Southern Stars

by Melissa Good

  “Figures. If we weren’t looking for them we’d have crashed into them three times already.” Kerry pointed a second direction. “Let’s try that one.”

  There was no more screaming, and it was too dark and rainy to remember which way they’d gone before. Dar flicked her light on again and they moved off along another gully, the sound of the rain thrumming down on the ground around them, a low, rumbling white noise.

  Impossibly loud, in all that wilderness. Off to one side Dar heard water coming down the rock wall and she moved gingerly toward it, reasoning if they kept along the cliff they’d eventually find the man hanging from it.

  The weather was uncomfortable, but as she made her way around a half-buried boulder with Kerry’s hand on her back, she was glad they’d left the rest of them behind.

  “You think they’ll come behind us?” Kerry asked, after they’d splashed through a water filled gully.

  “Do you care?”

  “Well.” Kerry cleared her throat a little. “If we want help we probably should care, hon.”

  “Mm.” Dar grunted. “They’ll come.” She decided. “Some of them will, anyway.”

  “Don and Marcia.” Kerry predicted. “And probably Rich and Dave.”

  “Probably.”

  “Maybe Sally.”

  Dar nodded and then she made a noise of satisfaction. “That’s the trail.” She indicated a spot. “I remember that log.”

  Kerry studied the log as they went past it, trying to decide if there was something special about it that Dar had remembered. “We could use it to start a fire after we get the tarps up,” she said. “Then maybe...oh crap look out!”

  Dar had seen the shadow in the dark coming at them and grabbed Kerry, pushing through a sodden bush and pressing them both against the wall as something large and musky scented came barreling past them and smashed head first against the rocks.

  “What th— Dar hopped out of the way as whatever it was fell, hooves scrabbling on the rocks as it rolled over. “Another sheep? All of them nuts?”

  “I’d rather it be nuts.” Kerry peered at the animal. “Could they have rabies or something, Dar? They’re acting weird. Aren’t they?”

  Dar moved another step away, nudging Kerry ahead of her. “How in the hell would I know?” She asked plaintively.

  “You’re the one who knows how to milk a cow aren’t you?”

  “It’s not a cow.” Dar edged away from the animal. “But damn it, now I want a glass of milk.”

  Kerry snorted, and covered her mouth with one hand. “Oh, Dar.” She chuckled. “I’d settle for being in traffic in a Miami thunderstorm.”

  “Mmph.” Dar pulled her pack off and held it between them and the sheep defensively. “Go away!” She yelled at it loudly.

  The animal got to its feet and rambled off, limping slightly, it’s tongue hanging from its mouth, but without a backward glance.

  “Let’s get out of here.” Dar shook her head and they started moving faster. “With any luck that thing will go the other way and those guys will find it and finally have something to kill.”

  “If it has rabies, and they eat it, we could have lots worse problems,” Kerry said as they started going up slope a little. “But that would be kind of par for the course for this trip. This is the point in the movie where they eat the rabid sheep and become zombies, right?”

  “I don’t think it has rabies.” Dar shoved past a wiry bush and slid sideways between the rocks and the wall, spotting the shadowy form against the stone as lightning turned the sky to silver. “There he is.” She pointed.

  With a sigh of relief, Kerry caught up to her and they climbed up the rise to where they could now hear someone, presumably Amy, rustling around.

  “Amy!” Kerry called out. “You there?”

  “Who is that?” A male voice came back, immediately. “Get the fuck out of here!”

  Dar and Kerry exchanged glances. “That’s not Amy,” Dar said. “We better...”

  “Go see what’s going on.” Kerry finished the sentence. “C’mon.”

  They sped up and made it into a small clearing where they could see two figures struggling. A moment later Amy let out a scream, as though her mouth were suddenly released.

  Dar got close enough to see what was going on and her body reacted without any thought. “Stop it!” She let out a bellow and leaped forward, getting her arms around the torso of the taller of the two figures. “Hey!”

  She yanked herself to one side, pulling the figure with her around in a circle, using momentum to send her adversary flying into the rocks as she released him. She heard him curse, and felt Kerry dash past her to go to where Amy had just bounced off the cliff wall and stumbled to her knees.

  “What was that for?” The male voice snarled as the man she’d wrestled with got to his feet and faced her. “You’ll pay for that!”

  Dar got herself between Kerry and the guy, and got her pocketknife out, opening the blade in a one handed flick. She spread her other arm out to the side and got her balance set, feeling nothing but anticipation. “C’mon,” she growled at him.

  Lightning flashed, and for a moment they were both outlined in silver. Then the man hastily hitched his shorts up and took a step forward, revealing a lean, muscled bare torso and dark, braided hair. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Who the hell are you?” Dar shot right back.

  He took another step forward, and now even in the dim light she could make out his features, finding them planed and angular and younger than she’d expected. “Ira Stormcloud,” he said in an ordinary tone. “Hey, you’re a woman?”

  “Last time I checked,” Dar said.

  “Huh. Never had a woman pick me up and throw me before,” he said. “That was crazy. Who are you people?”

  Dar straightened and folded her knife away. “We’re tourists.” She indicated herself and the others. “We were on a river rafting trip that went south.”

  “Oh.” He put his hands on his hips. “Crazy tourists, huh? I wasn’t gonna hurt her.” He pointed to Amy. “Just trying to keep her mouth shut so she wouldn’t draw a big old cat over here.” He looked around then folded his arms over his bare chest. “This ain’t Disney World you know?”

  Dar was momentarily silent. “Yeah, I know. We already ran into one of those cats, a few days back.”

  “You did?” Ira sidled a little closer. “Big one? We have some man eaters around here. The ops know better than to be out here without guns and stuff.” He looked up at the rain and licked some drops off his lips. “I was just taking shelter under that flat rock there and heard all the commotion.” He peeked past her. “Sorry I scared you.”

  Amy glared at him. “Asshole.”

  Ira snorted a little. “Serves me right trying to do a good deed.”

  “I feel your pain,” Dar said dryly, and then pointed up at the cliff wall. “But give her some slack. Her SO tried to climb out and he’s stuck up there.”

  “Wait, what?” Ira tipped his head up and looked. “Holy shit. You all are crazy.” He moved over to the edge of the wall and Dar went with him. “He did that in this weather?”

  “Long story,” Dar said. “Any idea how to get him down?”

  Ira pointed his thumb at his own bare chest. “Me? You gotta be kidding me, lady. That’s nuts. My people survived out here long as we have by not doing dumb shit like that.”

  Kerry exhaled. Yes. It felt crazy. The whole thing felt like she was running on the edge of insanity in fact.

  It was like being in a bad dream, and briefly she wondered if that wasn’t exactly where they were, because this was just nuts. Really, just nuts. She stepped to one side as Amy finished getting herself dusted off and stood up next to her. “What an ultimate clusterfuck.”

  “No shit,” Amy said. “That goon just jumped on me when I was trying to clear out that little hollow back there. I thought he was a mountain lion.” She sounded more than a bit rattled. “I freaked out.”

  “He apparent
ly thinks he saved you from one.” Kerry folded her arms. “I would have freaked out myself. Glad we decided to follow you though.”

  Amy exhaled, and remained silent for a moment. “Yeah, me too. Are those tarps?” She indicated the pack. “We can use them? Get something over our heads?”

  Kerry unstrapped the bundle and they started to sort them out, as the thunder rumbled again overhead. “Really tired of the rain.” She found a crack in the rock to wedge in one of the bungies and stretched the tarp along the wall over her head as she listened to Dar and Ira talk behind her.

  “That’s crazy,” Ira said. “You did what? You climbed up a rope?”

  “He had a line dropped down but when I was coming down it came loose.” Dar picked up the coil of rope and held up the piton that had come loose from the stone. “I was just lucky I was almost to the ground.”

  “Yikes.” Ira examined it. “Not my gig, climbing,” he admitted. “I’m a river runner, mostly. Like those guys you were with, but we’re a native op.” He looked up at the wall. “What the hell was he trying to climb up there for?”

  “Long story,” Dar muttered. “You got any way to communicate out of here? We’d really like to get out of this damn holiday from hell.”

  Ira shook his head. “You can walk out though. It’s just over the next ridge there, path to the ranger station.” He pointed. “But these guides know that.” He looked at Dar’s shaking head.

  “What? Sure it is. I came in that way.”

  “There was an avalanche,” Dar told him. “An arch, one of those stone things came down and blocked the way. We were almost there. So we had to come back. They’re out of supplies, and some of them are hurt.”

  Ira stared at her. “Are you shitting me?” He said. “I came up that path not a day ago, checking some traps,” he said. “With just a couple of sandwiches in my pack,” he added with a wry look. “Really blocked?”

  “Really. Probably twenty feet of debris.”

  “Holy shit.” He reached up and clutched both sides of his head. “Dude, that’s a big deal. They’re going to have to send a rock mover up to clear that. It’s the only way down out of this part of the canyon.”

  Kerry sighed. “Figures.”

  Dar shrugged. “Lightning hit the top of the arch and it just went kabam.”

  “You saw it?”

  “Saw it happen.”

  “I knew the weather was a bitch but didn’t expect that,” Ira said. “Never heard of that happening before, not recently anyway.”

  Dar shook her head. “One of the other guys with us is a climber. Maybe tomorrow he can get up there. I’ve got a sat phone, but there’s no signal down here.” She indicated the tarps. “Since you’re stuck here now too I guess.”

  He sighed. “Let me go get my gear. I got a few rabbits and a snake if you white people can stand it.” He grinned briefly. “Maybe I can help you get your buddy up there down too if you share your sat phone and get us a ride out of here.”

  He turned and jogged off, the rain bouncing off his skin as he disappeared into the darkness.

  Dar shook her head and went over to help put up the tarps. “Keeps getting crazier.” She stretched the tarp over a stack of rocks and wedged the bungie into place. “Every single minute.”

  IRA WAS SEATED against the rock wall next to Dar, with Kerry on the other side of her. “Y’know,” he said. “If you were right about how cold that guy was, he might be croaked by now.” He unrolled the sleeves on a thick flannel shirt down to his wrists and fastened them.

  “I know,” Dar answered in a low mutter. “But there’s nothing we can do.”

  Kerry shared the last of the venison and they all had travel cups full of rainwater. There was, she knew, no hope of a fire. It was too dark to search for anything burnable, and they had nothing to dry it with. So they sat against the wall, with the tarps over them at an angle, tolerably dry.

  Tolerably warm, with all of them next to each other.

  Ira, it turned out, was just a kid. “So I just got out of high school, you know? It was a drag,” he said, his hands resting on his knees. “I couldn’t wait for it to be over.”

  Kerry eyed him. “So what now?”

  “What now what?” He said. “Now I get to just hunt and fish and stuff. My dad owns the trading post. I’ll do work for him.” He licked his lips. “That was pretty damn good deer. You people bring that in?”

  “We found a carcass,” Dar said. “Kerry had some salt left from some cave back toward the river.”

  Ira looked at them. “Not bad for white city folk.” He smiled at them, proving to be just a little charming after all. Even Amy grudgingly smiled back. “You all are city folk, right?” He looked at Kerry.

  “I’m about as white a city folk as you could get,” Kerry said, with a brief grin. “But I can cook.”

  They both looked at Dar.

  “I can’t cook,” Dar said. “I’m from Miami.”

  “Oooh. Miami.” Ira cracked his knuckles. “You got the Everglades down there,” he said. “You go out hunting?”

  “No.” Dar laced her fingers together. “I’m not into shooting animals.”

  Ira eyed her. “You are from the city. There’s some good eating out there and it’s free.” He added. “My mom only needs to shop maybe once or twice a year. Me and my brothers bring in game the rest of the time, and we eat great.”

  Kerry leaned forward. “Dar does hunt, just not on land,” she said. “We have a cabin down in the Keys.”

  “Huh.” Ira wriggled his nose.

  “And a pair of Labrador Retrievers.” Dar’s lips twitched. “Who would freak out if they were faced with a duck.”

  “Or a crab.”

  Two hours later, the rain was slowing down. They could hear it in a fitful patter against the surface of the tarp. The wind was coming down too. The surface of the fabric no longer flapping with it.

  Dar felt cold and stiff, though, and she drew up her knees and rested her forearms on them. Kerry leaned against her, cheek coming to rest against her upper arm as they listened to the thunder fade off into the distance. After twenty or thirty minutes, the rain stopped.

  The wind stopped.

  They heard the faint sounds of foliage moving, and far off, a few pebbles plinking against the ground. Then it got very quiet.

  They sat there in the silence. Then it was broken by two sounds. One, a low moan from above them that brought Amy upright and moving out from under the tarp, and second, the sound of boots crunching against the gravel of the path, coming their way.

  “Looks like we’re going to do something other than just sit here,” Kerry said.

  “Good.” Dar got up and emerged into the darkness of a canyon night, where the sky overhead was clearing and stars were beginning to show intermittently. Kerry followed her just as the moon came out, and the scene was lit with eerie silver.

  She looked up, to see a faint motion against the rocks, then she looked out over the canyon to see moving figures coming toward them in a large group.

  Two unexpected things. Ira came out behind her and peered past her shoulder, his head roughly even with hers. “Rest of your gang?”

  “Rest of my gang,” Dar confirmed. “And maybe our luck’s getting better.” She pointed up at the sky.

  “Shh.” Kerry poked her. “Don’t even say that.”

  “Umph.”

  “SO WE FIGURED there was more shelter this way anyhow,” Rich said, as he stood next to Dar near the wall. “And your SO was right. It’s the right thing to do” He looked up. “What did that moron think he was trying to accomplish?”

  “Good question.” Dar felt the light breeze, dry now, fluttering the shirt she had on and riffling her hair. “Climb out?”

  “To where? There’s nothing up there,” Rich said.

  Dar shook her head. “If he took the phone I’d get it.”

  “Crazy. Need the rock to dry out before I start up there, for sure.” Rich said. “I guess we get him down o
nce it’s light.”

  Janet limped over. “Okay. We got a fire going, and we’re going to use that bark we peeled off to make some tea. Good idea there, by the way,” she told Dar. “Peeling the bark, I mean.”

  Dar nodded briefly. “Lot of wet camping areas in Florida.”

  “Thunderstorm and lightning capital of the world,” Janet said. “I remember.”

  “And Ira’s going to share his catch,” Sally said. “I guess I really picked the wrong trip to be a vegetarian.” She tipped her head back. “Anything we can do for doofus up there?”

  They all studied the dim outline against the now star filled sky. “Amy.” Dar turned and looked over at the girl. “He has water with him?”

  She nodded. “Of course. You’d have to be an idiot not to.”

  Janet cleared her throat. “What was he going to do up there anyway?”

  Amy had been stripping twigs, and now she stopped and regarded Janet. “He’s got a mirror in the pack. He was going to try and signal a sightseeing plane or helicopter,” she said. “There’s at least a half dozen who come over, right?”

  “That’s true,” Janet said. “But not this weather. I haven’t heard any of them in the past few days.”

  Kerry came over. “But the weathers cleared now,” she said. “Maybe that could be a plan B for tomorrow?”

  “What’s plan A?” Sally asked.

  “Me to climb up to the top there, I guess, and see if I can get a signal on the phone,” Rich said. “But yeah, signaling’s not a bad idea if they’re flying tomorrow.”

  Amy gave him a skeptical look. “You think you can make it up there? I doubt it.” She added. “Not to be a jerk, but he got messed up trying to get across that gap there and he’s bigger than you are.” She pointed up to a shadowy cleft. “See that? He jumped and got a finger hold, then one of the pitons came loose and he twisted around.”

  Rich shrugged. “Let’s wait till the morning. No sense arguing about it until we can see what the deal is. Maybe there’s another route.”