Free Frozen Stiff by Sherry Shahan Page B

the man had either given him the food or left it in the cabin.
    “Maybe we’ll make sunglasses the way the Eskimos did,” Derek said. “I read about it at the lodge. They carved them out of wood, with slits in the front, so you can see out but light can’t get in. And we need a fishing pole. We could bend a nail for a hook.”
    She had to tell him about the note and that she’d sort of cheated on the bet. She hadn’t
told
anyone where they had gone, but …
    Derek took the empty pots and turned in the direction of the stream. “I’ll get more water.” He paused to look at a white-gray sky tightly knitted with weeping mist. “Then let’s start on a fishing pole. The fjord must be full of fish.”
    She couldn’t let him go to the stream yet. “I have good news and bad news,” she said.
    Derek turned, straddling the downed tree trunk, a pot in each hand.
    “The good news is my mom knows we took the kayaks, that we were camping in the fjord. The bad news is I cheated on our bet. I left a note.”
    He looked as if he’d just choked on a bunch of berries.
    “So we don’t need a fishing pole.” It sounded like an apology, but the note was going to save their lives.
    “I don’t have any good news,” he said. “Just bad news.”
    Cody waited.
    “I found the note … and tore it up.”

The stage was set for a fight, a knock-down, drag-out brawl.
    Cody only swore once and tagged it with his name. It came out sounding like one word,
dammitderek
. “Why?”
    He shrugged, looking guilty and sorry. “I thought someone might find the note before we got to camp out. People are always going into your cabin.” Then he disappeared with pots in hand, heading for the stream.
    The mist turned to light rain, adding grayness to the already sullen sky. Shadows on the distant mountains deepened in the valleys. Up close the forest looked like what it was, a dense growth of trees and underbrush choking hundreds of thousands of acres. Farther away it was dead green, the color of lettuce forgotten in the vegetable bin.
    Cody slipped into her yellow slicker.
    No one knows we’re here
, she thought.
    Except the poacher
.
    Derek would continue to the stream for water; then he’d probably head to the cabin for nails: fishhooks. She should have gone with him, but she’d been so ticked off about the note.
    The fire kicked up when the drizzle lightened to an annoying mist. Fire and smoke were still allies.
    Would a search party start at the beach, on the ocean side? She and Derek had gone to the beach every day it hadn’t rained since he’d come to Yakutat. Their mothers knew the routine: hang out at Cannon Beach, a fifteen-mile-stretch with fifteen-to twenty-foot breakers that attracted surfers from around the world. Check out the fishing action, chat with the locals.
    How many days would it take before the canvas bags holding their kayaks were missed? No one used them this late in the season. She had another thought: Her mom might even think they’d been kidnapped.
    Now that Cody knew about the stranger, she couldn’t stay another night. They needed to pack up and get back in the kayak. No one could sneak up on them on the water.
    Cody sank into the brush behind the tent to pee. That was when it hit her that Derek now had two pots—and they didn’t
have
a second pot. One had disappeared with her kayak and the rest of the gear. But she’d recognized the second one. It
was
theirs—one of a matching pair purchased at Mustache Pete’s General Store in Yakutat.
    She’d just zipped her shorts when Derek returned to the clearing. She closed her eyes, waiting for them to stop stinging. Her eyes needed lots of rest; it still took time before objects farther than ten feet away were more than blurs.
    She had to ask Derek about the second pot. Maybe it had fallen out of her kayak when it capsized and had washed ashore.
    He was leaning into the tent when she moved up on him. “Derek? Where did—”
    She stopped.
    It wasn’t her