn’t see,” Reeves said. “And that’s lightning.”
A gust of wind practically pushed both of them back a step, and Reeves turned as he said, “Let’s get the chairs and fishing poles up to the treeline, guys. We’ve got to get out of this drainage area.”
He turned, then grabbed his chair and seemed to collapse it in the same move, and put one hand on Lars’s shoulder. “You take this chair and your fishing pole up to the treeline. We’re going to put them in a pile. We’ll come back for them when it’s safe.”
“Yes, sir,” Lars said.
“Corrine, go with him,” Luke said. “Nobody should go anywhere by themselves,” he yelled after Lars, who’d already started for the treeline. “OJ and Eric, you’re a team. Reeves is in charge of you. You should be able to see him at all times.” He nodded to Reeves. “Corrine and Lars, you’re with me.”
“Okay, Daddy,” Corrine yelled, as she’d already headed off with her fishing gear to stash it.
Luke grabbed his chair, and then Eric’s, as the boy was still struggling with his poncho. Reeves paused to help him, and then they headed away from the river and out of the drainage area.
Luke had just made it to the treeline and dumped the chairs when another clap of thunder filled the sky. It seemed to echo directly above him and bellow all around him, and Reeves crouched down, saying, “Come on, guys, down here with me. Let’s have a little talk.”
Luke did the same, though he wasn’t nearly as young as Reeves and couldn’t hold that position for long. Reeves looked at each person directly in the face, holding their gaze for a few beats before he moved to the next person.
“You guys know I do videos on outdoor survival, right?”
“Yes, sir,” the teens said, some louder than others.
“The most important thing is what?” He looked at OJ. “You’ve watched a lot of my videos, bud. What am I always telling people?”
OJ’s cute face scrunched up, and he looked at Lars, and then Luke. “Don’t panic?” he guessed.
“Exactly.” Reeves grinned at the kids. “We’re not going to panic. We’ve been in rainstorms and hailstorms before. We’ve been outside before. We’ve camped before. We’ve hiked before.” He shrugged like this was no big deal, and Luke found himself relaxing slightly.
“Now, it’s a little scary because it’s loud, especially if it starts hailing, and we’ll need to pay attention to dead trees if that happens, because with the wind and the hail, they can come down around you.
” He shook his head. “But we’re not going to worry about that.
We’re going to stay together, we’re going to pay attention, and we’re going to talk to one another. ”
He paused for a moment, and Luke’s admiration for the man doubled and then tripled.
If he’d been here alone with the kids, he’d like to think that he would do the same thing as Reeves, but to be honest, he wasn’t sure.
Yes, he’d camped in the rain and snow with his family, but nothing had ever come up on them unexpectedly the way this late summer thunderstorm had.
“I haven’t seen any lightning,” Reeves said.
“Which is great news for us. We’re still not going to carry anything metal or our fishing poles.
If it rains, we’re going to try to stay dry, and we’re going to find a thick clump of trees that we can get under.
” He looked at Luke. “I can scout ahead while you hold the kids here.”
Luke nodded.
“We’re going to be careful, because we didn’t come this way to the stream, so this is new terrain for us, and we have to be able to get back.” Reeves nodded just once, his confidence astounding.
“We’re going to be able to get back to the tents, aren’t we?” Lars asked.