Robert Parker - Wilderness

"I hope you're right," she said softly.

He took a small compass out of his pack. "We'll head southeast," he said, "and keep the path on our left. That way we won't get lost in the dark."

They moved as quietly as they could. It was slower going through the woods and it was dark before they were close to the campsite again.

They could smell the harsh chemical smoke. He reached behind him in the darkness and took her hand. He heard human voices and they both stopped motionless. They listened. The voices went on but they were only voices. Newman couldn't hear meaning. He put his mouth against Janet's ear.

"Can you hear them?"

"Yes," she whispered, "but I can't hear what they're saying."

"Me either."

"Should we try for them now?"

"No," he whispered. "There's four of them and two of us and it's dark.

We want to get them when the odds are with us. When they're in clear sight and we're not. We don't know where all of them are. It could even be a trap."

"Yes," she whispered. "You're right."

They moved along through the woods, periodically crisscrossing the trail. Every few minutes Newman stopped and checked the compass, Janet holding the flashlight with her hand over the lens and her fingers split just enough to let a small sliver of light shine on the compass.

The human voices faded, and soon the chemical smell. The night sounds of the woods and the smell of the forest were all there was.

They were exhausted when they stopped. They had not slept since they entered the woods. They had been on their feet since sunrise, moving through thick forest. They had eaten a handful of berries. He could hear water running over rocks and remembered how thirsty he was.

"We'll stop," he said.

Janet came to a halt behind him and stood motionless, her head hanging, numb with exhaustion.

"We must be a mile or so below the camp now," Newman said. "We better sleep here or we'll fall over."

Janet stood without sound. The moon was up. It filtered, nearly full, through the trees, and Newman could see dimly around him. The trail was just to his right. Across the trail were two enormous boulders, upended, carried along and dropped there in another geologic time by the glacier. He walked closer to the boulders. Janet didn't move.

Between the rocks was a space five feet wide. Newman shone his flashlight into the opening. It ran back between the two boulders for ten feet before they pressed together to form a cul-de-sac. He stepped in and straightened. The boulders were higher than his head. He could still hear the water. He stepped out from between the rocks and listened. He stepped around the rocks. There was a stream. He wondered if it were the same one. It would have to curve back, he thought. But they do that, I imagine.

He said, "Jan, you want a drink?"

She came silently over and dropped onto the ground. They lay on their stomachs and drank with cupped hands from the stream. When they finished they lay together on the ground for a moment. Then he got up and reached his hand down to her.

"Up," he said. "We'll sleep in those rocks. There's a nice place."

She lay without moving until he reached down and put his hands under her arms and pulled her up. Between the rocks pine-needles had fallen from the overhanging trees and built up a thick soft layer.

They shivered as they took off the packs.

"Getting cold," he said. They both put on the down vests and the nylon pullovers. They each ate a granola bar. She lay down and went almost at once to sleep. He felt dizzy from exhaustion, but he forced himself to stand. He went out of the refuge and with the hatchet cut several large white-pine branches from a tree behind the boulders. He took them back between the rocks and arranged them at the entrance of the refuge to shield them. Then with the carbine beside him he lay down beside her and went to sleep almost at once.

When he woke up it was raining. He looked at his watch, five thirty-six. Janet still slept motionless with her face on the pine-needles, her mouth open. The ground around him was still dry. It must just have started, he thought. // we get soaked we won't get dry.

He looked out through the mouth of the refuge. Nothing moved on the trail or in the woods. Above, the sky was a uniform gray. He lay the carbine down against one of the boulders to keep the rain off it as much as possible. He unbuttoned the.32 from Janet's holster and slipped it into his pants pocket. She never stirred, her breathing steady and slow as she slept.

He took the hatchet and went out from between the rocks, moving the pine branches aside to do so. He climbed into a white spruce that towered fifty feet above the boulders. Just above the level of the boulders he began to cut branches from the tree and drop them onto the top of the rocks. He worked for nearly an hour. The hatchet was sharp and the wood was soft. He got a thick mound of spruce branches in that time. Chris would make sure the ax was sharp, he thought.

He slipped the hatchet back into his belt and dropped from the spruce onto the boulders. He began to lay the spruce branches in overlapping lines across the opening between the two rocks. Below him he saw Janet sit up and look up at him. It was raining harder.

He said softly, "Good morning, bright eyes."

She waved at him, sober-faced.

He laid the spruce branches across the entire opening, stopping two feet short of the point where the boulders met. The boulders were somewhat lower in front than in back, and he pointed the tips of the spruce branches in the down slant direction.

"Is the rain still coming in?" he said to her.

"No," she said. "It's good, except at the end."

He slid off the top of the boulder and went in under his spruce-branch thatch. It was cavelike now, and darker. Janet shivered. Her teeth were chattering. Newman gave her back the.32. Thunder rolled in the distance and several seconds later lightning flashed. Newman collected dry twigs and sticks, and using a wad of toilet paper to start it he lit a fire at the narrow end of the shelter where he had not laid the roof. He bent his body over the kindling, sheltering it from the rain as he lit the paper and fed the small flame till the sticks caught.

There was a slight recess at the base of the rock, and the fire was partly shielded from the rain. The smoke crawled up along the rock and slid along the face of the boulder and drifted out of the two-foot space he'd left for it. He went outside and looked. Trees masked much of the upper part of the boulders and hung over the fire hole. The smoke thinned and disappeared in the trees. It wasn't visible from the trail.

It's a risk, he thought, but it's worth taking. We can't get soaking wet and chilled. To do this we've got to be in good shape. He found a fallen tree and cut several lengths of firewood from it and brought it back in and put it on the fire. Reflecting off the rock the fire spread heat. Janet sat next to it hugging herself.

"Coffee would be nice," she said.

"I know it." "Let's split a granola bar," she said.

"Okay."

"Do you think the rain will slow them up?" she said.

He chewed on his half of the bar. "I don't know. Depends whether they've found a way to get out of it, I should think." He sat near the open end of the shelter, the carbine in his lap, looking at the trail through the screen of white-pine branches.

"Will they see the smoke?" she said.

"It gets lost in the trees," he said. "They might smell it, but they won't know where it is."

"I needed a fire," she said. "I was shaking when I woke up."

"I know. I was freezing too."

Outside the shelter the woods were silent. No bird sound. No insect noise. Nothing moved. The rain came steady and hard, dripping through the spruce branches in places. A bed of coals began to build under the fire as Newman fed it from time to time with more wood cut from the fallen tree. Nothing moved on the trail.