Chapter 8
Ron woke up before Brenda and was fixing a meal when she slid out of the shelter. She dressed in front of the shelter and walked over to the fire. She did not recognize what Ron was cooking. He saw her trying to see what was in the pot.
"Chickweed and blueberries," he said, "We are going to have to start living off of the land a bit. I don't want to use the last of our MRE's. If we get to a place where the land won't feed us we'll use the MRE's."
They both ate in silence. Brenda was not sure about the mixture but after she tried it she decided that it wasn't too bad. Not as good as a steak though.
"There are a lot of plants that you can eat in the wild," Ron said, " This time of year we can pretty much live off the land totally. I've seen blueberries, lingonberries and choke cherries as we have been walking. After the first big frost it will be a different story. Besides chickweed we can eat clover, squaw root and lamb's quarters."
Brenda continued eating and hardly said a word while they were getting ready to travel. They packed the gear on the sled and Brenda grabbed her pack and they started through the woods. Ron kept heading due north. The trees were thinning out a bit and the going was getting easier. They passed several small streams so water was not a problem. Ron pointed out several berries that they could eat and they ate several handfuls each. Ron cautioned Brenda about eating too many berries. They did not want to be slowed down by diarrhea.
The terrain was becoming rockier as they made their way on the second day. The going was a lot tougher and Ron knew that they wouldn't be able to make the same progress that they had the first day. Brenda had to rest more often. Her boots were beginning to bother her and Ron made a few adjustments to the padding. Ron started to worry. If he could not fit the boots better they would not be able to make the progress each day to get them out of this mess.
About mid-day Brenda screamed. Ron dropped the sled and ran back to her. She had a terrified look on her face and seemed frozen. A rattlesnake had been sunning himself on the rocks and was rattling and about to strike if Brenda had moved. Ron moved closer to the snake making sufficient noise to distract the snake and turn the snake's attention to Ron. The snake turned his attention to Ron and knew instinctively that Ron was out of striking distance. Ron moved further away from Brenda drawing the snake's attention away from Brenda. When Ron was far enough away the snake slithered off of the rocks and into the woods.
Brenda was still frozen. Tears were running down her face. Ron went over to her and took her hand and led her away from the rocks where the snake had been sunning himself. He continued until they came to a small stream and Brenda sat down hard on the stream's bank and started to cry. Ron stood next to her and let her calm down.
Brenda calmed down enough to talk.
I thought that he was going to strike," she said trying not to start sobbing again.
Ron talked quietly to help her calm down, "Did you notice the large bulge in the snake's body? He has just eaten a mouse or some other small rodent and he wouldn't have struck unless there was nothing else he could have done to get away from you. It would be hard for him to strike with the weight of that meal inside of him. That snake was tickled to death to make it back into the woods."
Brenda put her face in her hands and started to cry again. Ron got up and started to make camp for the day. He knew that Brenda had had enough of the woods for this day.
Ron started to build the shelter for them and let Brenda calm down. He piled the stones up to reflect the heat into the shelter. When the camp was as complete as he was going to make it, he went over to where Brenda was sitting and staring at the stream.
"Ron, when are we going to get out of this?" she asked as he walked up to her, "I can't put up with much more of this."
We're going to make it, Brenda," Ron replied, "We just have to keep going. There should be a few gravel roads through the park and when we get to one the going will be easier.
"I hope so," Brenda said so softly that Ron could barely hear what she said.
Ron waved his hand toward the shelter he had just built. "I have our deluxe hotel accommodations all ready for us and after I get cleaned up I'll fix dinner." He gave her a big smile.
Brenda turned to look at the shelter; "I used to think that roughing it was having to stay at the Holiday Inn.
Ron and Brenda spent the afternoon checking the gear and repacking what they could on the sled. They both bathed as well as they could in the stream. They did not have the luxury of a pool this time.
Ron fixed a MRE for their dinner. He did not feel that Brenda was in the mood for a foraged meal and he hoped that the meal would help lift her spirits. After they ate they sat in silence and waited for dark.
Brenda sat quietly and her mind was in turmoil. This trip had upset all of her plans but that did not seem to upset her as much as she thought it should have. Her stay at Howell had been a rewarding on for her and she knew that Sam Howell felt that it was rewarding for Howell also. She knew that she was considered ruthless and hard to get along with but she was afraid to let anyone get close and hurt her career. She had read a book once about children of alcoholics and that this one of the traits of a child of an alcoholic.
She stole a glance at Ron and saw that he was deep in thought and staring at the stream. She was starting to realize that her distrust of Ron was really jealousy of his close relationship with Sam Howell. When they were back in Seattle she had had no idea that Sam had raised Ron. That explained why Sam trusted Ron to take on the problem assignments. She knew that Ron had made a lot of money for Howell and had turned around several projects that had gone bad. There had been rumors that Ron would someday take over Howell but she did not believe the rumors. She now realized that she new very little about what Ron did at Howell. She was busy in her department and only saw Ron occasionally. If only she had known what he was really like things may have been different.
Ron sat staring at the stream. He was worried because he had been sure that they would have stumbled on to one of the several roads through the park by now. He had not discussed this with Brenda because he did not want to worry her. Once he had thought that he had smelled smoke but he had not been sure. If he had smelled smoke it meant that there was a cabin or camp close by. Tomorrow he would get on one of the higher elevations and try to scan the woods for smoke. If there was a cabin, maybe they had a radio and could call in help.
Ron stole a glance at Brenda. He was worried that she was starting to panic. She apparently had never had any experience in the woods and was uncomfortable being in the woods. She was a capable engineer and a first-class businesswoman, but those qualities did not do much for you in the woods. He wished that he had given her more of a chance back at Howell but she was so hard to get close to. A couple of times he had started to ask her out and had chickened out. She was a beautiful woman and, as he had found out at the pool yesterday, she had a great body. A few of the men at Howell had tried to date her when she first started but she had shot them all down. Sam Howell had told him several times that she was going to go places. Sam felt that she had a great business sense and that she had the drive to make something of herself.
Ron got up and extended his hand to help Brenda up. They took their clothes off and crawled into the sleeping bags. Brenda slid over toward Ron and put her arm over his chest, leaving her shoulders and arm outside of the sleeping bag.
"Damn, its cold like this," she said.
"What do you mean?" Ron asked.
"I want to put my arm over you but I'm half out of the sleeping bag," she smiled.
The sleeping bags were the type that could be zippered together to make a large two-person sleeping bag. Ron rose up in the shelter and unzipped both bags. Brenda watched him quizzically. Ron, with great difficulty, zipped the two sleeping bags together to form one large unit. Brenda moved closer to him and put her arm over his chest, her breasts pressing into Ron's side, her head on his arm.
Brenda looked up at Ron, "Ron, this is all that I'm ready for right now, OK."
"Brenda, I told you that I wasn't going to put any moves on you and I intend to keep my word," Ron said.
Brenda continued looking in his eyes, "What if I put moves on you?"
Ron grinned, "Well, we'll just have to see what happens then."
Ron hoped that Brenda didn't move her arm down lower or she would have found that he was ready. Within two minutes they were both asleep.
During the night Ron got up to put on the fire. The nights were a
little colder than the first night they spent in the woods. Each time
Ron crawled out of the shelter he had to take Brenda's arm off of his
chest. After he returned Brenda immediately moved to him again and put
her arm over his chest.