*click*
Campsite is up. I found a small U-shaped clearing in the willows about seventy feet from the lake. A nice flat spot on a piece of slightly elevated land, almost like it was made specifically for my tent. The willows will also give me a good windbreak. As far as I can tell, there are only two downsides to this place. The first is that the nearest tree that’s large enough for me to hoist my pack out of bear range is almost 200 feet away. The second downside is that Emily is not here. So much for quick and easy. I spent some time gathering some dead wood, piled it up and covered it with a garbage bag held down by rocks. I’ve got a choice to make now. I’ve got to assume that the guide had at least a mediocre knowledge of what he was doing. That means they’re going to set up their tent as a base camp and travel outward from there each day. Looking at my map, the two most likely places are both about two to three miles away. One to the west-northwest and one to the east. Yep, opposite directions. Figures. Max is playing in the lake, picking up rocks and throwing them with his mouth and then sticking his face underwater and picking it up again. Clown. It looks like a good lake for fishing, then again most lakes up here do. In the lake directly out from my tent a single tree is standing. The tree isn’t alive, but it looks really cool, especially with the eagles nest in the top of it. I haven’t seen the eagle yet though. I brought a small telescoping rod with me, maybe I’ll try it later. Right now I want to see if I can find the girl. East or west, which way do I go, which way do I go?
*click*
I’m back at my tent. It’s about 3:00 PM. I picked west, and as far as I can tell I picked wrong. I didn’t see any sign of a campsite, or any signs at all that somebody had been in that direction. I had a brief fantasy that I had asked Doc for Emily’s hat, and Max used the scent from the hat to track her down. Yep, fantasy. Max has a great nose, I just never had the time or inclination to work with him on tracking.
*click*
It’s almost 11:00 PM. The weather outside is horrendous, wind whipping and rain coming down in sheets. The temperature is still dropping fast. Probably in the mid-thirties right now. I, however, am lying in my tent, toasty and warm, smiling. Want to know why? Good, ‘cause I’m going to tell you. When I got back from my “westward fruitless expedition” it was about 3:00 PM. The clouds were looking heavy and the wind gusts were increasing. I decided to head east for about an hour, and if I didn’t find anything I’d come back to my tent and refine my plans for a search tomorrow. Max and I started out, walking around the gravel edge of the lake as much as we could to avoid the willow thickets and briars. We found a heavily used game trail that zigzagged through the low hills in the general direction we want to go, so we followed that for about half a mile. I did find a few old tracks, human, impossible to tell how old for sure, but at least prior to the last rain we’ve had. We were getting close to the crest of a small rise when Max stopped, legs frozen in place and shifting his head and neck left and right. He was looking straight ahead, sniffing the air. I could see his ears cocking, gathering in some sound that only he could hear. I gave a low whistle and motioned for him to wait while I walked slowly up the rise. Ten feet further I caught a whiff of smoke. I stopped, took off my pack and grabbed my binoculars. My intention was to use the low elevation of the rise to find where the smoke was coming from. That took about three and a half seconds. When I crested the small hill, I saw another lake directly in front of me. But that wasn’t all I saw. About seventy feet straight ahead was a yellow and black cabin tent, the words “National Geographic Wildlife Survey Team” plainly stenciled in several locations. But I barely noticed it because standing in front of the tent was a completely naked woman with long dark hair, almost to her waist. She had a large cast iron Dutch oven suspended on a metal tripod over a fire. A balled up cloth in her hands was being dipped into the pot and then used to scrub her down. Everywhere. I held my binoculars up to my eyes for a better look. She was short, maybe 5’ 1”, willowy but very fit looking, I could see her abs clearly. I slowly lowered myself into a crouch, Max had snuck up beside me and was watching the scene as well. She was definitely Asian, or at least partly so. Max and I watched as she quickly cleaned herself from feet to face, shivering in the chill wind as she scrubbed. When she was done she picked up a towel that was lying on the ground, wrapped it around her and went into the tent. I forced myself to wait five full minutes. Probably a good idea . . . wouldn’t want to show up as a rescuer with a hard on. After five minutes I re-shouldered my pack and walked down the small hill. About twenty feet away from the tent I called out, “Hello the campsite, is anybody there?” I knew somebody was there but I didn’t necessarily want her to know that. I heard some shuffling inside the tent, so I moved a little closer and called out again, “Hello, anybody home.”
A few seconds later a voice responded. “Yes, we’re here with National Geographic, is there something we can do for you?”
“Yes, you can come out of the tent,” I said it kind of playfully, but she took it the wrong way.
Some more shuffling came from the tent and then she said, “I’ve got a gun.”
“Well, that makes two of us then,” I replied dryly.
“I’m serious, stay away or I’ll shoot,” she said.
I said, “Emily, if you shoot me you may never get back to civilization.”
“How do you know my name?” she asked quickly.
Time to end this. “Emily, my name is Eric. I spent the last two days busting my ass through twenty miles of thorns and swamps to find you. Your grandfather Doc Collins sent me. Now if you don’t mind, you and I need to talk and figure out our best plan for getting out of here, because the helicopter is not coming back for you. Or me,” I added.
I heard some more shuffling then the tent flap unzipped a short distance and a face peered out at me, a very cute face, elfin. Max was about twenty feet to my right, out of her view for the moment.
She looked at me carefully, studying me, gathering details that would probably be lost to the everyday observer. It occurred to me that she was looking at me through photographer’s eyes. Not that I’m a model or anything like that, I guess I just think that people have a tendency to view the world through their own personalized glasses. Go with what you know, and all that.
Her face pulled back into the recesses of the yellow tent accompanied by a quick “Hold on, I’ll be out in a minute.”
That “minute” turned into about ten as I waited outside, getting both more amused and more impatient at the same time with each passing second. She finally stepped out of the tent, hands in the pockets of an oversized, bright yellow knee length parka. The look on her face showed that she was still judging me . . . deciding. Max had moved up, he was about ten feet from her in the seven-o-clock position. She hadn’t seen him yet.
“You know, I really could have shot you.” She said it in a voice tinged with a mixture of local and distant accents. It sounded both comforting and reassuring, but there was an underlying spice of exotic flair that juxtaposed . . . Damn, did I just use the word “juxtaposed”? That’s gotta be the third time I’ve done that in my life, and the first two times were in my English lit class. Anyway, her voice sounded really nice. I noticed her hands were still in her pockets . . . still trying to convince me of my imminent personal danger if I wasn’t who I said I was. I decided to play along for a minute.
“You mean shot me with a camera, right?”
She didn’t answer right away, almost like she was weighing the options based on a myriad of potential responses she could give. I got the impression I was dealing with a girl who was probably smarter than me. A lot smarter.
She took a sidestep to her left, eyeing the small rifle I had attached with quick release straps to the frame of my backpack. Doing this put Max directly at her six. She avoided my question about the camera and said, “They’d never find your body, the bears up here are pretty hungry this time of year. If I had to shoot you, I’d totally get away with it.” The mischievous sparkle in her eyes
conflicted with the serious tone she put in her voice.
“No, you wouldn’t get away with it,” I said with a slight shake of my head.
She moved her face backward slightly, opening her eyes wide in a fake “disbelief” posture. “Let me guess, there’s a whole army right behind you, and if you give some magical prearranged signal they’ll charge out of the bushes and fill me full of lead.”
I knew I shouldn’t have done it, but I did it anyway. I couldn’t resist. I said, “No, the army isn’t behind me, it’s behind you . . . MAX . . . PROTECT!”
I’ve replayed what happened next over and over again in my mind. Every single time it gets funnier. It’s one of those memories that you hope flash right before your eyes immediately prior to meeting your maker. A reminder of life and laughter, at least if you believe that Roy Rogers quote “Everything is funny as long as it happens to somebody else.”
When I gave that command Max lowered his front quarters slightly, assumed the “rabid wolf” posture and started snarling and snapping his jaws. Emily let out an unearthly shriek and took off like a bolt of lightning, straight past me, accelerating with every step. Her parka flew out behind her like a cape revealing pink long johns underneath. One of her sleeves caught on the iron tripod, momentarily delaying her as she flew by as well as knocking it down and dumping the water in the Dutch oven. A huge mushroom cloud of steam and ashes exploded upward and enveloped her, temporarily blocking my vision. When it dissipated I caught another glimpse of her running at full speed, kicking her legs out like a duck with every step. She had been wearing flip flops. To the very end of my life I would have bet my bottom dollar that she had enough momentum to clear the fallen log on this side of what turned out to be a large mud hole. She didn’t.
I don’t know how long I laid on the ground like a turtle, backpack still on and holding my gut I was laughing so hard. It had to be at least ten minutes. Max was sitting beside me and I swear his grin was bigger than mine. Eventually I heard a voice shouting from the brush past the mud hole.
“That wasn’t very funny . . . it’s not going to bite me is it?”
I forced myself to suppress my laughter long enough to get out a “Come on back, he won’t hurt you.” I hit the release tabs around my shoulders and waist, freeing the backpack and allowing me to sit up. I buried my face in my hands, my body rocking back and forth with renewed hilarity as I heard her approach. “Flip-slap . . . flip-slap . . . flip-slap . . .” The sound stopped a short distance away. My shoulders started heaving up and down; my chest was sucking in more and more air, building up to a crescendo and waiting to be unleashed, the giggle loop in action. I looked up and lost it. She was standing there, teeth chattering in the cold, covered head to toe in a combination of ashes, mud and various twigs and leaves that somehow accompanied the mud. Her face was a solid brown layer with the exception of two semi-decomposed willow leaves that had somehow managed to stick directly above her eyes, emphasizing her Asian heritage and giving her a comical kabuki theater puppet look. She was holding one of her flip flops, the strap was broken. Her bare foot was slowly tapping on the ground, waiting for me to stop laughing. I rolled onto my side, chest still heaving as my hands fumbled into a small zipper pocket on my backpack. I took out my little waterproof digital point and shoot camera, aimed it at her as she frowned and fired off a few shots. Then I lost it again and couldn’t stop laughing for another five minutes.
Eventually I was able to function again, probably due in large part to the fact that she was still standing there with her teeth chattering, jumping up and down and rubbing her hands on her shoulders to keep the shivering to manageable levels. I gathered more wood and quickly got a fire going. As I was doing that I told her to go into the tent and towel off as much of the mud and dirt and she could before she changed clothes. When she came out she looked vaguely human again, dressed in several layers of clothes and covered with a University of Virginia raincoat, one of those cheap ones they give out for you to attend the football games with. The weather was starting to take another turn for the worse, the temperature was still dropping and the wind was making it difficult to get any effective heat off of the fire.
“Emily,” I said, “I’m one hundred percent for enjoying mother nature in all of her aspects, but maybe you ought to consider inviting me into your tent so we can get out of this weather for a little bit.” She nodded her head and went inside, I followed. Max trailed behind but wouldn’t come any further into the tent than a few feet inside the door. I’m not the neatest person in the world, but the inside of the large tent looked like a tornado hit it. Clothes, sleeping bags, coolers and backpacks were scattered everywhere. Several large Pelican cases were stacked against the back wall. She saw me looking around at the mess and said, “Don’t ask.” So I didn’t. She was still shivering slightly so I used my Pocket Rocket stove to heat up some water. I asked her if she had any cups and she fumbled around underneath some bags on the floor and brought out a few Styrofoam soup bowls.
“Will these work?” she asked.
“Yep,” I said, “your choice—hot tea or hot chocolate?”
“I would kill for a big cup of hot chocolate right now,” she said nodding her head.
“Well let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” I replied.
When it was ready I poured it into the soup bowls. She sat back and tilted it to her lips, inhaling the frothy steam as she sipped. I watched as she closed her eyes, savoring each swallow. When she was finished I refilled it with the contents of my bowl.
“You should take off your raincoat, it’s going to trap the moisture and make you sweat.”
She set down her bowl and removed the thin plastic poncho, then a sweatshirt. I caught her looking at Max out of the corner of her eyes, so I formally introduced them. Max came over at my call and sniffed her outstretched hand, then allowed a brief pat on his shoulder before returning to the doorway.
“He’s beautiful . . . and huge. It’s like he just extrudes vitality and authority. Do you think he’d let me photograph him?”
“Maybe you should wait until he gets to know you better,” I replied, not kidding either. Like I said, Max will tolerate people at my insistence, but when he decides he’s had enough—that’s it. He’ll either leave the area, or through his actions will make the people around him want to leave the area, quickly.
She finished her hot chocolate and said, “So grandpa sent you after me, right? And for some reason there’s no helicopter ride at the end of what so far has not been my dream come true.”
“Emily, I have a lot of things to tell you, a lot of things have happened in the past few days, world changing things we think. I really need you to listen, ask questions if you have to but let me tell you what’s been going on, OK?”
To her immense credit she did just that. I spent the next hour or so telling her everything I could think of. I thought about holding back on some of the stuff like the extra fuel that Walter had, but I figured that if Doc was in our group, there was no real reason to keep secrets from her. Part way through my story I saw her shiver again slightly, maybe from the cold—maybe from what I told her about my sweep team’s encounter with the yellow eyed ghoul.
“That was Derek,” she said, “and Anthony, the big black guy was my PA, photographic assistant. He was such a sweet guy,” she wrapped her arms around her shoulders, quivering.
I scooted next to her, selecting a mostly dry blanket from the pile on the floor and put it around both of our shoulders. She wedged up against me as I continued. I went over the decision to send Michelle and Uncle Andy for the radios and me and Max up here. I told her about my trip on the Gator and fighting my way through five miles of hard brush to get to the clearing. About the only thing I left out was watching her give herself a sponge bath. When I was finished I told her that we needed to leave first thing tomorrow morning, and reminded her to take only what she could comfortably carry for an extended journey through some hard country. She looked around the tent, a
nd said, “I don’t think you understand this Eric, but there’s over $50,000 worth of camera equipment in this tent. I’m responsible for that, I can’t just leave it here.”
I took a deep breath before replying. “Take only what you can carry,” I said slowly, “we’ll try and come back later if possible to pick up the other stuff, OK?” She and I both knew I said that just to pacify her.
“Where is your tent?” she asked.
I started to describe the little alcove in the willows and she jumped in with, “That’s right next to where the eagle’s nest is, right?” I nodded yes.
“I know right where you are. Did you take the lake trail to get here?”
I told her about my journey through the willows and on the old game trail, but she shook her head and said, “There’s a lot easier way to get back.” She then described a roundabout way following a route that encircled the lake. I pulled out my map and she showed me. Her way was at least a half mile longer, but if it was a clear path it might be faster.
The first intermittent drops of rain tapped against the nylon tent fly. Every so often the wind direction would change, snapping the shelter’s fabric against itself. It was obvious to me that this particular tent was chosen more for its advertising value than its harsh weather protection ability. I told Emily that.
She looked around and said, “I think I’ll be OK tonight.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, “You’re more than welcome to spend the night with me and Max.”
Fade to Grey (Book 1): Fade to Grey Page 20