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Jun 29
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Just before my 17th birthday, we moved from the sizzling desert of Arizona’s Sun Valley to the more temperate western slope of Colorado. It had been a great idea in theory. In fact, I think it might even have been mine to begin with, but I would no longer admit that. I was 16 and it really sucked being away from my friends in a way that the scenery just couldn’t make up for.
I spent quite a bit of my time on the phone with my friends back home in Arizona. Whether it was my incessant whining, or because they really missed me, we soon made plans for my eventual rescue. They would drive up to get me, spending a little time hanging out in Colorado for a few days before taking me to my grandmother’s. Our biggest obstacle was transportation, but my best friend at the time, Chris C., had a fairly reliable car.
The Big Green Boat, as we called it, was nearly the size of Rhode Island and made completely out of steel. Real steel, like back in the days of Hoffa. Somewhere, a small, independent nation cheered every time Chris filled the gas tank. It only took a few short months until we’d all saved up enough gas money for the four of them to come and get me. We were pretty sure my mom would give us gas money to get back to Arizona. It had worked for Kenny.
As teenagers, I and my little group of friends were all very independent thinkers. As adults, it’s served us well. Mostly. As kids, though, we tended to implement ideas first and ask questions later. Something my friends and I absolutely no longer do, of course. So when one of the guys suggested that we go camping up at the Buckhorn Lakes before driving 12h back to Phoenix, the challenge of the wilderness enticed us. Grabbing some sleeping bags, a three-man tent to stuff the five of us into, a pillow, and a hastily assembled bag of food stuffs, we loaded up my step-dad’s Chevy Luv and prepared to take on the wilds of Colorado.
“Any of you idiots know how to work a gun?” My step-dad was eyeballing us with a strangely jaded look in his eye. He hadn’t said anything so far, just watched us prepare for our excursion. Holding up a somewhat battered rifle in one hand, and a box of bullets in the other, step-dad said, “Probably you should take my .22 with you, in case you get a cat wandering by. Or you could smack those two with it before they skank up the back of my truck.” He jerked his head toward two of my friends, annoyed. They were more preoccupied with each other than with me, the focus of their trip. In fact, I don’t think I’d seen their faces since they’d arrived and frankly, I was wondering how they managed to breathe.
Chris B. manlied up, “Yeah, I can handle a gun.” He looked confident. Chris always looks confident, something I’ve always loved about that guy. Practical and level-headed most of the time, he’s one of those people who, even back then, inspires trust. My step-dad suspiciously handed it to him, with strict instructions about how to not be a moron with it, and told us that if we lost it or broke it he’d have to kill us.
Chris B. took the gun and stowed it behind the seat of the truck without once getting the pointy end of the gun in anyone else’s face, so I was happy with him being in charge of the .22. Everyone piled into the truck and we took off.
Thanks to our careful planning, it was pretty much dark by the time we got to our destination. This made it easier to pick out a camping spot, since everything looked the same anyway. We parked the truck, and headed up the hill through a small stretch of woods, and set our things down near the shore of the lake.
A few of the more ungrateful fishermen on the lake yelled at us to shut up as we did our best to drive the fish in their direction. Which of course made no sense to us.
Nearly an hour later, we’d managed to get the tent mostly set up and were still trying to invent fire. Then the sky opened up and dropped an ocean on us. Grabbing anything we could, and trying to prop the side of our tent up, we sought shelter. Unfortunately, the tent was “occupied.” Having left the eye bleach at home, none of us were brave enough to go in. We stood there, a smug little trio, and watched the whole side of the tent collapse on them instead.
We racked our brains for nearly twelve seconds before someone said, “Let’s build a lean-to!” It was a brilliant suggestion that I swear I had no part in, but I helped anyway as we selected a nice tree near our pathetic little fire, and set off to find branches and things to lean against it. It didn’t take long for us to erect our make-shift shelter. It was nearly big enough for all three of us to stand under, and only about half of the rain was getting on us at that point.
We were having a GREAT TIME! The three of us who were not thrashing around inside the soggy, collapsed tent huddled in the lean-to, shivering and talking as the temperature plummeted to the low-50s. Now, you’d think that being desert rats out of our element, we’d have been a little more prepared. But in keeping with our track record of brilliant foresight, none of us had brought jackets. Or extra blankets. We were soaked to the skin, and we were all wearing shorts.
Luckily for us, the lean-to soon caught on fire; we were able to warm ourselves while trying desperately to put it out before the entire forest lit up like a Christmas tree. Panting and sweating in the rain, we were staring at the smoking embers of our lean-to when we heard it: a low growl.
Looking around at each other, Chris B. grabbed the gun and we alerted the occupants of the tent. Again I was impressed that he did it without the pointy end of the gun being pointed at any of us. It might have been amusing to see the occupants silhouetted against the side of the tent, so we tried real hard to see something, to no avail.
“The bullets!” Chris B. hissed. “Someone hand me some bullets!” We all looked at him, stupidly. Bullets?
“Didn’t you grab them?” Chris C. asked. “You were in charge of the gun!” Where Chris B. has always been the quiet, practical one, Chris C. is still, to this day, the one of all of us who never misses a thing.
It was nearly eleven o’clock at night, everyone was soaking wet, our food was ruined and we were starving, our tent was wrecked, we’d burned down our lean-to, and our fire was dying. We stood back-to-back, surveying the woods surrounding our campsite, with our bludgeoning tool in hand ready to take on the enemy kitty cat together!
So there we were, on the raggedy edge. Trying not to get eaten by the wild animal lurking just outside of vision. In retrospect, it was probably somebody’s stomach that was doing the low growling noise that sent us flying over the hill, hell-bent for the truck. Never mind that any enemy kitty cats would have had the good sense to be sitting under an outcropping of rock or something until the storm was over.
Early the next morning we went back up to retrieve the gun before my step-dad killed us for dropping it like a bunch of idiots. We looked all over for telltale footprints of a medium sized cat stalking five loud humans with a gun. They do that, I’m sure, because we’re so much tastier and easier to catch than, say, a rabbit. We scraped everything up into a soggy lump and left.
Even after nearly two and a half decades, none of us have said much about that night. Would you?
