Chapter 34
The footing was uneven. Exposed roots, slick stones, and patches of mud pulled at their boots, but the river stayed visible through the trees.
It remained a reliable guide that didn’t require constant map-checking.
Sophie walked a few paces behind Rachel.
She measured each step around the blister and kept her eyes moving between the path and the water.
The camp appeared around a bend where the bank rose into a low bluff.
Someone had cleared a space beneath a limestone overhang, stacked flat stones for a fire pit, and cut saplings to support a lean-to that had since collapsed.
The fire was cold and rain-soaked. Its ashes had washed into a gray paste inside the stone ring.
The bedding was gone. Only shallow impressions in the dirt showed where blankets or sleeping bags had been laid recently.
Nearby lay a dented aluminum cup, a length of frayed nylon cord, and the torn corner of a paper bag with handwriting too smudged to read.
“It’s here because they left it, or they couldn’t take it with them. Either way, they’re gone,” Sophie said.
“We don’t know that.”
“We know they’re not here. We know they left in a hurry. We know the canoe is still here. What else matters?”
Rachel wanted to say that taking it meant stealing.
Before everything changed, that would have been easy to condemn.
Now survival kept forcing them to choose between bad options, and the line had grown harder to see.
The canoe would double their daily distance, spare Sophie’s feet, and help them reach Brenton before the first hard frost. She made her decision beside the fire pit with cold ash between her boots.
They would take the canoe, but they wouldn’t leave anything behind.
From their emergency reserve, she set aside one meal’s worth of beans, a length of spare cord from the repair kit, and a folded note written on the back of a ration packet.
The pencil stub shook a little in her cold fingers.
She wrote her name, her former department, the reason they’d taken the canoe, and the direction they were headed.
She also promised to return it or repay its owner if their paths crossed again.
She weighted the note with a flat stone and left the supplies beside it.
They loaded the canoe with methodical care.
They lashed packs to the hull and secured them with cord Rachel could release with one pull if the canoe overturned.
They placed water containers, canned goods, and tools to balance the load and keep the center of gravity low.
Sophie took the bow seat with the shorter paddle.
Rachel took the stern with the longer one, and her raw palms stung as her fingers closed around the handle.
The canoe slid into the current with less resistance than the rowboat.
Aluminum was lighter and more responsive, and the paddles bit into the water more cleanly than wooden oars.
They river carried them west with steady force.
Rachel had begun to relax when a submerged tree appeared ahead.
It lay diagonally across the channel, broad and waterlogged, showing only as a dark shape beneath the surface until they were twenty yards away.
She dug her paddle hard on the port side and swung the bow toward the narrow gap between the tree and the far bank.
The current caught the stern, shoved the canoe sideways, and tilted it sharply to starboard.
Icy water spilled over the gunwale. Sophie threw her weight to port, but the canoe had already begun to roll.
Its aluminum hull slid across the current instead of cutting through it.
Sophie’s lighter pack broke free of its cord and slid toward open water with the medical supplies and the remaining purification tablets inside.
Sophie caught the pack by its strap as it cleared the gunwale.
She stretched across the center thwart with one arm over the side.
Water soaked her sleeve to the shoulder, but she dragged the pack back into the canoe and held it tight against her chest. Rachel drove her paddle deep into the current and threw her weight to port.
The aluminum hull steadied beneath them.
The submerged tree passed underneath with inches to spare, and its branches scraped along the bottom.
They reached the nearest bank thirty yards downstream.
Mud and exposed roots marked the place where the current had undercut the shoreline.
Rachel dragged the canoe onto solid ground, keeping her hands steady by force of will.
Sophie climbed out with the rescued pack still pressed to her stomach.
Both of them were wet to the waist. Sophie was worse off, and the morning cold bit through their clothes at once.
They unloaded everything onto a flat stone she had cleared of leaves.
Packs, containers, tools, and cord came out of the canoe one by one.
The medical supplies had gotten wet. The bandages were soaked, the gauze was sodden, but the bottle of antiseptic wipes had stayed sealed.
Food packets wrapped in plastic inside the larger pack were still dry.
The map was damp along one edge but legible.
The water purification tablets were secure in their container.
They spent nearly an hour checking, drying, and repacking.
Rachel spread the wet items across sun-warmed stones while Sophie wrung water from the bandages and laid them flat.