When I was nine, I had two friends the same age, Andy and Bart. Bart was the brave one. Andy and I were the chickens. Bart would climb high trees while Andy and I watched in wonder. Bart was the fearless daredevil. I never understood how he could be so brave and do dangerous things. Like when he ran in front of a moving train just in time for it to miss him by a few feet. Or when he climbed up the top of a school gym building that had only small ridges to grab onto.
In the summer of 2003, our parents took the three of us to the Sequoia National Park in California. Bart, Andy, and I went exploring there. We saw thick, giant trees and weaved in and around them. They were amazing to see. After walking for about ten minutes, we saw a small cave with an entrance about five feet in height.
“Let’s go in,” Bart said.
“No way,” I said.
“There might be a bear in there,” Andy said, staring at the mouth of the cave.
I agreed. Something seemed spooky about that cave, and Andy was right. There could have been a bear there. From what I’d seen on TV, you didn’t ever want to mess with a bear, especially a mother bear with cubs.
“Bart, don’t go in there. It’s too risky,” I said.
“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,” Bart said and marched toward the cave. He ducked his head and walked into it looking like he was just taking a casual stroll.
“Come on in,” Bart yelled with an echo.
“Come out of there,” I yelled, worried for Bart.
He didn’t answer, and he was quiet for the next fifteen minutes.
“Bart! Bart!” Andy and I called, but he didn’t answer.
“C’mon, Bart, quit kidding around. We’re worried about you,” I yelled.
“Should we go in after him?” Andy said.
“No way,” I said, too scared to go in there.
After half an hour, we decided to go back to the camp where our parents were. We told them we were worried that Bart was lost in the cave. Our parents told us to show them where Bart was. We led them to the cave, and braver than Andy and I, they went into the cave calling Bart, but we didn’t hear him answer. After a while, we couldn’t hear our parents calling Bart anymore.
“Do you think we should go in there and look for them?” I said to Andy, not really wanting to go in because I feared we would never come out.
“No way,” Andy said, and we waited for everyone to come out.
Neither Bart nor our parents came out. When it got dark, Andy and I tramped back to the campsite and went to bed hoping Bart and our parents would be back at the campsite in the morning. We woke up alone. We hiked to the forest rangers’ station and told them what had happened. They told us there were no caves where we said the cave was.
We led them to the cave, but it wasn’t there. We and the rangers searched all over the park where it had been and never found it.
“But our parents and Bart are lost then,” Andy said.
“We’ll find them,” the rangers assured us.
They searched for days, then weeks, and never found Bart or our parents. Luckily for Andy and me we both had grandparents who took us in and adopted us. To this day twenty years later, we have no idea what happened to Bart or our parents. It was as if the national park swallowed them.
Bob Boyd