White Water Page 6

  She followed the guys up the hill to Eagle Lodge and into the kitchen, where Anne had set out lemonade, bologna sandwiches, chips, and cookies. Kara ate her fill, then found Dad out behind the lodge. The door to the storage shed had been splintered down one side, and the frame was shredded beyond repair. Dad already had it sanded down and was adding strips of lumber for another frame.

  “Whoa, that bear must have been starving.”

  Dad grunted in reply, then took a handful of nails out of his mouth. “It sure didn’t take much in the way of food. Just destroyed the door. We’ll have to buy a new one, but I doubt Mark has room to bring one tomorrow.” He motioned her inside the shed. “You might want to help Anne out by taking this stuff into the kitchen. We’ll have to keep all the food in there until I can finish the repairs.”

  Poor Dad, she thought as she filled a box with packages of pasta and dried beans. There was already so much to do around here, and this just added another chore to his list. They’d be lucky to get half of it done this week. She kept at it and managed to have all but the highest shelf cleared out by the time Anne called her in.

  Dinner was spaghetti and salad Anne had brought from home. By nine o’clock, even Dad was yawning. “I don’t know about the rest of you,” he said, “but I’m ready for bed.” His gaze traveled around the table. “Greg, you and Colin can bunk together, or one of you can take cabin number one.”

  Greg pulled a coin out of his pocket and tossed it to Colin. “Flip you for the cabin.”

  Colin grinned and shook his head. “Nah. You take it. I’m used to sleeping in small spaces. That closet was my bunk all last summer, remember?”

  Dad nodded his approval, then said, “The flooring in my room is rotten in spots, so until we can get it fixed, I’ll hole up in my office and Ryan can sleep upstairs. I set up a cot for him in Anne’s room.” Anne slipped an arm around Ryan, who yawned and leaned against her shoulder. “Wakara,” Dad continued, “you can keep your usual room. When Tia gets here tomorrow she will bunk with you.” Kara nodded. Her room was on the main floor of Eagle Lodge, across from Colin’s and next to Ryan and Dad’s. It was just as small as the others, but the floor was fine, and unlike Colin, she at least had a window.

  When the dishes were done, Kara gathered up a towel and her shower sandals. The shower room was behind the lodge next to the storage shed. She hated going out there after dark, but unless she walked over to one of the cabins, there was no other choice.

  She showered quickly without washing her hair and hurried back inside, bolting the door behind her. Dad had turned off the generator, so she used her flashlight to guide her through the kitchen and dining room. She turned left into the recreation room, careful not to bump into the pool table. She propped open the door to the hallway with a stack of jigsaw puzzles from the game shelf and tiptoed past Dad’s door to her own room.

  The room wasn’t much bigger than a walk-in closet, but it housed a narrow bed and a small table that doubled as a desk. Wall shelves with pegs underneath held her books and clothes, and another small table under the narrow window held a lantern, water carafe, and glasses. Once she set up Tia’s cot tomorrow, there wouldn’t be much room to walk around, but they’d done it before and the arrangement had worked out fine. Kara stowed her flashlight on the table beside the bed, crawled under the covers, and fell instantly asleep.

  A scraping sound like a tree branch rubbing against the window woke her. The wind must be up, she thought sleepily as she snuggled back under the covers. The scraping came again, this time followed by a thump and noises Kara couldn’t identify.

  She sat up in the thick, black darkness, suddenly realizing where she was. There weren’t any trees even close to the windows here at Eagle Lodge. Dad kept the area around the buildings clear for more than thirty feet in case of fire. That’s what had kept it from burning last summer.

  She fumbled for her watch. The luminous dial read 2:00. Shivering, she pulled on her fur-lined slippers, grabbed her flashlight, and crept to the window. After pulling aside the curtains, she had full view of the meadow and two guest cabins with the woods beyond. The area between the lodge and cabin number one was bathed in the glow of a three-quarter moon. There in the middle of the clearing, a full-grown bear hunched over something on the ground.

  Kara’s stomach knotted in fear. She was tempted to go back to bed and pretend it wasn’t there. But what if it didn’t go away? Gulping down the lump that had formed in her throat, she slid open the window and shined the flashlight on the animal. “Hey!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “Go on. Get out of here!”

  The bear lifted its head toward the sound, and Kara gasped when she saw the thick, dark liquid that coated its face and dripped from its open jaws. She knew those jaws were capped with ugly yellowed teeth.

  “Oh, gross!” The thought of some poor, defenseless little animal being ripped apart for the bear’s dinner made her gag. She screamed, grabbed the water carafe from the table, and threw it as hard as she could. When the bear only grunted, she heaved the water glasses through the window. Yelling at the top of her lungs, she had just picked up the lantern when she heard the blast of a gunshot. She looked up to see Greg, dressed only in pajama bottoms, standing on the porch of cabin one. Her brother pointed his rifle into the air and fired a second time.

  When she looked back, the bear had picked up whatever it had been chewing on and was lumbering as fast as it could toward the woods. Greg followed it with his gun, and for a heartbeat she thought he was going to shoot it, but the animal made the cover of the tree line, and her brother let it go.

  If Dad knocked before shoving open her door, she didn’t hear it over the sound of her own heartbeat thudding in her ears.

  “Wakara!” He cringed from the glare of her flashlight, and she quickly turned it away.

  “Sorry, Dad. You startled me.”

  “I startled you?” He strode to the window and pushed it shut. “You scared me out of three lives! What’s going on in here?”

  She started to explain about the bear, when Colin pushed into the room, followed by Greg. “Hey, Wakara, are you okay?” her brother asked. There was a chuckle in his voice.

  She nodded, then realized he couldn’t really see her. “I’m fine,” she said.

  Greg laughed. “Well, that bear’s not. Between your screams and your pitching arm, I’d bet he’s in Mexico by now.”

  Kara shivered in spite of her flannel pajamas. She hugged herself and sat down on the bed. “All he did was look at me. He didn’t take off until you fired those shots.” She grinned at her brother. “Thanks, I owe you one.”

  Anne and Ryan were now standing in the doorway. With five flashlights pointed into the room, she saw Greg’s mouth spread into a huge grin. “I’d call it even,” he said, and she felt a rush of love for her older brother.

  Dad cleared his throat and gestured to the crush of bodies in the room. “All right, everybody out. I’ll call the ranger station in the morning and report a rogue bear. In the meantime, we all need to get some sleep.”

  Greg and Colin moved to leave, but not before Kara saw the look that flashed between them. They would track the animal at the first hint of light. Should she say anything to Dad?

  He didn’t give her a chance. “Wakara, I want you upstairs with Anne.”

  “What? Dad, you can’t be serious! Why?”

  He ran one hand through his hair, and she thought for a minute he was going to back down. Instead he said, “Just do it, Wakara. I’m too tired to argue.”

  She started to protest again, but from the look on his face she knew it wouldn’t do any good. He was treating her like a two-year-old. How embarrassing! Fighting back tears of frustration, she grabbed her pillow and followed Anne up the stairs.

  When Kara woke the room was still dark, but Anne was already up. Kara knew the woman would be either in the kitchen or outside in some quiet place, reading her Bible and praying. Mom had done the same thing. Every morning without fail, Kara woul
d find her in the kitchen or family room with her Bible and an open notebook with a list of people to pray for.

  Kara felt a stab of guilt. How old were Mom and Anne when they started doing that? Her own Bible was still on the desk in her room at home. I pray every day, she reminded herself. And go to church on Sunday. Youth group too. But sometimes that didn’t seem to be enough. Especially when things in her life seemed to be going sideways, like now.

  She got up and moved to the window, careful not to wake Ryan, who was still curled up on his cot with his head buried underneath the covers.

  The sky was just beginning to lighten above the gray morning mist. Something stirred in the shadows, then moved into the clearing where the bear had been the night before. Kara rubbed a clear spot on the frosty glass and peered closer. Colin and Greg! They were studying something on the ground, and both of them carried rifles. Just as she thought, they were going after that bear.

  Tendrils of smoke snaked upward into an ice blue sky. The smell of burning cedar told her Anne had lit a log in the fireplace as well as the woodstove in the kitchen. Kara shivered. The room was cold enough to see her breath. Quickly she stuffed her feet into her slippers, grabbed her pillow, and hurried downstairs.

  BACK IN HER OWN BEDROOM, Kara pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt with a picture of a kitten hanging from a tree branch by its claws. The caption read “Hang in There.” Exactly the advice I need, she thought. She had to have a talk with Dad, and it had to be soon. Once Tia arrived, opportunities for privacy would be zero.

  The lodge was quiet except for the crackle of flames licking at a huge log in the dining-room fireplace. The fire gave the room a cozy, warm glow, and Kara eyed the two small, overstuffed chairs that flanked the hearth. Coffee first, then one of those is mine! She loved it here at Eagle Lodge, especially the quiet moments when no one else was around. The front wall of the dining room was practically one big window that offered an unbroken view of meadows, the river, and the mountains beyond.

  No one was in the kitchen, but the back door was ajar, and Kara knew Anne wasn’t very far away. She grabbed a mug from the rack by the ancient percolator and poured herself a cup of the steaming brew. She turned to head back to the fireplace, but stopped when she heard a voice coming from the radio room. Ryan loved to play in there even though it was strictly forbidden. Had he awakened and come down while she was in her room?

  She hurried to the door, which was open just a crack, and peeked in. The last thing she wanted to do was scare him into dropping the controls like he had the last time. That had been an expensive lesson and could have cost them their lives.

  Instead of Ryan, Kara realized it was Dad sitting in the radio room with his back to her. He was talking to someone on the radio. She was about to turn away when Dad said, “Right. Tell Mark not to bring Tia. He’ll have three passengers going home instead.”

  Kara braced herself against the table. Not bring Tia? And who was going home? He had to mean her and Ryan and probably Anne. How could he do this! And for absolutely no reason!

  A few seconds later, Dad confirmed her fears. “Sorry, Wakara,” he said when he saw her in the kitchen. “I know you won’t like it, but it’s just not safe here right now. Once a bear has become a nuisance, they seldom go away on their own. You know that.” He didn’t give her a chance to get a word in edgewise. “The ranger station is sending a crew to tranquilize and relocate this animal, but they can’t get to it until tomorrow at the earliest. I’d prefer not to have to worry about you and Tia and Ryan getting in its way.”

  Kara swallowed back her anger. A shouting match would only make things worse and prove she was as immature as Dad was treating her. She hadn’t heard Anne come in, but the cook stood at the counter cracking eggs into a bowl. Kara looked at Anne, hoping for some backup and once again wishing Mom were here to take her side. But Mom wasn’t here, and Anne had no control over Dad. He was her boss.

  Dad was already turning toward the door. “Dad, wait!” Kara jumped up and stepped in front of him. “I need to talk to you.”

  He scowled. “Now?” He glanced at Anne, and Kara wondered if he, too, wanted someone on his side. “This really isn’t a good time, Wakara. Anne’s making breakfast.”

  Kara refused to give up. “Please, Dad, it’s important.”

  “Breakfast will keep, a daughter will not,” Anne said quietly.

  Kara stood perfectly still. Yes! Thank you, Anne!

  Dad’s eyes widened in shock, and then his shoulders drooped like he’d just had the wind knocked out of him. Kara bit her lower lip to keep herself quiet. The few seconds it took Dad to decide seemed like an hour. Finally, he exhaled slowly and flashed her a defeated grin.

  “All right, might as well get it over with,” he said. “Want to go outside?”

  Kara nodded. She followed him to the front door, grabbed her jacket off the rack, and joined him at the far end of the deck. Dad sat down on the bench and patted the seat next to him, but she pulled up a chair so that she was facing him. God, she prayed quietly, in the Bible You promised You’d give us words to say when we need them. This may not be exactly what You meant, but I sure need the right words now. Please!

  She looked Dad in the eyes. “You’ve always told me how mature and responsible I am and how much you depend on me. Until a few days ago, I thought you trusted me.” She took a deep breath and tried to keep her voice from shaking. “I need to know what I’ve done to lose your trust.”

  Dad looked startled. “Nothing!” He shook his head, “I mean, it has nothing to do with trust, Wakara.” He reached over and took her hand. “I still think you are mature for your age, and you’ve certainly proved you’re responsible, even if you did take a big risk by riding Lily without a helmet.” He squeezed her hand. “But I have to tell you, Sweetheart, that episode with the bear back in Lariat really shook me. You could have been killed! And quite honestly, I don’t think I could live with that.”

  Especially after losing Mom. He hadn’t said that, but she knew that was part of it.

  “Now we’ve got this nuisance bear on our hands,” he continued, “and, frankly, I can’t take the risk of you or your brother getting hurt. And,” he silenced her by holding up one finger, “that goes double when it comes to being responsible for someone else’s child like Tia.” He ran one hand through his hair. “I really think it’s best for Mark to take you guys and Anne home.”

  Kara wanted to scream “Foul!” But instead of arguing, she decided to try and be reasonable. “Look, Dad, when did you say the rangers were coming to relocate this pest?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon. Maybe as late as Monday morning. That is, assuming they can track him and pin him down.”

  “Just listen, okay?” Dad looked at the sky with a give-me-patience attitude, but he nodded yes, and Kara went on. “I know how much work there is to do around here, and we both know Tia and I can do almost as much of it as the guys. What if we promise to keep Ry with us and work right alongside you? We can save the other stuff like clearing trails and scouting the river for later, after they take care of that bear.”

  Dad shook his head, but she saw his mouth quirk sarcastically. “There’s more than one bear in the woods, Wakara.”

  “There’s always been more than one bear in the woods,” she reminded him. “This year is no different than last year and the year before. Tia and I won’t go anywhere alone, I promise. And I won’t let Ryan out of my sight. He’ll be with us or with Anne at all times.”

  Dad blew out a long breath, and Kara held hers. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he threw up his hands. “All right. I must be out of my mind, but Tia can come and you can stay—if you promise to stay close to the house and other people at all times. Clear?”

  Kara sighed and nodded. “Clear.”

  “Good. Now, can we eat? I’m starved.”

  Kara hesitated. She hadn’t expected to have to deal with the safety issue. She had really wanted to talk about her and Colin. But Dad’s face was p
ale, and he looked like he just might be out of patience. Better not push it, she decided.

  “Hey, Wakara! Hold up, we’ve got something for you.”

  She shielded her eyes with one hand against the morning sun and waited for Greg and Colin to leap onto the porch. Colin held something behind his back, and she didn’t like the hint of mischief in Greg’s smile.

  Without thinking, she backed up a step. “What is it?” She was glad to see that Dad had stopped at the front door and turned around.

  “Where have you two been?” He scowled at the boys, but Greg just grinned.

  “Tracking bear,” he said. “We didn’t find him, but we did find the ‘animal’ he was chewing on when Kara tried to brain him with the water pot.”

  Gross! Kara felt like she might throw up, but no way was she going to give Greg the satisfaction! Not to mention how embarrassing that would be in front of Colin. She clenched her fists and faced the guys head-on. “All right, what is it? A rabbit or a dead squirrel?”

  Greg and Colin looked at each other and burst out laughing as Colin thrust something cold and sticky into her hands. “Salsa!” they yelled in unison.

  Kara almost dropped the disgusting mess, but then she realized they were right. “Dad, look, it is salsa! An entire plastic gallon jug.” She looked at her brother and Colin, who were practically rolling on the ground with laughter. Kara started laughing too. “You mean he ate this? The whole thing?” Then she remembered the top shelf in the storage shed. She couldn’t reach it and had meant to take the kitchen stool out after dinner last night, but she’d forgotten all about it.

  “I don’t know about you,” Greg said, gasping for breath, “but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near that critter right about now.”

  “Me either,” Colin howled. “Especially not downwind!”

  After breakfast, Dad managed to contact Mark before he could call Tia and tell her the trip was off. They arrived shortly after 12:30. Anne fed everyone lunch, and Dad declared an hour’s reprieve before afternoon chores. He had also relented and allowed them to stay in Kara’s room.