Free Backwater by Joan Bauer Page B

peaks. I felt like I was on top of the world.
    Jack kicked snow at a rock and closed his eyes.
    “You all right?” Mama asked him.
    No reply.
    “Jack?”
    Still nothing.
    She stepped toward him. “Jack, you need to tell me if you’re—”
    “I’m fine,” he said.
    “We need to communicate as a team,” she added.
    “I know.” He stood by the ledge for the longest time, looking down unhappily. “I messed up on this part of the mountain last spring,” Jack said bitterly. “Didn’t tie my rope right. A friend of mine fell; I couldn’t hold him. He broke his leg and his arm; he was all scratched up and bleeding. Me and another guy carried him down.”
    “He’s okay now?” I asked.
    “He’s still having physical therapy. They say he’ll be all right.” Jack was still looking down. “I’d never had a problem climbing. I figured everyone was always safe with me. I always did everything right.”
    I didn’t know what to say.
    “It threw my confidence about everything,” Jack said quietly. “I’m trying to get over it, but I keep seeing the rope give way, keep seeing him fall.”
    Mountain Mama walked toward him. “Jack, I’ve had thirty-some years in these mountains. I’ll tell you what it’s taught me most. I’m not going to be perfect, but I am going to be prepared. I’ve had ropes break, I’ve been lost, I’ve had bears eat my food, I’ve been without water, and I’ve had a three-mile climb down a mountain with a broken shoulder. You learn from your mistakes and keep going; you practice, think ahead, bring everything you think you’ll need and a little extra. That makes it easier for you to do the right thing.”
    Jack nodded slowly.
    Mama put her hand on his shoulder. “Old ghosts die hard. But they die eventually.”
    “Easier said than done, Mama.”
    “Most things are.”
    We started down the trail.
    *    *    *
    Some inner engine was pushing me forward.
    The cold didn’t matter.
    My aching muscles didn’t either.
    I was hiking between Mountain Mama and Jack up a rocky incline.
    A teenager on a mission.
    “Bears hibernate in winter, right? They won’t take our food?” I gripped my pack protectively.
    “We should be okay,” Mama said, laughing and pounding out the distance on the snowy trail.
    When we stopped for water, Jack asked me about the first thing I was going to say to Josephine when I met her.
    I’d been thinking about that. “I want it to be something meaningful. I want her to know I care. When Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon, he stuck his astronaut boot on moon rock and said, ‘This is one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.’”
    “What are
you
going to say, Ivy?”
    I hadn’t figured that out yet.
    We pressed on past the ridge, headed through some icy elevation, climbed rocks, higher and higher. I was perspiring from the climb, my heart was beating fast.
    At times I felt like we were going in circles.
    Then finally, we saw the sign.
    *    *    *
    It was a wooden sign, intricately carved with birds in the corners. It was nailed to a huge tree.
    V ERY P RIVATE P ROPERTY
    Mountain Mama took out a small notebook and wrote that down.
    We followed the sharply rising trail to another wooden sign with carved birds in the corners.
    E NTERING B ACKWATER
    My pulse was thumping.
    We climbed a small, snowy hill.
    We walked around a sharp turn and crested another hill as a sound rose from the trees and surrounded us like stereo—a high-pitched sound of chirps and tweets. Birds were flying from branch to branch, circling us as we moved slowly up the trail.
    “I’ve never seen so many birds in the North Woods in winter,” Jack whispered.
    I tried to take it in.
    Mountain Mama turned to me. “We hadn’t talked about this, Breedlove, but I think I need to find your aunt first, tell her you’re here, and see how she responds. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
    “But what if she says no? What do we do then?”
    “One