Chapter 18 Nico
Nico trailed the group, lagging a few meters behind the rest as they hiked along the single-track trail toward the sound of rushing water. His pack was sitting uncomfortably on his narrow hips, and it was much heavier than the packs carried by the other boys.
Nico’s was stuffed with as many freeze-dried meals, granola bars, and packets of oatmeal as would fit inside, plus first-aid supplies and tools far beyond what the troop’s weeklong outing called for.
There were also his drawing pad and the new set of charcoal pencils his mother had given him for his last birthday, and the most precious thing of all, hidden deep in a zippered pocket.
A wad of bills bound by a rubber band. Every last dollar he’d scrounged for during the past year.
Dozens of lawns mowed, dogs walked, and even babies sat.
He’d busted his butt for that few hundred dollars, which would have to last him for as long as he could possibly stretch it.
Nico yanked on the straps of his pack to adjust the weight on his hips.
He’d just have to get used to being uncomfortable.
A lot more hiking was ahead of him in the days to come, but at least he’d be alone and could move at his own pace.
Keeping up with the group had been a struggle for the last two days, but now even more so as the trail tilted upward toward the falls.
The sound of rushing water was growing louder by the second, and Nico strained to see over the heads in front of him. There, to the right of their troop leader, Mr. Sorenson, he spotted a metal sign.
RUBICON FALLS .2 MILES.
For the third time in five minutes, Nico glanced at his watch: 11:08.
They were early. Much, much too early.
He swore under his breath and quickly fished the itinerary out of his back pocket, opening it again as he hiked.
12pm. Lunch at Rubicon Falls
They were almost an hour ahead of schedule.
Mr. Sorenson might decide to have the boys put in another few miles of hiking before they stopped to eat.
They might pass right by the falls without breaking stride, and then this whole thing would be blown.
They had to stop for lunch here. They just had to.
Around the next bend in the trail, the falls came into view: a snow-white wall of water tumbling over a slick dark lip of rock, churning up mist in the pewter pool below.
The troop crossed over a wooden bridge, boots echoing hollowly across the old boards, and Nico’s hands balled into tight fists, fingernails digging into his palms.
Please… he willed Mr. Sorenson as the troop leader stepped off the other side of the bridge. Please!
A single, mossy picnic table sat below the trail in the mist off the falls, and Mr. Sorenson turned toward it.
Nico let out a breath of relief and unsnapped the front buckle of his pack.
“All right, men,” Mr. Sorenson called, setting his pack on the ground and turning to face the gathered troop. “You have thirty minutes. Eat and filter water here, too. Make sure you’re full up before we get going, we’re not stopping again until we reach camp.”
There was a gentle murmur of conversation as the boys pulled the packs off their shoulders and rummaged in them for lunch. Nico carried his pack to a shady spot beneath a feathery hemlock and dropped it there.
Glancing around to make sure no one was looking, he pulled out the single sneaker waiting in the top pocket and wedged it into the waistband of his pants, hiding it under his shirt. Then, he lifted the orange plastic trowel from the side pouch.
His heart was racing as he made his way through the boys to Mr. Sorenson.
“Watch it, loser,” Bradley grumbled, catching Nico’s shoulder as he passed. He stumbled, but kept moving forward and did not take the bait. He had no time to engage with Bradley or any of his basketball buddies, whose second favorite sport was pushing Nico around.
“Mr. Sorenson?”
The troop leader turned, both hands buried in his pack as he stared through his rectangular glasses at Nico.
“What is it, Nico?”
Nico’s fingernails dug into his palms again. It was now or never. “Can I be excused for a few minutes?”
“Why?”
Nico lifted the plastic trowel in explanation, and Mr. Sorenson looked back down into his pack.
“Bury it deep,” he muttered.
Nico walked back over the wooden bridge and down the trail, risking just one quick glance over his shoulder to make sure the eleven boys and Mr. Sorenson were all occupied before rounding the curve in the path.
The second he was out of sight; he broke into an all-out sprint.
It was three-quarters of a mile back to the remote Ingleside Trail, which led in a northbound offshoot around the summit, and he needed to make it at least a few hundred feet down that trail to plant the sneaker and the torn and bloodied piece of shirt tucked in his pocket.
It was a mile-and-a-half round trip, and he had no time to waste.
He’d timed himself on the track after wrestling practice the week before, the same wrestling practice where he’d faked a bloody nose and snuck into the locker room to lift Daniel Barela’s driver’s license from his backpack.
After practice, he’d hit the track behind the baseball fields for eight timed laps and discovered that he could run two miles in twelve minutes and fifty seconds.
The trail he was running now was hillier and rockier, but with half a mile less distance, it should equal out.
Twelve and a half minutes to get there and back. Long enough to maybe raise an eyebrow at his absence, but not so long that he couldn’t explain it away as an unfortunate bathroom delay.
Nico’s legs were burning by the time he reached the Ingleside Trail and charged up it.
He ran for another lung-busting half minute, then stopped, scanning the terrain for the best place to plant the evidence.
A boulder jutted out from the forest, interrupting the path, which swung wide around it.
A pine grew atop the rock with the roots exposed and dangling. Perfect.
Sucking in wind, Nico wedged the stained fabric under a root and stood back to inspect it.
It worked. It looked as though he had scrambled up onto the rock and it had been torn from him there.
Any casual hikers passing by would miss it, but someone who was looking carefully for signs of a missing Boy Scout would not.
Pulling the sneaker from his waistband, he hauled his arm back and chucked it hard into the woods behind the boulder.
Once they noticed the scrap of fabric, they would search the area thoroughly. They would believe he had left the trail and vanished into the wall of forest, chased by an animal, or wandering off by accident, dehydrated and lost.
Nico hesitated, his eyes on the rock. Was it enough? No. It was too neat. Too contained.
He didn’t have time to waste. If he wasn’t back in the next seven or eight minutes, questions would be asked and this little outing would be remembered, logged in Mr. Sorenson’s mind when the timeline was gone over by searchers later.
Quickly Nico slipped the switchblade from his back pocket and flicked it open. Holding it over his palm, he squeezed his eyes shut and pulled.
Sharp pain exploded across the inside of his hand and Nico cried out, closing his fist around the blood that was pooling there.
He let a few drops fall onto the trail, then led them in a wavering path up and over the boulder.
He climbed up after them and plowed through the woods in the direction he’d thrown the shoe, sweeping his hand back and forth to leave blood on ferns and bushes and a sizable smear on the slender trunk of a tree.
That was it. That was all he had time for. It would have to be enough.
Nico kept his fingers pressed tight to the thin gash across his palm as he raced back, giddy with adrenaline.
That should do it. That should convince whoever came looking for him that he had gone west from the overnight spot, then north on the Ingleside Trail before running into trouble there, when in reality, as soon as everyone was asleep tonight, he’d pack up and head due east, then south for miles and miles to Warner Lake.
After that, it would be as simple as hiking up and over Lewis Ridge, then dropping down to the forgotten little lake he’d read about in the tattered library book detailing the history of Mount St. Helens.
Lake Lumin, home to strange bioluminescent plankton that glowed blue at night, the location of a pricey restaurant that had burned down decades before, leaving only a small boathouse behind on unclaimed land that no one had laid title to in years.
That’s when the plan had clicked, when he’d read about the abandoned clearing that had belonged to a family with the last name Barela.
It felt like fate, a beautiful coincidence, that the only student in Nico’s school with that last name was a boy a year older than he was with a vague-enough resemblance, dark hair, olive skin, and muddy hazel eyes, that Nico was almost passable as the person in the driver’s license photo, if he smiled widely and tilted his head the way that Daniel had.
That license was his ticket out, and there, in that abandoned boathouse, he would start over.
Once the noise about the missing Boy Scout died down, he would pick up his new life as Daniel Barela.
He would be free forever from Gary Dunn.
Nico reached the wooden bridge and slowed to a walk, forcing his ragged breathing back into a slow and steady rhythm as he rounded the corner and came upon the troop, still eating lunch.
Not one of them glanced up as he returned, taking his seat beneath the hemlock and opening his pack. Carefully, he smeared a dab of antibiotic ointment over the cut on his hand and closed his fist around it again.
He wasn’t hungry. He was full to the brim with triumph, and he felt at this moment that he could live for days on this victory alone. Besides, it made more sense to ration every last bite of food in his pack, to eat only what was absolutely necessary to keep him moving forward for now.
Nico slid his uninjured hand into his pack and lifted out his drawing pad and one of his pencils. So far, there was only one half-finished sketch on the first page. Grace Dunn, as he saw her last, through the smudged glass of the school bus window two days before.
Nico brought the pencil to the paper and continued shaping her hand, held in the air in a wave of farewell. He’d started the drawing on the long ride up and had somehow managed to capture the look of regret in her eyes and the sad smile that barely lifted the corners of her mouth.
He met her charcoal gaze now, like she was staring right at him through the paper.
She had believed that the goodbye was for a week, but Nico had known. He had known that he would never see her again, and his heart had broken over it as the bus rumbled to life and pulled slowly away, his mother shrinking into nothing behind a black cloud of exhaust with her hand still in the air.