Michael Bunker - WICK

A light went on in his head, and he began to dig, first with his hands and then with his wooden scoop, until he had reached the layers of ash and burnt material left over from the fire. Pushing around in the charred remains with a stick he found some coals, still red hot, and now that oxygen was available, they were glowing—even more so every time a breeze blew by. Some of the other lumps of wood, having been starved of oxygen in the covered trench, had become perfect little pieces of charcoal.

Clay jumped to his feet and began to look around for anything… anything … that would burn. On the leeward side of a small hill, he found a place where leaves had swirled and had stacked up quite deep. He pushed off the upper damp layers and found drier leaves underneath. He grabbed a handful of these and rushed back to his shelter as fast as he could. Using the red coals and the dry leaves, he was finally able to kindle a fire, and, after adding successively larger pieces of twigs and branches and the charcoal from the fire bed, soon his fire burned warm enough to dry some of the firewood he’d collected. Before long he had a good and warm fire by which to dry his clothing and his blankets.

Two hours later, his clothes were dry and he was hiking again. As close as he could figure, he was going nearly due north. The weather had not gotten any better, and he was so thankful that he had been able to start a fire, feeling that perhaps he had saved his own life this morning. Whether that was true or not, it made him feel good to think it to be true. After forty-five minutes of walking among the trees, he was warming up and feeling strong, despite his lack of food.

He passed between two farms that looked to be a half mile apart and noticed that there was a minor state road running by the farms in what he hoped was a northerly direction. He revisited his internal debate about staying off the highways but rationalized that this was a little-used paved road and that it would be much safer than the highway he’d already fled. He wasn’t sure he still believed in luck, but he thought he should be able to gain a mile or two quickly traveling by road and that it was less likely that he would run into troublemakers this far into the Catskills. After arguing with himself and the spirit of Clive Darling for a good five minutes, he gave in to his need for speed and started walking along the highway.

An hour later, Clay stopped next to a pond to the east that was within sight of the roadway. In the distance, he could see what appeared to be a farm or some habitation or business — he couldn’t be sure — on the far north side of the pond. The day was dark and gray enough, and he was hungry enough, so he decided to stop and fish awhile along the southern edge where the forest came up to the edge of the water. If trouble appeared or anyone was coming his way, he knew he could disappear quickly into the stand of trees. He wondered at his creeping paranoia and suspicion. What was the reason for this caution? But then he went back to what was becoming for him first principles. It made sense while hiking across strange terrain in a place where hunters or farmers might carry guns to leave himself a way out.

Clay took a few moments to rest and felt the hunger clawing at his belly. He decided to eat the two remaining energy bars, but saved a chunk from the second bar, rolling the doughy material into hard balls to use for bait. Again, he saved the metallic wrapping from the energy bars, but tore off a small section that he then shredded into smaller pieces to serve as something of an eye-catching lure to go along with his bait.

He tied one of the hooks from Veronica’s fishing kit onto the small roll of fishing line, and then threaded a piece of the metallic wrapper from the food bars onto the hook. On went the little ball of energy bar, and then another piece of the metallic wrapper. Clay had no idea if this little experiment would work. The drab grayness of the day might keep the metallic paper from catching any light or the attention of any hungry fish, but it was all he could think of, so he set himself to the task.

Looking around the edge of the pond, he found a small piece of wood, about three inches long, which would serve as a float or bobber for his line. He tied this bobber about two feet up on his fishing line and then, letting out more and more of the line, he threw the hook, line, and bobber out into the pond, holding tightly to the small roll of line. Clay sat quietly for maybe ten minutes, holding the line almost breathlessly. Before long, though, the cold of the day gripped him, and his patience for holding the line grew thin, and he wrapped his end of the line around a heavy rock and stepped into the trees to lay down for a rest.

He found a good straight tree along the edge of the pond that would block him from view if anyone were to look this way from the road. He was still within sight of his line as he collapsed against the tree, tired from the exertions of the morning. The air was really starting to bite with the cold, and he felt the moisture level rising in the air, and he began to sense a wicked cold coming his way. His eyes were closed for what seemed like seconds when suddenly the air was filled with a fine mist, and he grimaced and furrowed his brow hoping that he wasn’t about to get the worst of his current dreads—any combination of rain, sleet, or snow. His earlier good mood and self-satisfaction degraded along with the weather.

He closed his eyes for a moment, silently crying out for wisdom to the spirit of Clive Darling, or the gods of chance and fortune, or even the blessed God of Heaven, anyone who might hazard to hear. Receiving no response, he blasphemed the lot of them and peeked through one eye and saw that his bobber was no longer visible. Crawling to his feet in the mist, he rushed over to his line, pulled it in, and saw that he had indeed snagged a fine fish.

The little ten-inch brown trout was wiggling gamely on the ground, and Clay reached over and picked it up by its jaw, holding it out to inspect his catch. He had never even heard of anyone catching a trout on an energy bar, figuring that they usually ate flies and things that were on the top of the water. But hey, why look a gift fish in the mouth? He chided himself for making such a silly joke but then forgave himself because he was hungry and slightly delirious. Then he looked the fish in the mouth and removed the hook.

He knew enough to gut and scale the fish, which he did with his pocketknife on the flat rock he had used to weigh down his line. After this task was finished, he wrapped the fish in the plastic wrapping from the Mylar blanket— You see, it makes sense to hold onto everything! he thought—and slipped the fish into the side pocket of his pants. He’d cook it when he could get to a place where he could start a fire.

Despite the damp and cold, Clay made sure to carefully wrap up his line and put it and the little hook back into the little emergency fishing case. All of his stuff stowed again in his backpack, he washed his hands in the pond and then headed into the forest to find a place to build a fire and warm himself.

Sometimes errors of judgment—whether from ignorance, pride, or even stupidity—pile themselves on top of each other until they are left to be catalogued and surmised only later by the people who find the bodies. Other times, men’s lives are spared by luck, or chance, or divine providence, and they live to compile and analyze their errors themselves. In either case, when individuals reckon themselves lost, lacking a map, they often turn inward for the answers. They stumble forward with limited information, having finite senses and reason, and the hope that springs eternal in their breast either leads them further into, or out of, the wilderness. They attribute everything behind them to happenstance and everything before them to be subjects for their cunning and skill. And, all the time, the world spins on. We, of all people, can forgive honest strivers their mistakes and blunders, but nature and reality are often less forgiving. Some mistakes you only get to make once, and most of us are too limited to know exactly which of our own errors might turn out to be fatal.