“That husband of Suzanne’s couldn’t map his way out of Wal-Mart,” Frank muttered. He got up on his knees to peer out a window. “We’ve got to go back to the main road and get on Blue Creek Road. I know the way from there.”
I had my doubts about this change of route, but Joni, apparently afraid her father might go into a teeth-hurling episode, told me to turn around and go back to the main road. Which wasn’t as easy as it sounded, given that I’d made some guess-turns coming up, but we finally made it. Pavement had never looked so good.
But soon we had found Frank’s Blue Creek Road and started into the forest again. Up hills and down into canyons, through thick woods and bare, logged-over areas. Basically, this road made brother-in-law Bob’s route look like a Sunday parade route. The underside of the limo brushed dirt in the deep ruts. The mudholes softened to ominous depths. Twice Frank’s memory failed, and we got on dead end roads where I had to scrunch the limo around a few inches at a time to turn around.
Overhead, the bunny clouds, contrary to the weatherman’s cheery prediction, weren’t waiting until Sunday evening and had congealed into full overcast now. I had the uneasy feeling maybe I should have invested in one of those GPS things Matt had been telling me I should get.
What I was also thinking, and finally voiced to Joni was, “Maybe we should go back to the main road, and someone can come down from the campground and lead the way.”
Joni tried to call Bob on her cell phone, but – no surprise – there was no signal for the phone to latch onto here.
She shook the phone as if that would bring it to life. “I don’t understand. I’m always hearing how people call for help from way out in some wilderness, and rescuers rush in to save them. Why not here?”
I was beginning to think Red Lobster would have been a great idea. Usually you don’t need a rescuer on your way to Red Lobster. Or have to worry about dodging flying teeth.
But finally, up ahead, I saw a looming shape. A motor home! Then another. Trailers . . . tents . . . pickups! Music, Alan Jackson singing about the Chatahoochie River. Smoke rising from a campfire surrounded by benches and tables. Dogs, big and little, bounding out to meet us. In spite of the clouds, kids were wading in the small lake.
And finally, Frank and Dottie did get excited. They scooted forward to see through the partition and the windshield.
“They’re all here for our anniversary?” Dottie said.
“Kids, grandkids, great-grandkids. In-laws and outlaws,” Joni said. “Everyone’s here to celebrate with you!”
I parked the limo between two pickups, vehicles big enough to have fenders on a level with the limo’s windows. The whole herd of family members clustered around as I opened the rear door. Frank and Dottie stepped out to squeals of kids, scent of burned weenies, and shouts of Happy Anniversary! Someone started singing “For they’re a jolly good couple.” Flashes flared as half a dozen offspring took photos. I had to get in one of the photos with them, Dottie and Frank linking arms with me by the limo.
Then two big guys made seats out of their linked hands for Dottie, two more made seats for Frank. They carried them to camp chairs set up by the campfire. On a nearby table I saw a three-tier cake, plus several ice buckets with bottle necks protruding.
“Oh, this is wonderful!” Dottie cried, complaints and Red Lobster forgotten. Somebody planted a baby in her lap.
Frank smiled, using all his teeth. A skinny ten-year-old ran up and proudly dangled a fish in his face. “Lookit, granpa, I caught it myself!”
I stayed around for a few minutes, glad to see that everything had worked out so well. The clouds suggested that rain might join the celebration sooner than expected, but from the looks of things this was a survivalist group that wouldn’t give ground to anything less than a tidal wave.
Me, I wanted to get back to the main road before both darkness and rain arrived.
Joni slipped me a check, with a generous extra for the difficult trip, and brother-in-law Bob came over to thank me for getting the limo all the way up here. “You want a job drivin’ cement truck anytime, you just let me know! Bet you needed that map, right?”
“Actually, we didn’t use the map. Frank knew the way. He seems to have a pretty good memory. Though I think it was a different road than the map showed. At least we got here.”
Bob groaned. “He brought you up that old Blue Creek way, didn’t he? No one but hunters use that old road any more. It’s twice as long and three times as rough as the way I marked on the map.”
I got out the map, and he turned it around to align with the directions where we were now. “To get back to town, you start over there—” He pointed to a different road than we’d entered the campground from, then traced the route on the map. “Just go down here, keep to the right, except for here, when you go left. Well, and here, you take the middle fork. Don’t get on the left one, or you may wind up back over on Blue Creek. There are some rough spots this way, but nothing like what you came through getting up here on that old Blue Creek road. And you’ll be back down on the main road in half the time it took you to get here.”
I thanked him, congratulated the anniversary couple again, and started out. I figured that even if Bob’s map-making skills were never going to qualify for any Boy Scout awards, I could follow the vehicle tracks easily enough to take the shorter route back to the paved road.
First junction, ignore that road to the left. Next fork was a little more difficult. The tracks came from both directions. But he’d said stay to the right, so I did.
And rough spots? Oh, yes indeedy. I remembered a line from an old medieval map I’d seen in a book. Here there be Monsters, it said. Maybe no monsters, but Here there be Mud.
And here there be rain. A few sprinkles at first, then big, hard drops, then . . . deluge. And wind! I wondered what was happening back at the campground, but I had more upfront worries of my own right now.
A branch crashed to the road just in front of the limo. Wind-blown rain flooded the windshield. But I kept going, afraid if I stopped the limo might sink out of sight. At a cross-road I checked the map, but this juncture didn’t seem to be there. And the rain had already wiped out all trace of recent traffic. I could barely see the road through the wind-blown veil of rain.
Hey, Lord, I could use a little guidance here!
Keep to the right, inch ahead. Dodge another wind-blown branch on the road. Wow, these ruts were deep, little canyons unto themselves.
Finally, on a harder section that looked like solid rock, I did stop. I didn’t bother to get out of the middle of the road. I hadn’t seen another vehicle since I left the campground. I poured a cup of coffee from the Thermos I always bring along. I got out my cell phone, just in case. The little arrows that say the unit is picking up a signal stayed unseen down in their little cyberspace hole.
Finally, after a half-hour or so, the rain dropped back to downpour level, and I inched the limo forward again. No more tracks of recent usage on the road now, just rivulets . . . make that rivers . . . of running water. Odd looking stump there on the right, ragged and dark-streaked, as if lightning had hit it. Hey, hadn’t I seen that stump before? It was right where—
Exactly, right where the side logging road had dead-ended, and we’d had to turn around when coming up here. Somehow I must have gotten back over on Frank’s old Blue Creek road and taken the same wrong turn I had before. Except now a muddy lake covered the space in which I’d turned around.
Okay, I wasn’t foolhardy enough to enter that murky looking body of water. I’d just have to back up to where I’d made a wrong turn.
I’ve gotten pretty good at maneuvering the limo. Backing up is no problem. But that’s in a driveway or parking lot, and this was a maze of muddy ruts.
The wheels stalled in one rut. I pulled forward, moved over, tried again. Different rut. Deeper rut. Go forward. Couldn’t. Go backward. Couldn’t. In panic I gunned the engine and felt the wheels spin and dig in as if they were trying to burrow to oil
well depth.
Smell of something overheating. Tilt of hood upward as rear wheels dug in farther.
Oh, no.
Stuck.
I got out and eyed my disaster. The limo sat at an angle now. Rear wheels buried, front end angled upward, as if the vehicle had mountain climbing ambitions. Mud, like the flames on India’s Harley, decorated the sides. Smoke or steam rose around the exhaust pipe. The engine made small creaky noises as it cooled. Rain pattered on the roof and hood.
A flood of panic rose in yours truly.
Now what?
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I was on a road seldom used. Even worse, on a dead-end, side-road section of that seldom-used road. No one was apt to wander by on a weekend outing.
I didn’t have a shovel or any other tools. Right now, even Annabelle’s big spoon would look pretty good. No, what I had was modern technology: a cell phone. Which at this point was about as helpful as a rotten turnip.
Advice I’ve long heard is that if you’re lost and stranded, stay with your vehicle until help arrives.
Help would arrive . . . when? Who knew I was missing or needed help? Reunion people would have no idea I didn’t reach home safely. Fitz was out on the water with the Miss Nora. I hadn’t mentioned this particular limo job to India.
I might fossilize here before help arrived.
Lord, weren’t you listening? I asked for help, not . . . this!
I circled the limo. It looked the same from the other side. Like something an archeologist might dig up a few thousand years from now. With my bones alongside. A learned archeologist discusses this with his students:
So, what do we have here? A vehicle of indeterminate usage, probably early 21st century. Given the unusual length, perhaps something favored by overweight persons in that era of over-consumption. Bones of a human female. Not young. Bones indicative of a tendency toward jiggly thighs in life. Definitely in need of a hair coloring job.
Okay, I’d sit and wait for a while on the off chance someone did come this way. I got back in the tilted limo. I drank another cup of coffee. I looked in the glove compartment for something edible. I ate a Rollaid. I listened to creaks that sounded like the limo settling ever deeper into its archeological pit. I picked up a radio station from Olympia and another from San Francisco.
This was not working. The limo was beginning to have the ominous feel of an oversized coffin. If someone did come by, it would be out on the road, Blue Creek Road, not on this dead-end side road.
I got out and locked the doors. Right. Like someone was going to sneak up through the brush and make off with my stuck limo or my empty Thermos.
I slogged along the edge of the road, out of the muddy ruts. Which put me directly in the wet brush and stickery blackberry vines. Drops splattered my face and dribbled down my neck. My feet squished in my chauffeur shoes. The air smelled of wet woods and rotting logs, mud and my own damp uniform.
I slipped and fell in a puddle, and, whatever part of me wasn’t already wet and muddy, now was. My chauffeur’s cap fell into the puddle too. I whapped it against my thigh and put it back on my head.
At what I guessed was Blue Creek Road, I sat down on a low stump. What is this, God, punishment for my unsatisfactory attitude of late? Penalty for my doubts and misgivings and uncertainties about some of your people?
No answer. God’s voice didn’t boom out here in the wilderness any more than it did at the espresso stand or Sea-tac or anywhere else. I listened for a still, small voice within, but all I heard was my own jittery heartbeat.
But the rain had let up, and I looked up at treetops lost in a gentle mist. Which might be a rather lovely view, ghostly and mysterious, if I wasn’t wet to the bone and sitting on this soggy stump. Even so, there was that line from Genesis, from the old King James version, which the pastor sometimes liked to quote. A line about a mist rising from the earth and watering the whole face of the ground.
Except for the muddy road leading off in both directions, this could be an earth in the beginning. Mist. Primeval forest. No human beings. I closed my eyes and in spite of the water dribbling down my back felt the wonder of it. I took a breath and smelled the fresh newness of it. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
And back before he even created this world and peopled it with us, he was still God. All- powerful, all-knowing. Everlasting and unchanging.
My eyes flew open as realization hit me like a raindrop the size of a Goodyear blimp.
It didn’t matter if I was on this earth or not, whether or not, in fact, there was a single human being on earth.
God was still God!
And nothing anyone did here on this earth changed that. It didn’t matter how we fell short, what flaws we had, what mistakes we made as Christians or not-Christians, he was still God! Whether the youth pastor did wrong in his relationship with a girl, whether an elder fell short with his drinking problem, whether Janice Morgan gossiped on the prayer chain, whether India’s ex-husband betrayed his position as husband and preacher, whether Fitz’s landlord or car salesman cheated him . . . none of that had anything to do with God’s holiness. Those were our flaws, not his.
Sad, I realized, that sometimes Christians turned people away by their actions. Sad that people who weren’t Christians sometimes couldn’t see beyond the petty mistakes of those who were Christians to the great God beyond. People like India and Fitz – and almost me too. All of us, focusing on people, not on God.
He was God! Far above the flaws of us here on earth, far beyond our limited understanding of him. I didn’t have to understand why Jesus was so hard on that fig tree. I didn’t have to understand each and every passage in the Bible that troubled or confused me. Sometimes the Lord opened my eyes to reveal the truth. Sometimes I stubbornly refused to let my eyes be opened. Sometimes the truth was beyond my limited understanding in my time here on earth. We needed each other here on earth, yes. But the foundation relationship was between God and each of us, between God and me.
Lord, you stranded me out here for a reason, didn’t you? You had to bring me to this place, this misty corner of an empty forest . . . without even a spoon for a tool . . . to get through to me. Forgive me for such a fragile faith, Lord. Forgive me that I viewed you through the flaws of people around me. Forgive me that I could ever doubt you.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I thought, now that God had gotten through to me, maybe he’d send a tow truck that just happened to be cruising in the vicinity. He could, of course. He could send one that just happened to have on hand a nice hot mocha latte for me too.
But he doesn’t tend to work that way.
He had, however, provided me with legs that could still walk. So, after going back to check the odometer on the limo and deciding that the campground was probably closer than the paved road down there somewhere, I grabbed my purse, locked the limo again, and started walking.
The road was uphill here. I kept to the middle, dodging the rivulets etching the dirt and gravel. I heard a peculiar sound. I stopped. The sound stopped. I whirled, half-expecting to find someone – something – following me.
No, nothing following. Just the squish-squish, squish-squish of my own shoes. A heel squish with an echoing toe squish.
I squished on. Dusk filtered through the trees and clotted into shadows. Darkness followed, creeping out of the woods and enveloping me.
More noises emanated from the wet woods now that the hammer of rain no longer hid them. Rustles. Squeaks. Thumps. Thuds. Bumps. Thunks. Who knew there could be so many variations in noise? What was in these woods? I tried to envision small, harmless creatures innocently bumbling around in the brush. Squirrels. Raccoons. Lizards. But they immediately morphed into something more ominous. Killer squirrels. Rabid raccoons. Mutant lizards. From there my mind leaped to larger-toothed creatures. Cougar? Bear? A crash bigger than all before stopped me in my tracks. Bigfoot?
There are no monsters bigger than those hiding in our minds, are ther
e?
A tabloid title reared up in front of my eyes: Encounter in the Wilderness! Bigfoot Hitched a Ride in Her Limo!
Which was preferable to the one that popped up next: Vanished Victim Identified by Cinnamon Sunrise Coloring on Hairs Found on Isolated Road!
I wrestled up a Psalm: In God I have put my trust; I will not be afraid.
Okay, Lord, I won’t be afraid. At least I’ll try not to be afraid. Keep me safe, will you, from whatever may be out there? Keep me safe from my own wild imagination! That big noise was probably just an old branch breaking off and falling, right?
Something I’d read once about survival in the wilderness wandered into my mind: Try not to look like food.
Did I look like food? Well, surely not very appetizing food, in my muddy state. But if some wilderness creature was really hungry. . .
I walked and walked, determinedly trying not to look as if I were far down on the food chain. Down into a canyon and up the other side. Leftover raindrops plop-plopped from branches to earth. Wet shoes rubbed a blister on my heel. If there was a sky up there, it was lost in darkness and a shroud of clouds. No stars, no moon.
Darkness that deepened to dungeon dark. I stumbled off the road and had to pick myself up out of the ditch. Locked-in-a-closet dark. Inside-of-a-whale dark.
I will not be afraid. You’re here, aren’t you, Lord?
I sang a song. Well, I huffed it, since my breath was a little short for singing. A new praise song we’d learned a few weeks ago popped into my head, wonderfully appropriate in this bottom-of-the-well darkness. Walking in the light that needs no sun, walking in the light that needs no moon. . .
Lights angled into the trees overhead. A new light from God? No, he’d already made the sun and moon, a job over and done with. The campground? No, wrong direction. Headlights from a car coming up a different fork of the road! Probably the fork I should have taken instead of the one that shunted me over to Blue Creek. And somehow in my walking I’d gotten back over here onto Bob’s preferred road.
For Whom the Limo Rolls Page 22