Stubb's Run

Jay Stubb, the forest service ranger for Moose Pond, wasn't overly concerned when he got the order. There was a fire in the West Quadrangle of the Sawcut Wilderness, and he was supposed to bring out the campers, two legal and two illegal, who were up near Blue Lake. Elizabeth Hewitt, 17, and Christopher Davidson, 15, seemed to pose no problem, but the illegal campers might give him an argument. They were, as it turned out, Camon and Cappy Roy, 18-year-old twins, but 18-year-olds of a kind Stubb had never seen before. And they did give him and argument, backed up by a fierce determination to stay at any cost, and by a gun. So begins this extraordinary thriller in which nobody is quite what he seems and nothing is so simple as it looks. Stubb, the run-of-the-mill ranger, the near failure as a man, is called upon to become a sort of hero, to get Christ and Elizabeth out of the wilderness. Camon and Cappy, abused and persecuted kids with an enormous burden of guilt, seem miscast as outdoorsmen first, as pursuers next, and as killers finally, but their rage and fear transform them. The psychological tensions and suspense of the story are the source of fantastic turns of events. Across Blue Lake, up the rough trail along Slocum Creek, to the bloody horror at the Bear Mountain fire-watch station, and finally down the wild rapids of Coal Train River, Stubb leads the way. In this desperate journey, he becomes a better, wiser, more compassionate man, and when he is faced with the final challenge, he has grown up to it.


Genre: Mystery