CHAPTER SEVEN
Tess
The next morning, Tess dressed in her tent, swearing this was the last weeklong campout they would do. She was hungry, exhausted, and tired of putting on a brave face. The middle-of-the-night Bigfoot sighting had made her even grumpier.
Over breakfast, she found out that the men felt the same. But rather than voice her own misgivings, she set them aside and prepared to quash the mutiny.
“This coffee is disgusting,” Ashton said, frowning into his cup. “I’m ready to tap out. Anyone else done with this farce?”
Grayson and Carter glanced at each other.
“I mean, if everyone else wants to go home, I’m down,” Grayson said.
“You talking about quitting?” Tess asked.
“Hey, we’ve made it four days,” Ashton said. “That’s longer than the weekend guys. We’ve hardly had any food, barely any sleep, been attacked by a bear, and almost lost Joseph. I don’t feel like it’s gonna get any better.”
Carter and Grayson nodded. Logan remained quiet and noncommittal.
This was normal. Usually, about mid-trip, even on the weekend campouts, campers would get frustrated and start thinking about throwing in the towel. It was her job to make sure they didn’t.
“Y’all paid good money for this experience,” she started.
“You wanted to learn to survive in the woods. To prove you could face the elements and the hardships and come out on top. I warned you this wouldn’t just be a physical challenge.
That the experience would make you have to dig deep, mentally and emotionally.
” She paused for a second before continuing.
“This is your chance to look inside yourself and find that source of strength you may need somewhere, sometime in the real world. You’re used to life being easy, but it’s time to man up.
If you go back now, you’re letting weakness win.
Is that really what you want?” She gave each man a pointed stare.
“Tess is right,” Logan said. “We’ve survived this long. We can finish this. Think how much better we’ll feel than if we quit early.”
“I guess you’re right,” Carter said. He seemed to blow whichever way the wind did.
“Yeah. We probably would regret it if we caved,” Grayson agreed.
“Fine,” Ashton said, conceding loss and not seeming too happy about it.
Tess sighed. Morale usually hit bottom at some point, and this was not the first time she’d had to give a speech like this. But they would regret quitting, so she pushed them to keep going. And they were always glad she did.
“Let’s make food our main priority today,” Tess said, knowing full stomachs would help restore fortitude.
“Praise the Lord,” Grayson said, throwing his head and hands skyward.
“We’ll put off rappelling until tomorrow and focus on fishing. Two of us can go to another place I know where there are berries too.”
“What if we build some kind of raft to get out into the middle of the lake?” Grayson asked. “Fishing from shore is hard.”
“We can try that,” Tess said. “If you wanna take the time to find branches, I can teach you how to lash ’em together.”
“Should we waste time doing that?” Ashton asked. “The hours we spend hunting for branches and building a raft is time we’re not fishing.”
“Tell you what,” she said. “How about we work on a raft until noon? Then, regardless of how far we get on it, we stop and start fishing. And by two, if the fish aren’t biting in the lake, I’ll take a couple of you back to the river to try our luck there.”
They all agreed with her plan and set out to search for branches. She planned to teach a knot-tying class anyway. Assembling a raft was a very practical way for them to learn the square and diagonal lashing knots, as well as the clove and half-hitch knots.
“Teamwork makes the dream work,” she said when they finished the raft by eleven-thirty.
“You sure this thing is sea-worthy?” Ashton asked, nudging the rickety bunch of sticks with his toe. “I’m not a very good swimmer.”
“It’s ugly, but as long as everyone tied the knots like I showed you, it should stay afloat. Who wants to give it a go?”
Silence met her question, and she couldn’t blame them for not jumping at the offer. The patchwork of sticks looked like an oversized kindergarten art project and did not inspire confidence regarding buoyancy.
“You weigh the least,” Ashton said to Tess. “You should try it first.”
It was a challenge. A vindictive one. His way of getting back at her for making him look foolish over the blister and bear incidents. As if it were her fault he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—follow directions!
“Fine,” she said. This was one drawback of never showing weakness. She wound up doing dumb, potentially dangerous stuff just to prove she wasn’t afraid.
Without actual oars—she ended up using potlids to paddle—getting out onto the lake took forever. She’d stripped down to shorts and a T-shirt, telling the guys it was to work on her suntan. In reality, it was in case this ramshackle piece of junk fell apart and she had to swim back.
Which was exactly what happened not thirty minutes later. She dragged herself out of the water, sopping wet, freezing, and angry. Overhearing someone use the phrase “old wet hen” did nothing to tame her temper.
“Y’all fail knot-tying class,” she said.
They masked laughter with disingenuous apologies.
While she’d been fighting the raft, Logan had caught two fish and Grayson one. After she changed into dry clothes and sun-dried her hair, she and Carter hiked to the river.
“Sorry about the raft, Tess,” Carter said. “It might have been my knots that were faulty. I’m not very good at this camping stuff.”
“It’s fine,” Tess said. “It was a long shot anyway. We should be able to catch something here.”
“Well, if nothing else, I’m glad to have some time alone with you. It’s almost like a date.”
“If this is your idea of a date, no wonder you’re single.” She returned his smile.
“When we get back, I’ll take you out for real. Show you a good time.”
This had happened before—a camper asking her out. And while she had made a few exceptions over the years, she’d never been so tempted to say yes.
“It’s an enticing offer, “Tess said. “But one that rarely ever ends well. Let’s see how the rest of the campout goes and revisit.”
“In the meantime,” Carter said, undeterred. “We could make out while we wait for the fish to bite.”
Tess choked out a laugh. Confidence was not a problem for this guy. She had her boundaries though. “Not gonna happen,” she said.
They bagged four trout and picked a small bucket of berries on the way back.
When they returned to camp, the other three had caught a few more fish.
“Tonight, we eat like kings,” Grayson called triumphantly.
Ashton had baked a coaster-sized ash cake and set it aside to make another. Tess had just turned away to pour hot water into five mugs when he screamed.
“What happened?” Tess asked, putting down the kettle and coming to his side, thinking he’d burnt himself.
“That critter took my cake,” he wailed, pointing to a squirrel who was absconding slowly under the weight of Ashton’s treat. “I only looked away for a second. Where did he even come from?”
Tess heaved a sigh of relief, glad no one was injured.
“Forget that.” Ashton stood and started after the animal. “Give that back, or we’re having roasted squirrel too.”
The others heard the hubbub and came to stand around Tess. As a group, they watched the scene unfold.
“That’s something you don’t see every day,” Tess said.
“This feels like a panic move,” Grayson added.
Ashton’s feet must still have been sore from the unhealed blisters, because he wasn’t running so much as hopping stiffly from toe to toe.
“He’s never gonna catch that thing,” Logan said, and they all agreed.
The squirrel darted left, then right, zig-zagging toward the woods. Even with the burden of the stolen snack, he managed to outpace Ashton. The little thief kept sneaking glances back at his pursuer, and Tess would swear it was grinning.
Ashton finally closed in and made a final dive to recoup his prize. He lay out like a runner stealing home, except rather than sliding in gracefully, he hit with a ground-shaking thud.
The commotion was enough to cause the squirrel to abandon the biscuit and run off into the trees. Ashton crawled on all fours to reclaim it and gingerly tiptoed back to camp.
Approaching the group, he blew on his bounty. “I can still eat this, right?”
After the tussle, there wasn’t much left of the cake, but Tess understood that every bite was precious.
“It’s probably fine,” she said.
Ashton sighed with relief and gently placed the remnants into his mess kit bowl. Unfortunately, in the time he’d taken to run down the first cake, the second had burned to a blackened, hard disk.
Tess looked away when his eyes filled with tears. She’d give him a minute to regain his composure.
They gorged themselves on fried fish and ash cakes with mashed-up berries. Satisfied for the first time in days, they relaxed around the fire, patting full bellies.
“That was the best meal I’ve ever had,” Grayson said.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Carter said. “But the fact that we forged it with our own bare hands does make it a little sweeter.”
Tess didn’t say anything, but had to admit, a hearty meal did put a rosier tint on everything. Her full-stomach high only lasted about thirty minutes.
It was then that Carter emerged from the woods, loitering at the treeline as if not wanting to approach camp. “Tess, I have a problem,” he called.
“Ah, crap,” Tess muttered. She could smell the “problem” from where she sat, twenty-five feet away. “Go directly to the lake, strip, and get in. I’ll bring you some soap.”
“What’s his deal?” Ashton asked.
“Looks like Carter had a fight with a skunk and lost. Can’t you smell him?”
“I wondered what that was.” Grayson pinched his nose. “Will water alone get rid of it?”
“Doubt it,” Tess said. “But it’s all we’ve got.”
Carter took a wide berth to the lake, stripped to his boxers, and waded in. “Son of a…It’s cold!” he complained.
“Yeah,” Tess said, approaching with a bottle of biodegradable soap, which she tossed to him. “I bet. Here. Scrub.”
A minute later, Logan came up behind her, holding some of Carter’s clothes and a microfiber camp towel. “Got these from your pack,” he said to Carter.
“Thanks.” After scrubbing as long as he could stand the cold water, he waded out. It was dusk now, and without the sun’s warmth, the temperature had dropped significantly. Teeth chattering violently, he dressed quickly and beelined to the fire where everyone scooched away from him.
“You stink, brah,” Grayson said.
“We’re probably gonna wanna move his tent,” Ashton said. “And we’re burning the clothes, right?”
“Could this day get any worse?” Carter said.
“At least we got a good meal,” Logan said. Tess appreciated his optimism.
Later that night, her bladder demanded that she not wait until morning for a bathroom. It was dark, so rather than bother with the makeshift privy, she snuck into the woods and squatted.
It had barely been a minute when she heard rustling in the bushes. Crap, had someone else come to pee out here? No, it was too small a noise to be a person, and it was coming from multiple directions.
“Oh, no,” she whispered. If it was what she thought it was, she could be in big trouble. And, defying her own rules, knowing she’d only be gone a second, she’d left the gun in the tent.
The flashlight confirmed her fear, illuminating two glowing orbs directly in front of her. Swinging the beam in a circle, she found three more sets of eyes. They’d surrounded her.
She stood slowly, pulled up her pants—no way she was getting caught dead with her pants around her ankles—and screamed.