After passing out MREs to the men, Jacob approached Amy with two packages and a battered case. “Let’s talk a minute,” he said.
Leading her away from the men, he handed her one of the meals. He sat down with a groan. “Damn, that was one bumpy ride,” he said. “Pardon the language, Miss.”
“I’ve heard worse.”
Jacob laughed. “Yeah, Marlin can cuss a blue streak. I forgot you weren’t brought up like most womenfolk.”
“I was brought up just fine,” she retorted.
“Sorry, I meant no insult,” he said, placating. He pulled a battered map from the tattered case. He laid it out on the ground. “Any idea where we are?”
“None,” Amy shrugged, looking at the map.
“Everything has changed so much, I can’t be sure,” Jacob replied and then chuckled. “Well, the mountains haven’t changed. We are somewhere between here and here.” He pointed.
Amy measured the distance with her fingers, the way her dad had taught her. “Shit,” she said.
“Now just because you know how to cuss, doesn’t mean I approve,” Jacob warned.
“But that means we have only come about twenty miles. We have used almost half the fuel already. We will be out before we reach . . . anywhere.”
“Shit,” he replied. “I mean, I see your point.” He stared at the dark shadows of the forest. Already they were creeping forward. Evening would be short this side of the pass. “Well, that’s why I wanted your opinion.” He shook his head. “That pass was wicked. I don’t think we could walk it, not with packs anyway. What are the chances of finding fuel down below?” he asked.
“Slim to nil,” she replied. “Dad always said they were running out when he came up here. I wouldn’t count on more.”
“Even if we did find some,” Jacob went on, “we’d have to pack it back to the Jeep. No, I can’t risk it. We need the Jeep to get back over that pass, and we shouldn’t need it on any of the lower trails. We leave it here.”
“You mean go on foot?”
“We knew it would come to that sooner or later. I guess it just came sooner,” he said.
He stood up and went to the others. “Listen up, everyone,” he called. “We camp here tonight. Tomorrow, we continue on foot.”
“What!?” several voices exploded together.
“You heard me,” he repeated. “We go on foot. You all knew it would come eventually. Well, it has come early.”
“Why?” Mark retorted angrily. “I thought we were taking the Jeep.”
“Jeep’s only got enough fuel to make it back over that pass. Unless you would like to lug all the supplies we need back over on foot, we need to leave the Jeep now.”
“Why didn’t she bring more fuel?” Patrick wanted to know.
“I made all I could,” Amy retorted.
“Maybe we can get more down below,” Luke suggested.
“Maybe we can trade her for more fuel,” Patrick commented to Shawn.
“The decision has been made!” Jacob shouted. “One day and the discipline is already going to hell! Kurt, start unloading the packs. Shawn, Patrick, you get the tents. Get to work everyone!” He stomped back to his map and went back to studying it.
The men grumbled as they started setting camp. Shawn kept shooting her dirty looks.
“I don’t mind walking,” Willie said. “That ride was rough.”
As soon as the packs were unloaded, Amy covered the Jeep and the trailer with a canvas tarp. She had to search for rocks and sizable logs to hold the tarp down so the wind wouldn’t blow it off.
Amy spent the whole evening repacking her tools. She could take only the essentials. They would have to be divided up evenly between all the packs. She knew that the men would begrudge her every ounce.
It was full dark before she was done. She went straight to her solitary pup tent. She collapsed on her bedroll thinking that she would have to remember to thank Luke for setting it up for her. No one else would have.
When Luke’s voice woke her in the morning, she was too groggy and sore to be thankful. Clouds had rolled in overnight, and it was cold. She could feel moisture in the air.
It’s going to be a horrible day for walking
, she thought as she collapsed her tent. They ate a cold meal of yet another MRE. Whatever the men thought, Amy was not impressed with the rations at all.
Jacob ordered rain ponchos out. He was quickly vindicated. They had barely shouldered their packs when the first drizzle started.
They continued their winding descent along the road. According to the map, there should have been a more direct route. The impenetrable scrub did not invite them to find it. “We’ll get nowhere lost,” Jacob said.
Thunder rolled around them, and lightning lit the otherwise dull day. They plodded along, their spirits sinking.
At least we aren’t up on the pass
, Amy thought. Lightning could be dangerous high up in the mountains.
The drizzle grew to a steady rain, and their feet became soaked in the growing puddles. The intensity of the storm kept increasing as the day went on. By early afternoon, the winds began to grow fierce. Lunch was dry granola that Larry’s wife had made. They walked on.
Jacob tried to keep their spirits up by telling them stories. Stories that Amy was sure he thought were motivational, though more often than not, she couldn’t see the point.
The ponchos worked well against the rain itself. But as the wind grew worse, it whipped the edges of the ponchos and blew moisture under them. Amy was soon soaked and cold.
The intensity of the storm continued to grow. They walked closer to the edge of the woods, looking for shelter, until Jacob yelled at them. “It is dangerous to be under trees in this wind.”
So they plodded on making what progress they could, sticking close enough to the trees to block out the worst of the wind, but always keeping an eye out for falling branches.
The storm did not abate as night fell. Fearful of getting lost in the dark, Jacob found the most sheltered spot he could and called a halt. They huddled together in a narrow gully, struggling to keep their ponchos both over and under them. It was the wettest and coldest night Amy had ever experienced.
Jacob passed out more MREs. Amy was starved after the long day’s march, but she grimaced at the package. The crackers were soggy as soon as they were opened, and there was no hope of heating the main dish.
Patrick grumbled as he spooned cold, wet, chipped beef into his mouth. It was the only attempt at conversation. Jacob sat slightly apart from the others. He had nothing motivational left to say. If anyone went to complain, he gave them such a sour look that they stopped.
The storm ended around midnight. By that time, it was too dark and too wet to unpack the tents. They slept were they were, in a cold, huddled mass. Despite exhaustion, Amy found sleep elusive. She stared off into the night, feeling miserable. Finally, the monotony as much as anything lulled her to sleep.
When she woke up, she was greeted by a vast, shimmering wonderland.
It might even be pretty
, she thought angrily,
from inside a nice warm bed
. Heavy drops of water clung everywhere. Amy shook the worst of it from her hair and stood slowly. She had never been so stiff in her whole life. Her legs were asleep and bore her weight numbly. Her back ached, and her head hurt. Her legs began to burn with pins and needles as life returned to them. She moaned and began to rub them.
“Think it’s bad?” Horace muttered unsympathetically. “Try it at my age.”
Even the young men, who only a day ago had spoken romantically about the soldier’s life, now grimaced as another round of MREs were passed out by Daniel.
“Breakfast in fucking bed,” Larry growled as he took his.
For Amy, hunger had overcome taste. She ate quickly without relish. When everyone was done, Jacob ordered packs made ready.
“Walking will loosen us up and dry us out,” he told them.
It has done no such thing,
Amy decided as she splashed through the umpteenth ankle-deep puddle. It was nearly noon, and after four hours of walking, she was sore and tired. No one else seemed to be in any better shape. Even Mark and Patrick were so worn out that they forgot to be mean to her. Shawn, possibly not even realizing who she was, had even muttered “’scuse me” when he bumped into her.
Shortly after noon, they came upon an open meadow. The ground rose slightly, and the sun shone on drying grass.
“This is as dry as we are likely to find,” Jacob said as he lowered his pack wearily. “We break early and dry out. Let’s set camp.”
There was a collective sigh of relief as they all lowered their packs. Luke gathered the driest firewood he could find and, with the aid of some fire starters from his pack, managed to get a blaze going.
Amy cursed when she discovered her pack had leaked. She heard many of the others cussing. It had been a common enough problem. She managed to find a set of clothes in the center that was only slightly damp. It was a big improvement over what she had on. She walked a ways into the woods to change.
When she returned, she found that Daniel had taken over fire duty. He had extracted his cook gear, and he and Larry were working on the first hot meal they had in what seemed like forever.
Luke was setting up his dome tent. Amy cursed again silently. She meant to set his tent up for him, in return for the other night. She was sorry she didn’t get back sooner. She went to help him finish.
“Wow, that was sure some storm,” he said as she approached. He seemed to be the only one whose spirit hadn’t been lost.
“You could say that again,” she groused, though she felt better despite herself. “That is, if you are totally insane. I’d say that was the most miserable experience of my life.”
“Sure, but think: it’ll be a great story to tell the grandkids.”
“Grandkids?” Amy snorted. “Sure, Luke, when you have grandkids, I’ll come over and tell them the story of the time their granddad got rained on.”
Luke blushed and looked away. He didn’t speak at all while they finished setting up the tent. Afterward, he mumbled thanks and walked off. He spoke only briefly during dinner.
I don’t know what’s gotten into him,
Amy thought sourly.
Sometimes he can be as moody as, well, as Mom always said I was.
She finally decided there was just no explaining some people and left him by the fire.
The next couple of days went more smoothly. The weather was clear, and the sun was warm. Every night, they laid wet clothes over tree limbs and bushes. By morning, they would be that much drier. They marched through a thick pine forest that had slowly replaced the scrub.
They were still in the mountains, and the road wound over hills and valleys. Despite the occasional climb, their course was generally down. The road often wound back almost on itself, so that at times, it felt like they were making no progress at all.
It was the third day before they encountered their first solid landmark. It was the broken remnants of a bridge across a swift-flowing river. Jacob called a halt for lunch and then sat down a ways from everyone else to consult his map. After a while, he rose and approached them.
“Right then, we have a couple of problems, men,” he glanced in Amy’s direction, “and ladies, no disrespect.”
“The first problem is no doubt apparent: we have to cross this river. We had hoped the bridge would still be serviceable, but obviously it’s not. We didn’t expected this to be a problem either way, since as far as Amos or I could recall the river wasn’t deep.”
“Usually no more than knee deep,” Larry agreed. “Used to wade in here fishing when I was a youth.”
“Well, maybe that’s usually true, but the rains have changed things, no doubt.”
“And the spring melt farther up,” Larry reminded him.
“Anyway, we are going to have to send someone across with a line and make a rope bridge. It’ll have to be one of the older men; you younger guys never got a chance to learn how to swim. We didn’t have anywhere at the ranch to teach you. No, Luke,” he added to the raised hand, “this is not something you can learn from a book.”
“Practiced in the tub too,” Luke muttered as he lowered his hand, disappointed. Amy had to fight down a giggle at the thought of the gangly Luke flapping his arms trying to swim in a tiny porcelain tub.
“Maybe we can wade?” Patrick asked. “Looks shallow enough.”
“That current is strong; you’ll get pulled off your feet in no time. Then you have to know what you’re doing,” Horace warned. “Better be me or Larry. I was a good swimmer once.”
“Consider yourself volunteered,” Jacob told him. “Good, but now that’s the simple problem. According to plans, we had hoped to reach this far in the Jeep the first day.”
There was muttering and scowls in Amy’s direction.
“Stop that!” Jacob roared at Shawn and Mark. “The decision to leave the Jeep was mine, not hers. Besides, it doesn’t matter. Amos and I first planned this mission without the Jeep, and we should have reached this place the second day at the latest. A well-conditioned soldier should be able to hike twenty miles in a day. Maybe down below, we’ll get there.” He trailed off.
The truth, Amy thought, was that several of his ‘well-conditioned soldiers’ were well past their prime, and several more were just plain lazy. Granted, she was sore as hell and didn’t begrudge a single break, but at least she didn’t whine about it like Mark.
“The last time we came down this road, we could drive along at fifty miles an hour,” Jacob continued. “We knew it’d be worse now, but we had no idea how bad. Skirting dead falls, boulders in the road, we’ve been delayed. It might get better the farther we go, or it might get worse.”
He added, “If it gets better, great. But at this rate, we are still at least a couple of weeks from any civilization. I am not sure we have the rations for a trip that long.”
“Damn it!” Larry exploded. “Surely you’d realized that! Why didn’t you or Amos consult with someone who grew up around here? I hiked around here all the time as a kid. I could’ve told you it was going to take three weeks of hard slogging to get down to the nearest town.”
“Three weeks!” Mark exploded. “And three weeks back? Damn, I didn’t think we’d be out here that long.”