by Angie West
***
The first leg of the journey was spent in quiet darkness and seemed to take hours, although the thick leather watch at my wrist claimed that little more than an hour had passed. The ground was rough and uneven, but the night was warm and the stars…
I breathed deeply and grinned for the first time in several days—maybe longer, I realized, taking in my bare surroundings. I didn’t smile nearly enough, I decided. The heel of my boot kicked at the dirt and a groan escaped as another realization hit. Nature was calling.
“Oh, damn.” It wasn’t the thought of going to the bathroom out in the open that had me worried. There was no one around to see, and I wasn’t that self conscious anyway. After all, it’s a basic bodily function. My concern for the moment was that I had not thought to pack any toilet paper. Well, maybe there were some nice leaves, I consoled. I set my bags down and dug through my pack until I found my flashlight. Who knew better than me that some plants just didn’t make good toilet paper?
It occurred to me a short time later that I really needed to ditch the bag that held the bulk of Mike’s notes. I pulled the band out of my hair and gathered the damp strands into another ponytail, re-securing the strands that had slipped out to frame my face. Civilization was gone. A few settlements were scattered along my way—crude structures, mostly—but I remembered the man at the hotel and immediately abandoned the idea of hiding the bag in one of them.
I could not, in good conscience, put someone else in danger. That left only one choice, as I saw it…I would have to bury the thing. I walked a little farther and kept a sharp eye on my sparse surroundings, looking for a spot that would be both secure and easy to locate later. Landmarks…I needed landmarks. Two miles later, I stopped abruptly.
“Oh, this is perfect,” I breathed. The clusters of brush would provide excellent cover, and the large rock up ahead would serve nicely as a landmark. I toed the ground lightly, testing the soil without disturbing it much. The ground was reasonably soft too.
The thickest cluster of brush seemed to be the best choice, so I approached it and knelt down. Nothing in my pack would be useful for digging, so I simply gripped the earth with both hands and pulled hard.
Digging the hole took longer than I expected. It was nearly midnight when I stood and brushed grimy hands across my denim-clad thighs. I covered the area as thoroughly as my increasingly limited time allowed. There, that should do, I nodded in approval. I was covered in dirt, but at least I didn’t have to involve innocent bystanders in the mess I was in. The way I figured, a little dirt was a small price to pay for such peace of mind.
I tossed the pack containing my gear over my shoulder and stretched my arms to the sky. Rolling my shoulders back in another quick stretch, I told myself to get a move on. There was still a lot of ground to cover.
