She appeared to be considering that, but then shook her head and said, “No, I’ll be fine here, and besides I don’t have many dry clothes left thanks to you and your saber tooth timber wolf there, so I don’t want to go out in this weather again.”
“Alright, I’ll be over first thing in the morning, breakfast is on me.” I said it with a smile and she smiled back; the bits of swamp mud between her teeth and her hot chocolate mustache starting my laughter over again. She caught the direction of my gaze and realization crossed onto her face. As I was reaching into my backpack to grab my rain gear, she was squinting into a small mascara mirror and swearing. As I left the tent, the bottom dropped out of the sky.
It took me almost forty-five minutes to make it back following her trail. Like I’d imagined, it was a lot longer, but like she described, it was a lot easier. Kudos to both of us. When I made it back I fed Max and heated up some water for another freeze dried Mountain House meal for me, then stripped out of my dirty clothes and gave myself a thorough “baby wipes” bath. I put on some clean clothes and slid inside my sleeping bag. I hadn’t hung the center compartment of my backpack in the tree. I was sure that nothing would be moving in this weather. About 2:00 AM my career as a psychic ended.
Chapter 15
April 23rd
So much to tell, oh . . . so much to tell. Where to begin? My usual predicament strikes again. Well, let me look at my watch . . . OK it’s almost 11:00 PM. So it’s been almost twenty-four hours since my last update. Let me start there.
I must have been tired because the last thing I remember was getting in my sleeping bag. I was probably asleep before my head hit the pillow, but it hardly seemed like I had closed my eyes when Max let out a low continual rumble. I groggily reached out my hand and rubbed his hind quarters but he didn’t stop. The waves of rain were pummeling my tent, blowing it almost sideways in the hard wind. I looked at my watch, the luminescent numbers indicated 2:13 AM. Max’s rumble slowly increased in intensity until it was a growl. That woke me up. It was pitch black inside my tent as I quietly felt for my backpack and released the 10/22. I dug my hand into one of the side pockets of the Osprey pack and pulled out a twenty-five round magazine, slipping it in place of the ten round factory one I had in the rifle. I knew the chamber already had a round ready to go in it. There’s no sense in carrying a gun if you’re going to have to fumble around trying to get it ready to fire should you need it in a hurry. Identify your target, click off the safety, point, fire if required. That should be the process. I was under no illusions about the effectiveness of a 22 against a bear, but a face full of twenty-five CCI hypervelocity Stingers should add quite a bit of discouragement, and then there was Max to deal with. Over the sound of the storm I heard something moving outside. My 10/22 has a small but very bright quick release weapon light mounted on a rail system built in to the folding stock, but if I turned it on right now I would flood the inside of my tent with light, effectively blinding me as well as backlighting my entire shelter, kind of like turning on the “open for lunch sign” to any nearby bears. I slowly got on one knee and used the tried and true Braille method to trace my fingers around the zipper line until I found the pull. Grasping it with the thumb and forefinger of my left hand, I gently eased it down about a foot, just enough for me to thrust the rifle out far enough that the weapon light would illuminate my target and not the inside of my tent. A blast of cold air shot through the opening as I steadied myself, reaffirmed my grip on the gun and got ready to flip the switch on the light. The noise was closer. It was now or never. I flipped the switch and turned a dark, stormy wedge shaped swath of North Dakota into daylight, well, not quite. The wind was slapping the rain fly against my tent roof, sending cascades of water droplets sparkling through the beam of my light, my right finger was on the safety, ready go if necessary. I saw nothing, scanned a little right—nothing. I started panning left . . . THERE! Twenty-five feet away, jet black, low to the ground and moving slowly with a rolling motion . . . pink feet. Pink feet? WTF? I blinked my eyes hard, trying to squeeze some of the sleep sand out of them. It shifted again, rolling, sitting upright . . . “Eh . . . . . . . . . . . . . Errrr . . . . . . . Er . . . icccc . . . .”
Holy crap! I use my left hand to thumb the release for the light, freeing it from the rail while my right hand was jerking down the tent zipper. “Max, wait,” I said to him as I took off outside into the storm, the icy rain shocking me fully awake. I could hear him whine in complaint—he wanted to be where the action was. Five seconds later I was leaning over Emily, pulling her to her feet. She was wrapped in a dark soggy sweatshirt and sweatpants, no hat, pink tennis shoes and gloves. Her teeth chattered uncontrollably as she mumbled parts of my name.
“Eri . . . ri . . . . . . Eh . . . . . . Ka ka ka . . . . . . .colddd . . . .”
Two half steps later her knees buckled and she collapsed, I managed to catch her just before she smacked into the rocks. I picked her up and carried her into my tent, shoving the flap aside with her dangling arm. Part of the training that I’ve gone through in the past few years has been to get certified as a wilderness first responder, kind of like a “backwoods paramedic.” Emily was in real danger from hypothermia.
“Emily, listen to me, we’ve got to get you out of these wet clothes right now, do you understand me?” She was shivering and shaking so hard I couldn’t tell if she understood. I didn’t have time to repeat it. Grabbing the bottom of her sweatshirt I yanked it up over her head, she had some kind of yellow long sleeve shirt underneath, it came off just as fast. I gently but quickly lowered her onto her back and shucked her sweat pants off, turning them inside out as they went down. The ankle cuffs caught on her tennis shoes so I grabbed them through the material and yanked of them off together. Her socks and pink gloves were next. She had nothing else on. Scooping her up I moved on my knees over to my sleeping bag, Max was standing, sniffing, watching—unsure. I slid Emily inside my sleeping bag, it’s an oversize model lined with flannel, twenty degree rating I think. At some point, I don’t remember when, I had clenched my weapon light between my teeth to free both of my hands. Tearing open the top section of my backpack I grabbed the Pocket Rocket, set it on a level spot then lit it. I took my stainless steel mug from my mess kit, used the water from my canteen and set it on the stove. I could see Emily shivering inside the sleeping bag. I started to get really worried. I threw a tea bag and a few sugar cubes in the mug, testing it with my finger—not warm enough. The same zip lock bag that had the tea and sugar in it also had a few of the red swizzle sticks, so I grabbed several and stuck them in the mug. I was starting to get a little chilled myself from where my clothes had been soaked carrying Emily. I stripped off my sweatshirt and rechecked the tea—I needed to get her core temperature up as fast as possible and warm liquids are the best way, if she was capable of drinking—still not warm enough though. Two minutes later I tested it again, it was hot enough now so I pulled the mug off and shut down the stove. Reaching down I held the cup near her face, swizzle sticks very close to her mouth.
“Emily, drink . . . Come on Emily, you need to drink this right now. Come on.” She raised her head slightly, neck trembling, trying to catch the small straws with her unsteady lips. I guided them in and watched her take a few tiny pulls.
“That’s good, keep trying . . . you need to get this all down as fast as you can, OK?” Several more minutes of encouraging and guiding the straws to her lips accomplish that task, but she was still shivering just as hard. I reached inside my sleeping bag and put my hand on her bare stomach, it was ice cold. Crap.
“Emily . . . Emily, can you hear me?” She mumbled something incoherent. “Emily, I need to get you warmed up, OK? Emily, I’m going to get into the sleeping bag with you, you’re going to be fine but we need to get you warm right away, OK?”
I stripped off down to my briefs and climbed into the sleeping bag with Emily, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her close, spooning as much as the width of the sleeping bag would
let me. I’ve got to tell you, being in intimate proximity with a very cute Asian lady was the furthest thing from my mind at that point. She was freezing cold, trembling with each shallow breath. I could feel tremors in every part of her body. Her hair was still soaking wet so I gently pulled as much of it as I could up and out the top of the sleeping bag, grabbed my poncho liner that had slid to the side and pulled it over top of our faces. Ten minutes later I spun, pulling her arm up and over me as I crushed my lower body against her legs and torso. I flipped sides three more times over the next hour, always molding myself as close as I could get to her body. My weapon light was still on, still providing dim illumination from underneath whatever item of wet clothing had covered it. Her chest was pressed against my shoulder blades before the third turn—I disengage her arm and spun, facing her. Her eyes fluttered open, the dim light causing specks of golden yellow to dance across their surface as she looked at me. Her body had stopped quivering, she seemed to be breathing easier. She slowly moved her arm to reach around the back of my neck, pulled herself closer, her lips pressed into my chest, planting a soft kiss there. “Thank you,” she murmured as she fell asleep.
I stayed awake for another hour or so before sleep took over my tired body. When I awoke, it was like emerging from a dream. There were gentle kisses on my neck, my ears, my shoulder—they turned urging, insistent—accompanied by the erotic fragrance of dog breath. Ugghhh . . . dog breath. The kisses turned into licks, then hair pulling and paws on my face. Max! Sometime during the night I had returned to spooning Emily, her back was molded to my chest, the top of my thighs underneath the back of hers. Her head was lying on my right arm, and she was clutching my left arm against her chest. Directly against her chest. Her bare chest. She was sleeping easily; breathing deep and steady snuggled against me inside the warm sleeping bag. Too warm right now. Max “wet nosed” my ear again and gave a little whine, he needed to go outside—so did I. I carefully slid my hand away from her grasp and eased out of the sleeping bag, taking care to keep her covered as much as possible. It was still rainy, windy and cold outside, I could hear the “tic-tic . . . tic-tic-tic” of scattered bits of sleet mixed in as well. As quietly as I could I threw on some clothes, unzipped the tent enough for Max to get out and followed him into the rain, rezipping the tent behind me. It was a miserable outside, windy and cold with leaden gray skies. I walked about sixty feet away from the tent, found a little cut out in the willows and relieved myself. I hadn’t thrown my rain gear on so by the time I made it back my sweatshirt was pretty wet. Entering the tent I saw Emily sitting up, sleeping bag still wrapped around her, hair bunched up and tasseled around her face, neck and shoulders. She looked up at me with a sleepy smile and said, “My turn, got any clothes I can wear?”
I dug into my backpack and pulled out a set of Under Armour thermals; they fit snug on me but would hang off of her like drapes. I added a dry long sleeve sweat shirt and one of my tee shirts, the one that said, “NORTH DAKOTA WILDLIFE CONSERVATION OFFICER TRAINING SCHOOL” left over from my days in the academy. I handed Emily the pile of clothes and then turned around, giving her some privacy.
A few seconds later she said, “Can you pass me my shoes?”
“They’re still wet, gonna be cold too,” I replied.
“I know, but they’re better than nothing. Do you have any Kleenex or toilet paper?” she asked.
I reached into my backpack and removed a small roll of toilet paper, held it out behind me and felt her take it.
“You can turn around, I’m dressed now. Can I borrow your raincoat?” she added.
I leaned over to the edge of my tent past the backpack and retrieved the jacket section of my wet weather gear. Spinning around on my knees I saw that Emily was standing in the center of my tent, scrunched over a little to clear the ceiling and looking decidedly like a homeless person with the huge baggy clothing of mine she was wearing. I’m six foot-four inches, and she was barely five feet tall, and when she took the raincoat and put it on, it added to the illusion that she lived in a cardboard box under a bridge somewhere.
“Can you make us some tea or hot chocolate?” I nodded and she went out into the rain.
I spent the next few minutes cleaning up the tent, moving all of the wet clothes off to the side and out of the way. Max has a towel, a big light purple beach towel that travels with us for his bed. I call it his “Barney.” Because of the color. But you probably figured that out. Barney was scrunched up into a pile near the door so I straightened him out, giving Max his “personal space area” for when he returned. I lit the stove to start some water boiling for hot chocolate, cracking the window cover open a slight bit for some ventilation. I had a few packs of instant soup out as well, although I wasn’t really in the mood for soup. I wasn’t really hungry at all for some reason. A few minutes later just as the water started boiling Emily returned. She took off my rain jacket and her shoes, scooted across the sleeping bag and grabbed my poncho liner, wrapping it around herself as she sat down Indian style. I only had one large metal cup in my mess kit, so I added two packets of hot chocolate and stirred it with a swizzle stick, handed it to Emily with the standard “Careful, it’s hot.” She took it without a word, closing her eyes in contentment with her first sip. A few seconds later she opened her eyes and took another sip, deeper, and then offered the cup to me. I shook my head no. Not that I didn’t like hot chocolate, just that I didn’t like my hot chocolate boiling hot. Cat tongue they call it. I spent the next few minutes studying Emily silently, enjoying her obvious satisfaction with the scalding hot beverage. Her eyes never left me either. She drained the last bit, upending the mug to catch the slurry at the bottom, then licked her lips and handed the mug back to me. I gave an involuntary shiver as my rain dampened clothing sent a chill through me.
“Eric,” Emily said, “you are in real danger in those wet clothes, you could freeze to death out here, I’ve got to get you warmed up.” She said it with a perfectly level tone, but the sparkle in her eyes was unmistakable as she sat up on her knees and leaned over towards me, grabbed the bottom of my sweatshirt and peeled it up and off of me. My shoes came off next.
I really was starting to get cold now, sitting there in the tent with no shirt on. I saw her shake her head and she said, “Nope, your sweatpants are wet too.” Her hands pushed my chest backwards until I was laying on top of the sleeping bag, then traced their way teasingly down my ribs and across my stomach, hooking underneath my briefs. Her eyes never wavered from mine as she gave a slow tug, paused for a second and then slowly drew them all the way down and off, taking my sweatpants with them as well. I started to shiver. She threw her leg over top of me, balancing on her knees as she straddled my stomach.
“I saw a movie once,” she began, “where these two people were stranded in a snowstorm. They managed to find a remote cabin but couldn’t get a fire started, so in order to keep each other warm they had to share their own body warmth.”
“Seems re—re—reasonable,” I mumbled through chattering teeth, watching as she shook her head, her long hair whipping slowly back and forth.
She grabbed the bottom of both the t-shirt and sweat shirt she had borrowed from me, pulling them up and off in one fluid motion, then dropped down, her hands on the sleeping bag above my shoulders, her face just inches from mine as her beautiful ebony hair cascaded over both of us. “Eric . . . thank you, thank you for saving my life last night.” Emily took her time and enunciated every word. Then she kissed me, delicate at first, then harder. She kissed her way down my chin, lingering on my neck before moving further down. A few minutes later my eyes closed and my hands clenched the floor of the tent. Damn, it was hot in here . . .
Chapter 16
Afterwards, we lay side by side on top of the sleeping bag that we had unfolded, covered only by the poncho liner. Her head was tilted to the left, resting against my shoulder. Her hand was against mine, her fingers tracings small circles on my palm. She still had on my baggy Under Armour thermal pan
ts. We were both quiet, maybe enjoying the moment—maybe neither of us wanting to be the first to speak. I had been in this situation before. It was the “critical time” where what you say or do next determines the future of your relationship, for good or ill. I rolled onto my right side and brushed my fingers through her hair, twirling it into long ringlets. Her dark eyes watched me with a mixture of apprehensiveness, neediness and fear.
I met her gaze, gave a reassuring smile and said, “Turn over.”
“Why?” she said as her eyebrows narrowed a little.
“Emily, do you trust me?” Part of me wanted to raise and lower my own eyebrows like Groucho Marx, but I managed to keep my face straight and serious.
“I want to.” She said it slow, the hesitation conveying the unspoken words, “I have been hurt before.”
“Then roll over on your stomach.”
She waited another thirty seconds or so, just long enough to sell herself the idea that it was her choice to turn over, not my request. Once she was on her tummy I scooted right next to her and rearranged the poncho liner so it covered both of us more evenly. I took my left hand and placed it on her shoulders, rubbing gently in large circles. I felt her tense up at first, but she began to relax with each knot I rubbed out. I moved my hand to her mid back, digging small circles along the edge of her spine . . . heard her let out a small “Mmmm . . .” Mimicking her move, I got up on my knees and straddled her body, using both of my hands to press lightly along her lower spine and hips.
“So, in that movie you saw, the one where they were stuck in the cabin and had to share body warmth, did they make it out alive?” I asked.
She turned her head a little so she wasn’t talking directly into the sleeping bag. “Eventually, but they had to spend several weeks snowed in at the cabin.”
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