"It's like a magic forest." Nate pointed his finger. "That'd be a good place to fish."
Looking downstream, Maria saw a still pool off to the side of some rushing waters, covered over by a couple of old, fallen logs. Perfect place for trout to hide. "Yes, it would," she said. "But to get down there, we'll have to cross the log."
Together they looked at it. An old Doug fir, it was over one hundred feet long, the topside worn smooth and slightly flat, and pockmarked by burrowing bugs and the spiny, sharp cork boots that loggers wear. Four feet through at the big end, nearest Nate and Maria, the log spanned a chasm fifty feet across and perhaps forty feet deep at the center.
"Well?" Maria asked, smiling.
Nathaniel looked at her, wide-eyed. "I don't know," he said, bewildered. "How?"
"Well, you could walk or crawl."
Nate peeked down at the rocks in the stream far below. "Are you going too?" he finally asked.
"Of course," she said. Maria recalled the feeling she'd had the first time she had to cross a sheer drop like this one, which could kill with one slip. A sensation of a cool draft, even if there is no wind, the feeling of lightness that is an adjunct to dread.
"If you go, I'll go," Nate said. "I think."
Maria smiled. A tough guy-sort of-just like his dad. "I have a safety harness in my pack. You can put it on, and it would catch you if you fell. I will be right with you. You can do it, Nate. I'll show you how and I won't let you fall."
"OK."
Maria quickly removed two harnesses. Then she donned some Gore-Tex climbing gear and helped Nate into some rubber pants.
''You do this a lot?'' Nate watched as her fingers adjusted the harnesses.
"Yup." She snapped a tether from her harness to Nate's.
"Sit," she said after leading him to the log. Following her instructions, he climbed up on the natural bridge, straddling it.
"Look at that tree on the other side," Maria said. "Stare at it. Don't look down."
She sat immediately behind him, Nate almost in her lap. Then, picking him up, she scooted him forward. "Look at the tree,'' she said, encouraging him to repeat the movement on his own.
Within minutes they were across. When they stood, Nate turned to her, respect in his eyes.
"We did it," he said, a tinge of excitement in his voice.
"Yes, we did. And it took two of us. So you would be making me feel safe if you promised not to do that by yourself. OK?"
Nathaniel nodded.
Then they fished. Assembling a small collapsible rod, she taught him how to use a fly with a barbless hook and a bobber. Small trout took the fly repeatedly. After reeling them in, Nate and Maria released them. After they'd reeled in a half-dozen small trout, Maria led Nate to a pool near the base of the falls. The shore was crowded with huckleberry and thimbleberry, so they had to crowd past the many spiny stems and damp, leafy branches to get to the creek's edge. There she pointed to a log that angled across the pool's edge, above a back eddy that made the foam move upstream past an old alder log.
As they neared the log, Maria hunkered down, indicating to Nate that he should do the same. Together they crept the last few feet to the log and the deep pool beyond it. Even with the roar of the falls, the place had a tranquillity that they didn't want to disrupt with shouting, so they gestured as if sharing secrets.
Standing behind Nate, Maria placed her hands over his, then gently cast the fly near the falls, letting the fly drift down the stream's center and into the eddy, where it moved back up past their log like a tiny float in a parade. It was a special caddis fly, with gray wings and a tiny silver strand around its furry body. Jutting out from the body were little whiskers that stood the fly on the water, each whisker making its own tiny dimple in the glassy surface. Without warning, a swirl appeared where the fly had been, and the reel began to sing as the line peeled out across the creek. Nate shrieked. "Keep the tip up," Maria said calmly in his ear, reaching to tighten the brake on the reel. Then the line went slack. "Reel quickly," Maria urged.
As Nate took up the slack, the fish once again swam for the far side of the creek, bending the slight rod in a half circle and eliciting another cry from Nate. Then the eighteen-inch-long silver-sided monster exploded from the water, shook its head, and dropped the fly as easily as a child spits out a pea.
"Oh man!" Nate shouted, his face lit with excitement. When Nathan's enthusiasm had about peaked for one day, they packed up their stuff and due to the ease of descending made much better time. They wound down the trail in the quiet forest, hearing only an occasional scampering, the blowing of a startled deer, and the mad whir of a blue grouse.
"I'm going to the outhouse," Nate said.
The park service maintained a pit toilet at the other end of the lot. She nodded as Nate trotted off, then turned to load her stuff into her Cherokee. She pulled an apple from her pack and leaned on the tailgate, watching a red-tailed hawk. A nondescript blue van pulled into the lot and parked one space over. Nate was taking a while. Walking to the driver's-side door, she opened it and reached down to pick up her tennis shoes, thinking she would remove her boots.
The sliding sound of a van door made her realize with a start that someone had been taking their time in getting out of the van. She was unlacing her boots when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Then suddenly she was assaulted by searing pain in her eyes and nostrils. Her lungs felt as though they were being filled with a thousand angry hornets. As she felt her knees buckle, strong arms grabbed her. Burning mush filled her chest; terror gripped her mind. Something horribly confining, even suffocating, was over her face, and she was suddenly, vaguely aware that she was lying down.
"Where's the kid?" she heard.
"Forget him. Let's get the hell out of here."
Soon she calmed enough to realize that the cloth bag over her head was tied at her throat, that her hands and feet were tightly trussed, and that she was on the floor of a large moving vehicle. Then she thought of Nate, the engaging smile under his cowlick.
At least he had been spared.
26
Dan paced his office. He had raged at the sheriff, urging him to use the information they did have to the maximum. Then, calming himself, he sat and called Amiel Fischer.
"Hi, this is Dan Young."
"Dan, how are you?"
"Maria has been kidnapped."
Amiel Fischer took the news as calmly as Dan could imagine any father doing. He asked for all the details and listened without commenting while Dan told him what he knew.
"She took Nate fishing in the National Forest just outside Palmer. When they got back to the parking lot, Nate went to the toilet. Bless him, he hid but saw the whole thing and got the license number of the van that was used to take her. They had stolen plates, of course. He said two skinny men dressed in black sprayed her in the face. Nate was very fast, and found somebody five minutes later with a cell phone. They had to drive ten minutes to get a signal, but then the plates and a description of the vehicle went straight to the Highway Patrol. A patrolman recalled a blue van going away from the coast in the area where Maria was abducted. About ten minutes had gone by before he did a U-turn and tried to find them. That gives us a general region, if it's the same van. The officer never noted the plates."
"Her mother and I will be right up there," Amiel said. "We'll take the company plane."
"You should know that Maria tried to fight. She tore a red bandanna off one of her assailants. It fell on the ground, and Nate had the presence of mind to pick it up and take it with him. The lab is analyzing it right now."
In the minutes that followed that most difficult of phone calls, Dan made himself the center of a whirlwind of urgent activity. Within minutes of telling Patty McCafferty, the Wildflower Coalition machine went into motion to send an army of enviros into the woods.