Trouble in the Hills by Helaine Becker

Author:Helaine Becker [Becker, Helaine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV016000, Adventure
Publisher: Fitzhenry & Whiteside
Published: 2011-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

27

But then it came to Cam—she was probably praying for Ambar. Holding a memorial service for one. Kind of like what he had done, just moments before. But probably a lot better.

He eyed the sky. Clouds were moving in. Big, honking dark ones.

Great. Just what they needed now: a mountain squall.

Squalls were common as dirt up here—amazing they hadn’t gotten dumped on already.

Still no sign of Samira.

“Samira?” he called out reluctantly. “The weather’s changing. A storm’s coming through. Are you almost done?”

She surprised him—at his side before he’d even realized she’d emerged from the cave. Silent as a deer.

“Thank you for letting me look after him,” she said. “Now I feel like we can leave him.”

“That’s good,” replied Cam. “But now we’ve got trouble.” He pointed to a thunderhead that was approaching fast. “We’ve got ten minutes, maybe not even, before that thing turns the taps on us. Whatever happens, we can’t let ourselves get caught in it—not without having any dry clothes to change into.”

Samira shrugged. “I don’t mind getting wet. I won’t melt.”

Cam shook his head. “You’re not in India anymore, Samira. Getting wet in these mountains is deadly. You get chilled, and it takes only a few hours for hypothermia to set in. That might even have been what happened to your friend—”

“Ambar,” Samira said.

“Yeah. Ambar. I was thinking. He might have done what you did—tried to get away from the runners. Or maybe he just got separated by accident. Who knows? But once he was lost, he was screwed. No camping stuff. Nothing to make a fire with. He could have stumbled onto the cave, hoping that would keep him safe for the night. But if he’d gotten caught in the rain, or snow even, and the temperature dropped like it does here at night, well, he’d be toast, so to speak.”

Her eyes widened in dismay.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s just…”

A fat raindrop plopped into the dirt at Cam’s feet.

“So you are saying we are stuck here.”

He checked the sky again. Damn! He could see the sheets of rain approaching. It would be on them any second.

“Yeah. At least ’til the rain stops.”

“And when do you think that will be?” Samira asked.

He saw the fast-approaching line of rain, the deep ranks of low, dark clouds lined up behind it all the way to the horizon.

“I don’t know. But it doesn’t look good. It looks like we’re going to get socked in,” he said.

A few more raindrops thudded into the dirt.

He took her arm. “Come on. Get inside. Give me the knife, I’m going to try and grab some firewood before the rain starts for real.”

Limping, he “ran” to the cover of the brush, began grabbing fistfuls of kindling. Struggled to keep from dropping them all, like the monkey and the peas. Remembered, this time, to dig out some resin from the tree trunks for his firestarter.

The wind picked up. The trees were rustling louder and more wildly as the front passed over them. Then Cam heard the harsh clatter of the rain.

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