Outward Bound, page 4
Angelo made a face. "Some here, some there. Hey now, what's this? Are you trying to get me RPO'd on my second day here?"
"Forget it. You're right."
"Let's get this finished. Then maybe we'll have some time to lay back a little before we find out what the news is tonight."
The implication only hit Linc later when he was in the shower that, since there had been no one else around when they talked, Angelo had allowed for the possibility that Linc might be a plant. I must be getting slow, Linc told himself. Of course, with all the mystery and restrictions, there were likely to be planted ears in a place like this. Why hadn't something that would normally have been so obvious occurred to him? It had to be the traveling, the unaccustomed work, and the sun, he decided.
Chapter Nine
LINC and Angelo stayed together for the evening meal. Rick, the black kid who bunked next to Linc, joined them at the table, along with Kew, the Oriental that Blondie had pushed off the seat in the bus. Two girls, Karen and Shel, who had latched onto them, sat opposite. They were chatty but alert-eyed and watchful, on the lookout for opportunity and maybe—who knows, if the offer were rights, the looks said—available. Linc remembered Mr. Green's warning and inwardly reaffirm his vow to stay straight—at least until he had a better idea of what this was all about.
Dinner was actually not too bad: meatball stew with potatoes and crusty bread, followed by a fruit-tart dessert. Or maybe that everyone had worked up appetites so big they didn't care too much. Whatever the reason, Angelo insisted on going back to the serving counter with Linc to voice their compliments on the improvement. They buttonholed one of the makeshift cooks, a thin, dark-haired girl who had been scanning the room particularly anxiously, and Angelo told her what they thought. She stared at him and Linc for a moment, then burst into tears. It turned out the kitchen crew had been struggling all afternoon to try and get it right. She said it was the first thing she'd done in her life that had been appreciated.
After the dishes were cleared, the cooks joined the rest of the company in the hall. A rainbow of "Mr."s and "Ms."s in tan shirts and colored vests stood at the back and along the walls. "Mr. Black"—who by now, of course, needed no introduction—mounted the dais at the end opposite the main door. Evidently, he was in overall charge of whatever the operation was here. He was tall and leanly rugged, with tanned, heavily lined features and close-cropped hair showing gray at the sides. His face and chin were stubbly, either because he was starting to grow a beard or had been too busy to shave for a day or two. The talk around the room died and gave way to an air of curious expectancy. He began:
"I understand that everyone who was expected has now arrived. First, let me welcome you all to Camp Coulie, where you are invited to be guests for the next six weeks. Those of you who are still with us at the end of that time, and who wish to continue, will proceed to a second six-week phase that will take place at a different location. Details will be posted at a later date. In the meantime we've a lot of work to get through, and that includes more this evening, so I'll keep this brief. Apologies to those who've only just got here, but that's the way life is."
Mr. Black looked from side to side as he spoke, taking in the lines of attentive faces. He kept his manner neutral, seeking neither to win favor nor impress, speaking with a firm voice in a way that suggested somebody accustomed to carrying authority that didn't need to be flaunted. His hands, Linc noted, were large and sinewy, the kind that looked as if they could bend bars and split boards. That wasn't from scribbling notes and writing reports in a psychologist's office, Linc told himself.
Mr. Black continued, "This morning two people from Hut 4 were found inhaling crack dust. They were off the premises by lunchtime, and at this moment are on their way back to the places they came from. Transgressions of the rules will not be tolerated." He then reiterated, one by one, all the rules that had been spelled out to Linc and the others shortly after their arrival. He then added a further point Mr. Green hadn't mentioned:
"I referred to you all a moment ago as guests. Let me make the meaning of that quite clear. Nobody is under any form of coercion to be here. Each and every one of you—and this will apply throughout your stay with us—can request RPO at any time, and it will be granted without question. However . . ." Mr. Black paused and glanced around again for emphasis, "for as long as you choose to remain, it will be on our terms. That's the only rule. The rest are conditions that you accept." He allowed a moment for them all to reflect on that.
"Waddya know. Guests," Karen muttered across the table. "I don't think I've ever been called a guest anywhere before." Shel snickered.
"Was your room all in order?" Kew said.
"Well . . . not bad, I guess."
"Considering the price," Angelo put in.
Mr. Black resumed, "Just to show that we're not all bad here, tonight you get to watch movies." A ripple of approving murmurs ran around, with one or two cheers. "But maybe these are movies that many of you have never had much of a chance to see." Mr. Black made a vague gesture in the air, which could have meant the room, the camp outside, or anywhere a hundred miles beyond. "Out there is some of the most rugged and challenging country to be found on this part of the planet. It can be beautiful; it can be lethal—just like a lot of things. How you fare with it depends a lot on you: what you're made of; how much you know. We're going to show you a little of the kinds of things to be found there, because in the next few weeks you're going to be finding out about them firsthand, yourselves. You'll also find out things about you. You'll find out what your strengths are and also your limits—where you need the help of others and what others have to rely on from you.
You'll know exhaustion and fear, maybe not a little pain—things that reveal people at their worst. But those same things can bring out the best in people too. You have a chance to discover parts of yourselves you never knew existed. We think they're there, otherwise you wouldn't be here. However, we're probably going to turn out to have been wrong some of the time. Make it your business to prove we weren't wrong about you" Black showed both hands to indicate that he was through. "That's it. I said I'd be brief. Are there any questions?"
A lot of muttering followed, with quizzical looks being exchanged around the tables. Finally, on the far side of the room, a heavy, red-faced youth stuck up a hand.
Mr. Black acknowledged with a nod. "Stand, please, so we can all hear." The youth shuffled to his feet. "You are?"
"Er, John. John Two."
"And? . . ."
John Two looked uncomfortable now that he had the room's attention. Somebody sitting beside him gave him a nudge. "Yeah, well, a couple of us here want to know . . ."
Mr. Black waited. "Yes?"
"Like, what it's all about. Don't we have some kind of right to know what's going on . . . you know? I mean, what's in it for us at the end of all this? Where are we supposed to be going?"
A few voices endorsed the question. Mr. Black, frowning, let them subside before answering. "Some kind of a right!" he repeated. "I think you still don't quite comprehend the situation. You are used to thinking of rights as if they exist automatically as things to be demanded and dispensed. But that was in a world that you are no longer a part of. We've all seen the trouble that belief has caused there. The only right that you have here is the one I've already indicated: to choose to return to where you came from at any time you wish. Rights beyond that, in the world that we are part of, are things to be earned. And they can be earned only by those who have learned to accept obligation. That's what you are here to learn. And strange as it may sound to most of you just at this moment, I can promise you that stands to be the single most valuable lesson any of you can learn in your entire lives."
Chapter Ten
FOR Linc, walking had always been a straightforward business of putting one foot in front of the other. It wasn't something that needed too much thinking about and, it did things like get you to the other end of the street. At Camp Coulie, he and the others learned there was a whole art to it. Walking over mountains, anyway. They learned it gradually and painfully in the course of the next two weeks, at the cost of blistered heels, swollen ankles, and muscles that could barely flex enough to get them out of bed the next morning. The even, strutting gait that was fine on city sidewalks didn't work here; feet hit rocks at the wrong angles or twisted and slipped into the cracks between. Each step had to be selected by eye and measured, then made smoothly in a way that needed practice to flow into a rhythm that could be kept up for hours without the exhausting jerkiness and agonized gasping for breath that marked the early days. Learning to zigzag on the uphill slopes reduced the steepness; water took the steepest way down, so following creek beds was not a smart way to gain height. Legs could "freewheel" at almost a run on the downhill stretches, letting gravity do the work; better still, they could use the scree slopes of accumulated rock flakes from above as a makeshift ski run.
As the routines slowly became automatic, and toughened muscles allowed attention to shift from aching feet and pack straps cutting into tender shoulders, they began to see what was around them for the first time. One evening, when a group that included Linc was returning from an expedition to one of the local peaks, they came over a rise to be confronted by an unusually spectacular sunset even for the Sierra, flooding the valley with fire of gold from a sky writhing in violet and red. Everyone stopped and stared, transfixed. After a long silence, Mace, a hefty, red-haired youth, who hadn't said so because of the rules, but from his accent had to be from New York, breathed in an awed tone:
"Man . . . that's some hell of a fried egg."
Which at once broke the spell.
"So go write a poem to it or something," Flash taunted. Other voices joined in.
"Hey, give him a break, Flash. It's probably the most artistic thing Mace ever said."
"Yeah—so I'm feeling artistic today. You have a problem with that?"
"I got a problem with being half starved to death here. What did we do today—eighteen miles? Show me some real eggs."
Linc looked past them to Mr. Green, almost forgotten, taking it all in and watching. There was always one of the wardens there in the background—saying little when they weren't instructing, but always watching and listening.
It wasn't all just endless hiking. Aching limbs have to rest; raw feet need time to mend. Between the days of tramping along trails and over trackless mountain slopes, they painted fences around the camp, laid roofs, cut and replaced old timbers. They swam in the lake and learned to handle canoes and other small boats. They were shown first-aid methods and lifesaving. Everyone got to do kitchen duty too and found out what it was like to put up with the grumbling of hungry, worn-out cohorts back from the hills. The groan of "New kids in the kitchen" became a standard joke around the camp for any of life's tribulations that you can do nothing about and just have to put up with. Those who had already gained kitchen experience found themselves being sought out for advice. Everyone took a turn at hot, sweaty stints in the laundry.
On their rest days they got to try their hand at things like plumbing, electrical work, and vehicle maintenance. There were classroom sessions in recognizing plants and rocks, the stars in the night skies, and using map and compass. Those who were genuinely not up to sustained physical exertion were found jobs helping with the camp's day-to-day maintenance chores and in the workshops.
Linc preferred things that involved action and required physical coordination. He did well in the gym, found he had a good sense of balance and timing on the parallel bars, and after the first week or so could take the hikes comfortably. In the workshops he discovered a practical side to his nature that he never knew he had. Learning to use tools was surprisingly satisfying, and he found himself becoming fascinated by mechanisms. Class work, on the other hand, tended to bore him, and what little math he had absorbed at school wasn't adequate for the map-and-compass orienteering.
This was also a period of attrition. A quarrel that broke out in the kitchen turned into a knife fight, and both participants were RPO'd the next day. A girl from Hut 5 was RPO'd when the warden found her missing in a midnight spot-check. Royal, of the bad-back syndrome, pleaded sick two trekking mornings in a row and wasn't heard of again after the second time. Several more either couldn't or wouldn't fit and requested out.
At the same time, a growing air of competitiveness began making itself felt, which those in charge seemed happy to encourage. In fact, some of the more astute among the "guests" agreed it was the wardens who, in various subtle ways, had instigated it. Ratings began being posted each evening of the cleanest and best-kept huts, and the best times for athletic performances and hikes. Nothing was actually said officially, but spontaneous urges to better the other huts' scores began to emerge between the huts, and in some cases different groups within the huts.
Such gravitating together through a sense of shared pride stimulated social structuring around emerging leader figures. Mostly, this took place of its own accord, like the groupings in a school playground. Linc and Angelo became this kind of attracting binary (around which Rick, Kew, and several others fell into a loose cluster), with neither of them exhibiting any marked inclination to bid for supremacy.
In other cases attempts at asserting order were more imposed. A kid called Tommy from Hut 1, nice in his way but with a stubborn streak and quick to argue, was found badly beaten behind the gravel pen. He claimed he was jumped and didn't know who did it or why, and as far as anyone could tell, the matter was never solved. In Linc's hut, Flash, who took criticism badly and never accepted more in the way of chores than he could get away with, drifted into Arvin's ("Blondie's") orbit. The two of them stuck together, watching the others but not getting involved. Later, they were joined by a third, called Vie—clearly of Italian stock, with olive skin, slicked-back hair, a thin mouth, and narrow, mobile eyes that missed nothing. Linc quickly tagged him as a mean specimen to be careful of. All the same, the eye-blurring speed with which he could chop and dice with a kitchen knife astounded everyone.
The challenge came one evening, back in the hut after the meal, when Arvin was sponging mud off his parka. He indicated the can of water he was using and nodded toward Rick. "Hey, Rickafeller. Get me a clean refill in that from out back, willya?"
Rick looked up in surprise, hesitated, then stiffened in protest as he sensed the others noticing.
"Didn't you hear the man?" Flash asked after a few seconds. Rick faltered, then looked toward Linc in an appeal for guidance.
"What's it got to do with him? I'm asking you," Arvin said.
Linc found himself confused. Normally he would have seized the moment to settle right there the situation that had been developing for some days—he figured he could take Arvin. But violence was out this time, and he didn't know any other kind of solution. Unable to think through how to deal with it, he nodded a silent acquiescence. Rick picked up the can and, looking pained, headed for the washrooms at the back. Linc caught Angelo's eye and read concurrence that he had done the right thing. It wasn't worth it right now, over a can of water. But trouble was coming. It would be only a matter of time.
Chapter Eleven
HUT 3 had two Macs. One of them, inevitably, was dubbed Big Mac, upon which the other, logically enough, became Little Mac. Somebody transposed the latter into Mackerel, which thereupon stuck.
One midday near the end of the second week a mixed group that included some of the girls from Hut 8 had stopped for a break on one of the hikes in a hollow beneath a broken cliff. The routes had grown longer, taking them higher into more rugged terrain. Campcraft had been added to the routine now, and on this trip they would be overnighting in tents and returning the next day.
"I'm telling you what it is; it's for the military." Beth took a swig of water and passed the canteen to one of her companions sitting and lying among the rocks. "What else do you think all this route marching and discipline is for? They figure if we're gonna cost tax dollars anyway, they might as well get something useful back."
"Makes sense to me," Big Mac said, gnawing on a chocolate bar and shrugging.
"A handy way to get rid of us as well," Mackerel added.
"Of increasing the odds anyway," Big Mac said.
"Well, gee, guys, thanks for making the day," a girl who was known as Cat said, making a face toward the others.
"Oh, Mackerel's always saying things like that," Angelo told her.
The wardens of both huts had come along to manage the combined group. They were sitting on a flat rock to one side, chewing sandwiches and sharing a flask of coffee. Mr. Green was studying the base wall of the cliff, which ascended perhaps sixty feet, in a series of slabs and fissures, to a ledge in front of a gully. The gully, choked with boulders and stones, led back down to the far side of a rocky mound jutting out from the cliff base. "Do you reckon you could manage to get up that?" he said to Ms. Blue.
Ms. Blue was blond, tanned, and lithe, perhaps in her mid-thirties, and began every day with a three-mile run. Also, she had gone through a high-diving routine at the lake one afternoon, which had suitably impressed the troops. She ran her eye up the face, from the foot of the wall to the ledge. "I think so. Does it need a line?"
