Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
When he pulled his truck into an empty gravel parking lot, Cara’s nerves went haywire. At this point, she wasn’t even sure exactly what she was nervous about.
The camping trip itself, or spending the night out in the wilderness with…
That wasn’t really nerves.
She had been looking forward to being with him again all day. It was almost embarrassing.
She had gotten used to seeing him extra, and now his coming by in the morning just to grab a sweet roll didn’t do it for her.
She wanted to talk to him. She wanted to be close to him. She wanted him to teach her things.
So, here she was, about to embark on the most extreme experience of that, and she felt like she was going to vomit.
Which was not sexy, nor was it totally reasonable.
The fascination was becoming a little bit too powerful.
She looked at Zane’s profile as he killed the engine of the truck and got out.
That poor man.
She knew that he had given her the most abbreviated version of that story about the mission, knew that he must’ve seen some terrible things. Dark sides of humanity, the kinds of things that she had been spared.
Yes, she had been through a lot. But the truth was, she had just been through it younger than most people.
If life went according to the natural order of things, everyone would lose their parents eventually. It didn’t make it easy, but it was a common sort of grief, and there was something difficult embedded in that.
In the way that her grief was normal, and therefore sometimes felt like it shouldn’t hurt quite the way that it did.
In the way that it would get less impactful over time. Because someday, she would say that both of her parents were gone, and no one would even look at her with shock and say anything about how young she was.
That part of it would be invisible.
She wasn’t minimizing.
But it still wasn’t the same as what he had been through.
Not everybody had to look full in the face at the dark truth about humans. At the terrible things that they would do to each other.
But he had.
It was really no wonder that it seemed like there was a little bit of darkness in him. How could you see that without putting some in your pockets and carrying it home?
She climbed out of the truck and closed the door behind her. Then, she heard the locks click.
“All right,” he said. “Get your compass out. We’re going to walk southwest.”
“Okay. I don’t really know how to do this.”
“That’s okay. I’m going to show you.”
And he did. Standing near her, so close that she could smell his fresh, clean skin. She wanted to bury her face in his neck and take a deep breath, which felt a little bit pathological.
She tried to pay attention to all of the directions that he was giving her.
They were important directions.
She really had no idea how to use a compass. It was one of those things that seemed impossible to her. But as they set out along the grassy trail that led deeper into the forest, it sort of began to make sense.
She was grateful for the compass, as the trees became thicker, the foliage around them blocking out the sun and everything else.
Because how else would she ever be able to figure out where she was?
When they had been out in the open, she could’ve followed the mountain, but now, there was nothing.
She had a vague sense of where she had come from, but that was all it was, a vague sense.
He showed her how to see which way the compass should point when they were headed back toward the truck.
Then turned her back away from it.
“We’re going to walk until it gets dark. Well, not all the way dark. You want it to be light enough to figure out where you want to bed down for the night.”
“Are you going to tell me when that is?”
“No. That’s got to be your decision. I’m going to be your conscience.”
“Like a cricket.”
“Not at all like a cricket. I’ll make sure you don’t die, but you’re on your own mostly.”
“Great,” she said dryly.
But the hiking went on without any hitches, except that she started to get really tired. She had never walked this long or this far in her life.
“How long have we been walking?”
“A few hours. We can stop anytime. We are going to have to hike back out in the morning, which you’re going to do with the compass. But I just want to give you a sense of what it’s like when you bite off more than you can chew, and end up where you don’t want to be.”
“It’s a little bit scary. But I do feel all right because I’m with you.”
That was true. He might only be here acting as a conscience, but he wouldn’t let her get into any actual trouble.
As exhausted as she was, it was also comforting to be out in the wilderness and feel like if something came up, she could handle it.
Falling off a washed-out trail would’ve always put her at a disadvantage, but if she’d had a pack strapped to her when she had wiggled her way out of the rock pile, she could’ve gotten her flare gun, her whistle, and she would’ve felt like she could at least do something.
Having a flashlight and a blanket would’ve made a big difference.
Even without her expertise feeling entirely cemented, she knew that just having the right supplies and knowing how to use them would have put her in a better place during her accident.
It wouldn’t have prevented it, it was one of those things that would’ve been impossible to predict. But it would’ve helped her.
That gave her the strength to continue hiking. Made her feel a little bit more enthusiastic. Like she was really doing something. Really pushing and accomplishing.
She wasn’t at home knitting. Most of her nights she would spend at home knitting, because she loved that part of herself. But she wanted there to be other parts of herself.
This part of herself, this one that was adventuring like this, that was finding her bravery.
She really liked that part.
So she blazed a trail onward.
They stopped and picked berries, which did basically nothing to dampen her hunger, and she was so irritated at herself for not bringing a protein bar. Crackers and cheese. Stuffing a whole cinnamon roll into her fanny pack.
The foraging life wasn’t for her.
Then it started to rain. It wasn’t the torrential downpour like they had the day she had her accident, but it was a warm, quick thunderstorm, which she was beginning to see were common enough in summer, and it made her and the ground wet.
The cold wasn’t actually entirely unwelcome, considering that it was an extremely hot day, and she supposed she could be thankful for the fact that it didn’t seem like she would get hypothermia.
It didn’t rain very long, just long enough to make the ground a bit slick, and to make it so that all of the surrounding trees and plants were wet enough to continue to drop moisture on them in short bursts if they accidentally brushed up against them.
“You’re doing great,” he said.
And his reassuring voice did more for her than she wanted to admit.
She wasn’t sure if it was actually getting dark, or if it just felt like it because they were deep in the trees, but what she knew was that she had definitely walked long enough.
“I’m ready to make camp,” she said.
“All right,” he said. “Do you think this is a good spot?”
She closed her eyes and listened. She was sure she could hear water. Rushing water. Either a creek, or maybe that same river that ultimately ran through both ranches.
“I think I want to get a little bit closer to the water. So that it’s easier to get some more for my canteen.”
“Great idea.”
“I think… That way.”
“Pay attention to which direction you’re going on the compass,” he said.
She nodded. It required her to change direction a few degrees, and she followed the sound of the water.
It was cooler there, and the air was still damp from the thunderstorm, and she began to get a little bit worried about the prospect of starting a fire.
A lot of the fuel for that fire would be wet. But hopefully, it hadn’t rained enough for it to all be soaked through.
She wasn’t happy with the exact place they were as a stopping point, and she kept on moving in the direction of the current for a while, until she found a place underneath the trees that was surrounded by a few large boulders, giving it a closed feeling.
They were slightly separated from the river – because she kept thinking about bears coming down to get a drink – but also close enough to get water.
“Here,” she said. “I want to stay here.”
“This is a great spot,” he said. “If you want to build a lean-to, you’ve got these rocks to act as the back of your shelter.”
“I might want to do that,” she said. She liked the idea of having a little bit more coverage, so that she wasn’t just out in the open.
There was something about that which made her feel a little bit nervous.
“And the fire can go here,” she said, pointing to a flat, nice, clear space.
“Great. Is that the first thing you want to do?”
“Start a fire? Yes. Since I’m not actually lost and I’m not going to spend any time blowing on the whistle.”
“Is that how you would do it if you were actually lost?”
She frowned. “Yes. I think so. I think I would blow the whistle a few times, and then I would try to make a fire.”
“Not a bad plan.”
“It isn’t what you would do?”
“No. But then, the prospect of spending one night in the woods because it’s too dark to hike out, and needing to crash until the sun comes up, doesn’t really bother me. We aren’t lost.”
Those words were so comforting. He was right. They weren’t lost. She knew how to reverse the coordinates to get back to the truck. At least, she did in theory. She had used the compass all the way here, and she could use it to get back.
She might be stuck in the woods because it was getting dark, and she wouldn’t have time to walk back before it was impossible to pass through the forest, but she wasn’t lost.
“Well, depending on how I feel after spending this night in the woods, maybe that would change whether or not I blow the whistle.”
“Fair enough.”