Echo Mountain - Lauren Wolk Page 0,20

I said, though that was only one of the things I meant to do.

“With so much venison to eat?”

“Mother will make most of that into jerky. For when there isn’t any fresh. Besides, I like fish.”

“I don’t, much,” he said, though Mother always fried it crisp and gave it to us with pickles and cream.

“Well, I don’t much like jerky. And I don’t like being hungry. But if you’d rather eat pickles and cream without fish, that’s fine with me.”

At which he said “Huh” and nothing else.

The path was steep and rocky in places, but there were saplings all along it, and the ones nearest the difficult spots were smooth from where we had grabbed them again and again to steady ourselves. I had long since learned to find a handhold before I took a hard step down, but Samuel preferred to hop from rock to rock, and it wasn’t long before he fell.

“Oh, good grief,” I said as he lay crying on the path, banged up but with no real damage done. “How many times do you have to fall before you realize you’re not a mountain goat?”

He looked up at me with a wet face. “I don’t think I’m a goat. Why would I think I’m a goat?”

“Never mind,” I said, helping him up. “Just slow down. I have a fish to catch, and you’re here to help or go home.”

He brushed himself off. “Help, then. I’ll go home when I want to go home and not because you said so.”

Which I ignored completely.

And we set off again, the river still far below us, Samuel scooting ahead as soon as the path leveled out a bit, determined to lead the way.

I let him, since it was easier to keep an eye on him if he was ahead of me, but I wished he would stay near.

That was always one of my wishes: to keep him near.

* * *

—

There were many things that tempted me as we went down the mountain: a fresh-green meadow where fire from lightning strike had cleared a few acres of trees before rain had put it out; a vernal pool where peepers sang so loudly at twilight that we could hear them even far up-mountain; a granite ledge big enough for me to sit on, like a turtle in the sun. But I decided to keep those things for another day. And I left the honey, too, for the trip home, since it would be harder to fish with bee-stung hands, but I heard the hive hidden in an oak as we passed, and the old tree, too, humming with excitement as its buds erupted into leaf.

As we passed by there, I saw a brand-new gift, sitting on a white rock at the edge of the trail where even Samuel might have seen it if he hadn’t been in such a hurry.

A honeybee. Made of wood and something I couldn’t name.

I held it up in the light. Smiled. Peered into the trees. Said, “Thank you,” in case someone was listening. “I wish you’d come out and meet me.”

“And I wish you’d hurry up,” Samuel said from down the path a bit. “Or the river’s gonna dry up before we get there.”

I put the bee in my pocket and held it there in my hand.

Looked long into the trees all around me. Saw nothing.

Waited until Samuel disappeared around a bend and then, feeling a little foolish, said, “I don’t know why you won’t show yourself.”

The trees stood quietly, waiting as I waited, but nothing moved. Nothing answered.

And I did not dare let Samuel reach the river before me.

But when I hurried down the trail, I found him standing quiet and still, with his hand up to stop me. He whispered, “Look there, Ellie.”

I saw, over his head, not on the trail but in the trees to one side, the ghost dog, a rabbit hanging limp from his mouth.

He stared back at us.

Samuel must have seen something in that dark eye, because when I came up alongside him he slowly worked his way behind me, put one hand flat on my back, peered out from around me, and said, “I don’t like him.”

I felt sorry for the poor rabbit in those jaws, but I’d been known to eat a rabbit, too. “He won’t hurt us,” I whispered.

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve met him twice before and he didn’t hurt me. Remember when I came up to the Petersons’ and said I’d seen a dog?” I said