Morgan Rice: Arena Two

“I know,” I say, as I step into the small house.

“It’s beautiful,” Bree says. “Is this the house we were going to move to?”

I turn back and look at her, feeling bad. I nod.

“Another time, okay?”

She understands. She’s not anxious to wait around for the slaverunners either.

I hurry inside and pull open the trap door, and descend down the steep ladder. It’s dark down here, and I feel my way. I reach out and feel a row of glass, clinking as I touch it. The jars. I waste no time. I take out my sacks and fill them as fast as I can with jars. I can barely make them out as my bag grows heavy, but I remember there being raspberry jam, blackberry jam, pickles, cucumbers… I fill as much as the sack can carry then reach up and hand it up the ladder to Logan. He takes it and I fill three more.

I clean out the entire wall.

“No more,” Logan says. “Can’t haul it. And it’s getting dark. We have to go.”

Now there’s a little bit more respect his voice. Clearly, he’s impressed with the stash I found, and finally, he recognizes how much we needed to come here.

He reaches down and offers me a hand, but I scramble up the ladder myself, not needing his help and still miffed by his earlier attitude.

On my feet back in the cottage, I grab two of the heavy sacks myself, as Logan grabs the others. The three of us hurry out the cottage, and soon retrace our steps back down the steep trail. In minutes, we’re back at the truck, and I’m relieved to see everything is still there. I check the horizon, and see no signs of any activity at all anywhere on the mountain, or in the distant valley.

We jump back in the truck, I turn the ignition, happy that it starts, and we take off back down the road. We’ve got food, supplies, our dog, and I was able to say goodbye to dad’s house. I feel satisfied. I feel that Bree, beside me, is content, too. Logan looks out the window, lost in his own world, but I can’t help feeling as if he thinks we made the right decision.

The trip back down the mountain is uneventful, the brakes in this old pickup holding pretty well, to my surprise. In some places, where it is really steep, it is more of a controlled slide than a break, but within minutes we are off the worst of it, back onto the stable Route 23, heading east. We pick up speed, and for the first time in a while, I’m feeling optimistic. We’ve got some precious tools, and enough food to last us for days. I’m feeling good, vindicated, as we cruise down 23, just minutes away from getting back to the boat.

And then, everything changes.

I slam on the brakes as a person jumps out of nowhere, right into the middle of the road, waving his arms hysterically, blocking our path. He’s barely fifty yards out and I have to hit the brakes hard, sending our truck into a slide.

“DON’T STOP!” Logan commands. “Keep driving!” He’s using his toughest military voice.

But I can’t listen. There is a man there, standing out there, helpless, wearing just tattered jeans and a sleeveless vest in the freezing cold. He has a long black beard, wild hair, and large, black crazed eyes. He’s so thin, he looks like he hasn’t eaten in days. He has a bow and arrow strapped to his chest. He’s a human, a survivor, just like us, that much is obvious.

He waves his arms frantically, and I can’t run him over. I can’t bear leaving him, either.

We come to an abrupt stop, just feet away from the man. He stands there, wide-eyed, as if he didn’t expect us to really stop.

Logan wastes no time jumping out, both hands on his pistol, aiming it at the man’s head.

“STEP BACK!” he screams.

I jump out, too.

The man slowly raises his arms, looking dazed as he takes several steps back.

“Don’t shoot!” the man pleads. “Please! I’m just like you! I need help. Please. You can’t leave me here to die. I’m starving. I haven’t eaten in days. Let me come with you. Please. Please !”

His voice is cracking, and I see the anguish on his face. I know how he feels. Not long ago, I was just like him, scrounging to get by with every meal here in the mountains. I am hardly much better now.

“Here, take this!” the man says, taking off his bow and quiver of arrows. “It’s yours! I mean no harm!”

“Move slowly,” Logan cautions, still suspicious.

The man reaches out gingerly and hands out the weapon.

“Brooke, you get it,” Logan says.

I step forward, grab the bow and arrows, and throw them in the back of the truck.

“See,” the man says, breaking into a smile. “I’m no threat. I just want to join you. Please. You can’t leave me here to die.”

Slowly, Logan relaxes his guard and lowers his gun just a bit. But he still keeps an eye trained on the man.

“Sorry,” Logan says. “We can’t have another mouth to feed.”

“Wait!” I yell at Logan. “You’re not the only one here. You don’t make all the decisions.” I turn to the man. “What’s your name?” I ask. “Where are you from?”

He looks at me desperately.

“My name is Rupert,” he says. “I’ve survived up here for two years. I’ve seen you and your sister before. When the slaverunners took her, I tried to help. I’m the one that chopped down that tree!”

My heart breaks as he says this. He’s the one that tried to help us. I can’t just leave him here. It’s not right.

“We have to take him,” I say to Logan. “We can find room for one more.”

“You don’t know him,” Logan replies. “Besides, we don’t have the food.”

“I can hunt,” the man says. “I’ve got the bow and arrow.”

“Much good it’s doing you up here,” Logan says.

“Please,” Rupert says. “I can help. Please. I don’t want any of your food.”

“We’re taking him,” I say to Logan.

“No we’re not,” he says back. “You don’t know this man. You don’t know anything about him.”

“I barely know anything about you ,” I say to Logan, my anger hardening. I hate how he can be so cynical, so guarded. “You’re not the only one who has the right to live.”

“If you take him, you jeopardize all of us,” he says. “Not just you. Your sister, too.”

“There are three of us here last I checked,” comes Bree’s voice.

I turn and see she’s jumped out of the truck and stands behind us.

“And that means we’re a democracy. And my vote counts. And I vote we take him. We can’t just leave him here to die.”

Logan shakes his head, looking disgusted. Without another word, his jaw hardening, he turns and jumps back into the truck.

The man looks at me with a huge smile, his face crumpling in a thousand wrinkles.

“Thank you,” he whispers. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Just move, before he changes his mind,” I say as we turn back to the truck.

As Rupert approaches the door, Logan says, “You’re not sitting upfront. Get in the back of the pickup.”

Before I can argue, Rupert happily jumps into the back of pickup. Bree jumps in, as do I, and we take off.

It is a nerve-racking remainder of the ride back to the river. As we go, the skies darkening, I constantly watching the sunset, bleeding red through the clouds. It’s getting colder out by the second, and the snow is hardening even as we drive, turning to ice in some places, and making driving more precarious. The gas gauge is dropping, flashing red, and though we only have a mile or so to go, I feel as if we’re fighting for every inch. I also feel how on-edge Logan is about our new passenger. It is just one more unknown. One more mouth to feed.

I silently will the truck to keep going, the sky to stay light, the snow not to harden as I step on the gas. Just when I think we’ll never get there, we round the bend, and I see our turnoff. I turn hard onto the narrow country lane, sloping down towards the river, willing the truck to make it. The boat, I know, is only a couple hundred yards away.