The Haunted Traveler December 2017 Edition

was going to eat.
Ben shook hands with the bear-man and mumbled a greeting. Dad hugged Ben
goodbye. Before Ben knew it the bear-man had him up on a horse, leading him into the
forest.
“Now, Ben. Do you mind if I call you Ben? My full name is Melvin, but I prefer Mel.
But maybe you’d like to be called Benjamin, not Ben?” Mel looked at Ben, who didn’t
say anything. Usually people wouldn’t wait too long for Ben to answer, but not Mel. He
stopped the horses and just looked at Ben.
“No,” Ben said.
“No, what? You want to be called Ben or Benjamin?”
“Ben.”
Mel left Ben alone for the next hour of the ride up to the top of Olallie Butte. As they
got close to the tree line, Ben could see a building sitting on top of the mountain—his
home for the next three months. The area around the lookout was completely barren,
except for a few windswept junipers. Down by the Resort, the air was calm, but as they
approached the summit, the wind increased. Anywhere with shade, there was a foot or
two of snow on the ground.
“Okay,” Mel said when they reached the lookout. “Let’s clean up the place a little
before we unload the animals.” Mel handed Ben a whisk broom. “It’s been a couple
years since anybody has stayed here for the summer. I brought some tools to make
repairs.”
After an hour of sweeping cobwebs and dried leaves out of the cabin, Mel handed
Ben a bucket and a jug. “Come on, I’ll show you the spring where you can get your
water, at least for the next couple of weeks. If it don’t rain much in June, you might have
to hike down a mile or so to another permanent spring.”
“Where am I going to take a shower?” Ben said.
“I think your dad worked it out with my mom for you to come down on Sunday
afternoon to take a shower at the Resort—that’s if there’s no fires burning around here
what you got to keep an eye on. You’re a volunteer, but it’s still serious work.”
Mel showed Ben the spring coming out of a crack in a large boulder. They filled up
the bucket (for washing) and the jug (for drinking) and headed back to the cabin.
“I think you’re all set for tonight,” Mel said. “You’ve got your sleeping bag, plenty
of water, and your dad said you knew how to cook using the camp stove. I’m going to
head back home with the animals, and then I’ll come up again tomorrow with some
more supplies to patch up the cabin so it’s not so drafty. So, you’ll be okay up here by
yourself?”
Ben didn’t know what to say. He didn’t feel okay. He didn’t know what it would
be like to be on his own. He’d always been around his family or his classmates or the
guys on the baseball team, although after the buzzing started, he’d stayed in his room
a lot. Sometimes he sat in his mother’s car out in the high school parking lot, but even
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