Chapter 3

I was the first one up in the morning. As I built a fire and set up a pot of coffee, A small voice behind me said, “Can I pet your doggy, mister?”

I looked over my shoulder and found a little rag-a-muffin girl child. Her black hair was tussled from sleep, and her brown eyes were red from crying. She was wearing one of my long-john shirts. It hung past her knees, the arms bunched up at her elbows.

“Well, I don’t know, sweety. I think Shadow would like to be introduced first.” Shadow did not need any introductions. His tail was going ninety, and his doggy grin could have lit up the moon’s dark side.

The girl slowly edged up to him and whispered, “Hi, Mr. Shadow. I’m Kathy.” Shadow took a delicate sniff at her fingertips as she slowly held her hand out. Then, he licked her hand. It was like a dam broke. She wrapped her arms around Shadow and turned on the waterworks again.

I was not sure what to do. Then a voice whispered in my ear. “Let her cry it out, Matt. She needs it right now.” Suzy had come up behind me and was watching the whole event.

After about ten minutes, the crying died down. Suzy gently pulled Kathy from Shadow and spoke. “C’mon honey, let’s get you cleaned up and into some clean clothes.” Then she told me, “Matt, why don’t you put some water on and get some hot chocolate for us.”

While warming up the water for the chocolate, I also started frying the bacon and setting up the eggs for breakfast. We had some leftover baked potatoes from last night, so I diced them up for hashbrowns. By the time Suzy and Kathy had finished their morning preparations, all I needed to do was start frying the eggs to order.

Kathy wanted scrambled eggs, which were my specialty. Suzy, knowing my abilities with eggs and with a mean grin, ordered sunny side up. I grinned back, “You got it, honey.” I set up a plate of scrambled eggs for her. As I handed her plate to her, I said, “Sunny side up, just as you asked.” I then set up my plate with some of the best sunny-side-up eggs I had ever made in my life.

I grinned at Suzy and said, “Wanna swap?”

She grinned at me, “You stinker.” and took a big bite of her eggs.

For the rest of the morning, Suzy kept Kathy busy with things that little kids liked. Things like looking for pretty rocks and flowers and skipping stones in the lake. At the same time, I kept my eye out for aircraft of any kind.

My original thinking was that wherever that plane had been headed, there had to have been a flight plan, and when they did not show up, people would start looking. I had also hoped that a mayday had been radioed out when they got into trouble. At the very least, an emergency beacon would have been activated.

By noon, I had not seen any indication of a search. I had a new problem now. Do I wait and see if somebody comes around, or do I head for home and use my radio to get ahold of Pete, Forestry, or somebody else?

I looked over to Suzy, who had just put Kathy down for an after-lunch nap. “Honey, I don’t think anybody’s coming. It looks like these folks haven’t been missed yet.”

I could see the concern in her eyes. “What do you think we should do, Matt?”

I sat for a moment, gathering my thoughts. “Well, we’ve got two choices. First, we stay here at least for tonight and hope someone shows up.”

Suzy said, “We’re a little short on groceries, honey. We can’t stick around too long with three mouths to feed.”

I smiled at her. “No faith in my fishing abilities, eh?” Before she could say anything, I continued. “Our other option is to head home and then radio this in. I figure Paul would be our best bet. But the Forestry folks might be a better choice.”

After I said that, Suzy thought for a moment. “Matt, I think we should head for home. At least Kathy will be comfortable in a real bed. We will be better able to care for a little girl there. Calling for help is a good idea, too. I don’t know or care who. But somewhere, her family will be worried sick about her.”

“OK, Suzy, that’s our plan. We’ll head back home today.”

While Kathy napped, Suzy and I broke down the campsite as best we could. Later, when she awoke, we told her we would take her to our home. While we took down the tent and packed everything onto Jughead, I gave a running description of the wonders to be found at our mountain mansion. Kathy helped as much as a 4-year-old could. She was mainly listening wide-eyed to me.

When we were ready, I put Kathy up on Gunnar with Suzy while I did a final campsite check.

As we rode back to the cabin, I kept an eye open for any search and rescue aircraft. We also entertained the little girl. We were teaching her old Western songs. She had a gay old time. She was laughing and giggling the entire way.