Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Whoever has not ascended mountains knows little of the beauties of Nature—Alfred William Howitt
Tula
Today they were scaling mountains. Okay, make that singular, and “mountain” might be a tad bit of an exaggeration, and so far there hadn’t been any scaling, but she was hoping that they’d pass the just standing and gawking phase fairly soon.
“Come on, I’ll help you,” Tula said to Chloe who only turned her head, her eyes narrowing as she stared at Tula as if she’d offered to toss her off the mountain instead of helping her climb it. “It’ll be fun, I promise.”
In response, Chloe turned her back.
Before Tula could recover from being so blatantly shunned, Chloe said, “Do you see a goat on the back of my shirt?”
“Um, no?”
“Exactly! And while you’re a Bee and can just fly up, I’m Bambi who is not a goat, so there is no way I can climb Mt. Everest.”
“I might be a Bee, but even I would have a hard time doing that since—”
“See!” Chloe turned her attention to Wren. “She understands!”
“I think she’s saying that she’d have to first fly to Nepal because that is where Mt. Everest is,” Sadie corrected.
“Who cares? Not me! I don’t care if it’s in Nepal, Switzerland, Japan, or Oz, I can’t do it!”
“You’ve climbed the rock wall at the Ranch,” Blake said.
“That’s right. Remember? We climbed it together,” Elise said. “We had to in order to even pass the tests to come to camp. We can climb together—”
“Does this look like a rock wall?” Chloe demanded, sweeping her hand at the object in question.
“Well, it’s a wall made of rocks, sooooo—”
“I don’t care if it’s made out of marshmallows. It’s humungous and—” Her voice cracked.
Tula stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Chloe. “It’s okay to be scared. I’ll stay here with you.”
“But you’re a Bee,” Chloe said. “Your friends are going to want you to fly up with them.”
“That doesn’t matter. I’m your friend, too.”
Chloe sniffled and wiped her eyes and then pulled back. “Thank you. I know I’m being silly—”
“No, you’re not,” Tula assured her. “It’s not silly to admit something scares you. That takes courage.”
“It does?”
“Yes,” Sadie said. “Remember Wren was scared the first day on the river because she saw an itsy-bitsy spider—”
“It was a cluster—”
“Clutter!” the entire group corrected.
“The point is no one wants you to be scared,” Sadie continued. “Camp is supposed to be fun. I’ll stay too.”
“Me too,” Elise said, taking her fellow Deer’s hand. “We’re a team. We go up or we stay down here, but we do it together.”
“As I’ve said before and I’ll say it again, there were more than three original musketeers and there’s no reason there can’t be nine now,” Blake said nodding emphatically.
“Right! One for all and all for one!” Payne shouted, raising his arm as if it were a sword. “We’re the ARK Musketeers!”
By the time her Daddy joined them after consulting with Master Travis, all the Littles were standing in a circle, arms wrapped around each other with Chloe at the very center.
“I’m sorry to throw a wrench in your plans, but I simply can’t let you sacrifice Chloe. She’s my lucky charm.”
“Your charm?”
Tula smiled as heads turned to look between Chloe and Master David. He hadn’t even had to ask what was going on to recognize her friend was scared.
“Absolutely. I’m going to need someone to help get you all up this hill and I know she’s the perfect one to help. Do you know why?”
Heads shook but it was Chloe who spoke for them all. “Why?”
“Who do you think taught the goats how to climb? A bee? A bunny? A bear? Nope, it was a deer. They like to think no one knows they’re cousins, but”—he dropped his voice to a whisper which had them all craning toward him in order not to miss a single word—“their hooves give them away.”
The group giggled and rolled their eyes.
“Elise is a Deer,” Chloe pointed out.
“True, but rumor has it she’s a skunk in deer hide, if you know what I mean,” Master David said, wagging his eyebrows.
For the first time, Tula saw Chloe give a little smile.
“I’ll still help you,” Elise declared.
In his normal voice, Master David continued, “There you go. You’ve got a whole lot of animal friends wanting to go with you up this hill.
And when you get to the top, you’ll find a bag of lollipops.
You can hand them out to whatever animal also manages to follow your example.
That is if you don’t mind giving me a hand? ” Master David asked.
“I-I guess I can try. I mean, if you’re sure it’s really safe?” Chloe said, her voice tinged with uncertainty.
“I’m positive,” he assured her. “If you’ll look closely, you might be able to find the best way up.”
Again, every head turned but this time to truly give the wall a closer look. Chloe gasped and said, “I see it! There’s sort of a zig-zagging rope.”
“Oh, good, that means someone has already been here and marked a path.” He pointed, drawing her gaze upward as another rope uncoiled like a giant python to land at the base of the cliff.
“There’s Master Travis!” Chloe said, returning his wave.
“Well, he must be part Deer too since he’s already at the top. All you have to do is clip on to the rope and follow his path. I’ll make sure your rope is steady until you get all the way up. How does that sound?”
“And if I get stuck?”
“Well, that’s what Bees are for. They will fly right up and help you, right, Bees?”
“Right!” the trio said, giving Chloe big smiles.
“And I’ll make sure they don’t sting you!” Elise said, giving the three a mock glare.
“Then I believe it’s up to you, Bambi. You can lead the way to the top or stay down here with me at the bottom and watch the others. Your choice. What will it be?”
Chloe looked at the rocks, the circle of friends gathered around her, Master Travis, and then back at Master David. Finally, she nodded. “I’ll climb.”
“Yay!” Everyone shouted, then began to chant, “Bambi, Bambi, Bambi,” as she held out her hands and Master David opened the bag at his waist. She chalked her hands and took a deep breath as he double checked her harness and rope.
You’ve got this,” he assured her.
Chloe nodded and when he bent his knee, she was about to put her foot onto it but paused. “On belay?”
Tula watched her Daddy grin go wider as Chloe used the term to let him know she was double checking to see if he was prepared to handle the guide rope that would assure her safety on the climb. With his response of, “Belay on,” he confirmed he was ready.
Nodding, she stepped onto his knee and reached for the first ledge marked by the pitons that had been placed to indicate natural hand and foot holds. Before pulling herself up, she said, “Climbing.”
“Climb on,” Master David said while the others held their breaths.
When Chloe reached for the next and then the third hold without hesitation, Tula knew her friend was going to be just fine.
Her Daddy looked over at her and winked then returned his full attention to the climber he was responsible for.
When Chloe called, “I made it!” and then followed it with, “Oh, I mean ‘off belay’,” the others clapped and cheered.
Elise was next. Though the campers had double checked each other’s gear, Tula wasn’t surprised to see her Daddy triple checking as he gave each one words of encouragement and praise.
Tula smiled when it was her turn to climb because she couldn’t help thinking her heart was already at the summit with the pride and love she felt for friends who had become her family.
“Climbing,” she said as she reached for the first hold. When no response came, she looked over her shoulder and down at her Daddy. “Is something wrong?”
“No, everything is just perfect.”
“Then why didn’t you give me the go-ahead?”
“Because once you get to the top, you’ll be out of view.”
Confusion had her scrunching her nose. “Um, isn’t that sort of the point of this whole thing?”
“Yep, but it also means instead of enjoying the most beautiful view in the world, I’ll just be back to looking at rocks.”
Heat ran through her when his eyes shifted to look at her butt. “Daddy, you’re so bad. Now all I’m going to be thinking of is how my butt looks instead of worrying about the climb.”
“Nah, you don’t need to do either. That’s my job. And since I can unequivocally state you’ve got the finest ass I’ve ever had the pleasure of viewing, you’ll only need to enjoy the climb knowing that I’ve got you, babygirl.”
“I know you do. See you at the top.”
“Oh, I’ll be ‘seeing’ you all the way to the top. Now, stop dallying and climb on.”
Tula shook her head but was smiling when she turned back to the mountain and began to climb. Once at the top, she hugged Chloe again. “You did so great!”
“Now I know what it means to make a mountain out of a molehill,” Chloe said as she held out the bag of lollipops. “Thank you again, Tula, for being my friend. I’m so glad you came to Rawhide and found Master David. You’re both the same in that you make me believe I can do anything.”
“That’s because you can,” Tula said and then laughed as her Daddy’s head popped over the edge of the cliff and he said, “Ditto, little deary.”
Once he’d cleared the edge and turned around to pull the rope up after him, Chloe put her hands on her hips. “Hey, wait just a minute. You didn’t need my help. You’re a Moose! You’ve got hooves too.”
Tula giggled as her Daddy lifted his leg and clutched his foot. “Well, what do you know. I do have hooves!”
Chloe laughed and shook her head. “You’re silly, but I do want to thank you. That was fun.”
“Thank you right back for being brave enough to try. Now, is there some rule that states Moose don’t get lollies?”
Chloe handed him one and then hugged him hard before asking, “Can we do it again?”
“Only if you want to miss out on conquering the next peak,” Master Travis said as he approached them.
“There’s another one?” Chloe asked.
“Just a few more.” Sadie opened her arms wide as if to embrace the ring of mountains that surrounded them.