Two guys from the class walks over to us, the taller one looking particularly assholish. “Hey, do you girls want to group up with me and my buddy?” He turns his head and kind of points to another guy who looks just as lean as the first guy but shorter. Allie jumps in “You’re Tom and Allen, right? Why yes, that would be fun!” They are decent looking guys, but you can tell that Tom knows it and acts like he is God’s gift to the world. Overcompensating if you ask me.
I groan knowing this weekend is going to suck if we’re stuck with these two the whole time. Judging by the way Allie is mooning over the two mildly attractive guys I know I can’t say no. “Fine, you can follow us up to the state park. My truck only carries two.” Tom who had introduced himself to Allie grimaces and says fine. My inner bitch may be showing. I shrug, I don’t care.
Getting back into the truck we head to the state park ranger station. Allie talks my ear off the whole drive to the small town of Packwood. We arrive at the park ranger station right before the guys do. As we get out to go into the office, I spot a Helicopter pad with a helicopter on it with the logo of Mount Rainier Search And Rescue behind the building. “This is where I want to work when I graduate.” I tell Allie.
“Really?” Allie asks, scrunching up her nose as she looks around.
“We all can’t be nurses, ya know.” I huff.
“Surgical Technician,” Allie corrects.
Whatever, she’ll be inside with groups of people and I’ll be outside with mother nature. I can’t wait!
By this time, Tom and Allen catch up with us and Allie and I have grabbed our packs and were ready to go. Our gear is pretty light for a short weekend trip. They weigh around twelve pounds. I look over at Tom and Allen’s packs and they are loaded down. Is that a portable chair? Shaking my head, I snort.
“What?” Allie looks over at the men, “oh, never mind,” She giggles. Guess she saw what I did, two men with at least twenty-five-pound packs on their backs. They are going to be sore later. We meet in front of the ranger station and head in.
“What can I do you for you?” a middle-aged portly man in a park ranger uniform asks from behind the counter.
“We are-” I start.
Clearing his throat, Tom steps up to the counter, “Yes, we are with the college and will be needing our permits to camp in the backcountry.” Tom tells the ranger interrupting me.
I give Tom a disgusted look and wish for probably the tenth time that we would have waited for other people to join our group. There were some really acceptable people in the class.
“Excuse me. I can speak for myself, thank you,” I state firmly. I want to make sure that he understands I don’t need anyone to speak for me.
Tom looks taken aback and mumbles an apology. Allie nudges me in the ribs. What?! It was rude that he interrupted me.
“I’ll need to see your IDs for each of you and you will need to fill out some paperwork. Thank you.” says the ranger as he smiles slyly. He must have gotten a kick out of my response to Tom’s rudeness. I’m sure he deals with people like him all the time.
“Now that that's done, let's get this party started!” Allie shouts with a small fist pump as we walk outside. It seems she is finally getting with the program and trying to find the fun in our outing. I look at her and quirk my eyebrows.
“What?! I might as well enjoy myself, instead of being a party pooper.”
“Let's look at the map that the professor gave us. We each have a copy just in case we get separated,” I say. “The professor has it all marked out for us, all we have to do is follow this trail that she has highlighted.”
“Well let's go,” Allen says, who seems to grow impatient.
The trail starts out easy enough and everyone seems to be able to keep up a steady pace even with the guys carrying a twenty-five-pound pack on their backs. “It looks like our first stop for the night will be about ten miles up the trail near a small stream.” Tom states like no one else can read the map too. I roll my eyes behind his stupid back. I can already tell that he is the type that has to be in charge even if he doesn't know what he is doing or what is going on. Thank you, Captain Obvious.
Allie slides up to me, “Why are you giving Tom such a hard time?”
“I just don't like people who think they know better than everyone else,” I tell her with a shrug and a shoulder bump.
“Well, we aren't marrying him. We just have to deal with it for the weekend. You can try to make it an experience that you enjoy or you can let someone ruin it for you.” Allie states matter factly. I look at her like she has grown two heads. Really, from the girl who bellyached about this trip until today.
“Okay...okay, I see your point.” I give in.
Three hours into the hike and everyone is lagging. Tom who is still miraculously ahead of us, keeps looking back with a frustrated look.
“How about a pit stop and a rest?” Allie asks, breathing heavily.
Tom looks at his map then looks around and frowns at us. I don’t like the look he has and I turn to tell Allie but he starts running his mouth again.
“Ya know, the trail that we are on makes a big horseshoe shape, and this trail here,” pointing at his map, “cuts right through. I think maybe we should take this trail and cut off some time,” Tom speculates.
Allie and Allen jump at the opportunity to cut time on the trail. “ I don't think that is a good idea... the professor has the trail marked for a reason. Don’t you think?” I say protesting his idea after looking at my map and seeing that it’s no more than a game trail.
“Come on, as it is we will not get to our marked rest stop until dark and you girls are kind of slow,” Tom tells us with an attitude.
Allie steps in between us knowing I’m about to blow my top. “It’s alright Layla, I looked at the map too and it would save us time and doesn't look any more challenging than the trail we’re on.”
I give Tom a drop-dead look and then gaze down the overgrown trail the group wants to take. Having an ominous feeling about this choice, but not wanting to rain on Allie’s parade, I give in, ”Fine, let's get it done.”
Chapter Three
Evan
The jeeps pull up to the ranger station at the bottom of the mountain. Everyone jumps out and heads into the main visitors' area. Passing the ranger at the counter with a wave, we continue to the office in the back.
“Good morning. Ready for your shift?” A tall man greets the crew. “Sure thing, Ronin,” replies Lucas. How’s everything at the tower two?”
“It going fine. We’re about to start my shift,” Ronin responds.
As the conversation comes to a close, we go to our computers to check our work email and clock in. There aren’t many emails, just mostly junk. I delete most of them and log off. Then we walk back out to the jeeps and take off up the mountain on a one lane road.
The ride takes us about forty-five minutes to get to SAR Tower 1. Lucas pulls in front of the tower next to one other jeep and Drake pulls in next to him. As we get out, two men make their way down the steps of the tower. “She’s all yours,” says Sean.
“Thanks.” replies Lucas. “Let’s get to it. Evan, you're on inventory, and I’ll start my shift as lookout and man the radio. Jasper and Drake to your bunks, you got the night shift. Any questions?” He looks around at us and when no one says a word he nods. “Good.”
We climb the three-story tower in no time and set to work on our assigned tasks. The tower has a wrap around deck and another set of stairs that lead up to the lookout on the roof. When I get to the top, Jasper and Drake head to the back of the tower where there are two separate rooms. The main room has radio equipment and three-quarters of one wall is made of windows. One room is a bathroom, the other has three sets of bunk beds along the walls, and through a hallway in the back is a dining area with a small kitchen. I head to the sidewall of the tower that has cabinets from top to bottom and covers the whole wall. I grab a clipboard that is hanging on the wall and begin taking inventory from each cabinet.
* * *
Layla
Screw this, I’m done! I knew I shouldn’t have listened to the others. The great short cut has become the trail from Hell. There are rocks and roots sticking up from everywhere, and briars that tear at our clothes and any exposed skin. Even though the temperature is lower than normal at a chilly fifty-two degrees, I’ve given up on wearing my jacket. Sweat pours down my back and my big boobs. It runs into unmentionable places that are starting to rub wrong. There are small scratches on my arms that are beaded with blood. Everyone has stumbled way more than once on something. To make matters worse, the trail is no more than an animal trail like I thought, that edges up to a steep downward incline at times. It will only take one misstep and down you go.
Tom turns and looks behind him, or really at me, with a look of disdain. “Come on, I think we may almost be there.”
“Oh, come on. We have only been on this trail for thirty minutes.” I mumble and push past Tom.
He reaches out and grabs my arm to stop me. “ Look, I know you’re all ‘I am woman, hear me roar’, but you need to let the men handle this situation.” He sneers.
I give him a look of complete disgust. Super pissed, I turn to him, trying to yank my arm out of his grasp. “What the hell did you just say?! This was a simple hike, all we had to do was follow the damn map, but NO you wanted to take a shortcut! A shortcut that I did not want to take, but NO you knew what you were supposedly doing! I am sure as shit done listening to you!” Yanking my arm really hard and twisting away from him, my foot slips on a root and, “ Shi-awww.” I fall over the steep incline to the empty space behind me.
“Layla!” Allie cries.
I scream on the way down tumbling ass over elbows until I hit my head on a sharp rock. I continue to slip downward losing my backpack somewhere along the way. Landing almost to the bottom against one of the trees growing out of the mountainside, I come to a stop and everything goes dark.
I wake up feeling groggy and have blurred vision. I quickly realize that it is dark but the moon provides some light. Sitting up, I grab my head all of a sudden feeling dizzy. Sensing that I’m still not all the way down the cliff, I try to gauge where I’m at. I grab ahold of the tree that I landed against and kind of straddle it. “This is not how I expected to get some action,” I say to myself. I check my arms and legs to feel for broken bones. I’m bruised but nothing is broken, thank goodness. As I take a deep breath to scream for help a sharp pain in my side stops me. It would suck if I had any broken ribs. I run my hand on the back of my head where there is a dull pain. I gasp when I hit a sore spot that feels wet. Looking at my hand, I see blood. I feel nauseous, I don’t like blood especially my own. Knowing that head wounds bleed a lot more than normal, I’m not too concerned. I can’t do anything about it right now. My side is another matter, which feels like maybe a broken rib or two, if not they are sorely bruised.
“I have to get out of here” I murmur to myself. Such a bad habit, talking to yourself. I roll my eyes and look around to find the safest way down or back up. From the looks of the steep incline, there is no way of climbing back up without help because of my ribs, down it will have to be.
“Is there anybody there?” I yell as loud as I can while being conscious of my sore side. Of course, there is no response. The group must have gone to get help. It has been several hours at least since I fell. I begin looking for hand and foot holds to use to get down and scan the area looking for my backpack. Climbing down toward the bottom carefully, I stop and listen to the different sounds around me and take a shaky breath. The pain in my ribs comes and goes in painful throbs. Halfway to the bottom, I spy my backpack hanging from a sharp rock. It looks like it was split in two and everything inside took a tumble the rest of the way down the embankment. At this point, sounds of water rustling down a stream hits my ears. I just hope that it's a small creek and not a rushing river.
With a small leap, I land on my feet but the pain in my side and head from the landing cause me to roll to my back at the bottom. I rest to catch my breath. Rolling my head around, I can see some of my things laying on the creek bed. Shivering and sitting up, I start to notice the temperature has dropped even more. Lessons from my class start to filter through my brain. When lost, stay put. If in the wild, shelter, fire, water, then food is the priority. I scan the area and start to collect what is left of my belongings. I find my jacket and taking great care, put it on gingerly. Son of a bitch, that hurts! I find the tent next, and yeah, it is just as battered as I am, but I still take it, along with the zero degrees compact sleeping bag. Laying scattered across the edge of the creek, I find the water filter bottle I picked up last week at the army navy store along with the compacted mess kit, maybe luck is finally working with me. Next, my small plastic emergency bag which carries flint and steel to start a fire, a small box of bandaids and some over the counter pain meds, and some granola bars. Shit, the MREs are with Allie. Since I was carrying our tent, Allie offered to carry the food.
Deciding that I should stay put, I look for any kind of dry sheltered area to set up a campsite to hunker down and wait for rescue. I find a small area next to the cliff I jumped from. It's not quite a cave but has a small little overhang from the side of the cliff. The stream is far enough away that the water would not rise up and flood the area. Inspecting the tent to see the damage, and finding it shredded except for the tent fly. I use the fly to form a windbreak by hanging it up by poking holes in one end to hang from roots sticking out of the overhang and using rocks to anchor it to the ground. At this point, I am out of breath. The damage to my ribs and head is catching up with me fast. I’m normally a fit person for my body type, not a gym rat by any standard, but I can hold my own on a hike.
Going to the stream and filling up my self-filtering water bottle, I grab small sticks and scattered limbs to start a fire, I hope. Crawling into the small area behind the windbreak, I push rock and debris away from the side of the rock wall. Creating a small fire circle and breaking the small twigs into kindle, I begin to start a small fire. I don’t need anything huge or I run the chance of burning down the tent fly.
Breathing through the pain and onset of dizziness, I try using the flint and steel to light the fire by sparking out onto a small bundle of dry leaves. On the first strike, sharp pains run up my ribs and steal my breath. I hiss out a breath as a wave of dizziness and a bout of nausea hit me. Shit, that hurts! Breathing through my mouth, I strike again and gets a small flame. Adding small twigs and more bits of leaves, followed by slightly larger sticks, I feed the fire to life.
“Yes! Take that mother-effers!” I yell with a small fist pump using my hand on the non-hurt side. I dig out a couple of over the counter pain pills and take a swig from my water bottle to wash them down. Finally, I’m able to stretch out on my sleeping bag to rest.
Chapter Four
Evan
I hear the screams before I see anyone. I turn from the radio desk and look out the tower window. Breaking through the tree line is a man and a woman. The woman looks to be giving the man hell. Just as I notice them, the radio crackles. “Tower one, this is base, do you read?”
“This is tower one, I can read you,” I say grabbing the receiver as Lucas walks up behind me to listen.
“Code red, priority one, rescue request. Single female, age twenty-four, wearing light brown Khaki pants with a short sleeve purple shirt and black jacket. Long sandy blonde hair, little over five feet, goes by the name Layla. Last known location, half a mile up Goat Slip trail. Do you copy?” The park ranger on the other end of the line comes through.
“Affirmative. Female, age twenty-four, last seen on Goat Slip trail. Goes by the name Layla.” I turn to Lucas with a questioning look. “One team or two?”
“One team can cover this,” Lucas decides.
“Base, this is tower one, we are sending Team Alpha. Any other info?” I question.
“Accident was reported by a friend named Allen. He says that two of his friends sh
ould be arriving at the tower any time.” The base operator supplies.
“Yeah, I think they are here. We're on it. Over and out.” I hang up the receiver and turn to the door as a man bursts through yelling for help. “Oh my fucking God! Thank you, we made it. We need your help. Our friend took a wrong trail and fell over the side of a fucking cliff. You need to help us!”
Just as he finishes his panic attack, in stumbles a woman. “Just you stop right there, Tom. She did not go off alone. We were all there, and it was your flipping-”
Lucas and I look at Tom like he was late to the party.
“They don't need small details to do their job,” Tom says cutting her off.
“Actually…” Lucas tries, trying to get a word in.
Stepping up to the guy, the woman roars. “Yes, they do. They need to know that you grabbed her and when she tried to get out of your grasp, she fell.”
Getting into her face, Tom snarls, “The stupid bitch doesn’t know how to take direction when told!”
“That's enough!” Lucas roars. “You need to calm down and work with us. We will find your friend. And, yes, we do need every detail if we are to find Layla.” Knowing Lucas, he’s about to come unhinged. He doesn’t like the idea of women being mistreated.
Both Tom and Allie turn to him in surprise. “How did you?” They both ask stumbling over their words. Allie looks exhausted from dealing with losing her friend and the speedy hike to the outpost.
“It was just radioed to us and we were about to begin the search when you two came in. It will be easier if you show us where she was last seen.” I answer them before they can start arguing again.
“Allen must have made it down the trail.” Tom speculates.
“That’s great but we need you to show us where this happened so we have a more accurate location.” Lucas looks at both of them.
Evan’s Rescued Mate Page 2
