Moist on the Mountain

By Rusty Bradshaw

Following their high school graduation, three friends go on one last camping trip together before life takes them in separate directions. After setting up camp, Billy discovers a church camp on the other side of the lake. A camp that is filled with girls from another state. The three friends are intrigued and decide to study the camp. In the process, Billy and Steve meet a cabin full of the girls and enjoy a night of sex with them. That first secret meeting leads to more clandestine encounters. While Billy, working through a romantic breakup and indecision about his future, plays the field with a number of girls, Steve and Tony are monogamous and begin to develop feelings for their partners. One of the girls, a camp counselor, who has enjoyed Billy's company, begins to develop feelings of her own for him. In a late-night search for the boys' camp, she falls into a cave and is gravely injured. The three friends rescue her, but in the process, their liaisons with the girls are discovered and they must face the consequences.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781646285440

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Moist on the Mountain

Rusty Bradshaw

Copyright © 2019 Rusty Bradshaw

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc. 2019

ISBN 978-1-64628-543-3 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64628-544-0 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

This book is dedicated to Jerry and Walter, two of my best friends from high school, now deceased, who were part of adventures that inspired some of the incidents in this book.

Chapter 1

The roar of motorcycles shattered the tranquility of the forest.

Deer perked up their ears, looked around, and began to move away from the irritating sound. Rabbits scurried deeper into the woods, and birds searching for bugs and worms on the ground took flight to find shelter in the treetops.

Mother Nature was annoyed, but what could she do? Motor vehicles had plied the forests for many years now, and there seemed to be no end in sight.

While the wildlife had become used to the intrusions, they knew it was best to be cautious. Some vehicles carried campers and even those who wanted to enjoy what Mother Nature provides. But others carried hunters who wanted to make them their prey.

But big-game hunting season was a long way off on this early June day, and the riders of these three motorcycles were not hunting for animals. The trio of bikes thundered down the road in single file. The packs and other provisions on all three bikes were large enough to take up the space behind the riders, normally used by a second rider. There was even some spillover contained in saddlebag compartments.

Whatever their purpose, these three riders intended to stay for a while.

The first motorcycle in line was a Kawasaki S2 Mach II, a good 350cc street bike that could travel fairly well on trails. The rider, who had purchased the bike several years ago used and kept it in good shape, wore a red helmet with black and old gold trim to match the bike. He also wore a brown leather jacket that was zipped halfway up. There was a guitar slung on his back.

The second bike was also a Kawasaki but was an H1 Mach III. It was a sport bike with an engine displacing 500cc. Somewhat similar to the S2 Mach II, this motorcycle was a little better on trails. The rider wore a black leather jacket zipped nearly to the top and a blue helmet with gold trim to match the bike. He, too, had bought the bike, used about the same time as his friend, and they had worked on their vehicles together and they were in great shape.

The third motorcycle was a Harley-Davidson FXR Super Glide II with a 1,340cc displacement engine, clearly not a trail bike at all. The rider wore a black leather jacket with a fur collar. It showed no wear, as the other riders’ jackets did. His helmet was white with a metal flaked diamond on each side—not a diamond shape straight from a deck of cards, but the etching of an actual diamond. In the middle of each diamond were the red script initials AB. This same design was on each side of the white gas tank of the motorcycle.

This rider, part of a wealthy family, had purchased his bike brand-new, or rather his parents bought it for him. He had been riding the bike nearly one year.

Suddenly, the lead bike turned off the main road onto a small trail to the right. The other two riders guided their motorcycles to follow without difficulty. This path was well-worn with the trail bed just barely wide enough for a full-size car or pickup truck to traverse it. The trail ran just more than one mile along the ridge of a mountain and led the riders to a trailhead. From there they turned left and followed a barely discernible trail to a meadow adjoining a lake, both nestled in between a pair of majestic peaks.

With the white bike being a larger motorcycle and not designed for small trails, its rider fell behind the others as he went through at a slower speed. Several times he dismounted and walked his vehicle as overgrowth narrowed the trail even further.

The first two riders came off the trail and entered the meadow about two hundred yards from the lake shoreline, as seen through a small break in the trees lining the lake. The third rider followed a few minutes later to find his friends waiting for him.

The meadow formed a nearly perfect circle, bare of any trees or bushes larger than a foot. The entire clearing was covered in grass about three inches high, taller in some areas and shorter in others, where it was clear others had been, as the grass was matted down to the ground. The third rider joined his friends just inside the clearing.

They dismounted, took off their helmets, and surveyed the area.

Well, what do you guys think? asked the rider of the blue motorcycle, a light-brown-haired youth about five foot ten and 160 pounds.

Looks fine to me, replied the red-helmeted rider as he looked toward the final of the trio. What do you think, Tony?

He simply nodded.

Tony, a blonde with curly hair that could almost be called an afro, was six feet tall and weighed 180 pounds. As the size and design on his motorcycle might suggest, he lived in a higher economic bracket than his friends. Despite the difference in socioeconomic status, the trio had been friends for year, drawn together by a number of shared interests.

While he enjoyed the luxuries a wealthy income provided, Anthony Berry chose his friends based on their mutual appreciation of life. Billy Harris, the brown-haired rider, and Steve Daniels were Tony’s best friends.

All three had graduated less than three weeks earlier from Bear Valley High School, just twenty-five miles from where they now stood. They had been friends since first grade, when all three began school at Glen Robertson Elementary School after their families moved to town.

Being the only three newbies that year helped build their bond.

Steve, a six-foot, two-hundred-pound young man with curly black hair, had the build of an athlete, which, in fact, he was. He had played football and basketball for the Bear Valley Grizzlies all four years in school.

In addition to his athletic prowess, Steve was of above-average intelligence. He would be heading to college in the fall, receiving a scholarship in physics, along with a football scholarship, to the University of Notre Dame.

Tony would also be heading to college in the fall, to Stanford University. He had an average intelligence but was able to meet the Stanford entrance requirements because his father was an alum and was able to pull some strings.

Tony was already feeling the pressure to succeed at Stanford, and the camping trip the trio had planned was just the thing he needed to get his mind off it for a while.

All right, let’s get things unpacked, Billy told his friends. There ought to be enough room over there for the camp. He pointed to an area roughly halfway between where they stood and the lakeshore, but about fifty yards from the left-hand perimeter of the clearing.

Once at the spot, Billy took his time with the items on his motorcycle. He was in no hurry. The others, however, unpacked a bit hurriedly. Steve simply dropped his items on the ground to the side of his bike, while Tony neatly placed them on the ground in a specific order, but quickly.

While the three youths had many similar interests, they had developed personalities that had interesting differences.

When the saddlebags on Tony’s bike were empty and Steve had replaced the bungee cords on the rack platform behind the seat on his vehicle, the two remounted their bikes and began to drive down the trail, headed back the way they had come. It was their task to return to town and purchase and haul back more food and other provisions they could not carry on the first trip to the lake. Their camping trip was planned for three weeks, and they did not want to have to return to town much, if at all.

Chapter 2

While his friends were gone, it was Billy’s task to set up camp. The trio had left town originally at 7:00 a.m., and it was nearly 8:00 a.m. when he started.

He set up each of the boys’ tents and a fourth, meant to store their provisions, in a square with a tent at each corner. The courtyard inside the perimeter formed by the tents was about fifteen feet square. He wanted their common area to be cozy, but not so small there was no room inside it for a firepit.

Billy placed sleeping bags, pillows, and small battery-powered lanterns that looked like old-fashioned kerosene ones in each of the boys’ two-person pup tents. He stacked neatly in the fourth tent, which was about twice the size of the personal abodes, the small amount of food and other supplies they had brought.

What they could haul in the first trip included their tents, sleeping bags, and other living materials. They were able to bring enough food and beverages for a couple of days. That was why the other two went back to town for more. They planned the second trip after they selected their campsite because they wanted to maximize the time they had in the mountains.

Setting up the camp took slightly more than an hour, and Billy’s friends were not expected back for at least another hour, so he decided to explore the area. The three friends had been in this part of the forest south of town before, when they were younger. It had been about five years since Billy had been in this particular area of the mountainous terrain, but much longer since he had been at the lake.

Steve’s and Billy’s families knew each other well, and they knew Tony’s family in passing. Steve’s and Billy’s families had camped together a few times, but it was their two sons—and Tony—who had developed, over the years, a growing love and respect of the outdoors.

As Billy surveyed the area to try and refamiliarize himself, he saw a trail was barely visible on the north side of the clearing, not far from the gap in the trees at the shoreline. He walked to it and saw it went on into the trees, appearing to follow the contours of the lakeshore. He guessed it went all the way around to the other side. He made a mental note to check it out later.

He then walked through the approximately twenty-foot-wide tree gap and stepped onto a small beach at the lake’s edge. The beach was about eight feet from the tree line to the water’s edge, which was where Billy stood. To each side, it gradually narrowed until the trees were right at the water’s edge.

As he stood and looked out across the lake, Billy thought he heard faint voices, but he could not pinpoint where they were coming from.

As he turned to his left to return to camp, something along the shoreline caught his eye. It looked like a fallen tree trunk protruding out into the water about one hundred yards away. He squinted in an effort to make out the details. The longer he looked, the more it looked like more than just a tree trunk. He decided to check it out.

Entering the woods through the dense trees and undergrowth, he stayed as close to the lake as possible. His progress was slow because of the fallen trees, branches, deadwood, and tall grass, but he could still see the lake to his right through the trees, the sun sending flashes of light his way as its rays reflected on the gently rippling water. He continued to parallel the shore.

Eventually, he came out of the trees to discover a small cove in front of him, totally surrounded by tall pines. To the left was a small wooden pier. Clearly, it had been there for years, and it appeared to have held up well despite an obvious lack of care. It was something he could not recall seeing in his few visits to the lake many years before.

It could have been here and I just forgot, Billy said out loud.

Straight ahead was what looked like a raft. From his vantage point, Billy could detect nothing that indicated the vessel was secured to anything, simply drifting in the mouth of the cove, with about half its ten-foot length sticking out into the lake proper through a break in the surrounding trees about ten feet wide.

That’s what I saw, he whispered to himself.

Billy examined the raft from the shore. He could see it was made from logs tied together with cable, not ropes, and was about six feet across, barely enough to fit through the cove mouth. In fact, it looked as though the raft had hung up on one side of the opening, and that was why it had not been pulled out into the lake by heavier waves.

He could tell the raft had been there quite some time, as the logs were weathered and had a thin line of moss just above the waterline. More than three-quarters of the logs’ circumference was underwater.

The raft was only about two feet from the cove’s shore from where Billy observed, so he entered the water and waded out to it. The cove bottom was spongy but supported his weight solidly. The cove bank dropped quickly, and he was in nearly up to his waist when he reached the raft. As the waves made by his steps lapped against the log nearest him, he thought he saw something underneath the near corner. He put his hand under the raft and felt what seemed to be a half-inflated inner tube. As his gaze turned to the nearly flat surface of the raft, created when about three inches of each log was shaved off by whoever made it, he saw a valve stem sticking up less than an inch above the raft’s surface between the outermost two logs. A look at each corner revealed the same thing there.

Walking out of the water, he stepped on the pier gently, testing its strength. It seemed solid, and he walked five feet to its end where it connected with land. When he looked to his left, he saw what looked like a trail going into the woods. He decided to explore it a bit.

The trail was not as developed as the one that led from the main road to the trailhead. It was barely wide enough for one person to navigate, but it was clear that at one point in time it had been regularly traveled. From its present condition, Billy guessed it was now traversed possibly once or twice a year. He guessed the cove and its contents had been long forgotten.

After a short walk, he was completely surprised to find himself back in the clearing, with their camp visible about eighty yards to his right!

Still trying to process all he had seen, Billy went to his motorcycle and retrieved his tire hand pump, some rope, and a tent spike hammer. He went back down the path, half-expecting the raft, pier, and maybe even the cove to have disappeared, a figment of his overactive imagination, but when he came out of the trees, the cove was as he had first seen it.

He again waded into the water and filled each inner tube with air. He stepped back and watched each corner for a few seconds and saw no air bubbles. The inner tubes were holding the air, and the buoyancy brought the raft higher in the water so that now less than half the logs were underwater.

The inner tubes were undamaged, apparently, but who knew how long of no activity and ever-changing water temperature altered the density of the air inside? Billy recognized this as the same thing that happened to his football and basketball at home when they were left without use for long periods between seasons.

He then, using his Swiss Army knife, cut two tree limbs about one inch thick and about two feet in length and pounded them in between the first and second logs on one side of the raft, several inches away from each inner tube, so as not to puncture them. He cut two pieces of rope about six feet long each and tied one end of each to the protruding limbs. He pulled the raft