The Fugitive Grandma

Chapter 49 - Hideaway Cove

The San Jacinto Mountains were a forty-minute drive away from Santa Ramona. Part of a vast national forest park, the range provided a retreat into a pristine wilderness not yet consumed by the encroaching sprawl of the suburbs.

A two-lane highway crawled up the face of the mountains, lined by chaparral and jagged rock. At the base of the slope were caves near the road, hidden behind brush and sage. Johnny had looked out at these caves many times from the passenger window of the car and imagined that in ancient times they might have served a special purpose. Now, it seemed liked no one even noticed them.

The road climbed through foothills, rising five thousand feet into deep, quiet forests of oak and pine. The cool air was filled with the songs of birds and the soft patter of squirrel and deer journeying through the woods.

These mountains were the site where Johnny went camping with Elmer every summer. They would stay in Elmer’s RV for long, wonderful weekends during the peak season in July and August, taking the old man’s motorboat out on the water, spending lazy afternoons trawling for bluegill, black bass, and catfish.

In the evening, they’d fry the fish on a Coleman cooking stove by the camper. After dinner, they’d toast marshmallows over the campfire and Johnny would look at the night sky, pick a pretty star, and wish for his dreams to come true.

Two summers ago, Elmer and Johnny found a spot on the south side of the lake that had better fishing than anywhere else they’d ever been. In one afternoon alone, they caught over a dozen black bass. They realized they had stumbled upon a gold mine and decided they would keep it secret. This was the spot Johnny named Hideaway Cove. He and Elmer never told anyone else its location, except his grandmother and his father, both of whom had joined their camping trips on several occasions.

Now, following the robbery at Great American and their appearance on the TV news, Johnny and Stella had another reason to keep Hideaway Cove secret. After leaving the store in the pickup truck on Friday afternoon, they raced east on the freeway, heading straight up the road into the mountains.

During the off-season, the campground and woods surrounding Hideaway Cove were empty. The whole stretch of the national forest was nearly deserted, and it was easy for them to make their way to Hideaway Cove without notice.

Among their friends, only Elmer knew Stella and Johnny’s location. The pharmacist made a secret trip into the mountains on Friday night, loading a dozen coolers into the Ford Explorer that he used for camping trips. In the coolers he brought food and ice. The three of them shared dinner and spent the night in the RV, which remained at the campground year-round.

The following morning Elmer returned to Santa Ramona, using the same coolers to carry back the various stolen pills and medicines he received from Johnny and Stella, prioritizing the prescriptions he would give to friends immediately as well as the drugs that needed refrigeration.

Sunday morning, Elmer made the same trip again to transport more stolen medicine. When he arrived at the RV in the woods that morning, it was still cool and misty in the woods. Johnny was waiting outside the RV while Stella still rested inside.

“Let’s go have some fun!” Elmer said, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

They walked to the edge of the lake and unhitched Elmer’s small motorboat from a wooden dock. After they’d been fishing in the cove for an hour, they saw Stella wave at them from the shore, a broad smile across her face.

“Let me join you for a while.”

And so the three of them savored the morning air on the open water, angling and basking in the beauty of nature as they had many times before.