Chapter 4
“Got to be here somewhere,” Zach muttered as he hacked his way through some thick brush, swinging a bat-sized branch like a dull machete. He finally gave up trying to hack through the tangle of branches and turned around and pushed his way backwards into the thicket, determined to break through by brute force. He leaned into the tangle and pushed with all the strength in his legs. The wall suddenly gave way and he fell into a clearing with the sun beating down mercilessly.
Allison walked up and stood over him, shading him for the moment from the sun. “Maybe we should go back to Gramma’s. We can come out here during the day.”
He looked up at her while he caught his breath. Backlit by the sun, her face was a featureless silhouette. Gina ran over and licked his cheek and mouth. He rolled over and stood, brushed off his jeans and T-shirt. “We’ll find it,” he said, and dove back into the brush with Gina fast on his heels.
The “it” he was referring to was a spring Nick said lay somewhere between the sheepwagon and the river. It would be their source of drinking and cooking water; without it, they’d have to periodically return to civilization to replenish their water jugs. They’d already found their way to the river, running fast and shallow through its pebbly channel. Nick had said they could probably drink from it, but they might pick up a stray molecule of fecal matter from the livestock and wildlife that frequented its banks. That implicit prospect of having the trots out here with only a hole in the ground for a toilet guaranteed that they wouldn’t be using the river for drinking water. They’d have to find the spring or return to the highway and beg or pay for water from the diner owner.
Allison shook her head and headed back for the van, where she’d try to find enough shade and cool to read or take a nap.
Zach broke through into a small clearing and discovered a bleached ram’s skull hanging a few feet off the ground, the curl of its horns hopelessly tangled in the brush. With no sign of the rest of the skeleton, the skull hung there like a signpost, a totem that Zach couldn’t help but read as warning. But warning of what? To steer clear of this thicket? This camp? This wilderness trial? Gina came around from behind and trotted ahead. She too saw the skull and ran forward to it, paused and stretched her neck to sniff the bleached bone. She then sniffed the ground below, suddenly threw herself on her side and rolled onto her back, thrashing in an almost ecstatic trance, her paws pointed to the sky. Then just as quickly she righted herself, shook vigorously, and ran ahead into the brush. Zach followed her lead, leaving the ram’s skull where it hung.
He found the spring a few minutes later, in another small clearing, this one covered with thick, lush grass fed by the spring’s run-off. He knelt beside the shallow depression and reached down into the pool. The shockingly cold water numbed his fingers. He cupped a little in his hand and raised it to his face. He sniffed it. It smelled clean and, he thought, almost soft (if water could smell soft), especially when compared to the brittle and sharp edges of everything else in this new land. He touched it to his chin, brushed it against his lips, finally licked it with the tip of his tongue. It tasted cold and clean and sweet. He nodded to himself, then to the sky above. He could dig out the spring with their camp shovel, line it with clean rocks, and use it for water long as they stayed.
Back at the camp, he opened the side door to the van and saw Allison lying on the mattress reading. “I found it,” he said. She nodded but didn’t look up from her magazine. He got the shovel from under the seat and returned to their new-found water source.
Wyoming Page 4