Jerry Oltion - Anywhere but Here

Back in the camper, they dried themselves off and crawled into bed again, holding each other close for warmth.

“Do you think it was the water or the smell of that meat?” Donna asked.

“I don’t know,” Trent admitted. “It could have been fumes from the fire, for that matter.”

“I suppose it could have. It’s going to be a cold time if we can’t start a fire.”

“I’m more worried about it bein’ the water,” Trent said. He wondered what they could do about it if it was, and he realized there was one thing he should do yet tonight. He sighed and said, “Damn. I’ve got to go back outside and rig up the tarp and a bucket to catch rainwater while we’ve still got the chance. We don’t have any idea how long this rain will last.”

She apparently didn’t like the idea of going back outside any more than he did, but after a few seconds she said, “You’re right. I’ll help you.’’

They got dressed this time, and Donna carried the light and the pistol while Trent tied two corners of the tarp to the side of the camper that stuck out closest to the edge of the tree’s overhang. He angled it downward and tied the other corners to two arrows stuck in the ground, then positioned their five-gallon water bucket under the low end where rainwater would run off the tarp into it.

When he was satisfied that it would actually collect water, they went back inside and crawled into bed again. They were both shivering by now, and Trent’s hands were so cold he didn’t want to touch Donna with them, but it was pretty hard to snuggle without touching. Her hands were just as bad, so he finally said, “Okay, on the count of three, let’s just grab each other and get it over with. One, two—yow!” She had already put her hands on his back and stalled rubbing.

“Why drag it out?” she asked.

“All right, woman, you asked for it.” He laid his cold hands on her back, too. She flinched, but didn’t scream, which was a good thing since her mouth was right next to his ear. The relative warmth of her skin under his hands offset the feeling of ice-cold fingers on his own back, and after a minute or so her touch actually started feeling pretty good. That’s when she put her feet on his legs.

“Gah!” He jerked away, then forced them back into contact. “Damn, how can you be so warm on one end and so cold on the other?”

“Talent, I guess,” she said.

He shivered. “When we get the batteries charged up, let’s go someplace warm.”

“Deal.”

Provided they lived through the night, he thought, but he didn’t say that out loud.

He woke ravenous. It was dark as a coal mine in the camper, without even the pale moons of the air vents that had greeted him yesterday morning, but he felt completely slept out. He was warm again, and so was Donna. Whatever had made him sick last night was over. He felt ready to get to work on the generator and start-charging the batteries.

He slid out of bed and found his clothes by feel. The stuff he’d worn yesterday was still wet, but he was going to be working in the creek today anyway, so he put on the same things, wincing at the cold shock against his warm skin. He dressed in the dark, patted the counter until he found the flashlight, and slipped outside. There was just enough light to see the shapes of things, but no details. He didn’t know if the light was the first glimmer of morning or just starlight behind the clouds, but he didn’t care. He was too awake to go back to sleep.

He flipped on the flashlight and swept the beam around in a wide arc, then up into the tree. No wild animals waited to pounce on him.

The temperature couldn’t have been over forty degrees. He could see his breath. It was still raining, but he bet there was snow higher up the mountain. He went around to the side of the camper to check on his water collection system and found the bucket tipped over. Dammit. They needed that water. He wondered what had gone for it with the stream right there. The rat-cat, maybe, or a buffaloceros. He didn’t see any tracks, so it was most likely the cat. He looked around once more, righted the bucket and set it under the drip, then went back inside.

Breakfast was an apple and a couple handfuls of Cheerios, found by feel and eaten quietly in the dark so he wouldn’t wake Donna. He could have eaten the whole box of cereal, but this was the only one, and he didn’t know how much of their other food they were going to be able to eat. They had lots of noodles and macaroni and stuff like that, but only a case of bottled water to cook it in. Until they were sure they could drink the stream water, or could collect enough rainwater to make do, he didn’t want to use up the only food they knew they could eat.

He gathered up his tools and slipped back outside. It was growing lighter. He could see the tree trunk now, and the dark spot of ground where they had had their campfire. There were a bunch of slo-mos under the tree, too, or so it looked until he looked for the shells he had gathered yesterday and didn’t find them beside the truck where he’d left them. Something had been rooting through them, probably looking for anything edible. He would have bet anything it was the cat.

He swept the flashlight around again, checking out the tree carefully and walking all around the pickup, shining the light outward all the way around. He belatedly thought to check underneath the truck, too, and up on top, but there was nothing there, either. Whatever had checked out their camp, it was gone now.

He sat down on his camp stool and began busting the flat bottoms out of slo-mo shells. It was slow going, but he took his time, prying pieces off a little at a time with pliers and being careful not to weaken the helmet part of the shells. He had done half of them by the time the sky grew light enough to call it morning, and by the time Donna poked her head outside the camper, he was done.

“How long have you been up?” she asked.

“’Bout an hour.”

“Did you eat?”

“Yeah. Go ahead and get yourself something.”

“All right. Want me to make you something hot to drink?”

A cup of coffee would be great, but she would have to start a fire to do that. “No thanks. I want to get these mounted and get this bugger generatin’ power before I take a break.”

She gave him a dubious look, but she didn’t say anything; just went back into the camper. He got to work boring holes in the slo-mo shells; four each, big enough to pass a parachute shroud line through. That took almost as long as chipping away the shells had, but he kept at it until he got them.

Then he put on his helmet and shoulder armor and rolled the motor out to the logs he’d prepared yesterday. He had to splash across the stream with it, but with the tire taking most of the weight it wasn’t that hard. Getting it up the other bank was tougher, but he only had to get it high enough to swing the motor over the logs, then scoot it back out over the pool until he reached the end and could swing the tire around even with the waterfall. He gingerly let the logs take the entire weight, testing to make sure his counterweight of rocks would hold, but the logs barely even flexed, so he tied the motor down and got to work tying arrows and shells onto it. He didn’t trust the logs to support the motors weight plus his own, so he worked from the rocks at the head of the waterfall, leaning out to the tire and running the rope through the slots in the wheel. He made a loop around each arrow shaft, then cinched it tight around the knobby tread so it wouldn’t slip, leaving about a foot of arrow sticking out past the tread on either side of the tire, then he tied a slo-mo shell to each pair of arrows so it would hold water when it was on one side of the tire’s rotation, then dump it and rise up empty on the other side.