The Trip to Raptor Bluff

by Annie O'Haegan

  **********

  Andrea and Tara slept through the afternoon. As the sun slipped behind the trees, Reba stacked small branches on top of a pile of kindling and went to get the matches. They weren’t in Andrea’s duffel bag so she woke her with a rough shake. “Where did you put the matches?”

  Andrea sat up and began patting her pockets. “I don’t know,” she said dully.

  Reba sighed in annoyance and began searching through the other packs and duffel bags.

  “Wait, I found them. Here they are,” said Andrea, holding up the soaked and disintegrating cardboard packet. “They were on the ground underneath my poncho.”

  Reba’s composure shattered. Snatching the matches, she laid them on a dry boulder and began pulling the tarp from the tree branches. Her shoulders shook with silent sobs as she cleared a patch of level ground and laid the tarp. She collected her bags and sat down in the dimming light. Tara soon joined her. When darkness fell and Reba finally dozed off, Andrea had moved to the tarp as well. They hadn’t spoken a word to each other in hours.

  **********

  “Did you hear that?” Andrea jolted upright from her prone position and began to shake Tara and Reba from their sleep. She jumped to her feet in the cold dawn air and began to shout, “There’s a helicopter out there! Can you hear it?”

  Tara and Reba sat up to listen. The unmistakable noise of helicopter rotors sounded in the distance.

  “It is coming from that direction,” said Reba, pointing to the north. “It must be going to Port Fortand.”

  “Lucy and her team are in Port Fortand,” Tara said. “She will tell them we are here.”

  “We need to do something! We need to light a fire and wave the tarp so they know we are here!” cried Andrea as she flapped her hands and ran in circles. Her paralyzing depression had evaporated and in its place was a sparking intensity.

  “It will be a while, Mom. Port Fortand was wiped out, remember? We aren’t going to be their number one priority.”

  “But I hear more helicopters!” cried Andrea, whipping her head around to scan the sky.

  “It could be days until they get to us,” said Reba, watching Andrea with worry. Andrea’s whole body was vibrating with nerves. “Settle down. We need to be patient.”

  “Patient my ass!” Andrea screeched over her shoulder as she ran towards the cliffs. “We need to let those pilots know we are here!”

  When Reba started after her, Tara grabbed her arm. “Give her time to figure it out. She will come around when she is ready to.”

  “Aren’t you worried about her getting too close to the edge of the cliff? What if there is an aftershock?”

  “Just leave her alone. She won’t listen to us and there is nothing we can do to stop her. Trust me. She can’t hear anything but her own thoughts. The only people she will listen to when she is like this are her alpha dogs. We aren’t alpha dogs so she won’t hear a word we say.”

  “Say what? Alpha dogs? Tara, what are you talking about?”

  “My dad and anyone in the Zeem family qualify as Mom’s alpha dogs. She is submissive to them and does whatever they say. No one else matters.”

  Reba tried to comprehend the bizarre statement and couldn’t. “Whatever,” she mumbled as a fresh wave of anxiety rolled over her.

  Andrea ran into the clearing ten minutes later and practically dove for the tarp. “The helicopters are flying over the ocean! I can see two of them! They will see the tarp if I wave it at them from the cliffs! They will know we are here!”

  “Mom, you can’t stand on the edge of the cliffs…”

  “I’m not stupid!” shrieked Andrea, bundling the tarp in her arms. She dashed into the woods as Tara and Reba stared at each other.

  “Just ignore her,” sighed Tara. “Like I said, she won’t hear a word we say.”

  Andrea’s shouts soon rang through the forest, “Over here! Over here! Help! We are over here!”

  “I should probably go check on her,” mumbled Tara a few minutes later. She slipped on the pair of improvised flip flops Reba had made for her and rose stiffly to her feet. “Hand me a bottle of water and one of her candy bars, will you? I haven’t seen her eat anything in days.”

  Twenty minutes later, Tara emerged from the woods. “She is staying away from the edge and she accepted the food and water. I guess that is something.”

  “How far away are the choppers?”

  “Too far. At least a mile, I think. They aren’t going to see a forest green tarp flapping in the wind from a mile away.” Tara slumped to the ground. “Even if they do see it, which they won’t, they aren’t going to stop what they are doing to come and get us.”

  “Well, maybe you should tell your mom that they can’t hear her, either,” snickered Reba. “She’s going to cough up her throat if she keeps screaming like that.”

  Andrea was stiff-legged with agitation when she marched back into the clearing an hour later. She tossed the tarp at Reba and rasped, “Your turn.”

  “My turn to what?”

  “Mom, they can’t hear you screaming and they can’t see the tarp because it is the same color as the trees.” Tara was lying down again, looking drained and pale.

  Andrea ignored her and kicked the tarp towards Reba. “Your turn.”

  Tara kept her tone patient, as though she were talking to a small child, when she said, “Mom, listen to me. Lucy Zeem is going to tell someone where we are. We have to wait our turn for rescue. It won’t do us any good to kill ourselves screaming for help that isn’t going to come today.”

  “Doing something is better than doing nothing! I checked the matches and they feel dry to me. I can at least light a fire where the helicopter pilots can see it!”

  “Fine,” groaned Tara as she stood up. “We will help you find some wood.” She ignored the incredulous look that Reba gave her and waited until Andrea was out of earshot before she whispered, “Let her stand out there and flap the tarp and scream. It will keep her occupied. She is buzzing right now and I don’t feel like listening to her id-dump all day.”

  “Id-dump?”

  “Yeah, as in id and ego. The id doesn’t understand logic; it wants what it wants. If Mom wants a helicopter pilot to see her, then he will absolutely, without a doubt, see her. Let her start a fire and try to wave him over this way. It’s better than having her sit here with us, spewing every disconnected thought that races through her head.”

  Reba chuckled. “You are acting more like yourself today.”

  “Yeah, the worst is over but I still feel horrible. Hey, I smell fire. The matches must have dried out.”

  “Let’s go help your mom build a fire ring. The forest is probably too damp to burn but I would still feel better knowing that her fire is contained.”

  Andrea stood by a large pile of burning wood, flapping the tarp in the direction of the ocean and trying to scream for help with a voice long gone. The noise from the two visible helicopters, mere dots in the distance, was barely audible. She looked over her shoulder and croaked, “Someone will have to monitor the fire twenty-four hours a day to keep it burning. The pilots will see it at night, even if they miss it during the day. The three of us can take turns. I will take tonight; Reba can take tomorrow night; Tara can take the next night.”

  “You are going to stand out here in this wind and stoke the fire all night?” asked Tara. “Really?”

  “This is my first and last trip to your fire, Andrea,” Reba said as she looked up from the pile of stones she was arranging. “If an aftershock hits, I am not going down with the cliff.” When Andrea began to argue, Reba shook her head and wondered just what it was about Tara that had attracted her in the first place. Whatever it was, it was long gone. Once they made it off this mountain, Reba swore to herself that she would avoid Tara and her lunatic mother for the rest of her life.

  Brenda, Shelly, Libby, and Pepper

  Brenda awoke to the sounds of Libby’s soothing voice whispering words of comfort. She rose on an elbow to
see her squatting by the mattress on which Diana lay, wiping her tears and patting her arm.

  “I will get you another pain pill, Diana,” Brenda said as she rose quickly from her own mattress. Dawn was breaking and Shelly and Pepper were still asleep on their shared double mattress. Brenda threw some split wood on the smoldering embers in the fireplace before moving to the kitchen for a bottle of water. When she turned back towards the family room, Libby was standing in the doorway.

  “Diana wants to be taken off the mattress and put in a chair. She doesn’t want to wear a diaper anymore, either. She said she would rather use a pot as a bedpan but she hates that idea, too.”

  Brenda sighed. “She is finally starting to feel like herself again. I was expecting this and I don’t know what to do about it. She can’t get around on her own, so going to the woods to relieve herself isn’t an option. It is too far for her to hop on one foot, even if two of us are bracing her. Let me think about it. We will come up with something.”

  Diana’s puffy eyes began to tear again when Brenda sat down beside her. “I don’t want to be an invalid,” she said. “I am forty-nine, not eighty-nine.”

  “Understood,” said Brenda, patting her shoulder. “Let’s raise you a little so you can swallow some water with this pain pill. Then we can talk about making life more bearable for you.”

  Diana nodded weakly and lifted herself onto her elbows. “I don’t know how to thank you for saving me,” she said after she swallowed the pill and drank some more water.

  “I was just about to thank you. We crashed into your house uninvited, made ourselves at home on your family room floor, and we are eating your food.”

  “So we saved each other,” said Diana, carefully lowering herself back to a prone position. “Brenda, I have an idea that might make this easier for everyone.”

  Diana’s neighbor’s teenaged son had broken his ankle several years earlier and had had the cast removed in the middle of summer. Diana believed that his crutches and orthopedic boot might still be in the house two doors down. Pepper and Shelly were quickly dispatched to search the house, and to collect any first aid supplies, bottled water, and food they could find. After they set off with two pillow cases to hold their loot, Brenda and Diana discussed the bathroom problem.

  “We were going to have to dig a latrine today, anyway. We don’t know how long it will be before help arrives and we can’t turn your woods in to an open sewer,” said Brenda. “That still won’t work for you, though. Even if the girls find the crutches, you won’t be able to get your clothes off and squat once you get to the latrine.” She thought for a moment and said, “Tell you what. My girls have been amazingly creative so far. You try to go back to sleep. When you wake up, hopefully we can present you with a pair of crutches and an idea for a latrine that you can use.”

  “Just how bad is my ankle?”

  “It is really bad, Diana. The broken bones in your foot and ankle are visible to the naked eye. And that’s another thing. We need to wrap it with a lot of padding and then just leave it alone. Between the pills and the padding, we should be able to make you a little more comfortable.”

  “I know we have some rolls of elastic bandages and some butterfly pins in my first aid kit. It should be in the closet in the master bath.” Diana’s eyes were beginning to droop and Brenda waited until she was snoring gently before she changed the towel they used for a diaper. She also wrapped Dianna’s foot in three folded hand towels that she kept in place with rolls of elastic bandages and some butterfly pins. Diana slept through it all.

  Pepper and Shelly returned with a pair of adjustable crutches but could not find the orthopedic boot. They had also taken several cans of food from the kitchen cabinets and some warm clothes from a young man’s room. “We left lots of stuff there, Mom. We can always go back. And we also want to check out the house right next door. The last house is too dangerous; it is mostly buried by a landslide.”

  “Look what else,” said Pepper proudly as she held up a manual can opener. “Diana’s is electric and we can’t use it.”

  “My brilliant girls,” grinned Brenda. “Why don’t we have peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast while we plan our day? First thing, we need to see what is in the fridge and freezer and bury anything that is spoiled. While we are doing that, you can help me think of creative ways to build a latrine.”

  **********

  “I don’t think I have been prouder of myself, ever,” laughed Pepper as she stood back to get a better view of the latrine.

  “I’m willing to drain a little of my cell phone battery to take a picture,” snorted Shelly.

  Brenda, Pepper, Libby, and Shelly had spent all morning designing and then building the latrine. They found a spot in the back of the property that was partially hidden by trees, and hauled in armloads of rubble from the destroyed garage. After digging a row of deep holes, side-by-side and about two feet apart, they built stone hills at each end. They braced two sturdy wooden desk chairs taken from a neighbor’s house against the hills, and then made the chairs more secure with large rocks placed around the legs. When they were happy that the chairs were stable, they laid a long wooden ladder across the seats and nailed it securely into place.

  “So you position your butt in between two ladder rungs, do your business in the hole, and then use the shovel to throw dirt on top of your mess,” said Libby.

  “Better pull your pants down, first,” deadpanned Pepper.

  When the others stopped laughing, Brenda said, “Let’s keep this simple. We will use the hole on the left until it is full, and then we move on to the next hole. Be very generous with the dirt you throw on top so we don’t smell the latrine from the back yard. Oh! And let’s not forget about toilet paper. We will leave a roll on the kitchen counter closest to the back door. If the roll is missing, it means someone is using the latrine. That way we won’t embarrass each other with surprise visits.” She stepped back to admire their handiwork and said, “Two of us will have to accompany Diana until she is comfortable on her own, but I know she will be delighted with this.”

  Diana was awake when they trooped into the house for lunch. “Please tell me the latrine is finished,” she said groggily when Brenda checked on her. “These drugs make me woozy but my screaming bladder woke me up. I must be getting stronger.” She lifted the clean towel with its garbage bag cover from the floor beside her. “Diaper, be gone! I refuse to wear it for another second.”

  “Good news,” beamed Brenda. “We have crutches and a latrine ready for you. Here, let’s get you into something decent but easy to get around in. I took a big pajama shirt from your guest room that will cover you for your trip to the latrine. You can tell me what clothes you want to wear when we come back. I also put your big leather chair by the window. You can prop your foot on the ottoman if it isn’t too painful.”

  Diana was surprisingly agile on the crutches considering her weakness and the opiate in her system. She allowed Pepper and Libby to accompany her to the latrine but made them leave before she would sit on the ladder. When she was finished, Pepper threw a shovel full of dirt in the hole and began walking back to the house. Libby was waiting for her beside a large tree.

  “Shhh,” she said, nodding towards the raised garden. Diana was leaning on her crutches and gazing at the cairn that marked Edward’s grave. “Let’s leave her alone for a while.” She squeezed Pepper’s hand. “I’m so glad you and Shelly thought to pick those flowers from the neighbor’s yard and put them on the grave. That was really sweet of you.”

  Diana stayed outside for two hours, first leaning on her crutches, and then sitting on the railroad ties supporting the garden. Brenda checked on her through the kitchen window and helped her through the back door when she was ready to come inside again. “Have some tea and something to eat, Diana. We found cheese in your refrigerator and we need to finish it before it goes bad. Come on, your chair is waiting for you in the living room.” She noted Diana’s pale and tear stained face but said no
thing.

  “Where are the girls?” asked Diana when she was settled in her chair.

  “They are checking out the neighbors’ houses for flashlights, batteries, and any other useful things they can find. We will have to leave a list of what we pillaged so we can make good on those items when this is over. All of the tools we used to build the latrine came from your neighbor next door. We took clothes, crutches, and food from the house next to theirs.”

  Diana was staring out the window and didn’t respond, so Brenda went to the kitchen for a cup of cool tea and a plate of cheese and crackers. She was placing them on the end table beside Diana’s chair when Diana said, “Edward would get the biggest kick out of his grave. He had such huge plans for that new raised garden. It was his idea and he couldn’t wait to start planting. He would especially love those flowers you placed on his cairn. I recognize them from my neighbor’s walkway. He and our neighbor’s wife did not get along, and he would be so delighted that you raided her prized flowers to adorn his grave…” Diana dropped her face into her hands and cried quietly. When Brenda handed her a paper napkin, she accepted it gratefully and said, “Edward and I met in high school and never looked back. We were together for thirty-three years and married for thirty. We went through college and law school together…” Her voice trailed off again.

  “Do you have children?”

  “No. By the time we figured out that our careers weren’t the Alpha and the Omega, it was too late.” She stared out the window for a long time before she turned to Brenda. “Have you ever lost a loved one, Brenda?”

  “My father died a few years ago but we were not close. He was a brutal man to my mother, and to my brother and me. He never laid a hand on us, but he could shred us with a look. I think his main pleasure in life was berating and humiliating us. I didn’t shed a tear when he died.”