In Limbo

by E. C. Marsh

  “What's he up to?” I asked.

  “I have no idea. Knowing Sam, he probably has a surprise stashed away for us. Probably something ecologically sound, of historical value and just barely edible.” Tom chuckled. I can recall times when Sam would have us tasting some wild growing things I would never have considered and certainly have not considered since. He did get me started on drinking lemon-peppermint tea, though. Pretty tasty stuff, I must say. Well, let’s see what he's up to, I thought.

  It didn't take long and we pulled up alongside, holding on to some bushes. Sam was smiling broadly.

  “You guys ready for a little lunch?”

  Oh boy, I thought, lunch time already? And Sam all smiles? What has he set up for us this time? I hadn't noticed time passing, but couldn't ignore the empty feeling in the pit of my stomach any longer. Lunch, no matter what, sounded wonderful.

  “Hey Sam,” I yelled. “Are you going to cook or did you arrange for takeout from fauna and flora?”

  Sam laughed. “Neither, I just found the spot.”

  I looked over at Marty and was amazed. For the first time today, she actually looked at us - acknowledged that we were there. Who knows, I thought, maybe she'll socialize just a little bit .

  Sam showed us a little sandy spot between the bushes where we could beach the canoes and get out.

  “There is this cave here,” Sam went on, “But let's wait for Ralph and Sandy. I know you guys will love it. I found it by accident when I came out here with my cousin late last fall. Once the leaves are gone you can see the entrance quite well.”

  Ralph and Sandy arrived. “Hiiiiii guuyys,” screamed Sandy, “life is great!”

  I looked at Ralph, but he just rolled his eyes; he knows Sandy. We beached the canoes and Sam guided us through the narrow strip of brush to the cliff's base. A narrow opening appeared before us.

  I looked at Tom. His blue eyes sparkled, yes, my husband was having a great time. Me, I could have settled for sandwiches or the like and stayed on the water.

  The entrance to the cave was high and quite narrow, but we squeezed in. Sam, always prepared, had brought along a flashlight. Its beam revealed a huge room. It didn't reach the ceiling or back wall, but it showed us the remains of a campfire, complete with empty beer cans and dark-colored wrappers.

  Sam shook his head.

  “What a shame that some people can't clean up after themselves.” He looked disappointed, but not too much. Today nothing could dampen Sam's spirit. “Guys,” he said, “You ain't seen nothing yet. There are several rooms to this thing. I bet these assholes didn't find the back area. Come on.”

  He started to turn, but Marty surprised us all.

  “Sam,” she said in her tiny, squeaky voice, “Sam, I really don't care much for exploring this stupid cave. It's so boring. I'd rather work on my tan. Let me know when you get done in here, ok?”

  Sam stared at her for a moment, a little disappointed, but he just swallowed.

  He led the way to the far end of the cave. At the base of the wall was what looked like a dent. Sam got down on his knees and told us to get down and follow him into the next room, then he proceeded to crawl through.

  Sandy and I looked at each other. She may be a bitch most of the time, but there are times when I can't help but agree with her. With one cocked eyebrow, she looked at Ralph.

  “Does he have a lot of free time on his hands?” She asked, pointing to Sam. “Any normal human being would have missed the opening to the cave. He found it and he found this hole. If you guys want to crawl through some hole in the rocks, fine. Me, I'm going to gather some wood and build a fire, and when you cavemen return, maybe we'll have coffee and hot dogs. Just watch out for little crawly things that might mistake you for the local McDonalds and try to take some bites out of your hides.”

  She looked at me, and I quickly agreed with her. No way would I crawl through a hole in the rocks not knowing what was ahead, below, and, for that matter, next to me.

  “Yup,” I said with false bravado, “we be cave women, gather wood, make fire, get meat for meal, skins for clothes.”

  Sandy giggled and for once had nothing to add.

  Gathering wood for the fire wasn't an easy task. On the narrow strip between the cliff and the river, we found only thin sticks. It took us a while to gather enough for a decent fire. Sandy even cleared away all the old beer cans and burned the odd dark green wrappers. We had the old coffeepot on the fire and the water boiling when the “cavemen” returned. In no time we had coffee and wieners roasting on long sticks. Sandy can be bad, but then again she also can be very good.

  I stepped out to get Marty, but she didn't hear me calling. She had allowed the canoe to drift downstream a little ways, so I just tugged the rope it was tethered with. But Marty just waved at me and so I let her be. We had a lovely lunch, totally unhealthy I am sure! Then we cleaned up, burned the trash and concealed any evidence of a campfire . When we resurfaced outside, I was surprised to realize that it was already well past two o'clock. We had been here more than three hours.

  Marty was sleeping so soundly we had to pull her canoe in. I made a mental note to talk to her about sunscreen once we were back home again. Of course she woke up while we were pulling her in and looked totally surprised. Must have been a pretty good dream.

  We continued on downriver. I inhaled deeply; after the cave the sweet scents of nature were almost overwhelming.

  “Hon, just take a deep breath. The air smells so sweet, almost too much.”

  I could hear Tom inhaling deeply. “Yeah. Incredible. Either the air is real sweet or the air in the cave was real bad.” He laughed.

  The pale limestone bluffs continued on the left, looming and majestic, while on the right was dense forest. Then we saw the burned out remains of some vehicle, the black carcass in stark contrast with the surrounding lush green vegetation.

  “What happened here?” I whispered to Tom.

  “I don't know,” he whispered back, “Why are we whispering?” With a couple of paddle strokes he brought us closer to Sam.

  “Sam, what do you make of that?” Sam did not seem bewildered.

  “Well, this bank belongs to Camp Crowder. Remember, I told you guys we would be passing through this old military reservation? Well, this must have been the result of some test they conducted. It's old, it was here last year when I was down here.”

  I looked at Marty, her face was flushed looking. No, on second thought her face was red, bright red.

  “Hey Marty did you put on sunscreen?” I had to repeat myself three times.

  She looked at me and finally lifted those damned headphones.

  “Did you put on sunscreen?” I repeated.

  “Oh sure, I got that SPF 8 stuff. I do want to get a little tan this weekend. Why?”

  “Well, you look awfully puffy and red. You want to try some of mine? It has a higher SPF.”

  “Red? Puffy? Please, say you don't mean that.”

  She searched through one of the bags in their canoe and produced a small mirror. Leave it to Marty never to leave home without one.

  “Oh no! Do you think I've got a sunburn already? My face feels so tight. Are you sure I can use some of your sunscreen? Damn this stupid trip.”

  “Gladly.” I handed her the bottle and even helped her rub some on her shoulders and her back. I couldn't believe that she had been this careless. We all learned a long time ago never to get on the river with minimal sun protection. On the water the sun just gets too intense.

  The skin on her back felt hot and leathery. Tough, like an old glove. Must be from all those sessions in the tanning salon, I thought.

  “Marty, honey, are you drinking enough?” I asked her and she nodded.

  “Well I think so, I brought some of that flavored water along and I must have had three bottles so far. I just really don't feel so good, Chris.”

  She sounded funny, not quite right. Her voice was different, trembling, sort of. Sam was still talking. “Like I sa
id, the official story is just some training for some special troops, but the scuttlebutt in town is that it's top secret stuff. There have been some local fishermen who have been out here during the week and then were escorted back by MPs. Course, they swore they never entered the military reservation, but nonetheless they were still booted out. They mean what they say with their “No Trespassing” signs. And then there was this little piece in the paper about agricultural research and testing being done out here.

  “Well, ahead of us, I think around the next bend, is another little creek. I can't remember the name, but at that point we are more than halfway done with Camp Crowder. After that, be on the lookout for a big flat topped rock in the middle of the river. It should still be a little ways ahead of us. And that's where I thought we might spend the night.”

  “That's good. I think Marty and I are ready to call it a day,” I said.

  “Don't get too excited. It's still at least another hour or so. I just think we will be better off if we can get a camp site set up before dark. The bluffs block out the sunset and it will get dark rather quickly. Besides, we can find more firewood that way.”

  A vision of snakes entered my mind as I thought of gathering firewood after dark; and I had to agree with Sam that it was probably better to stop before it got dark. I rummaged through my camping first aid bag and found some aspirin. I passed two tablets to Marty.

  “Take these, it might make you feel a little better.”

  “I really don't feel good at all. My left shoulder is sore and so is my neck. I think I must have pulled something. And I'm achy all over. Do you think I could have sunpoisoning?”

  I had to think a moment. What did she consider sunpoisoning? Was she talking of heat or sunstroke? Well, she certainly was a candidate for that.

  “Weelll, could be a possibility. Keep on drinking as much as you can and cool off. There's plenty of water around us, just splash some on. That will help.”

  I turned to Sam. “Hey, pal, your wife is getting too much sun. Let's get moving so we can get her cooled off.”

  He looked surprised at me, as if he had not even noticed Marty. “Honey, are you okay?” Marty nodded and swallowed. “Oh, I think I'll be fine. Chris just gave me a couple of aspirin and I'll drink some more and I think I'll be ok with that.”

  She may have thought so, but I had my doubts, I've seen a couple of cases of sunstroke. If that's what we were dealing with here, then Marty was in big trouble. I couldn't figure out how to explain my concerns to the others. The only answer was to keep an eye on her, keep her drinking, and remind her to splash river water on to cool off. It would be better to just get her off the river, fast.

  The trees on the right shore got taller and the underbrush denser. I kept thinking about what Sam had said about top secret testing, and I wondered what was going on behind that dense vegetation. My colorful imagination was in overdrive. But I couldn't see anything unusual or mysterious, just lots of brush and big trees. It did strike me as odd, though, that we didn't see any more animals. There were no more little turtles sunbathing on the logs and it was quiet around us.

  Chapter 5

  Once again Tom and I were in the middle between the other canoes. Sam had pulled well ahead of us. I suppose it's part of his entertainment on these trips to be the one to yell, “We're here”. He can have his fun. I like to go slower and so do Ralph and Sandy.

  I turned slightly to the right, wanting to ask Tom how far back Ralph and Sandy were, when movement on the shore caught my eye. For one brief moment I saw a person in camouflage fatigues holding what seemed like a gun of some sort. But, when I raised my hand to wave, the figure was gone. I was baffled.

  “Hey honey, I think I just saw one of the little green men Sam talked about this morning.”

  But Tom was unimpressed, “Babydoll, the river and the heat are playing tricks on you, probably was just an ugly tree stump.”

  “A tree stump with a gun and wearing a helmet?”

  Tom just laughed in response. “Oh, come on now, babe. You probably did see one of those guys, and now he's all distraught because his camouflage did not work. You, a mere mortal, spotted him and waved at him. His life won't be the same!”

  Oh well, I thought, I like it when my husband is impressed with my observations. I was still certain that what I saw had been a person. Maybe Tom was right and the military didn't like it when a mere mortal could see them in camouflage? I couldn't answer that, and it really didn't matter to me anyway. I was relaxing and I was not about to let some snob in a green suit ruin this weekend for me.

  I started looking for the dragonflies. I may not like them, but they are impressive to watch. This afternoon there were none. Strange, I thought. Did they all siesta at the same time?

  We must have passed some tributaries, as the river had gotten wider. Behind me, Tom was humming some tune I did not recognize, and it sounded way off key. Tom can't carry a tune, you know. But humming is always an indicator that he is content with life at the moment. So I pulled my hat down over my ears, leaned back, and closed my eyes for a while

  I must have dozed off a little because I suddenly realized that the rocking motion of the canoe had changed. I opened my eyes and looked around. We were in a section of shallow, fast moving water. Not white water, just fast moving shallow stuff, sometimes so shallow the bottom of the canoe scraped across the gravel. I sat upright and almost tipped us over.

  “What happened?”

  “Whoa,” Tom shouted, “Just sit tight; we'll be through this stuff in a minute.”

  I didn't dare turn to ask him if he needed help, I didn't dare do anything, I just held on to the sides of the canoe and hoped he was doing as good a job as he thought. Well, Tom had been right, of course. A few minutes later the river widened and once again became the gentle, slow-moving body of water I had gotten used to. Up ahead I could see Sam. He was against the left bank.

  “What's Sam doing?”

  “I don't know. Probably just waiting for us. Maybe he had to pee.”

  “He wouldn't stop for that; he'd just pee in the water.”

  Tom was cracking up. “While he's paddling? He isn't that well endowed.”

  I grabbed a paddle and was just beginning to dip it into the water, when I heard Sandy's shrill laughter from behind.

  “Out of my way slowpokes.”

  That's all it took! We paddled furiously. There is no way I would let Sandy and Ralph beat us. We reached Sam's canoe first, but just barely.

  Sam had tied up to a thick branch, leaned back against it and had his pipe in his hand. Marty had her oversized sunglasses on and the big yellow hat. She seemed to be awake, but when I looked closer I could clearly see that her face was badly sunburned. She looked puffy, red and uncomfortable.

  “Our big rock is just up ahead, around the next bend,” Sam smiled. “ And I want you to know I have a little surprise for everybody.” He chuckled, “I was down here a couple of weeks ago. Thinking we would be back this way, I stashed a bunch of good firewood. So, my friends, please don't be bashful. Grab these here pieces of wood yours truly has left, so that we may have us a good fire tonight.”

  We were only glad to oblige, dry wood already cut up and ready to go is a gift from heaven on one of these trips. As I looked around though, I was baffled by the vegetation. The undergrowth was really dense, more so than it had been earlier. Everything looked bigger, oversized, abnormal. I tried to get Tom's attention to tell him about it, but he was so preoccupied he didn't listen and so I let it go. Probably just my imagination anyway.

  Grass and weeds could not possibly be the size of bushes, and leaves on the trees could not yet begin to turn color. Much too early for it. No. I wrote it all off to optical illusions after a long day on the river.

  Well, we loaded up on firewood, all the while teasing Sam about having too much free time on his hands and we'd be happy to share with him a few suggestions on what to do with his free time! He took it as it was intended. Sam is good people. I did
ask Marty if she felt any better, just to get a conversation going with her. She took off her Christian Dior sunglasses and looked at me strangely.

  “I'm just sooo tired. I'm sure it’s just being out in the sun too much today. Could be the medication, too. My doctor has me on something new.” She was slurring some words.

  “Oh.” I couldn't think of anything more intelligent to say. “What are you taking?”

  “Well, I've been a bit depressed lately, you know how that is. When you feel down, you tend to eat too much. Well, I didn't want to put on any more weight than I already have with this pregnancy. So, I talked to the doctor and he gave me some pills to take, and they have really helped. He said it was okay; it wouldn't hurt the baby.”