Stranded

by Melinda Braun

  “I’ll pass.”

  “No one’s going out there,” Oscar said. “At least not yet. Let’s just wait until the sun comes up. I’m sure they’ll be gone by then.”

  “They’re wolves, not vampires, Wiener.”

  “Just trust me.”

  I couldn’t see Isaac’s face in the dark, but I could imagine it. I bent my chin and touched it to my knees, desperately wanting to lie down or at least stretch out my arms and legs, but it was too cramped in here with all our gear.

  “Just hold on a little longer,” Oscar said, sounding much more confident that he should. “And it will be okay.”

  “Famous last words,” replied Isaac, rustling his spear through the cracks.

  We went back to watching the wolves as they watched us, waiting for something to happen, and for a long time they circled us. Near dawn the fire turned to cinders, and when I looked up again, jolted awake by the sharp tweet of a cardinal, the wolves were gone, the scattered tracks the only sign of their existence.

  Day 8

  Morning

  “I guess that’s it.” Oscar double-checked the direction with the watch. “Okay, that’s due south.”

  “East,” Isaac said. “We’re going east, remember?”

  “I know. I was just orienting myself.” Oscar turned slightly left while Isaac grunted noncommittally.

  We were loaded up, seemingly somewhat heavier than last time, on account of the supply of fish Isaac smoked (fish jerky, he called it), but he warned it probably wouldn’t keep past the day. “We need to find another lake or some water,” he kept repeating, like a personal mantra. Though we lived with a constant ache of hunger, the main fear was water, namely running out of it. There were hundreds of lakes in the Boundary Waters, but there was also a chance we could hike through miles and miles of woods.

  The plan was simple; at least it sounded simple. Hike all day, only stopping at noon to rest. If we hiked at least five miles, Isaac reasoned, and kept on an east heading, at most it would be three days until we had to hit something—another lake, a stream, a campsite, a ranger station, a highway, or best of all, another person with a cell phone.

  We headed out, our eyes scanning the trees for movement, and though we didn’t talk about last night, I knew everyone was thinking about it. There had been tracks everywhere, some larger than my hand, but Oscar had been right. The wolves had left at dawn. Isaac said they could have just been curious, or they could have been tracking us, and we needed to leave enough time each evening to build a decent shelter. That would slow us down by hours, but it was better than the alternative. And then there was the storm. It could arrive any day now. I glanced nervously through the treetops, but the sky held no clue. Clear deep blue, devoid of clouds.

  I concentrated on keeping up with Oscar, who hiked much faster than I did, and I figured as long as we kept this pace, five miles could easily be done by evening.

  It didn’t take long to see I was overly optimistic.

  Soon after we left the lake, a half mile in, we ran into a thicket—a wall of bushes, prickers, burrs, and weeds eight feet high. There was no trail to speak of, so Oscar led the way, holding his pack in front as a shield. I did the same.

  “You okay?” I asked Chloe, holding back the branches. Gnats were so thick I had given up trying to spit them out of my mouth. I just chewed and swallowed. Maybe they’d give me some energy. They flew behind my sunglasses in such dense swarms that I had to take them off.

  “So far so good.” She coughed on the gnats and adjusted her bandana. Oscar had wrapped her foot extra tight before we set out and made her promise to tell him if it started hurting. We would stop, he told us, even if Isaac didn’t want to.

  “Christ, Wiener!” Isaac yelled from the back of the line. “Where are you taking us?” Isaac was carrying the most weight. His own pack, as well as the fishing gear. He wouldn’t let any of us carry it anyway. Apparently he didn’t trust us to keep it secure.

  “South,” Oscar said.

  “East!”

  “Yeah, that’s what I meant,” Oscar replied.

  “You’d better.”

  “Just trying to find the easiest way through this.”

  We pushed through a seemingly endless maze of branches, leaves, and bugs for another hour before we came out the other side. Here were trees, large pines and maples, tall enough to form a solid canopy of shade so that the ground was clear, littered with pine-needle mulch. Ferns grew in clumps in the spaces of dappled sunlight.

  “Thank God that’s over,” I said, wondering at the same time what God had to do with it. I slid off my pack and sat down.

  “What are you doing, Dodd?” Isaac demanded. “This ain’t a rest stop.”

  “It is for me.”

  “We can eat those ramps,” Chloe said. When she took off her pack, I knew Isaac was going to be outnumbered.

  “What’s a ramp?”

  “Wild leeks. Like onions.”

  “What do you mean, like make a salad?” Oscar asked.

  “Sure.”

  Chloe bent down in front of a clump and pulled the bright green stems. I could see she was favoring her foot. Would she tell me if it got bad?

  She rummaged around the base of a pine tree, then pulled up two skinny bulbs. They did look like onions. “See? Look.”

  “You can eat these?” I asked.

  “Sure. They serve them in fancy restaurants. Sautéed in butter, of course.”

  “Of course.” Isaac grabbed one, not needing to be told twice. Of all of us, hunger had taken the hardest toll on him, and judging by how much his belt was tightened, he’d lost more than ten pounds. Maybe closer to twenty. He popped it into his mouth and chewed. The watery crunch made my mouth fill with saliva.

  “Tastes like onion,” he said. “Could use some salt.”

  “But it’s good, right?”

  “It’s not bad.”

  In ten minutes we had a pile of ramps to fill a bucket. Then we ate them, along with small sips of water. I tried not to drink more than a fourth of my canteen. It was still morning, and we needed it to last all day. Or whenever we found the next source.

  “All right,” Oscar said, busy orienting himself again, and I wondered how we would find our way if it suddenly became cloudy. “Let’s walk for another hour. I’m sure we’ll find water by then.”

  “You better be taking us the right way,” Isaac warned, gulping a swig from his canteen.

  “Look!” Oscar yelled back, clearly pissed. “You want to be the navigator?”

  “Calm down, Wiener. Quit your bitching! I just want to make sure we’re going east.”

  “I said we were! Now shut up!”

  “Come again?”

  Oscar spun around. “I said shut up, dickhead!”

  “Didn’t quite catch that.”

  “Did I stutter?”

  Isaac stared at him, bemused. “Oh, looky here! Looks like you’ve been hanging around the girls too much. Or maybe taking a page out of Johnson’s playbook.” He cocked his hip in exaggeration. “Congratulations, Wiener. Now you’re a strong, confident black woman who doesn’t take shit from whitey. Yes, suh! You go, girl!” He snapped his fingers derisively.

  Chloe gasped. I couldn’t tell by her face whether she was surprised or not.

  I wasn’t. “You stupid pig!”

  “A pig, huh?” Isaac turned his attention to me. “And what are you, Dodd?” He jabbed a finger at me like he wanted to poke me in the eye. “I’m the one who saved your asses, remember? I caught the food! I pulled you dumb fucks up the side of the cliff!”

  “Yeah!” Chloe screamed. “After you abandoned us!”

  “It’s not my fault you’re too damn slow to keep up!”

  “I got hurt!”

  “That’s not my fault either!” Isaac’s eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. “You bunch of idiots would all be dead right now if it weren’t for me.”

  “We made the shelter, remember?” Chloe yelled, finding her stride.
“We made the raft!”

  “That was a stupid idea!”

  I shouldn’t have been surprised; I knew that’s what he thought, but it just took him until now to say it. “You’re a gigantic asshole!”

  “And you!” he roared. “You’re a stuck-up little bitch, aren’t you? You think you’re better than me?” He dropped his tackle box and leaped in front me, his face disfigured with rage. “I should’ve screwed you when I had the chance.”

  All the blood drained from my face; I couldn’t have been more speechless if he’d punched me.

  Oscar gasped. “What did you say?”

  “You heard me,” he said with an oily smile. “She likes to play hard to get, doesn’t she? Did she take off her clothes for you, too?”

  Oscar’s face looked like he’d been given a series of strong electric shocks.

  “Get away from me!” I pushed him forward, slapping his hands away. “Drop dead, you piece of shit!”

  “Ladies, first.” Isaac began to bow but suddenly went sideways in a blur of movement.

  Oscar hit him square in the chest, and they collapsed into a heap, tumbling over each other on the ground, packs clanking together as they punched and cursed and kicked, then rolled away and disappeared into a mass of ferns. The last thing I saw was Oscar, jabbing a swift punch underneath Isaac’s chin.

  “Stop it!” Chloe screeched. She jumped up to follow but winced and sank back down. “Emma! Stop them!”

  I stood rooted to the ground in my boots, mouth open and wondering if I had just imagined the whole thing, but the bushes were still shaking from the force of impact, and a few moments later there was another crashing noise, now some distance away.

  “Emma!” Chloe yanked my arm. “Stop them before they kill each other!”

  What she didn’t say: Stop it before Isaac kills Oscar.

  I ran forward into the ferns, blood roaring in my ears. Isaac wouldn’t do that, would he? He was bigger than Oscar. Then again, Oscar was furious. Then again, Isaac was crazy. Who would win in a fight like that? Furious versus insane.

  Insane. That is the only winner in this kind of game.

  I pushed my way through the thicket, not even feeling the prickers scratch my hands. Where did they go? I took a few more steps and stopped, listening. Heavy breathing, then another grunt. A thudding smack, the distinctive sound of a fist making contact. Then screaming. Or more specifically, one distinct scream.

  Oscar!

  The trees pressed together in thick clumps, then thinned out, and I pushed forward through the undergrowth, leaves and branches whipping at my chin. Where did they go? How can they have just disappeared so fast?

  “Oscar!”

  No answer, just a woodpecker, drilling the side of a cedar. I counted to five.

  “Jesus Christ! Dammit!” Isaac. And he sounded close.

  I turned around. “Where are you?”

  “Here! Help!”

  In front of me. Dead ahead. They are so close. Why can’t I see them? I jumped through the bush, but my pack yanked me backward, something caught in a nylon loop. I jerked it, but it was stuck, so I slipped my arms out, then stumbled forward on a landslide of pebbles, and my feet went out from under me. I landed on my butt, slid through the branches until a cold gust of wind hit my face as my feet shot out into open air. What the—

  I had almost slid right off the side of a cliff.

  “Jesus!” I scrambled back, my hands instinctively reaching for something, anything, to grab on to while I kicked more pebbles and sand off the side. If I hadn’t fallen down, I would have gone right off the edge.

  “Ow! Stop it, dammit!”

  “Oscar?” Oh my God, they fell off the side! I swallowed in horror, but something stayed lodged in my throat. I inched forward on my stomach, my head spinning at the idea.

  “Here!”

  I peered over the side, terrified of what I was going to see.

  Isaac’s dirt-streaked face stared back, three feet below me, one fist clenched around a very fragile-looking protrusion of rock, the other holding tightly to the shoulder strap of Oscar’s backpack. Oscar, thankfully, was still in it. And below them, at least sixty feet away, was the ground.

  Oh God oh God oh God oh God. I shuddered back, dizzy and sick, my vision swirling dangerously.

  “Emma!” Isaac gasped. “Help me!”

  He actually used my first name! Shit! Think!

  “Just hang on!” How could I help? I wasn’t strong enough to pull them up. “Chloe!” I screamed. I needed my pack. I needed a rope. I needed a plan. Fast.

  “Hurry!” Isaac panted. “I can’t hold him forever!”

  Him. Oh no. Oscar!

  “You better, goddamn it!” I forced myself to look back over the edge. Oscar had absolutely nothing to hold on to, and if Isaac let go . . . I blinked away the thought. “I’ll fucking kill you myself if you drop him!”

  Still shaking, I crawled back through the bushes on my hands and knees, my head buzzing from the sight of them clinging to the rocks like flies. What am I going to do?

  “Emma?” Chloe’s boots were suddenly in front of my face. “What are you—”

  “Stop!” I screamed, throwing my hands up. “Just stop! A cliff!”

  “Huh?”

  I pushed myself onto my knees, blocking her. “You can’t see it!” I glanced back; the edge was only a few feet behind me but completely masked by a screen of leaves.

  “Where are . . .”

  “Hanging on the side!” I held my hand up, trying to think of what to do. “We need a rope! Something to pull them up.” I jumped to my feet. “Now!”

  Chloe just nodded, eyes wide, and dropped her pack with no more questions. She unzipped it and removed the contents in handfuls. I loved her then. “Clothes! Clothes will work.”

  “Clothes?”

  “We can tie them together and make a rope.” She pulled out an electric-blue bra and tugged at the elastic strap. “Can you make a strong knot?”

  “I don’t know!” I wanted to keep screaming; I felt like an idiot, petrified by panic, but Chloe was already busy with a pair of ripstop nylon pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt.

  “How long does it have to be?”

  “Ten feet? Longer? And we need to secure it to something.”

  “Here!” She tossed me a shirt. “Do a square knot to tie to the pants.”

  I stretched the sleeves apart, wondering what to do next. “Uh . . .”

  “Never mind, I got it.” She already had her wad of clothes knotted together. “I’ll anchor this around the tree like a noose.” She slipped the bra around the aspen, looping the strap three times, pulling the long part through. “Okay, good.” She tossed me more clothes. “Stretchy stuff is better.”

  I grabbed another long-sleeved shirt, a thin polyester hoodie, a sports bra, and a swimsuit, mimicking the knots I’d seen her make. I tugged hard; they held. But would they hold with more than two hundred pounds?

  I crawled back through the bushes to the edge, unraveling the line, checking each knot.

  “I have it secured!” Chloe yelled.

  “Okay!” I dangled the line over the side, down past Isaac’s face, which was pressed tightly against the cliff. “Grab this!”

  “No.” His voice sounded wispy and raw. “If I grab it, I’ll drop Wiener. Slide it down to him first.”

  Either he was trying to be a hero, or he didn’t trust my rope, but I wasn’t about to argue. I snaked the line down farther, until it hit against Oscar’s shoulder. “Grab it!” Isaac ordered. “Because I’m about five seconds from dropping you!”

  Dear God, please hold.

  The line tightened in my grip. Immediately I was overcome with the urge to pull back, brace myself, dig in my heels, do something, anything other than sit there to watch what might happen. I clenched my eyes shut and held on, counting seconds, waiting for a screaming free fall.

  But soon enough Oscar’s face appeared in front of me, bruised and scraped, missing his glasses
. I’d never been happier to see it. “Emma.” He crawled forward and collapsed into a shaking heap on my lap, clenching his left arm tight to his chest. “I think I broke my wrist.”

  I was shaking too. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” I babbled, not able to tell whether I was going to laugh or cry. Maybe pass out. “We can fix that.” I ran my fingers through his hair and squeezed. “We can fix that.”

  Isaac pulled his way up, grunting with effort, and crawled past us, a glazed look etched on his face. He rolled onto his back and stared blindly at the sky, gripping the clothes rope to his chest like it was a baby blanket, and after a long while he finally spoke, his voice muted in amazement. “A bra just saved my life.”

  * * *

  We hiked on until the shadows lengthened to thin strips. Isaac guessed we’d gone five or six miles, maybe seven, but we also hadn’t found any water. When we found a small clearing in the trees, we decided to stop and make camp. Chloe constructed a makeshift hut woven together with flexible dogwood branches, and while it was enough to block the wind, it wasn’t nearly as solid as our previous shelter.

  It didn’t think it would stop the wolves if they returned.

  I went back to finishing my spears. Four done, but would that be enough? I grabbed another stick and stripped a thin slice of bark off the tip.

  “Want some help, Dodd?” Isaac actually sounded sincere, maybe his way of apologizing. Or maybe his way of thanking me and Chloe for saving his life. Whatever it was, he certainly couldn’t call us useless idiots. Idiots maybe. But definitely not useless.

  “I’m almost done.” I didn’t know how to talk to him, or look at him. Every time I did, I saw his face, twisted in simmering violence. All along, I had thought the danger we were in was the outside: storms, fire, thirst, hunger, animals. But what was worse when it came down to it? Being hungry or depending on a psychopath for survival? But was he really? He sounded a bit guilty, or maybe that was fake too, just another attempt to manipulate me. There was no way for me to trust him.

  “Okay.” Isaac picked up a spear and poked it against his palm. “Wiener thinks his wrist is broken.”

  “Yeah, probably.” I tossed the stick into the pile, wondering why he cared. “Or at least sprained badly. Chloe wrapped it and made a sling with the Ace bandage.” I glanced over at Oscar, who was sleeping (maybe) in the new shelter. He didn’t act like he was in a lot of pain, but then again I had heard him gasp several times when Chloe was wrapping his wrist. It had to hurt like hell, even if it wasn’t broken.