My Story of Camp, Mafia, and Bear, Ninja, Cowboy
The quest for camp bragging rights came down to a simple game of Bear, Ninja, Cowboy. Mafia versus cop. Everyone wanted the cop to win which meant everyone won. The only problem was, no one knew who to root for, who’s side to go to. Well, that’s everyone except for me.
It all started two years ago in early August.
My friend Kyle and I enter the old Lamb dorm at Camp Gottalikachallenge (dumb name, I know, but it gets better, I promise), and are met with Robert and Doug, two college aged guys.  We introduce ourselves and go to our rooms to unpack. We come back and some of the other campers had already arrived. Their names were Nate, Luke, Zeno.  Once everybody got here, there were 10 of us in total. The counselors asked us if we wanted to play a game that lasted the entire camp. Intrigued, we all answered yes. The game Robert explained, was Mafia.
The game that defined camp. 
Robert explained to us in great detail the premise of the game and how we would do it. “Everybody is given a role,”  Robert explained, “but no one knows what role everybody else has.  The possible roles are the Villager, Officer Jack, Doctor, the Necromancer and Mafia.” Robert talked for awhile, but what I got from it was the mafia kills during the night, the doctor tries to find who was kills and can save one person, the cop can figure out who is who, one at a time, and finally the Necromancer brings only one person back from the dead.  I was tired from the trip, and I had started to drift.   
“Nick, wake up!”  yelled Kyle as subtly as possible.  After a minute of embarrassment, I listened for the last bit of the speech by Robert.
“The townspeople can all vote during trials on who they think is the mafia, and if a majority picks that person, they are eliminated, no matter who they really are.”
Everybody in their dorms was given roles at random by the counselors, and I was given mafia.  Millions of thoughts were flowing through my head all I could catch from Doug was, “Your partner in crime is Nate.”  As secretly as I could, I walked over to Nate and nodded over towards the bathroom so we could talk in quiet.
“So who do we need to target first?” I asked.
“Tomorrow you’ll get your day groups,” Nate replied, “who you do most of the activities during the day with. Chances are you’re probably with at least one other person from Lamb, but you’re probably with more than one person from Lamb, which means you can’t get them when they are together.”
“Yah yah, I know.”  I replied a bit too loudly, “Make sure they’re alone, make sure-”
“Hey!”  Luke bellowed.  “Are you two talking about killing someone?  Hope you weren’t.”
“I just had to ask Ethan, I mean Nate, about camp.”  I was getting worried, thinking Luke was on our trail.  Seeing my horrendous poker-face, Nate covered for me just so I could get out before Luke grilled us any longer. 
Since I had some time on my hands, I supposed it wouldn’t hurt to find out if Kyle is useful to me at all.  Doing my best to seem casual, I asked Kyle in the most inconspicuous way who he was.
“Um, just a boring old villager.” he replied.”  Guess my week won’t be too exciting.”  I’ve known Kyle for a long time and every time he lies, or “bending the truth”, as he says, he starts talking faster and fidgeting, which was written all over him.
“Kyle, please tell me the truth, I want to know who’s who so we can find the mafia.  They probably won’t be doing anything until mid-day tomorrow, so we have time.” 
“I do trust you,” Kyle spoke softly, “but it’s just that I can’t be going around telling everyone who I am.”  As the seconds passed on, Kyle got more fidgety.
“You gotta trust me.  It’s necessary that we find as many friends as we can get.”
Trying to distract me, Kyle whispered, “It’s 11:00, it’s time for bed.”  Not wanting to push Kyle, I let him have his way and fell asleep.
    The next morning, we got dressed and ready for breakfast, that is, all except for Mitchell.
“Mitchell!” The dorm yelled in unison “We’re going to be late for breakfast!”
“Don’t worry guys,” Mitchell replied weakly, “I’ll be down in a minute.”  In an astonishing ten minutes later, Mitchell finally stumbled down the old, rickety stairs, like a drunk man after a long night.
“What took you so long?” I asked Mitchell as we headed down to breakfast.
“To be honest, I don’t actually remember what has happened until now,”  Mitchell responded.
“Do you know anything about the roles yet?”
  “I’m not sure, but I’d look out for two people who are standing really close or far from each other that normally don’t.”
“Thanks, Mitch, I’ll take your advice.”
As I got into the waffle line, I thought to myself, I will take your advice Mitchell.  I will make you proud, I know I will.
Once we finished breakfast, everyone marched back to their dorms and once we cleaned up our rooms, we had some free time.  I seized it to talk to Nate about what was to happen.
“Once we get to the main building meetings for camp occur at, or the Black Box, they’ll read out who’s in what groups and if no one from our dorm is in your group,” Nate explained, “I’ll do the deed in my group.”
     As everybody filed into the Black Box, I became increasingly worried of a multitude of things, but then I realized it’s just a game and I should enjoy it.  One counselor rattled off the names of campers in the groups, and lucky enough, I had another Lamb member in my group.  Nate and I both knew who would be eliminated from our game.
     That poor soul was Zeno.
     After all of the groups were called, everyone walked to their group rooms, and once I got there, I saw him.
As casually as I could, I walked up to the small, denim couch and sat beside Zeno.
“Hey Zeno, have you uncovered anything about who’s who yet?”
“No not yet.” replied Zeno shyly.
“Are you completely, 100% sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure Nick,” Zeno answered with a slight edge in his voice.  He was starting to get uncomfortable.
“Just want to let you know, you’re looking at one now.”
“You’re the doctor?!”
“Nope.”  And with one, continuous, deliberate stroke of my hand, he was out. “Shank.”
     After dinner, the dorm came back and the first trial was to begin.  As everyone was getting into couches and chairs Robert explained what had happened and how the trial was to work
“On a dark night at Camp Gottalikachallenge, one man in the town was hated very much by some others in the town, so much, that they decided to kill him.  Zeno, I’m sorry, but you have been killed.  Unfortunately, the doctor didn’t save Zeno. I’ll give you guys some time to talk, then you’ll  decide on up to three people to trial, then they have time to defend themselves and you to make your case.  After that, everybody votes on who to kill.  Any questions?”  Everybody shook their heads.  “Great!  You may begin.”
     After much deliberation, Kyle, Ryan and I were put on trial.  I had dreaded this moment and had hoped that I put on my poker face.  Not much was said about Kyle and Ryan.  For me, however, some strong and sadly correct evidence was put against me.  No one had to know that.  Luke was the first person on attack and started with a logical approach.
“If it happened today, it probably wouldn’t be in a large group setting, such as meal time.  That leaves our main day group.”  He struck the gold.  Luke strolled over to the new sheet with the lists of groups and looked over them.
“Ah ha!  Nick and Zeno are both in Group B for the day groups.  If that isn’t definitive, well then I don’t know what is.”
Robert looked over at me letting me know that I had one minute to defend myself.
“Yes Luke, it definitely does look like I have done.  But what I am telling you all, is that I’ve been framed.  No good mafia would make it that obvious for someone to put two and two together.  I could’ve done it, but you will sure regret it later when you have sped up the mafia’s process.”  I went on for the rest of my time.  I was sure that most everyone would still vote me guilty, but I was looking for was for one person to bite, to take my story and believe it.  I lost the vote, but I knew that someone had taken my tall tale.
     Once everyone got situated in their rooms, Kyle spilled the beans.  He took my bait and I reeled him out of the water.
“I am the necromancer.” Kyle proclaimed. “I do believe that someone framed you, and on Wednesday, I will revive you.  I wouldn’t do it tomorrow or everybody would just kill you again.”
     “Good idea. Thanks, Kyle.”
I was out, but I still could talk to Nate about our plans.
     Tuesday, Mitchell was eliminated.
     Wednesday, it was Ryan.
In between our path of destruction, we were able to convince everyone that Ethan was one of us. Four down, four to go.
Thursday almost ended in disaster.  Nate really wanted Zach out, but he was never alone.  Luckily, Nate had been quiet enough for the rest of the boys not to notice.  That night, Luke came for revenge and went all out in attacking me.
     “Guys,” Luke barked as he paced the room, “on the first day, right after we got our roles, I found Nick and Nate in the bathroom and-”
     “I had just finished going to the bathroom, that’s all,”  I interrupted.
Luke stopped walking and towered over me, “Is it your turn? I didn’t think so.”  Luke sat down and looked out the cracked window.
     “Throughout the week, Nate and Nick had been closer in everything with our dorms.  Strength in numbers?  Anyone heard of it?”  Luke seemed to be challenging everyone, or anyone to stand up against him.  As in Luke fashion, he sat down and released a large sigh as he began to wrap up his case.
     “With all of this overwhelming evidence, I cannot believe that we have still not gotten Nick out for good!  We got him out once, but one of you,” looking at everybody, dead and alive, “got this mafia member back in!  Just please,” he begged, “can you just help me win this game?”
     “Everyone did kill me last time,” I remembered, “but one of you didn’t believe the rest, these lies.  Am I the real enemy?  Look at Luke here,” as everyone turned their interested heads over, “he has been non-stop attacking and arguing against me and some other people.  Do you know where that has gotten him?  No where, but closer and closer to the mafia winning.  I am not the bad guy here, Luke is.  So if you want me out and Luke and his mafia friends to win, so be it.  However, I don’t think anyone wants that.”  And with that, the all important vote had come.  Lucky for me, someone besides the different mafia had not voted for me.  The only problem was Luke found a powerful connection between Nate and I and I knew this wouldn’t last another night.
“You need to kill me,”  I commanded. “They’re onto us and the only way to throw them off is to think that you aren’t the mafia.”  Inside my head, alarms were going off.  Why are you doing this, you’ll lose game, are you insane?  One side of me told me to do it because it would be the logical thing to do and it would throw Luke in a loop.  The other side of me, my emotional side told me to not because then I would lose. 
I took a deep breath, and nodded.
     “If we lose because of this, it’s your fault.”  And with that, I was back out of the game.
It did throw them off, but only until it came down to Nate and Luke being the last ones in the game.
       Bear, Ninja, Cowboy is a more active version of rock, paper, scissors.  Bear beats ninja, ninja beats cowboy, and cowboy beats bear.  Robert explained it will be best of five.  There was so much tension in the room, you could sense it.  I could actually hear the whispers from the girls dorm next door.  We could smell the sweat off of Mitchell because he still hasn’t showered!  He has some serious B.O issues. Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh, I remember.
The first round goes to Nate.  Some people cheer, others boo.  No one really knows what’s happening except for Luke and Nate and I.  I knew we should have taken him out earlier, he’s too much of a threat.  Next round goes to Luke, and the next again goes to the cop.  Silence envelopes the room as Round 4 readies up, and Nate looks at Luke like he knows what move he will do.
But he was wrong.  Ninja beats cowboy and the whole dorm cheers as they figure out that Luke was good.  The quest for camp bragging rights came down to a simple game of Bear, Ninja, Cowboy. Mafia versus cop. Everyone wanted the cop to win which meant everyone won. The only problem was, no one knew who to root for, who’s side to go to. Well, that’s everyone except for me.
I had an amazing time there at Camp Gottalikachallenge, so much so that I came back for the next year and hope to become a counselor in my Junior year.   It was such a blast, but even to this day I still remember that moment that ninja beat cowboy and I still think of things I could have done better, but who am I to complain about a game of Bear, Ninja, Cowboy?