Ulteriori informazioni
Informationen zum Autor Trekking solo across the remotest corners of Wyoming and Montana as a young man, Brandon Wallace learned how to survive the hard way in the harshest conditions nature could throw at him. Having spent the subsequent two decades as a trail leader, passing on his knowledge to a generation of budding adventurers, he turned his hand to fictionalizing his experiences, and the Wilder Boys series was born. Klappentext When Jake, thirteen, and Taylor, eleven, learn that their mother is still alive but facing grave danger if they do not return the money they took from her abusive boyfriend, Bull, they leave their father, who is not eager to help, and set off on their own again for a late autumn trek from Wyoming to Pittsburgh.The Journey Home 1 Jake Wilder moved through the dense forest, making as little noise as he could. His breath steamed in the shafts of afternoon light slanting down through the trees. The chill in the air was like the hunger in his stomach; gnawing, but bearable. Just about. A thought flashed through his mind: I used to be able to pick up a burger and fries for a few bucks. He closed his eyes. Images of golden fries and neon-red ketchup surfaced in his memory, and the knot of hunger tightened. Sometimes it hurt to have left all that behind. Get a grip, he told himself. Focus on the hunt. He flicked his eyes open again and took a breath. The beauty of the forest all around him was unlike anything he had seen back home in Pennsylvania. This high in the Tetons, the aspen leaves had already begun to shift from summer green to autumn gold. But the birdsong that had brought the forest to life over the summer had disappeared; almost all the birds had flown south. The forest had a haunted, silent feel now, like an abandoned house. There was still life here, though, if you knew where to look for it. Jake paused and dropped down to squat on his haunches, looking at the fresh rabbit droppings that littered the forest floor. There were still plenty of rabbits for the taking. The trick, of course, was knowing how. . . . Jake made his way to the spot he’d picked out several days before, the entrance to a burrow near the edge of the forest. The two pegs he’d driven into the ground were still there. Working quickly, he fitted a small cross branch into two sockets cut into the pegs. Dangling from the cross branch was a loop of cord tied with a slipknot that would tighten around an animal’s neck. Now for the trap, Jake thought. He pulled his dark hair back out of his eyes and bent a nearby sapling down toward the ground. He tied the cross branch to it with a piece of string. The crossbar strained with tension but didn’t slip loose from its sockets. But if anything nudged it—like a rabbit—it would pop free and whip upward with lethal force. Satisfied, Jake crept back through the foliage and sat down on a log. “And now,” he whispered to himself, “we wait.” Jake picked at a scab on his hand and let his thoughts wander back to his old life. He and his younger brother, Taylor, had lived a normal-enough life back in Pittsburgh. That was, until his mom’s brutal boyfriend, Bull, had beaten her and threatened them. Convinced that their mother was dead, they knew they had to get away, to a place where Bull couldn’t reach them. So they’d taken Bull’s money and struck out for Wyoming, in the crazy hope of finding the father they barely remembered. But Bull had followed them, desperate to get his money back and to silence the boys permanently. He’d chased them across half the country, all the way up into the mountains, where their dad, Abe, was living. Jake shivered as he remembered the day when Abe had fought like a grizzly to protect the boys. If their dad hadn’t...
