Runaway Camper

Within a few seconds I realized we must have passed Brandon somewhere in the bushes.  I had Kevin stop and I hopped out the back, to search behind us, while Kevin and Kodak continued down the canal.  It didn’t take long for me to spot Brandon about twenty feet down the hill below the canal, probably assuming that he was in the clear since we had roared by in the Bronco a few seconds before.  He was sitting down, facing away from me, surrounded by the largest patch of Poison Oak I had ever seen someone get into.  I stood silently at the edge of the canal above him, and just watched him, curious to see what he was going to do next.  He proceeded to pick up a huge rock, and lift it up over his head with both hands.  He paused for a second, and then heaved it down the hill.  It landed a few feet in front of him and rolled once before coming to rest.  I assume he was just trying to break it or something else in a random expression of his anger.  Still not noticing me, he picked up his belongings and began to head along the hillside parallel to the canal.  I stayed even with him, up on the ditch bank, until Kodak approached, walking back down the canal.  Brandon saw her, which then drew his attention to me.

He immediately turned and headed straight down the hill away from me, towards Blackberry Pass.  I found a spot to get through the bushes below the canal that didn’t have any Poison Oak, and set out after him.  He reached the trail in Blackberry Pass and set off in the direction of Buckhorn, with me following a ways back.  Occasionally he would start running for a moment, and I would lengthen my strides, to keep up, but he couldn’t maintain that pace for long.  As Saddle Inn came into sight over the crest of the hill, I saw Kevin in his Bronco, driving down to cut off Brandon at the corner.  Kevin had Uncle Jesse in the vehicle with him by now, and began to talk to Brandon as he pulled up in front of him.

“Hey there, I hear that you want to head home.”

“Stay away from me, you can’t stop me, I hate this place!”

“Well no one is going to try to stop you, I can give you a ride down to the office, and we can make some phone calls for you if you would like.”

“Leave me alone, I will walk thank you.”

“Okay, that’s fine.”

After asking if I wanted a ride, which I declined, Kevin headed back to Saddle Inn in reverse to turn around.  I just continued to follow Brandon from a distance on foot.  Right as he reached the crest of the hill on the road by Saddle Inn, he dropped his bags, turned around, and started running towards me, shouting angrily.  “Leave me alone, if you don’t stop following me, I am gonna…”  I darted backwards a few feet and realized for the first time that Kodak had been following a little ways behind me.  Once Brandon realized that I would be too quick for him, he turned, walked the few feet back to collect his belongings, and continued down the road towards the Canteen.  At this point Jesse had hopped out of the Bronco, with his dogs as well, and took our spot on foot.  Kodak and I climbed in with Kevin and drove behind them.  Brandon headed off the road up towards the pool, but stopped and sat down on his suitcase after only a few feet.  While we watched Jesse try to talk with him, the three of us in the car were working to get the contact info for Brandon’s parents from the camp nurse and calling them.  We got no response from any of their numbers during the entire incident, but Kevin left them a couple of interesting messages.  “Hi there, this is Kevin, the director at Wolf Mountain.  Your son Brandon seems to be having some trouble adjusting to camp.  So if you could give us a call, that would be great.”

We watched Jesse talk with Brandon for about five minutes, with Jesse’s big dog next to him, to add a somewhat surreal humorous element, before Brandon picked up his bags and continued up the hill towards the pool.  I pointed out that people frequently left keys in their cars when they parked by the pool, and that Brandon was sixteen, and things would get a whole lot worse if it escalated into a car chase.  Luckily nobody else had been around during this entire time, besides a few wranglers at Saddle Inn, since everyone was eating dinner, so we didn’t really have to worry about the safety of other campers at that point.  The pool area and parking lot was deserted, besides Jesse’s car which was locked.  Jesse took that opportunity to put his dogs in the car, and then caught up on foot, while the three of us in the Bronco drove around and caught up with Brandon in front of the Canteen.  He had set down his stuff and his trying to get the soda machine to give him a drink.  I have no idea if he inserted money at some point, but it was fairly obvious that kicking it was not giving him the desired result.  We were still making phone calls at this point, and were just watching him when things got really interesting.

Brandon took off his jacket and hat, and started heading up towards us.  Kodak and I were in the back of the open Bronco, I was behind Kevin, and she was on the right, towards Brandon.  Fortunately Brandon passed her side, and came around the back of the vehicle.  I handed Kodak my cell phone and knife, so that it wouldn’t be within his reach if the situation degenerated farther.  Brandon stood about two feet away, and started demanding that I get out of the car, because he was going to teach me a lesson that I should have been taught a long time ago, etc.  I didn’t react or say anything back to him, I just pointed to Kevin, who has maintaining a constant stream of dialogue: “You don’t want to do that.  What is it that is upsetting you so much?  We will let you go home.  No one is going to force you to stay here.”  And he continued this for a minute or two, until things got even more weird.