The Boy Who Cried Werewolf

Up a Mountain Trail

It was about nine in the morning by the time Wendy, her brothers, and her father made it up to the trail they were going to ribbon out ahead of Wednesday.

It was a relatively narrow trail, ranging from ten to fifteen feet in width. It wound upwards from the outskirts of Gravity Falls to the top of the northeastern-most peak of the Floating Cliffs. The town council had plans to install a new communications tower at the top of the mountain, and they had awarded a contract to the Corduroy Lumber Mill to clear the trail in preparation for the construction of an access road. Additionally, the Corduroys were also promised that they would be allowed to harvest the lumber they would have to cut on the job.

Wendy and her father walked along ahead of their crew. Wendy had a tablet, showing a map of the area. "Lotsa cedars up here," Wendy commented as she made her way up the trail. "Yeah. I see some fir and hemlock, too," Manly Dan pointed out. "See, down on the slope just by the side of the path?" Wendy nodded. "Looks like some of 'em have a bit of lean the wrong way," she noted.

"Hey, Dad?" It was Marcus, Dan's eldest son. "Is it me, or do some of those trees look kinda dead near the top?" Dan nodded. "Yeah, Mark; we're gonna need to top some of those trees."

Wendy chimed in. "We might wanna do that with some of the good ones, too; we wanna be able to drag 'em down by truck." She gestured toward the mountainside. "It's pretty steep, and I don't see too much we can use for snags there."

Manly Dan looked where his daughter had pointed. "It shouldn't be too bad if we can drop 'em against some of those older saplings on the slope there." Wendy looked up to where her father was indicating, then she nodded and made notes on her tablet. "Yeah," he continued. "We can drop some of them on the trail, but the chains ought to reach down to that line of trees there."

"Okay," Wendy said. "Come on, gang; let's go have a close-up look." The Corduroys trudged slowly forward, scanning the terrain in minute detail as they went along.

"So," Dan said to Wendy as they drew near the peak. "How was your weekend with the Pines kid?"

Wendy smiled. "His name's 'Dipper,' Dad."

"Oh, er, right. Right. How's Dipper? Did you guys, ah, have a good time?"

"Pretty good, yeah," Wendy answered. "The kid's awfully mature for his age...."

"Oh?" Dan stumbled over a bit of bracken in the path.

"Although, he's awfully innocent in a lot of areas, too." She stopped and knelt by the side of the path to examine a hemlock tree that was anchored to a ledge about seven feet below. She made a note of the tree's lean on her tablet.

"Well, that's good to know," Dan muttered, he thought, under his breath. Wendy giggled. "So, what did you guys do?" he asked, as they walked on.

Wendy contemplated the crunching of the dead branches and evergreen needles under her boots for a few minutes before she answered. "We had our movie night, like we used to do, back when," she said. "And we went swimming...and I took him to Skull Fracture on Saturday."

"Skull Fracture?" Dan said, surprised. "What'd you do there? Dipper doesn't strike me as the type who'd enjoy the club."

"I was going to teach him to throw axes," Wendy replied.

They stopped to examine an old cedar that was growing in the middle of the trail. "We'll have to pull the stump out too, when we do this one," Wendy mused out loud, again making notes on her computer.

"How'd he do with that?" Dan asked as he gauged the circumference of the tree.

"We never got to it," Wendy said. "We ran into Batsy, and he challenged me to a throwing contest."

Dan smiled. "Drunk and dizzy?" he asked.

Wendy nodded. "Drunk and dizzy," she affirmed.

"Did you beat him?" Dan queried.

"Hell, yeah!" Wendy said, laughing. "I won a hundred bucks off him, too!"

Dan threw back his head and laughed. "That's my girl," he cried, slapping Wendy on the back.

They continued on, now nearly at the summit.

"So...you like the kid? He's good for you, is he?"

Wendy stopped and turned to face her father. Her brothers and the rest of the crew were a few paces behind them.

"Dad," she said, pitching her voice so that only he heard. "I love him. And I'm going to marry him."

"You're serious?"

Wendy nodded. "As soon as he's done with college."

Dan nodded, knowing better than to argue with his daughter. She could be as stubborn as he was when she set her mind to something. "I'm gonna hafta bring him out camping with us a few times," he thought, rubbing his chin.

At the summit of the mountain, they went over the terrain. It was mostly flat, but Dan wasn't too sure about how well the new facility could be anchored up here. Well, that part wasn't his problem; he just had to make sure the area was cleared and prepared for the construction crews that would come after them.

"Marcus! Kevin!" Manly Dan called. His sons rushed up to him.

"Yes, sir?"

"You guys think you can navigate the big truck up this trail?"

The two young men looked back down over the trail they'd ascended, noting its average width, and its twists and turns.

"I think we can do it," Kevin said confidently. Marcus looked askance at him. "Won't be easy, though," he added.

"We'll need to be able to use the winch to haul up whatever bucking falls down the slope," Dan told them. "Can you guys handle that?"

"Absolutely, Dad," Kevin declared.

"Okay," Wendy said. "We need to figure out what equipment we'll need for this job. And we may need weapons, too."

"W-weapons?" Marcus repeated. "Weapons? What for?"

Wendy pointed down toward the tunnels where the abandoned railway used to run. "We're not too far from the Manotaurs' cave here, and there's a colony of eye-bats in one of the old, abandoned train tunnels."

"Eye-bats?" said Kevin, shaking. He remembered what they'd done to him, and nearly all of Gravity Falls once before, and had no desire to see them up close a second time.

"They usually only come out at night," Wendy assured him, "So they shouldn't be too much of a problem. But I'll feel safer with a crossbow or two on our side."

"Okay, enough chatter!" Dan yelled so that all the crew could hear him. "Get out your hand tools, and let's start clearing away some of the debris and smaller saplings on the way back down. Get the trail ready for Wednesday. It's gonna be a big job- it might last us until Friday. Get a move on! Go!"

As Wendy took out her axe and began to deal with a young spruce, she heard a strange noise. Looking up, she saw a flock of black geese flying over the mountain and into the Gravity Falls valley. They circled briefly, then dove down into the forest. Black geese? Wendy thought. Strange...I might have to tell Dipper about this.