I&#39ll Be There (24 page)

And then, having delivered his warning, he turned and ran into the undergrowth.

The bear is what changed Sam’s mind.

He decided that he’d rather die in the freezing water than from a bear ripping him to pieces. He was now ready to try the kayak, because it would be impossible for him to sleep knowing
that the bear was out there.

Sam didn’t realise the candy wrappers were in Riddle’s pocket. And Riddle didn’t know that they were what the bear wanted. They both didn’t know that the bear had no
interest in them. The panting and paw thump had been a bluff.

But they assumed the worst.

And so they made a decision. They would get in the red boat.

They would try to make it down the roaring river.

Riddle used the duct tape found in the first-aid kit and wrapped two sticks across Sam’s back. The emergency pamphlet in the kayak said that a broken bone should be
stabilised. It was going to be a rough ride. When he was done, Sam looked like a scarecrow.

The boys stuffed handfuls of green acorns into their pockets to chew when they got hungry. Riddle poured water on the fire that he and Sam had struggled relentlessly to keep going. They put
sunscreen from the first-aid kit on their already sunburned faces. They coated their lips with waxy lip balm, and Sam took four aspirin to help dull the pain of his shoulder. And then very
carefully, using Riddle’s help, Sam got into the kayak.

Riddle had branches from an aspen tree to use as oars, but they were more like ineffectual brakes that he held in the water. Climbing into the back, Riddle pushed the kayak away from shore, and
they began their journey down the river.

I have seen people in boats, and they do not look afraid.

But maybe they can swim. We cannot swim.

Can bears swim?

Sam cannot help with the boat.

Sam is afraid. I am afraid.

It is a ride.

It is a wild ride.

It is a wild ride in our red boat for someone to find us.

The Utah County Sheriff Search and Rescue dogs verified that both of the boys had been on the road where the truck was found. And the two dogs followed the scent from the log
on the uphill part of the road to the sheer drop on the edge.

A person couldn’t see many clues as to what happened. But to the scent hounds, it was clear: the boys had disappeared over the cliff.

Using global positioning to mark and map, the three search teams looked for a way to descend, with the dogs, down the steep terrain towards the river.

It took a full day for the lead search and rescue team to get halfway down the incline. Working with ropes and climbing gear, with the dogs lowered in harnesses, the team checked the sharp
rocks, searching the layers of ledges and indentations. It wasn’t until the afternoon of the second day that both hounds again picked up a scent.

Once the dogs located where Sam had first landed, the team radioed back for more support. It wasn’t long before they tracked Riddle’s scent as well. They now knew that the boys had
been at the bottom of the ravine.

They were putting the puzzle together.

Timing is everything.

And Sam and Riddle left their place at the river just hours before the search and rescue team arrived.

If Riddle’s shoe hadn’t come off, if the kayak hadn’t been discovered in the rushes, and if the bear hadn’t smelled the candy wrappers, they would have been sitting by
their fire waiting to be found.

Instead they were hurtling down an icy river.

The rescue teams had no way of knowing about a kayak.

What they discovered was evidence that the boys had been, for some time, camped at the river’s edge. They found the trampled area where they had slept and the still-warm fire pit.

They also, at a distance, found bear tracks and bear scat. Had a bear scared the boys into the water?

The dogs found no scent of the boys past a two-mile radius from their encampment.

If the boys had gone into the river, they would have drowned. Had one fallen in and the other gone to rescue him? A water team, with wetsuits and scuba gear, was brought in to search the river
in the area where the boys had camped.

They found nothing.

Junie and Faith, the two UCSSAR dogs, sat at the river’s edge where the kayak had been launched and whimpered, driving everyone crazy. The dogs could smell what the people could not. And
they were trying to say,
They were in a boat. That’s what happened.

But no one would listen.

On the night that they’d received the bad news, Bobby Ellis and Emily fell asleep on the couch in the living room.

Emily was coiled in a ball in the corner like a cold puppy. Bobby’s over-six-foot body was stretched out long, like someone who was accustomed to a king-size bed and didn’t know when
he wasn’t in one.

Debbie covered them both with quilts and then called Bobby’s parents and said that she’d like to just let them rest. Barb Ellis said she understood, but she really didn’t. The
Bells were nice enough, but the whole family seemed sort of artsy to her.

That was the only way that she could think to describe it. There was too much stuff in their house. Too many paintings on the walls, too many little ethnic knickknacks that, to her eye, should
have been sold at a garage sale.

And there were so many books everywhere. They needed to get more bookshelves or, better yet, start using the public library.

Barb had wall-to-wall, ultra-plush taupe carpeting at her house, and it wasn’t just that she liked the look; she knew that things were clean. Which was part of the reason they didn’t
have any pets.

Bobby was allergic, but even if he weren’t, she wouldn’t want animals in her house. She liked them in zoos and in trees and from a distance, like when she could see the squirrels on
her neighbour’s lawn fighting.

But the Bells had that overly friendly, fat dog. And then the two paranoid-looking cats. And they had plants inside their house, which was another thing Barb didn’t like. It was dirt in
pots on the inside. And bugs lived in dirt, and when you watered plants that were inside a house, you ran the risk of the water getting on the floor or the carpet. That was just a fact.

Barb liked cut flowers. But she didn’t like mixed arrangements. She liked everything to be the same colour. Like all white, which appealed to her sense of order and hygiene.

And she liked flowers with super-long stems, because that just said right away that they didn’t come from your own yard. It said that these flowers were purchased and someone cares enough
to do that, because they care about things like having fresh flowers in her house.

And that was important.

After that night, Bobby was Emily’s shadow. They went everywhere together.

They did their homework, usually in the Bells’ living room, and a lot of time with ESPN
SportsCentre
on the TV, because that’s how Bobby did it at home.

After a week of this, Bobby asked her to go with him to the junior/senior prom and she just shrugged.

That night, before he left, he kissed her on the lawn chair in the backyard. He got his hand under her shirt and he was in heaven. She barely noticed.

The way to make the pain go away was to put your mind somewhere else. You let your mind leave and float above you, where it could watch you.

So now there were two of you. Always.

And then the two Emilys did what was expected, which is what you have to do because you need everyone to leave you alone.

You don’t think about the future, because it doesn’t matter any more, and you never, ever think about the past, because it is gone. And thinking about what is gone is the pain.

You try to smile, but it feels really fake, but you are a fake now so that isn’t a problem. What is a problem is how trivial everything is. The things that get people anxious or upset are
not worth anyone’s time.

But they can’t see that.

So while the world around you obsesses over all the wrong things, you know the secret. You know that there are things that matter, and then there is everything else.

And what matters to you, besides your mother and your father and your little brother and your dog and your two new cats and your nana and your pop-pop and your best friend, is him and his
brother.

But now Sam and Riddle are gone. Really gone. Get used to it.

Or at least pretend to everyone that you are.

Clarence’s right leg was amputated above the knee.

And on the first day after the operation, he experienced what half of the people who have lost a limb feel for the rest of their lives: phantom pain. He had an excruciating ache coming from
where his foot, which was no longer there, would have been.

It felt like someone was hammering nails into his toes. The feeling started with the uncontrollable urge, in the middle of the night, to scratch his foot.

And it got a lot worse from there.

By morning, the nurses were doubling up his pain meds and calling the attending physician for help. Clarence, bleary-eyed but filled with rage, demanded that they cut off his foot. When they
tried to explain that they already had, he did more than lash out with his mouth. He swung his fists, upending the table by his bed and sending his IV stand crashing to the floor.

By the afternoon, after he’d bitten a nurse in the forearm, he had been put in a restraining device. By evening, the chief of staff had signed orders to have him moved to another
facility.

An ambulance came the following morning and transported Clarence to the Brimway Medical Clinic, which was run by the state. He was known on his paperwork as
Clarence Border/Also Known As John
Smith
. The boys’ abduction from Montana a decade earlier was now public record and Detective Sanderson had matched the kids after painstakingly reviewing hundreds of missing
person’s files in ten states.

That afternoon, Howie P. McKinnon, wearing a dark green suit, paid his first visit to see Clarence. When Howie came into the room, Clarence took one look at him and said, ‘Whatever
you’re selling, I ain’t buying. So piss off.’ Howie stood immobilised several feet from the bed, wrestling with how to shake hands with someone in a straitjacket.

Howie was only four years out of law school, and only two years from having passed the bar exam, which he’d taken three times. And thus far into the game, his public-defender work had
consisted of mostly Driving-Under-the-Influence cases, which he had roundly lost – his only defense for these cases being that the state’s breathalyser was defective.

Howie could usually get one or two jurors somewhat interested in the antiestablishment-conspiracy defense, but the people he represented looked like habitual drunks, so his perfect record of
never winning a case had stayed intact.

Howie cleared his throat and took a half step deeper into the room.

‘Mr B-Border, my name is Howie P. McKinnon, and I’m g-g-going to be representing you.’

Clarence squinted at him. ‘My name is John Smith.’

Howie looked down at the paperwork and managed to mumble, ‘Yes, Mr S-Smith . . .’

Clarence suddenly roared, ‘I want to sue. They cut off my damn leg.’

Howie nodded as Clarence continued shouting. Spit was flying from his mouth.

‘And if it wasn’t bad enough, they butchered the job, because I can still feel my foot!’

Howie was now edging back towards the doorway.

Clarence had a thought and while still glaring lowered his voice. ‘I need a cigarette.’

Howie stuttered, ‘S-Smoking’s n-not allowed in h-here.’

Clarence shot Howie a look of complete disdain. ‘You think I don’t know that? What do you take me for, a moron?’

Howie didn’t say anything.

Clarence continued. ‘The next time you come see me, you bring a carton of cigarettes or don’t come at all. And ask for a wheelchair. You can push me outside.’

Howie found himself nodding again. There was something about Clarence Border/John Smith that demanded you listen.

Clarence held his gaze. ‘And another thing, whatever they said I did – well, I didn’t do it. Write that down, pickle-pants. I didn’t do it.’

And Howie obediently took out a pen.

The report filed by the sheriff ’s department listed drowning as the probable cause of death. A river alert was posted in two counties, and a story appeared on the
television news in most of Utah explaining that two boys were presumed to have lost their lives after surviving alone in the woods for almost two weeks.

Their bodies were still waiting to be recovered.

Detective Sanderson took the sheriff’s call from Cedar City and then wrote an email but didn’t send it. He decided to go and see the Bell family on his way home and tell them
himself. He liked Tim Bell, and he knew that this was hard on them. But his experience told him that having some kind of closure would mean the beginning of healing.

The detective looked down into his file. It had been over a month now since the kids had disappeared. It was actually surprising that it was all wrapped up in that time. Often cases like this
went completely unanswered. But he’d still feel better when the boys’ bodies were found.

The detective didn’t go into the Bell house. He explained it all to Tim Bell on the front porch. The official search was now over. Divers had done a thorough exploration of the river as
well as the entire surrounding area where the boys had camped, and they had found nothing.

But the conclusion was undeniable. The boys had gone into the water. The temperature of the river would have led to hypothermia.

You don’t survive that.

It was like nothing Sam and Riddle could have imagined.

With only the branches to drag, they had no real control in the water. The vessel was at the mercy of the river; its currents and obstacles turned the red plastic kayak into a play toy.

They were constantly spinning, so that one minute Riddle was in the front, trying to hold the big branches, and then moments later the kayak would be kicked forward and Sam would find himself
heading down the rapids in the bow of the boat.