Wilderness

There was a slight recess at the base of the rock, and the fire was partly shielded from the rain. The smoke crawled up along the rock and slid along the face of the boulder and drifted out of the two-foot space he'd left for it. He went outside and looked. Trees masked much of the upper part of the boulders and hung over the fire hole. The smoke thi

It's a risk, he thought, but it's worth taking. We can't get soaking wet and chilled. To do this we've got to be in good shape. He found a fallen tree and cut several lengths of firewood from it and brought it back in and put it on the fire. Reflecting off the rock the fire spread heat. Janet sat next to it hugging herself.

"Coffee would be nice," she said.

"I know it." "Let's split a granola bar," she said.

"Okay."

"Do you think the rain will slow them up?" she said.

He chewed on his half of the bar. "I don't know. Depends whether they've found a way to get out of it, I should think." He sat near the open end of the shelter, the carbine in his lap, looking at the trail through the screen of white-pine branches.

"Will they see the smoke?" she said.

"It gets lost in the trees," he said. "They might smell it, but they won't know where it is."

"I needed a fire," she said. "I was shaking when I woke up."

"I know. I was freezing too."

Outside the shelter the woods were silent. No bird sound. No insect noise. Nothing moved. The rain came steady and hard, dripping through the spruce branches in places. A bed of coals began to build under the fire as Newman fed it from time to time with more wood cut from the fallen tree. Nothing moved on the trail.

"What do we do," Janet said, "when we see them?"

"We shoot, or I do. You keep the pistol for back-up. It's not very accurate at any distance anyway. If we can get all four of them we're home free. If we can't we keep after them. Even if they get to the lake, remember they got no boats. It will take them a long time to walk around that lake."

She nodded. The lightning came more swiftly after the thunder now. The storm was getting closer. Newman took a book from his pack and thumbed through it. Then he stood up.

"Where're you going?" she said.

"I'm starving. I'm going to see what we can get for food."

"What's the book?"

"A Field Guide to Survival," Newman said. "I slipped it in the pack before we left." "In case Chris got killed," she said.

"Yes, or separated. It's got pictures of edible plants."

"If we get out of this," she said, "you can open a Boy Scout camp."

He nodded. "Here," he said, "you take the carbine, give me the.32.

I'm just going around behind the rocks."

He put the hood up on the nylon jacket, put the.32 in his pants pocket, and went out into the rain. In the stream behind the rocks were cattails. He pulled a dozen out, root, and all, and brought them back into the shelter. He gave Janet back the revolver and with his jackknife cut the roots off the plants and peeled them. Then he put the twelve tubers into the ashes of the fire.

"Are they any good?" Janet said.

"Book says they are sweet and delicious," Newman said.

"I'll bet," she said.

He settled back with the carbine, watching the trail while the cattail roots roasted in the coals. Occasionally he tested them with the blade of his knife to see if they were done, and finally, when the knife slid easily in, he decided they were. He poked them out of the ashes with the knife blade and gave six to Janet. They were too hot to handle so they let them lie on a flat rock while they cooled, and Newman stared at the trail.

"You really mean that," Newman said, "about being tough because you had me to back you up?"

"Yes."

"I never fully got that sense, or the sense that you were aware of it." "I don't know why," she said. "It seems perfectly clear."

"But you're always so manage-y. You're so…" he stopped and stared out at the rain-soaked trail beyond his screen of white-pine boughs, "so separate. You never seem at all dependent."

"Because I don't hold your hand or lean on your arm or run on about how much I need you?"

"Some of that wouldn't hurt," he said.

"It's not the way I am."

"Why not?"

"I suppose it has something to do with fear, fear that if I'm dependent on anything or anyone I can't control my life. It's a control issue, as they say at the consciousness groups."

"You can control me," he said.

"That scares me too. It's like the old Groucho Marx joke. I wouldn't want to depend on anyone I can control."

"Would you be more affectionate if you couldn't control me?"

"Maybe."

"But if you couldn't control me, wouldn't that scare you and make you hostile?"

"Maybe."

"Jesus Christ," he said.

"I love you, you know," she said. "I love you and I am committed to this marriage and to you. If I don't show it the way you do, that doesn't make it wrong."

"I know," he said.

"If I should love you more, maybe you should love me less. The weight of your need is heavy. The pressure of your thwarted romanticism is not pleasant, and you don't miss any chance to remind me that I'm not loving enough."

"I know."

She picked up one of the cattail roots and bit into it. He looked at her and raised his eyebrows. "Well?" he said.

"Sweet and delicious," she said. She chewed it methodically and swallowed.

He stabbed one with the blade of his jackknife and bit off half. He chewed.

"Never trust a field guide," he said and ate the other half.

"See," she said. "You don't like these damned roots and neither do I.

But they're the best we've got and so we'll eat them and make the best of it."

"Half a loaf is better than none?"

She made a noncommittal gesture with her hands. "If you wish. The point is most of the time we enjoy each other very much. Be happy with that. Wanting more than you can have will spoil what you've got."

He reached out with the knife blade and stabbed another root and ate it, chewing ostensively.

"Right now," he said, "I want to kill four men."

She didn't say anything and the rain came down in sheets.

CHAPTER 28.

The rain stopped at three-twelve in the afternoon. The sun did not appear and the temperature dropped slightly. At three-fifteen he said, "They'll come now; we better be out and in a good spot."

"Why are you so sure?"

"Because they must be freezing their ass and soaking wet and hungry as hell and the first chance they get to get the hell out of the woods and get back to civilization they'll take."

"You don't think they'll be looking for us?"

"I think they'll keep an eye out, but I'll bet now they want out. They know who we are. They can get us later."

With the knife he scraped a hole in the floor of the shelter and kicked the coals of the fire into it and covered it with dirt. They slipped into the knapsacks. He looked around the small warm space once and then they left it. They went down the trail thirty yards to a place where a tree had fallen across it. They sprawled flat behind the fallen tree, to one side of the trail. Behind them the trail turned sharply east.

He took out the compass and looked at it, turning it until he could read it. He looked southwest through the trees. Through a break in the trees he could see mountains.

"Look," he said. "See the top of that mountain? It looks like sort of a cockscomb on top?"

"It doesn't look like a cockscomb," she said.

"Well whatever it looks like to you. Study it, get it imprinted. You want to keep walking so that the mountain is about half right of you.

So that you'd half-turn your head so to see it. Halfway between straight ahead and directly to your right."