Southern Stars

by Melissa Good

  Kerry could already feel the warmth against the skin of her fingers, and the light from it outlined Dar’s angular profile as she continued to throw sparks into the center of the pit. She exhaled in relief, already imagining how much warmer they were going to be in just a little while.

  The larger branches smoldered and popped, releasing the moisture inside them and Kerry reached over for more of the dead grass to keep things going, while Dar carefully surrounded the fire with stones. The warmth was spreading out to fill the space and providing them with light enough so that Dar turned off her flashlight to save the battery.

  “Boy that feels good.” Kerry held her hands out. “When that rock heats up I can throw your road kill on it and we can almost be civilized.”

  Thunder rumbled overhead. “And maybe we won’t freeze.” Dar scooted a little closer. “We can drag more branches in here to cut the wind.”

  They studied each other across the fire. “I hope those guys did stay in that shelter,” Kerry said, after a moment. “We can go find them in the morning.”

  “And bring them some road kill,” Dar said. She got up and retrieved the bundle of deer meat, and sat down cross legged on the sandy floor and started cutting it into gory, pungent strips.

  THE DEER WAS small, but had provided plenty of food for them both. Kerry had even found a little bit of salt in one of her pockets, and after the rock heated next to the fire she used it as a pan and grilled the strips Dar had cut on it.

  That had worked better than she’d expected. Dar sharpened some discarded twigs into makeshift skewers and what had ended up was something that she could convince herself resembled Thai satay, except without the delicious peanut sauce and all that curry.

  It wasn’t a great taste. She never really cared for venison, but the animal had been a young one, and for sure it was better than nothing. It was hot, it filled her stomach and her body was grateful for the application of protein.

  It was that, and rainwater, they had plenty of, and after they dragged all the brush they could find into the shelter, they built up the fire enough to dry their clothing and boots while the rest of the venison was cooked off for the morning.

  Or for their companions, if they decided to hike up in the dark.

  There was nothing to sit on, but they had put the brush between the rocks that had fallen in front of the overhang and made sort of a shelter from the wind and rain that was tolerable. Or really tolerable because there wasn’t any choice.

  Was that what survival was like? You just got reduced down to looking at what positive you could find because of the negative that all implied? Kerry turned over another stick full of meat and regarded it thoughtfully.

  Dar was sitting next to her, using the stone she’d used to make the sparks to sharpen the blade of her pocketknife, idly drawing it across the surface making a soft scraping sound. “I feel better,” she said, after a pause. “Glad we got to that deer before whatever killed it did.”

  “Me too,” Kerry said. She picked up one of the cluster of leaves and waved off the smoke from the fire, pushing it toward the gaps in the rock and away from them. “So, what’s the plan?”

  Dar cocked her head. “What’s the plan?” She asked back.

  “C’mon, Dar. You’re a lot more experienced in this stuff than I am. My entire experience of camping was in a cabin with room service, and you know it.”

  Dar scratched the bridge of her nose, then settled her elbows on her knees and regarded the fire. Her pocketknife was still clasped in one hand, the sharpening for the moment forgotten. “Two choices,” she finally said. “We either go back along the trail to find the rest of them, or we continue on to the shack.”

  “Right.”

  “I’d rather keep going to the shack,” Dar said. “I’m tired of all the other people.” She reached out and took one of the skewers, biting off a piece and chewing it. “I don’t want to deal with them. I just want to deal with you.”

  Kerry was a little abashed by how much her internal dialog agreed with what Dar had just said. “Shouldn’t we help the other people?” She suggested anyway.

  “We should,” Dar said readily. “But I don’t want to.” She munched on the grilled venison. “Nothing on earth really requires us to do that, Ker. We’re not legally mandated to be selfless martyrs.”

  Kerry flipped a few of the strips. “No, I know,” she said, in a quiet voice.

  “Like I said, last couple times I did that I got a kick in the head for it,” Dar said “Couple of times I stepped in on this trip? Also got my head kicked. How much of that do I want to take? I’m kinda done.”

  It was all honest and true and Kerry knew it. She considered in silence for a few moments then she just shrugged. “Okay. I’d rather just be with you too.” She rested her head against Dar’s shoulder and listened to the fire pop and crackle a little. “Besides, they’re the ones with the sat phone. They’ve got a better chance of getting a ride out than we do.”

  “True,” Dar said. “Could be they’ll come after us and find us. I just don’t want to have to give up the progress we made today.”

  “Right.”

  They both looked at each other, then, after a moment they both started laughing. “We’re so full of shit,” Kerry said. “How about we stick around here in the morning and see if they show up, then go on.”

  Dar was still laughing. “Rampaging boofheads.” She sighed. Then paused, as they both straightened a little, as sound drifted in from outside the shelter. “What was that?”

  Kerry frowned. “An owl?”

  They went quiet and listened. The wind outside whistled against the rock, and the rain pattered, but there was a sound again past that which sounded strange and a little unearthly. A bit like howl, or moan and wordless.

  Dar got up and went to the edge of the shelter, poking her head out from the branches that were blocking the rain. “I thought I heard something like that when I was cutting up that deer. It stopped though.”

  “When you called me back?” Kerry stood and came over to her. As they stood in silence, it sounded again. “Is that an animal?”

  Dar shook her head. “I don’t know.” She went back to the fire. “Could be.” She half turned as it sounded again. “Can’t think of what kind, but there are a lot of animals out here I’m not familiar with.”

  “Could it be a coyote?” Kerry asked, folding her arms over her chest. “It sounds a little dog like.” Then she turned and eyed Dar. “This isn’t some bad Lassie nightmare where our dogs followed us is it?”

  “No.” Dar chuckled a little. “I don’t think Labradors howl like that.”

  Kerry listened again to the sound as it drifted in on the wind, then she shrugged and rejoined Dar, both of them settling down close to the fire again. After a few minutes, the sound stopped.

  Kerry rearranged her drying cargo pants. “These are going to smell like bad barbecue. But at least we have a chance to dry everything. I think those guys behind us are going to end up just wet. There wasn’t enough shelter there to block the rain.

  “True.” Dar took a breath to continue, then stopped when the sound returned, and this time, another sound accompanied it. “That’s not an animal.”

  Kerry put down the skewer she’d just lifted. “That’s someone yelling for help.”

  They both stared at the fire, then stared at each other. Then Dar exhaled and picked up her drying pants and put them on, while Kerry picked up her boots and put them down next to her as she removed the dry shirt she was wearing and replaced it with her damp one.

  “We could pretend we don’t hear that,” Kerry said, continuing to dress.

  “We could flap our arms and fly to the moon, too,” Dar said. “C’mon, Ker. I can talk bullshit about not wanting to help people, but I can’t ignore someone screaming.”

  “Yeah, I do know.” Kerry sighed. “But damn to the little baby Jesus I just got dry.”

  Dar eyed her, while tying her laces. “You learn that in high school?�
��

  “No, some stupid sitcom. C’mon.”

  THE FLASHLIGHT WAS waterproof and Dar was glad. She let it shine ahead of her and Kerry to light the path as she kept her other arm upraised to shield her eyes form the rain.

  It pounded down around them everywhere, large drops impacting them as they searched the narrow valley past where they’d found the deer. It was rocky and steep, and they tried to be careful as they went along to save a fall.

  “Hello!” Kerry yelled out, her hands cupped around her mouth. “Hello!”

  For a minute there was just the sound of the rain and the wind. Then, relatively nearby they heard a yell in response, and heard motion to their right. Dar lifted her flashlight and stopped walking, shining it out into the brush.

  “Hey!” Out of the darkness a form appeared, running up to them.

  “Amy! What happened!” Kerry asked, as the girl came to a halt. She was wet through, and her hands were covered in cuts, the fingertips bleeding.

  “Just come help. We’re so screwed,” Amy gasped. “I’ve been calling for hours, c’mon.” She started back the way she came and Kerry and Dar exchanged glances before they started after her.

  “Bet I know where this is going,” Dar muttered.

  “Yeah.” Kerry almost tripped over a stone, but ended up hopping over it as Dar grabbed after her. “Me too.”

  They chased after the dim figure in the rain, dodging past boulders and brush flattened by the water. They turned a corner and approached the canyon wall as thunder rumbled unexpectedly over their heads.

  “Great.” Dar shoved her hood back as they reached Amy’s side and she pointed up.

  In the dark they could see pretty much nothing. Dar played her flashlight up the wall until it found something not rock and stopped. “What in the hell?” A rope dangled down the wall and flapped uselessly against the stone.

  “He was trying to climb up.” Amy got up onto a rock. “Todd! Todd! I found some help!”

  The figure pinned up on the wall moved slightly. “Fuck!” Came floating down weakly. “Someone just fucking shoot me!”

  Dar turned the flashlight off and put it in her pocket and turned to face Amy. “What happened?”

  “Do we have to talk about it?” Amy said. “Just help him.”

  Dar folded her arms. “What exactly are you expecting us to do? He’s up on a wall in a storm. Neither of us can climb up there. You apparently tried.”

  Amy stared at her. “I tried. He took all the ropes and I couldn’t. He made the swing up there.” She pointed to an outcropping. “One of the ropes broke and something happened to his arm. He can’t get down.”

  “Ugh,” Kerry muttered.

  “And he can’t go up,” Amy finished. “We have to help him!”

  Kerry reached out in instinct and put her hand on Dar’s arm, sensing the shifting of the tall body next to her. “Look, I know you’re really upset, but Dar’s right. We can’t climb up there, we need to go get help. We need to go get the others. They have some ropes, and we can figure it out.”

  “Are they with you? Where are they?” Amy shifted gears. “They have ropes, sure I remember now. Let’s get them.” She started back down the path.

  “Hold on.” Kerry chased after her and grabbed her arm. “They’re not with us. I mean...” She held up her other hand in a calming gesture. “They stayed up in the pass, we guess. We went on ahead to set up a shelter.”

  Amy stared at her. “What?”

  “So if we go look for them it’s going to take a while,” Kerry said. “So let’s just hold on a minute and figure it out”

  “You left them?” Amy said.

  “Like you did?” Kerry’s brows lifted.

  “That’s different. We know what we’re doing.”

  Kerry looked at her, then up at the wall, then back at her.

  Dar turned her back on them and looked up at the wall as a lightning flash outlined the body pressed against the stone “How long has he been up there?” She asked.

  Amy came over to her. “He started up about two hours before sunset. He wanted to see if he could see anyone up at the top, and get a ride back.”

  Dar pondered the scene in thoughtful silence for a minute, going over to take hold of the dangling rope. “What’s this for?”

  “Safety,” Amy said. “It’s so if he slips...but it was too wet. I couldn’t stop him.”

  “Dar, let’s go back up the trail and find the rest of them,” Kerry said. “We can’t do anything here.”

  Dar removed her rain jacket and set it on the ground, then gripped the rope. “This tied off?” She asked Amy. “As in, to something that’s not gonna just come down on top of us?”

  Amy hesitated, then nodded.

  Kerry lowered her voice. “What are you doing?” She walked around to the other side of Dar and put a hand on her arm.

  “I can’t climb that rock wall,” Dar said. “But I can climb this rope.” She gave Kerry a wry look. “At least, I think I can. I might end up on my ass here in a minute.”

  Kerry regarded her in utter seriousness. “Does that make sense?” She whispered. ”˜Shouldn’t we just go get help”

  Dar’s eyes were visible in the light form the flashlight, sharp and clear. “He’s been up there for hours. Might be good to see what it is we’re going to need to get help for.”

  They stared at each other, rain pouring down on them and pattering against the rain jacket Kerry was wearing.

  “Be careful,” Kerry finally said. “I don’t want to see you get hurt too.”

  “Okay.” Dar tugged on the rope experimentally. “I’m going to see what I can see.” She took a step and shoved herself up into the air, grabbing the rope and hanging there a minute before she got her boots onto a bit of rock and started climbing upward.

  “Holy shit,” Amy blurted.

  IT WAS HARD. Dar felt the strain immediately and spent a minute wondering if this was not a good, or even a reasonable idea. It would make more sense to get the hell back down on the ground wouldn’t it? She glanced beneath her, barely able to see Kerry’s steadfast form below her.

  She had her boots braced against the rock and she pulled herself up hand over hand, moving up the rock wall. There were some footholds, and she got herself wedged against one piece of rock as she looked for another higher up to get to.

  The rain faded, a little and she focused on putting one hand over the other, feeling her body flex as a small piece of stone from above bounced against her shoulder and went tumbling down past her as she got up about a standard building floor above the ground.

  She squinted upward into the rain, and lightning helpfully flashed showing Todd’s dangling body perhaps another two floor lengths above her. Then it went dark, and she wondered, again, if this wasn’t a very bad idea.

  He was tied, she wasn’t. Dar understood if she lost her grip once she went past this point, falling would be painful at best, lethal at worst.

  She paused, braced against the rock, hands gripped around the rope. “I shouldn’t be doing this,” she said, aloud, and knew it for truth. “I can’t do this.”

  But another voice answered, in her head. “You can.” It was deeper than her own voice sounded to her, and eternally confident. “G’wan. You won’t fall.”

  Weird moment. Dar frowned. Then she shook her head and took a breath. When she released it she felt an odd sense of calm, and started upward again, the wet rope, despite its sodden damp, gripping against her skin.

  There was a ledge. She climbed up onto it and then found another foothold and made that one as well. The rain was pushed to the back of her mind and she focused on the task as the strain moderated and her body responded with more confidence.

  She thought about being back in the day, climbing up the rope wall with the guys. Always looking to prove herself their equal. Dar felt her face tense into a grim smile. Their equal?

  No. She found a spot with no footholds and she pushed herself up a little, wrapping her legs aroun
d the rope and moving up like she had back in those days. Not their equal. A picture flashed into her memory of being at the top of the rope tower and turning, releasing one hand off and holding herself up with just the other, boots tensed against the thick strand below her.

  She swarmed upward, feeling a sense of odd euphoria, a warmth that pulsed through her body and gave her energy, as a faint laughter echoed in the back of her mind.

  Lightning flashed, and for a moment she jerked in reaction, eyes fluttering shut against the after flash as she heard Todd cry out in anguish. That was echoed with an alarmed yell from Kerry waiting on the ground below.

  Instinctively Dar hung on as she felt rocks pelt her. She hoped like hell one of them wasn’t going to end up being what the rope was fastened to.

  Then a huge thump made her jerk to her left, as a boulder crashed past her, knocking down others on its way down. “Watch out!” She yelled down past her.

  Then the rumbling died down.

  Dar waited. “Ker?”

  “Fine!” Kerry yelled back. “Hurry the God damned hell up, will you!”

  She got the message, hearing the ferocious anxiety. “Got it!” She stopped the daydreaming and inched herself upward until she reached the body dangling against the wall, swinging in the ropes. This close now the damage visible.

  Todd’s arm was hanging in an awkward position in a far too extended way from his body. She got up another foot and braced her boots against a tiny bit of outcropping, taking the strain off. “Hey!”

  He opened his eyes and looked at her. It wasn’t difficult to imagine the bloodshot ochre of them. “Fuuuuck.” His voice was hoarse and almost unrecognizable. “Just kill me, will ya?”

  Dar took a tighter grip on the rope. “Your shoulder’s dislocated.”

  “No shit.” He feebly tried to get his feet on some kind of ledge. “Can’t even think it hurts so fucking bad.”

  Dar released one hand cautiously and took out her flashlight, turning it on to examine him. His lips were blue and there was a gray tinge to the rest of his skin. There was a rope wrapped around him, fastened to two carabiners wedged in the rock, a third and fourth supporting the rope she was climbing.