Chapter Thirty Nine
THIRTY-NINE
Bushwhacking, as Fran calls it, is not easy.
And it’s even harder with canoes. It’s one thing to go off the trail and wade through waist-high brush, bugs crawling all over your legs, but it’s even harder to haul a canoe with low-hanging branches scraping over the roof and pushing it down on your already beleaguered shoulders.
You’re still with Fran, who can more than carry her share of the weight, but the combination of your injury and the trees blown down by the storm makes the first long portage a hellish trek.
Your hot, feverish breath fills your section of the canoe, and you blink the cold sweat from your eyes as you walk.
You’re stumbling more than before, barely picking up your feet, trying to keep pace with Fran.
From behind you come the groans and swears of the rest of your companions.
No one is speaking in sentences, just grunting and moving as fast as their bone-tired bodies will take them.
You’re all going to need food again soon, but there isn’t time to stop and fish, or to form another hunting party.
Getting to the drop as early as possible is the only goal, even if you collapse the moment you make it.
All you can do in the meantime is just pray that you get to the small river that’s next on the map before your legs give out.
For a while, you seem to get in a rhythm, plodding forward without even thinking about your pain, trying to match your steps to Fran’s, but then the wind starts to pick up again and suddenly the boat on your shoulders is swiveling and attempting to take flight.
You hold on as tight as you can. A haze has moved in with the wind, and even though Troy and Diana are about fifty feet behind you, it’s getting hard to see them.
You hear them, though, when they crash into a tree.
“We’re okay!” yells Troy a few seconds later. “Sort of!”
You brace yourself against another gust and stumble sideways a step before regaining your footing. The haze is thicker than the usual morning fog, and you find yourself coughing for a spell before clearing your throat.
“Hey, Fran,” you say, muffling one last cough. “Listen. This is kind of weird, but I know I said Diana was in my tent the other night…”
Fran sighs.
“Seriously, you want to talk about this now?” she says.
She readjusts her grip on the canoe.
“I get it. Not the best timing. I just want you to know that nothing happened.”
Another gale comes howling through the trees, and this time, both you and Fran have to lean against a nearby rock to keep from flipping over. Aside from the wind, there’s a kind of deeper thrumming sound that you’re hearing, but you can’t quite put a finger on it.
“Can we please talk about this another time?” she says.
Her hair is in a ponytail, and when she stops for a second, it brushes across your forehead.
“Sure, of course,” you say, trying not to get hair up your nostrils. “I just don’t want you to think … I mean, I don’t want you to hate me.”
Forward you go for another half mile or so, fighting the wind and the wild grasses that are now up to your chest. From above, it must look like your capsized boat is adrift on a green sea.
But from below, it just looks like darkness and plants.
There are burrs coating your socks like carpet.
You hope there isn’t any poison ivy, but you can’t distinguish the leaves enough to tell.
“I don’t hate you, Case,” Fran says eventually. “You are a lot of things, but hateable isn’t really one of them.”
The ground beneath you is starting to get a little spongy, and you hear the soft squelch of your boots digging into the mud. Now it’s Fran’s turn to cough. But when she speaks again, it’s clear as a bell.
“Diana is not into me.”
She looks behind her to see how close she and Troy are to both of you. But they’re still a ways back.
“And that’s okay as it turns out,” she says. “Even though there would be something kind of hot about a survival hookup, I think we’re destined to be pals.”
Fran does her best to shrug with a canoe on her back.
“It’s nice to have friends too,” she adds. “I haven’t had that many.”
Sweat rolls off your brow and down your nose. Your heart is beating in your ears. Fran steps over a jagged rock mired in a puddle. You both brace for more wind.
“I don’t want to betray her trust, Case, but watching you guys do this awkward dance is starting to bring me down.”
You didn’t think what was happening was so obvious, but you suppose there isn’t much privacy when you travel as a pack.
“All I’ll say,” says Fran, “is that she’s told me a lot about you, and I think it was you from the beginning.”
“What do you mean?” you say. “The beginning of the trip?”
She shakes her head.
“I mean the beginning, beginning. Your brother, I think, was the safe choice. I know he’s gone, so I don’t want to say anything that’s hurtful.
But from what she’s told me he was just, like, a charming sporto when she first met him.
She knew what that was, but I don’t think she knew what to do with you. ”
“What to do with me?”
“Your connection. I think she just assumed it wasn’t romantic since she actually liked you. That was a new thing for her.”
Even through your fever and your sluggishness, Fran’s words send your whole head buzzing. Below you, the mud is getting thicker and your boots are getting wetter.
“I think we’re almost to the river,” says Fran.
“So I’m just going to say one last thing.
I’m sorry about your brother, Case. It is tragic, and it is unbelievably hard to lose someone you loved so much.
There’s not really a timeline for feeling better.
But your life is not over. Do you get that? At least … not yet.”
And with that, Fran hefts the canoe over her head again.
You follow her lead, and the two of you strain to get it back down to the ground, where there’s more of a creek than a river cutting between the tall grass in front of you.
You look at the thin body of water as it slips around the bog like a snake.
The haze is even stronger now. The others set their boats down behind you.
“You guys clocking this fog?” says Troy. “It’s weird.”
“Where’s Will?” asks Diana.
You try not to look at her differently, wondering how much of what Fran said is true. Did she really care about you from the very beginning?
“Who?” you say.
Diana frowns.
“Berries!” comes a sudden cry from the woods.
“That’s him!” says Troy.
As a herd, you all stand and lumber toward the voice, walking again over the soggy earth, and the tan rocks and thick grasses. When you find Will, he is pulling down the thickest branch of a large bush, plucking red globes off it and stuffing them in his open mouth.
“They’re terrible, guys!” he says, laughing. “The worst!”
You wait while Troy walks up to the bush and takes a long look at the berries. Even Will stops for a second to watch his face. Troy looks at a bloom and then examines the leaves, which look almost like maples.
“Am I going to die?” asks Will, squinting at the bitterness of the fruit.
“No…,” says Troy. “Highbush cranberries, I think.”
He grabs a couple and chews them to a pulp. He spits out a red seed.
“Not poisonous. Just really bad.”
At that, everyone dives on the bush, which is flush with the tart berries.
Shockingly, you don’t have much of an appetite, but you know you need calories if you’re going to continue walking.
So you manage to choke down a couple of handfuls of the astonishingly sour berries, while your friends look like they’re in a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos.
As this is happening, the sky behind you grows even darker.
But somehow you’ve developed enough instinct to notice that it doesn’t really feel like rain.
It’s not humid at all. And the air doesn’t have that ozone smell that comes before a thunderstorm.
Still, the sun has disappeared and you notice something that you haven’t witnessed before: an acrid scent that is blowing through along with the haze.
Slowly, each one of you stops eating the berries.
Diana is the first to walk into the clearing nearby and look up.
The sky is not just dark now. It’s orange.
And the smell only grows more pungent when you gaze upward and notice what appears to be a giant mushroom cloud hovering above you.
There are at least ten possible scenarios battling for supremacy in your head.
Nuclear test. Alien invasion. Tornado. In the moment, anything seems possible.
There’s a humming sound too, and you’re pretty sure it’s not coming from inside your head this time.
It’s louder than before. Then the wind blows again and carries with it the unmistakable smell of burn and char.
“Fire,” says Diana. “There’s a wildfire.”