By Hannah Christensen

“Have a great day, and be sure to consider Motor Mountain Tours for your next vacation,” Scott Smith called to Mr. and Mrs. Riggles as they left the bus. They didn’t so much as look at him in response, and he was sure they would be as unlikely to think favorably on Motor Mountain Tours as everyone else who had abandoned the autumn scenic drive the last two days. He sighed as he pushed the bus back into gear. That MaryAnne Rogers had looked like trouble when she joined the tour, but he didn’t know what he could have done differently. One of the tour’s boasts was being able to join in or leave at any point along the tour. If she drove off the Morgans and their nephew, he could end up finishing on the other side of the Rockies with only one passenger on board—or none, if Mrs. Rogers decided she couldn’t take how many fast food places they drove past within smelling distance. Scott’s mustache sagged at the thought. That would go over worse at headquarters than the time a ganglord’s son had tried to stow away and everyone on board had been detained for questioning.

Scott pulled out onto the highway, then glanced in the mirror at the remaining passengers. The eighty-two year old Charlie Morgan seemed as lively as ever, demonstrating an origami rattlesnake with his nephew Monty’s newspaper. His wife, Rosie, did not seemed the least perturbed over MaryAnne’s complaints that her knitting sounded like the feet of a hundred army ants and sent shivers up her spine.

The road curved out along a ledge of cliff with a beautiful lake view below. Scott considered pointing it out, but decided not to this time. Heights seemed to make Monty nervous. Of course, so did tunnels, heavy traffic, and the bus door, but a good tour guide knows when to encourage his entourage in adventure and when to let them relax.

“I will stick my head out the window and scream, so I will, so’s to not hear that dreadful noise anymore,” threatened MaryAnne.

Scott snatched up his intercom receiver.

“If you direct your attention to the right, you will see the beautiful crystal water of—”

Slam! “Eeeeeee!”

Scott winced as the scream bounced up the mountain side. He almost expected to see the golden and scarlet leaves fly off the trees in shock. Silly, really, he told himself. There was a shiver of leaves, but it could only be the wind. There, MaryAnne had finally stopped to breathe and the leaves continued to shake. Then again, maybe it was the shaking of the bus that made the leaves look like were moving.

“You’ve done so well this trip, too,” Scott lamented to the bus. He started looking for an exit sign. Curve Ahead, No Passing Zone, Watch for Falling Boulders—

Another scream clawed the air. Scott winced again. Now the bus was growling. No, worse—a rock almost as big around as a hubcap slammed down mountainside and bounced across the road. Scott braked and fishtailed to miss it, then trod hard on the accelerator. He would much rather avoid an avalanche than merely watch the falling boulders coming at him.

The roar behind them grew and cars in the oncoming lane braked and swerved. Scott skirted the railing as closely as he dared. A baseball sized rock smashed the driver’s side-view mirror. The scream grew louder.

“Please keep all arms and heads inside the windows,” Scott said through the intercom. He jerked to the left to avoid a pot hole. The bus fought his swerve. “Just a little farther,” he whispered. “We’re almost clear.” The railing ended in another hundred feet, and beyond that the road curved again, offering a further barrier of trees blocking them from the avalanche site. Scott leaned into the wheel, ignoring the smaller stones pockmarking the windshield and pinging off the hood. Those they could survive. What had his muscles tense was the oncoming rumble. That sounded like trouble.

A boulder the size of an armchair smashed through the lower branches of a tree, twisting limbs off. Another almost as big pounded down close after. Scott slammed the bus into full speed. It roared, choked, then surged forward in fishtails of its own.

The first boulder thundered past the rear windows, but now the path of the second was aimed to intersect right with the middle of the bus. Scott aimed for the railing and then, at the last possible moment, swerved left. He barely heard as the rear of the bus smashed through the railing; he had tuned out the growing noises to focus on the pulls and surges of movement fighting for control of his bus. It shuddered as the second boulder connected and scraped along the last third of the bus, then it slid backwards as the back wheels started to slip over the edge. Scott let up on the gas pedal so he could rev the bus forward. They slithered back onto the road and surged around the curve.

Scott breathed deeply and focused on hearing again to check if any more boulders were nearby. It wasn’t until then that he realized that the full blown scream was beginning to give him a headache. When was the last time that woman had taken a breath? He hoped no more rocks were coming, because he certainly couldn’t hear anything else but her. The bus was listing in a way that reminded him of flat tires, so he decided to pull off onto the gravel trail head coming up. At any rate, he could snuggle the bus further into the trees and possible protection. As long as that screaming didn’t set off another avalanche.

Branches smacked against the windows. The scream broke into little yelps.

“Quick, close your mouth before one crawls in,” Charlie Morgan said. Scott glanced into the mirror and caught a twinkling wink from the elderly fellow. He looked in as good spirits as ever. His wife had put away her knitting, but didn’t look ruffled, just alert. Monty, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen. After parking and wrestling the door open, Scott found him huddled on the floor, whimpering. Scott braced himself to remember the first aid courses he had taken. “Where does it hurt?” he asked, kneeling.

“Is it going to explode?”

“Umm…”

“He’s fine,” explained Rosie. “He’s just frightened of the hissing sound.” She looked at her cringing nephew with pity. “There’s nothing to fret about, Monty. I’m sure Mr. Smith has everything under control.”

“Yes, I’m sure it’s…just the tires. You should come out and get some fresh air. Stretch your legs.” He began to pry the tourist off the floor. “In fact, everyone should come out and take a break. It will make you fell better.”

He was moderately sure the hissing and listing were just from a flat tire, but after the way this trip had been going, he would feel better with everyone out while he checked on the bus’s condition.

Two of the bus’s tires were punctured, and the one spare tire impossible to pull out due to body damage from the last rock pelting. The mountains blocked any cell phone signals, and the driver had sensibly called it a night and sent out a party to look for water. Rosie Morgan quite approved of how he kept an optimistic approach, playing up on the adventure of an impromptu camping trip. Monty would do well to adopt such a spirit. He was sitting huddled in the corner of a seat with a newspaper over his head. She clicked her tongue to herself. It was hard to credit that he had come so close to his childhood dream of being a train engineer. You would have thought the hissing of train brakes would have scared him off before he was fired for not being able to chase hooligans away from the train lot.

Charlie, now, was tickled at the turn of events. “When I said tour by bus would bring us closer to the land, I never saw how true that would be. Yessiree, I reckon it’s time I took my first camping trip.”

He wasn’t the only one to have this as a first—no one else on board had been camping before, either. Still, the campfire dinner had been charming, cooked in dishes Charlie had cobbled together from equipment from the bus’s first aide and repair kits along with a few dishes Mrs. Rogers had brought along. That loud redhead had proved herself to be a skilled cook, and was away doing dishes while Mr. Smith tried to decipher the instructions for the antiquated two-way radio. Rosie knew she had starting smelling mice about a week ago, and now here was proof of their work: chewed and soiled pages. You never knew when mice would decide to infiltrate, and once they took hold on a territory, they were difficult to eliminate. That was why mouse-proof bags were so essential.

Rosie unpacked a deflated pillow from her mouse-proof bag to finish the beds she was setting up on the bus seats. She snapped it twice, and it slowly began to expand.

An argument from the front of the bus trickled back.

“You should be glad,” Mrs. Rogers retorted. “What with mice problems your bus has.”

Mr. Smith’s answer did not ring so loudly back, but he stood up to block the woman’s entrance beyond the door.

“It is too a cat!” Mrs. Rogers shrilled. “You don’t know anything!”

Rosie looked over the furry animal Mrs. Rogers had wrapped in her jacket and began to strip the bedding from the seats and toss it out the windows. She rather thought she agreed with Mr. Smith. She had just finished throwing the last of their baggage out the windows when Mrs. Rogers clenched her argument by shoving the black and white animal between the legs of Mr. Smith. It bolted free of the confining jacket and lifted its tail just as Mr. Smith turned around. Good thing he had the presence of mind to shield his face. A direct hit from a skunk could temporarily blind you.

MaryAnne yanked harder at the fir branch. Everyone acted as though it was her fault they had to sleep outside. It wasn’t her fault that stupid driver had scared her cat. Well, maybe it wasn’t just a normal cat, but she wasn’t going to admit that to everyone now. Besides, it hadn’t sprayed her. It just knew the bus driver had it in for it.

“May I be of assistance?” There was that bus driver again.

“Mind your own business!” snapped MaryAnne.

The driver looked like he was going to say something, but then walked away. MaryAnne shook the branch. Of course he would leave. Didn’t he know that making sure they all had shelter was his business? The old lady had already whipped up a tent from shiny emergency blankets for her and the old man, and now the driver was making a lean-to from old, musty dried limbs. MaryAnne tugged savagely at her branch. A handful of needles came off.

“Fine!” she said, “Fine!” She marched up to a droopy bush and kicked the needles under, then thrust herself after. She landed on a scrawny little man. She screeched.

“I didn’t see you!”

The man scrabbled to get away.

“How did you get here?”

“I—I—crawled,” he gasped.

MaryAnne eyed him suspiciously. “Without me ever seeing you? How did you even get here?”

The corners of his mouth wavered up, though his eyebrows never lost their peak. “That’s—common.” He tried to squirm out from under her the rest of the way. “I was…fired for not showing up at work.”

She sniffed. “Well, that makes sense. What use are you if you never show up?”

“No, no, I—I mean they never saw me at work.”

“Well, of course they wouldn’t if you didn’t show up.”

This really set him to stuttering. MaryAnne studied him critically. This was someone who needed to learn some self-regulation, not her. She glared at her absent husband. “I have plenty of self-regulation, enough to influence the children and him, too,” she muttered before climbing back out from under the bush.

The bus driver had finished his lean-to and was huddled next to the fire the old lady had made for them. It was smaller than the one they had used by the bus, but the old man and the bus driver seemed to think it was bright enough to peer at the radio by. That was something else they all blamed her for. They seemed to think if the battery hadn’t gotten sprayed it would still work.

MaryAnne stomped over to the lean-to and settled herself loudly in it. “About time,” she said.

The bus driver looked up and stared at her. She stared back. He finally dropped his eyes. “I should probably camp up at the bus,” he said. “In case someone comes by.”

MaryAnne closed her eyes in satisfaction and concentrated on going to sleep.

Monty fervently wished MaryAnne had never seen him. She hadn’t left him alone since. This was the third bush he had moved to, but he doubted it would do him any good. He glumly looked up at a pine tree and wondered if he could manage to build a tree fort. Not that he would get any sleep up there, and she would probably notice, but it was nice to think about how no one ever supposedly looked up and dream a little.

“There you are!”

Monty cringed deeper into the bush at the unwelcome voice.

“How do you think anyone around here is going to eat if you keep hiding in bushes instead of getting out there and finding some food for me to cook?”

Monty closed his eyes. Maybe she was talking to someone else this time.

The woman’s hand seized him by the shoulder and dragged him out. “Now you get out there and bring me a big heap of roots and berries and mushrooms. Especially mushrooms.”

Monty licked his lips, trying to think of what words to use to explain that he didn’t know edible mushrooms from poisonous mushrooms. Or berries. Or roots, for that matter.

“Can’t you hear anything?” She rapped him on the head with her knuckles. “Eat. Food. Go find.”

A burst of static interrupted Monty’s stammers. He looked over hopefully toward the two-way radio. Driver Scott was smiling, smiling like an engineer whose train has come through a difficult mountain pass smoothly despite threats of harsh weather and disaster. “First step,” he announced. “We set the controls to—”

Plop.

A bird dropping fell on the intricately hand-rigged radio to cell phone battery connection. A quick sizzle silenced any more words. Driver Scott’s shoulders sagged.

“Don’t fret,” comforted Aunt Rosie from where she sat weaving a bowl. “You can use Monty’s phone. I’m sure you’ll have it back up and running in no time.”

Monty handed over his cell phone, but he wasn’t so sure himself. He hadn’t gotten it to turn on since he dropped it in the stream washing dishes.

“And Mrs. Rogers, isn’t it your watch at the bus?”

MaryAnne glared at her but stomped uphill toward the bus. “Don’t forget the mushrooms,” she yelled back at Monty. “Lots and lots of mushrooms!”

Monty slunk away, hoping if he found enough mushrooms she would forget about the roots and berries.

A half hour of wandering through the forest listening for birds was enough to ease his spirit and fill both his hands with fungi. He wandered back to camp, wondering if there were any birds whose calls sounded like the train whistle he had carried everywhere as a little boy. He had no time to enjoy pondering the question before MaryAnne pounced on him again. She eyed the findings with suspicion and poked at a shelf fungus with her spoon. “You call this a mushroom?”

“It—it is a—”

“And why is this all you brought?” She shook her head. “Ran out of gumption. Gumption and self-regulation. I guess I’ll have to go with you.”

Monty desperately looked for words to persuade her otherwise.

“Here.” She thrust a pot that was previously a funnel at him. “We’re not coming back until this is filled to the tippy-top.” She pushed Monty out of the clearing in front of her.

They had filled the pot up with things too brightly colored for Monty to want to try when something rustling in the undergrowth caught MaryAnne’s attention. She cocked her head. “Now what’s lost and wandering around out here?”

Monty doubted that whatever it was could truly be described as lost. Perhaps wishing for fewer invaders in the area, but not lost.

MaryAnne crouched down and peered along the ground. “Aww, it’s a kitty cat.”

Monty took three quick steps back and bumped into a tree.

“Help me catch it.”

The noises coming out of Monty’s throat right then could not properly be termed speaking.

“Oh, shut up. The poor thing is lost and scared and hungry. It just needs a little loving care, don’t you, pussy dear?” MaryAnne crawled into the undergrowth.

Before Monty could sprint away in an escape, she came crashing out again in pursuit of a bounding raccoon. “Catch him! Catch him! Throw your jacket over him!”

Monty scampered behind, still clutching the mushrooms.

They caught up at the streamside where Driver Scott was fishing. The raccoon bounded onto a boulder in the middle and then turned around and hissed.

Monty screamed, dropped the mushrooms and bolted up the nearest tree.

“He’s just frightened, you scaredy-pants. Aren’t you, pussy my sweet? Come to mama!” MaryAnne edged into the water.

The raccoon hissed again, and Monty almost fell back out of the tree. When MaryAnne kept creeping closer, the raccoon bounded across the rest of the stream, landing on Driver Scott along the way.

“Grab him! Grab him!” yelled MaryAnne.

Driver Scott stumbled backwards and sat down hard in the water as the raccoon climbed over his face.

“Quick! Now why did you let my kitty get away like that?”

“Madam,” he answered, “That was no cat. My nose can tell better.”

MaryAnne bristled.

“If it had been a cat crawling over my face like that, I would no doubt already be experiencing aller—Ow!” He cringed, then staggered up. “Excuse me. I seem to need a hook removed.”

MaryAnne glared at him as he limped away, then turned her baleful eye on the stream itself.

“Fishing,” she said. “You should have thought of that.” She looked accusingly up at Monty. “Since you’ve gone and messed things up again, the least you can do is make a proper animal trap. I want something better to cook, like a deer or some proper beef.”

Monty wondered how long he could safely stay treed before she realized he really didn’t know how to get back down.

Charles carefully stacked one more branch on the small fire. He had brought the two-way radio up to work on while taking his turn sitting with the bus. Taking turns watching for traffic with the bus had been one more example of the excellent organization and leadership of that young tour guide. The poor fellow was feeling less than well tonight, otherwise would probably have been helping. He had a good head on his shoulders, despite claiming his son was more electrically minded than himself.

Too bad about the mushroom incident. Charles shook his head. He had managed to prevent a major disaster when he removed the more noxious fungus pieces from the pile that mistress of misfortune, MaryAnne Rogers, had piled by Scottie. She told him it was the driver’s duty to test them for edibility. If he had known the poor man was allergic to mushroom, he would have intervened more. Charles smiled as he remembered how Mrs. Rogers had been convinced after that they were all poisonous. Yes, that had been a dinner disaster. Even now he could hear her shrill voice…he tipped his head. Not merely memory at all; that was indeed her down the hill. It sounded as though she were going on about a cat again.

A beetle scurrying out from the flames caught the eye of Charlie Morgan just then, and he pushed the ignacious woman from mind to focus on this potentially new species.

Charlie was still examining the beetle’s markings when Mrs. Rogers stomped up. Her jacket swaddled a large lump. “No one’s going to tell me this isn’t a cat,” she declared.

“That’s not the problem. It’s definitely a cat,” said Scotty, scurrying after her. His face looked red and puffy and he sounded like he had a cold.

“And no one is going to take him from me.”

Scotty ran a hand through his hair.

“Mrs. Rogers. It’s not as simple as that. Even ignoring the matter of what kind of cat it is, you have to see it isn’t scrawny enough to be abandoned—”

“No one’s going to take my cat away from me!” screamed Mrs. Rogers.

Whatever else she wanted to say was eclipsed by a much louder, fiercer scream.

“Please, put it down!” Scotty looked like he was about to go down on his knees and beg.

“Never!” Mrs. Rogers screamed her own defiance back at the forest. The bundle at her chest began to heave and wail.

“Be sensible! Any moment now and we’ll have an enraged mother mountain lion on our hands.”

“Then chase it away. You’re the driver.”

Charlie checked the dark for glowing eyes, then started pulling branches in to the flames. He propped them halfway in, with the thick part of the branch out, in case they were needed for defense later. He was getting ready to gather a pile of pine needles to have available for flares when two luminous spots showed up. “Looks like we have company,” he said.

Scotty, poor chap, looked just about green enough to be sick, but picked up a flaming stick and stood tall. “Just put it down,” he told Mrs. Rogers. “You’re going to get scratched.” A general would be proud to hear one of his under officers take control of a crisis in as calm of a voice and demeanor.

“No one listens to me!” Mrs. Rogers fled into the bus.

Charlie picked up his own flaming brand and stood next to Scotty. “Normally it is advised to be as big and loud and unlike prey as you can,” he commented, “But I doubt this could counted as normal.”

Scotty licked his lips. “Mr. Morgan, I think it would be best if you joined Mrs. Rogers on the bus.”

“Nonsense. She’s as safe as she can get in these circumstances. Besides, I’d rather be somewhere I had the freedom to swing my firebrand.” Charlie smiled at the bus driver. “A little risky in the bus. I’m sure there’s a regulation against it somewhere in that book of rules we had to sign off on. Now, do you want us to hold our ground or charge?”

A window slammed behind them. “Hand me up a stick. My kitty needs to play.”

Mrs. Roger’s breathing rasped around the words, and the thumps against the bus window were punctuated by increased yowling.

“Think you could hold the frontline a minute or two while I tried to address the root problem?” Scotty asked in an undertone.

“Brave fellow,” answered Charlie.

Scotty took a couple careful steps back, then threw his torch toward the fire and made a dash for the bus.

“Hey! You forgot the stick! Go and—what are you doing?”

Loud metallic thumps mingled with grunts were drowned out with a scream. “Get down! Don’t you dare—my kitty!”

Two loud bumps and a groan were followed by thumping about in the bus and a slightly muffled, “Here, kitty, kitty.” Just then the eyes began to creep forward, and Charlie couldn’t attend to the battle behind him. Scotty staggered up. “I think we have another problem,” he gasped.

“Screw up your courage, man, and finish what you’ve started,” Charlie admonished.

“Right.” Good old Scotty dashed back off to his lioness confrontation.

Firelight now outlined the cougar’s creeping shape. Charlie threw his head back and began belting out old Scottish battle songs, waving his torch and pacing to help throw off the inevitable pounce. The firelight now gleamed maniacally in the big cat’s eyes. It began to bunch itself up. A scream slashed through the night, and Charles responded with a war cry of his own. Before he could charge, Scotty hurled up and threw a bundle at his adversary before collapsing to his knees.

Charles stepped in front of him, ready to defend against the mother cougar’s revenge, but to his surprise she took her cub and disappeared.

“We need to take care of the fire now, before it reaches the bus.”

Charlie turned and saw there were two fires now, and the second rapidly growing. They began to beat at the flames with jacket and tire iron. Neither ever knew exactly when more hands began to join in the work. Finally all the firelight was gone, and they were able to rest, panting, and look around.

Dear Rosie had joined them and brought Monty along. There were also several fellows in ranger uniforms. Scotty looked at the scorched ground with a rueful twist to his mouth. “I must have missed when I threw down my torch,” he said.

“You’re the cause of this fire?” said one of the rangers, then began to read him the riot act. Charles tried to step in and help. “You can’t really blame him for that. The whole problem really came about from a stolen mountain lion cub.”

“Someone took a cub?”

“Yes, he sure did.” Mrs. Roger had come back out of the bus. “He took it right away.”

The ranger bristled. “What are you even doing up here?”

“Camping. Our bus—”

“In a National Forest? Don’t tell me you have proper authorization.” And he proceeded to throw the book at him. Every time anyone opened their mouth, the ranger only found more transgressions to nail to the sooty bus driver.

“All I can say,” he ended grimly, “Is it’s a good thing we came along when we did. It was a close thing, too. Don’t you know that the road has been closed for days due to an avalanche? Now you’d better come along with me.”

“I hope you lock him up for seven hundred years!” said Mrs Rogers.

“Don’t fret, now,” said one of the other rangers. “We’ll get everything sorted out. You can all come along to the station until then.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” said Mrs. Rogers. “My kitty-cat might come back. I don’t want him to think I’ve abandoned him.” She started back for the bus. “You’re staying here, too,” she called over her shoulder.

Monty cringed away and tried to hide behind Rosie.

“I can see you,” said Mrs. Rogers. “Get over here right now.”

Monty clung to the charred blanket in his aunt’s hands, but she only prodded him in the back to remind him to stand up straight.

Mrs. Rogers turned around and folded her arms, scowling.

Monty slunk a step toward her, his eyes darting around in a plea for help. Scotty’s mustache drooped in sympathy, and he pulled off the emergency kit he always carried on his belt and tossed it to Monty. Monty looked more betrayed than grateful as he followed Mrs. Rogers to the bus.

“Where do they think they’re going?” asked one of the rangers.

Just then Monty stopped, peering intently into the kit. Then he whipped out a whistle, took several rapid breaths, and ran in front of Mrs. Rogers.

“About time,” she complained. “I thought I was going to have to get you.”

Monty turned around at the foot of the bus steps and said something.

“What?” snapped Mrs. Rogers.

He took a deep breath and then said louder, “Stay off this bus.”

Then he blew the whistle in her face.

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