We walked along the river until the scorching heat of the day forced us to stop and bathe again in the water. It did not feel like we were in any danger and we were all letting our guard down a little. We laughed and participated in splashing fights, soaking one another as we enjoyed the water. We then pressed ourselves up against the steep embankment in the shade, our feet and toes still in the water, half-buried in the sand.
Once the worst of the heat had passed, we continued to follow the river, though Mark was clearly getting worried about our continued path off-course.
When he could no longer handle how long we had been walking along the river without knowing exactly where we were, he decided that we needed to get out of the ravine and find our way back to the main route.
While none of us were very happy about being far away from the cool waters we had miraculously found, we understood that we were still in danger of being caught if we were not careful.
However, getting up the steep, unstable ravine wall proved challenging. Mark tried at every point he thought would provide stable footing, but even with his altered strength as an experiment, he had difficulty finding a suitable spot.
Finally, he decided on the lowest spot we came across, writing the message that he would pull each of us up if we could get to the big boulder sticking out of the side of the ravine. Mark was able to pull himself out ad turned to lay on his belly, reaching down to grab Jeff’s hand as the other man carefully scaled the loose rocks until he had one foot on the boulter. Once Jeff was also at the top of the ravine, they both reach down to help me and then Clark onto the flat land above the river.
However, it took a little longer for Clark to be pulled to safety, as the boulder began to feel unstable under his foot, leaving him to jump as high as he could to grab onto Mark and Jeff‘s hands.
“Just stay there for a second, Jess,” Jeff called, holding his hand up to tell Jessica to wait. He turned to Mark. “I don’t know that that boulder is still secure.” Mark nodded, and motion for Jeff to wait with me and Clark. He got to his feet and jogged along the edge of the ravine, trying to find another place further downstream where Jessica could get on flat land once more.
Jessica shook her head, cupping her hands around her mouth as I peered over the edge to see where she stood.
“It’s okay,” she insisted. “It’ll hold. Just catch my hands when I jump.”
“No, Jess, let’s not risk it.”
Jeff turned to look in the direction Mark had gone, seeing how far away he was when Jessica spoke again.
“No, seriously, I’ll be all right. I’ll jump right when I reach the boulder.”
“Wait until Mark gets back,” Jeff said. However, Jessica was already putting her hands into the narrow marks we had made in the ravine wall. “Jess, dammit, wait!” Jeff snapped.
Jessica did not listen, continuing to scale the short distance to the large boulder that we had all used to launch ourselves into Jeff and Mark’s hands. Her hands closed around the edge of the protruding rock and she began to pull herself up when the boulder rolled downward, giving way under her weight and causing the top of the ravine cave-in. She let out a startled cry as she slid down with a torrent of loose sand and rocks, finally rolling into the water of the river. Clark managed to pull me away from the cave in, but Jeff, who had been laying on his stomach, could not get to his feet fast enough and was holding on to the exposed root of a bush nearby to keep from falling into the ravine again.
Clark and I ran around the weakened earth and both of us pulled Jeff back to the safety of solid ground. Mark, who had heard the commotion, immediately ran to help.
Once Jeff was safe, we all turn our attention to Jessica. She was groaning in pain as she pulled herself out of the river, holding onto what she could of her right leg. I could see that her pants were ripped and her skin had been badly scraped in the fall. Thankfully, she had managed to avoid the boulder falling on top of her, though it now rested mostly in the river.
“Jessica!” Jeff called. “Are you all right?!”
She flinched as she moved, but turned to look at us.
“I’m all right,” she assured. “Just a bit scraped up.”
Mark grabbed onto the exposed root that had held Jeff in place, and carefully swung into the ravine once more, allowing his feet to slide on the loose sand and gravel, his arms wide to keep his balance.
We watched worriedly as he reached Jessica and knelt beside her to look over her wounds. From where I stood, I saw that her skin had been scraped pretty badly, but she was not bleeding profusely, which was a small relief.
Mark looked up at us and motion something that none of us could really make sense of, but we figured that he was going to try and help Jessica out again, since there was a gentler slope now that the boulder had caused the earth to give way.
Thinking quickly, Clark grabbed his backpack, yanking the zipper open and pulling out his spare clothes and jacket. He tied one leg of the pant to one sleeve of the jacket and threw it over the edge to give Jessica something to grab onto that would help us pull her up. Mark helped Jessica to her feet, though she hissed in pain and had to gingerly put weight on her right leg. Gritting her teeth, she endured the pain and tried once more to get out of the ravine. With Mark holding on to her waist, she carefully walked over the new slope of freshly-moved sand and reached for the makeshift rope we had made.
Mark slipped, falling to the ground, and causing Jessica to lose her balance, falling with him. Mark grabbed onto her arm to stop her from going into the river once more as she fell. She let out a short shout of pain when her open wounds slid over the sand once more, but she quickly bit her lip and held on tightly to Mark.
I grabbed a spare pair of pants from my own bag, adding them to the end of Clark’s makeshift rope.
On the second try, Jessica manage to get a hold of the end of the clothing and we pulled her to the surface before helping Mark.
Jessica was not severely injured, though the wound spread over a large expanse of her skin. The scrape was relatively shallow and the skin had been rubbed raw where it had not broken. We were sure that she would be bruised, but there appeared to be no broken bones and nothing deep enough to cause great concern to anyone in the travel party.
Jeff took one of his extra shirts and wet it with his canteen water, wiping it as tenderly over Jessica‘s angry wound as he could while she grit her teeth against the pain.
I rummaged hurriedly through my bag, trying to find the small first aid kit that I remembered putting there.
Unfortunately, they were only a few bandages, one small square of gauze, a tiny pair of scissors, and a few antibacterial wipes to help treat the wound. I handed over the antibacterial wipes but they only lasted long enough for the worst areas of her scrape.
Jessica drank some water and took some calming breaths before looking around at all of us.
“I’m sorry…”
“You’ll be all right,” Jeff assured. “It could’ve been a lot worse.”
“I know…I am really sorry,” Jessica muttered, embarrassed. “I thought it would hold me.”
“It’s all right,” I said, smiling gently at her. “There was no way for any of us to know that would happen.”
With the limited wound care that we could give, I gave Jessica my spare pair to wear to protect the open wound from the harsh rays of the sun. Jessica limped along as best she could to keep pace with us as we moved away from the river, trying to meet up with the original path once more. I hoped we would find it soon to ensure Jessica received better care before infection set in.
However, there was no such luck.
It took us two more days to get to the safe house and it was clear by that a few areas of Jessica’s scrape had become infected.
We tried to wash out the wound with water at every opportunity, but that seemed not enough to clean out the infection creating cloudy pockets along the edge of the wound. Then, when we finally reached the safe house, no one was there.
Unfortunately, the next safe house was one more day away.
Jessica insisted that she was fine and we camped out behind a small ridge near the tiny town, not daring to set up our tent in case someone came by from the nearby community.
I hardly slept, worried about how close we were to the town. It appeared Mark had the same concern, as he also did not sleep.
Mark rose before the sun even begin to light in the sky, hoping that we could get to the next safe house before the day got too hot. We all woke without much protest, ready to be someplace where water and safety was assured.
It took us nearly all day to get to the next town, and then it took over two hours for Mark to finally figure out where the safe house was located. Once again, it was an agricultural area, which made it difficult for us to get close with the lack of structures, trees, or natural outcroppings to hide behind. We disturbed a few herds of cows trying to mask our own movements through the vast fields, taking turns darting to nearby street signs to see exactly where we were.
Finally, we found the house. All of us stuck behind a large, moving sprinkler, while Jeff ran to the house to negotiate our stay there as he had done for all the previous stops.
However, he returned with a worried look on his face.
“There’s no one there,” he told us. “No one answered the door.”
Mark looked around at our location, knowing we could not stay in the open that long. It was impossible to know if the family was gone for only a couple hours, if they were be gone for days, or, worst of all, they had been discovered and captured by the Commission.
Mark decided to check the house for himself, even though it was even more dangerous for him to get close to areas where he could be spotted and labeled as a foreigner. I almost insisted that I would go in his place, but he was adamant that I stay out of sight.
I watched him half-crawl across the field, moving rapidly and silently as he approached the distant farmhouse. I could not see him once he reached the structure, but kept my eyes open for movement to tell me when he was returning.
“Did the house look like it had been ransacked?” Clark asked Jeff.
“No,” Jeff said, shaking his head. “The house looked fine when I looked in the windows. I don’t know, maybe they’re just out for a couple hours…”
I tried with all my might to believe that.
It seems like an agonizingly long time before Mark reappeared, looking puzzled, but not worried.
“What do you think we should do?” Jessica asked.
“There is a fenced backyard. We could hide in there until the house owners come back.”
Agreeing that it would be easier to hide behind a wooden fence than a large, agricultural sprinkler, we all made our way to the house, Mark climbing the fence to open the latch from the other side. We ducked into the backyard and immediately found what little shade there was under the one tree standing next to the far fence. We kept our backs against the fence, allowing us to keep a careful eye out for any neighbors.
Hours passed and it appeared that the family was not coming home.
“You don’t think…“ Clark started, looking at all of us, not daring to finish the sentence. We all shared a knowing glance. Even though it was unlikely, considering that the other safe houses in the network had been fine, there was still a possibility that the safe house had been discovered.
At night fall, Mark picked the lock and briefly investigated the house to see if there were any signs of a Commission Sweep team taking the members of the household.
The rest of us remained in the backyard, waiting for Mark to return. He never turned on the light, nor did we hear any sounds after he had closed the door behind him. I held my breath, praying that the family had not been captured and that we were not walking into a trap.
Mark came back out to the yard, appearing unconcerned. He crouched next to us to write a message that I had to illuminate with my flashlight.
“They’re on vacation. There was a calendar with this week blocked out saying West Coast.”
While I was relieved that the family had not been captured, we needed their help, particularly with Jessica’s growing infection.
We all looked at one another, wondering if we would still utilize the house’s resources, despite the fact that the family was not present. Clark took a deep breath and nodded once.
“We’ll leave the some money,” he said. “If they’re already a safe house, I’m sure they’ll understand.”
It felt wrong to violate the privacy of the family, I put those feelings aside, agreeing with Clark that we needed supplies that we would be unable to get elsewhere. Mark looked at each one of us pointedly, silently asking if we agreed with the plan. One by one, everyone nodded.
We walked into the house but never turn on the lights, waiting for our eyes to adjust to the darkness and using only small flashlights pointed at the floor next to our feet so no one would be able to see the lights from outside the house and call the authorities.
We found a first aid kit under the bathroom sink. Mark immediately tended Jessica’s wound, treating it with proper antiseptic and finding some painkillers to take the edge off. Clark and I explored other areas of the house, being sure no one was there before trying to figure out where the other refugees they had harbored would have slept.
In the basement, we found several rolled up camping mats and a large cabinet filled with jerky and bottled water.
We all convened in the basement, keeping the lights off, though we had one flashlight pointed at the basement ceiling to allow us to see in the dark, windowless room. Jessica, Jeff, and Clark fell asleep quickly.
I looked at Mark. “Will Jessica be all right?” I whispered.
Mark nodded, pulling out his notebook—which was getting very thin with the amount of pages he had already used.
“It will be hard to keep other infections from setting in.”
“Perhaps we could take the anti-septic with us,” I hissed, sure to keep my voice low. Mark nodded once again. “What about food?” I pressed. “How many days to the next safe house?”
Mark wrote in the notebook, hesitating a moment before showing me. “It’ll be five days.”
“That’s a long time…” We were running low on supplies, particularly since we had used some to keep Jessica’s wound as clean as possible. Our food was also running low. I considered getting some food with higher calories, such as junk food, but we had little money left, and I was not about to raid the kitchen of the house that we had already broken into.
“How far are we?” I asked. “How much longer do until we reach the end of the network?” Mark wrote the response in his notebook, the answer both comforting and horrifying.
“Halfway.”
We still had a long journey ahead of us, and I was getting worried that we would face even more difficult obstacles on the second half of the trip.
Chapter Seventy-Eight
We left the house early the next morning and continued our travels through the arid landscape that provided a scarce obstructions to hide us. Mark was getting more nervous with every step, and I was unsure if that was because we were getting closer to the border, and therefore had entered an area where the Commission would patrol more vigorously, or if it was because we were in such open landscapes with the only hiding spots being few somewhat-large bushes sporadically sprinkled over the landscape.
I was getting nervous as well. Even though we had treated Jessica’s wounds, I could still see a few areas we
re infection continued to set in. As usual, we did our best to wash out those areas of the wound, but it occurred to me that the water from our canteens was probably not the cleanest water to use.
We had to skirt the next town with a large arching sweep into the desert, which made it hot and unbearable to walk, slowing us down to a crawl.
Eventually, heat and exhaustion forced us to stop, putting our backs to some of the biggest bushes we could find out in the desert though they provided absolutely no shade.
Mark, Jeff, and Clark spent most of the time mulling over the map, trying to find a faster way to get us across the border and get Jessica help for her injury. I stayed with her, both of us trying to catch our breath and recuperate a little bit of energy while sitting on the hot sand. Jessica looked pale and I tried to determine if it was because of the heat, her exhaustion, or because of the infection. I rummaged through my bag and pulled out one of my last two bags of beef jerky, passing it to her.
She shook her head. “We should be careful about how much salt we eat,” she said. “We’re already running low on water.”
While the boys continued to look over the map, I went through every backpack in an attempt to find some dried fruit, or some non-preserved food for Jessica to eat. Unfortunately, I found nothing.
Defeated, I sat against the prickly bush, looking over the hot desert.
“This place is barren,” I groaned. “It’s hard to believe that people actually live out here.”
Jessica only nodded in response, her eyes closing as if she was too tired to even speak.
I crawled on my hands and knees around the bush and looked in the direction of the town. With the heat, the town looked like a shimmering mirage in the distance. There were no tall buildings, only the faint, wiggling out lines of distant houses and small business. It was too hot to even think about trying to make it into town, but I briefly wondered if there was a truck stop nearby, or even a gas station, that would allow us to get some more food and clean water.
Mark decided that he was going to go scout ahead in search of a new path that could allow us to cut out some of the weaving around the small towns on our way to the border. Clark and Jeff sat with Jessica and I against the bush cluster while Mark walked into the desert.
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