Gina sank to the ground, finally admitting defeat. “I can’t do this,” she said, barely loud enough to be heard. “I’m sorry.” She looked at the boys and saw that they both wore a stunned look on their faces. They were looking at Gina as if she was a two-headed monster. She dropped her head to her knees, wrapped her arms around it and proceeded to have a complete breakdown.
Sam stared down at the woman he thought he knew. His heart went out to her. Unlike Lucas and Matt, she was not used to the harsh conditions of ranch life. Granted, in no way could this be attributed to any aspect of ranch life, but they had all been hunting, primitive camping, and fishing in these hills. They had all, including himself, gotten lost at least one time in their lives.
“Lucas, build a fire. I think it’s time to share that last MRE and put some water on. I think if you look in my pack there's still a little packet of coffee.”
Sam bent over and scooped Gina up in his arms. He couldn’t believe how light she felt. She used to be what he considered a healthy weight, and he had always been drawn to women who carried a few extra pounds. When he’d first met Gina, she had been that woman. Now, all felt were sharp angles and bones. He set her down beside Matt and nodded. “As soon as we get a fire built, we’re going to have a pow-wow.”
Gina opened her eyes and looked around. Matt was watching her like he thought she might explode on him. She gave him a watery smile, which seemed to relax him. He fumbled in his pocket and handed her back the same wrinkled square of paper towel that she had given hm to dry his tears and nose.
He held it out to her, “Sorry it’s not as clean as when you gave it to me, but it’s better than nothing.”
Gina snorted, and she felt the snot run onto her lip. She grabbed the paper and wiped it off. It didn’t matter that it had been used before. She looked at it, folded it in half to hide the mess and put it back in the pocket it had originally come from. “Thanks Matt. I’m really sorry you guys all had to witness that.”
Sam, who was keeping an eye on her as he gathered sticks and twigs for the fire, stopped what he was doing, “It’s called battle fatigue. Don’t worry, it happens to the best of us.”
Gina sniffed, “Again, I apologize to all of you. I usually don’t lose it like that. I just feel…so out of my element right now. It makes me think that all of the camping trips we went on, was nothing more than playing. This is the real deal, and it scares the hell out of me. No amount of preparing or camping in the woods, could prepare anyone for something like this.”
“You have more experience than someone who has never been exposed to any type of survival experience. At least you can build a fire and chop trees down.” He laughed and pointed to her hands, “Those aren’t the hands of some city slicker.”
“Don’t remind me,” Gina said and buried her hands in her pockets. “I just feel so helpless, not knowing how to get out of here.”
“I can see where not sharing everything, has led up to this. It’s easier when you know what’s out there to deal with it. So, as soon as we share this meal that Lucas is preparing, we’ll talk.”
They used one spoon and passed it and the bag around, each taking a bite. Gina brought out the bag with the pemmican and gave them each one small square. She and Sam shared one cup of coffee, while the boys shared a bottle of water. Sam had turned the horses loose to pick at whatever grass or weeds they could find.
Matt hadn’t said anything since his exchange about the paper towel he’d given back to Gina, and Lucas seemed to be lost in his own thoughts.
Finally, Sam cleared his throat, “If we left the horses behind, we could climb out of here,” he held his hand up to stop the protests, “That’s something I’m not prepared to do, so let me finish. It would be easier without the horses, but harder carrying Matt on the stretcher, so what I plan is for me and Lucas to hike the area and scout a way for us all to get out of here. Right now, we’re losing too much time going one way and then having to backtrack when we find we can’t pass.”
“Is that wise, though? What happens if one of you gets hurt? We’d be separated and never know.”
“I don’t intend on getting that far away. Lucas, think you can handle this? I’m going to continue going the same direction we were headed, but I think Lucas should go south. He’s a good tracker and knows enough to mark his trail.”
Lucas nodded, “I can do that. How far should I go?”
“Walk for two hours. That will give you plenty of time to get back here before dark. I’ll do the same thing, and we’ll meet back here.”
Lucas stood and went to the bags that had come off the jenny. He held a bone-handled knife in a scabbard for Sam to see.
Sam nodded, “That’ll work. Gina, I know you’re probably wondering why I didn’t ask you to go too, but we need to have someone here with Matt. Lucas has more experience in the woods, such as they are. He at least knows the signs to look for.”
Sam looked like there was something more he wanted to say and so Gina waited. He didn’t disappoint.
“This isn’t something I was going to bring up, but I can see where we need full disclosure. Last night, when we went to the other camp, Gina and I saw indications of a bear in the area.”
Sam waited for his words to sink in. The boys looked at each other wide-eyed, and then Lucas grinned. “This isn’t a joke, and you need to take the possibility of meeting one seriously. Lucas, you make noise when you walk and if you do run across one, and it isn’t leaving, you aim for the chest or behind the arm and keep shooting until it drops. No fancy headshots because you won’t succeed. The bullets will bounce off their thick skull. Center mass and keep an extra magazine handy. If that doesn’t work, run for all you are worth.”
“I can climb a tree.”
Sam looked at Lucas and frowned, “Bears climb trees too, in case you forgot. If you’ve injured him at all, you should be able to outrun it.”
Lucas nodded. He looked excited at the prospect of being included to find the way out or the possibility of meeting a bear face to face, Gina wasn’t sure which. She did understand why Sam had selected Lucas to go instead of her, but it still rankled that he hadn’t asked her anyhow. She thought back over the past hour and realized why he had chosen to leave her with Matt. She not only must look a mess, but suspected emotionally she was in bad shape too. Her actions, if nothing else, had proved that even to her.
“Gina, you need to have your 30/30 by your side and not in your saddle scabbard. Remember, body shot. Anywhere but the head.”
Gina nodded and went to get her 30/30 as well as her 357 which she had hung back in the carrier on her saddle. She checked to make sure they were both fully loaded and went to sit beside Matt.
“Hurry back and good luck. We could use some right about now.”
Sam shook Lucas’s hand, and they left going their separate ways.
“You’ve got about two hours to stretch out in. Why don’t you rest for a while?”
“I sure would like to do that, but my leg feels like it’s broken and it hurts bad.”
“I sure don’t understand man humor. Of course it hurts, it’s broken. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything to give you for the pain.”
Matt stretched out beside her. Within minutes she could hear his soft snores. Careful not to disturb him, Gina got up. Hands on her hips, she surveyed their small camp. Gus and Clyde had wandered off, but she could still hear them and Sailor and Chief were picking yellow grass from the base of an uprooted tree.
With nothing to do but wait, Gina got a brush from her bag and began to brush Sailor. She had just finished one side and was moving to do the other, when he jerked his head in the air. His ears pointed forward, and he gave a soft nicker. He was looking down the hill in the direction that Gus and Clyde had gone. She heard Clyde whinny back and then Gus let go of one of his loud brays. She could here sticks snapping, as the mule and horse came back up the hill. Sailor began dancing away from her trying to face the racket coming up the hill. The noise stopp
ed, and Gina wondered if she needed to check on them.
She rubbed his neck, “What do you think, buddy? Should we go see what kind of trouble they’ve gotten into now?”
She looked at Matt and saw he was still snoozing. She wasn’t going far and would hear if he called out. With Sailor trailing behind her, Gina walked down the slope. She saw Clyde through the trees, and he didn't appear upset in any way. She had heard Gus hee-haw before she saw him. He was perhaps fifty yards down the hill from Clyde in a small clearing, his nose on the ground.
“Gus, come on up here boy. He snorted at her and kept pawing at whatever he had found. Gina followed his tracks down. Before she reached the bottom, she looked around to make sure there was nothing menacing anywhere close. Gus looked up at her and cocked his head. She saw his mouth open, and his tongue and teeth were black.
“What the heck have you gotten into?” she hurried to him to see that he had dug up someone's old campfire. Turning in a circle, she saw where the lower branches had been trimmed from the trees. She thought the clearing looked a little familiar but wasn’t sure. She walked the perimeter and found where several horses had come through and followed the trail away from it. She found the distinctive footprints made by Gus.
She hurried back into the glen and hugged Gus. With her arms around his neck, she lavished him with praise. “Good boy Gus. You’ve found our old camp. This is where we stayed when John and Andy left. You’re a savior again.”
As much as Gina wanted to follow the trail the others had taken away from the clearing, she knew she couldn’t go off without anyone knowing, and she sure couldn’t leave Matt alone. Gina turned, and with a pat on Gus’s back, she walked back up the hill and sat waiting for Sam and Lucas to return.
She wanted to wake Matt and tell him of her find, or rather Gus’s find, but she knew he needed the rest. At least asleep, the pain from his leg wouldn’t be as severe.
Waiting had always worn on Gina’s nerves. It was the one thing she had always hated about working for the V.A. Everyone had to wait. Some returning veterans had to wait for so long to receive treatment, that she encouraged them to seek treatment from non-V.A. doctors. Some did, and some couldn’t afford to or had insufficient insurance to pay for outside doctoring. These were the ones who Gina and Journey tried to help the most. While they weren’t licensed to give medical care outside the hospital, they both volunteered at several of the free clinics where they saw more than their share of veterans. Lucy had taken to volunteering along with them, and while she couldn’t offer care of any kind, she was an inspiration to many of the homeless and veterans. It had taken time, but she had finally shared her injury, and it had given others a reason to persevere in their efforts to use prosthetics. She had been a natural when she’d realized people did want to hear success stories. They wanted to know there was hope for the ones who had lost limbs to have a relatively normal life. They enjoyed the adventures that Lucy would share with them.
Her thoughts wandered in the direction of the ranch, and she wondered if they had given up hope of them ever returning. She had lost track of time, but thought that John and Andy should have returned already. It had been a week since they’d left them. Sam had given no timeframe for their return, only that they would bring the boys back.
Now, she realized how easily it could have gone the other way. She knew Matt was burdened with guilt for leaving in the first place while she thought that Lucas thought it was some kind of great adventure. He had felt badly with the loss of the jenny, but not enough to curb his desire to go. She hoped when they got back, John’s wrath wouldn’t drive him away.
When Gina found herself drifting off, she sat up and shook her head. Gina wished she had wound her watch, but it had been so long since she could look at it and know the time, she only wore it out of habit.
She was antsy and couldn’t just sit and wait. She decided it was the perfect opportunity to do something with her hair. She didn’t have a hairbrush, but she had the next best thing. She had Sailors brush and mane comb.
The elastic on the end of her braid broke as she tried to remove it. As soon as she put the comb in her hair, she knew it wasn’t going to work. It was so tangled the comb got stuck immediately. She sat and used the brush until the comb could pass through without pulling half her hair out. Gina bent over and shook her hair out, not believing how good it felt to have it free. With it hanging over her face, all she smelled was sweat and wood smoke. Gathered in her hand, Gina started at her neck, divided it into three sections and began to braid. It had been so long since she had taken it out, she was amazed that while her body was thinning down, her hair still found enough nourishment to grow. One of the best memories of her life was sitting, big with child, having Mitch brush her hair in front of the fireplace. They had made so many plans back then.
Gina shook herself. She’d been drifting off again, lost in the past.
“Your hair is so long, just like my Mom’s was. Do you ever cut it?”
“I didn’t know you were awake. How do you feel?”
“Good. Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Ever cut it? My Mom never ever cut hers. She said if God wanted her to have short hair he wouldn’t have made it grow so fast.”
Gina laughed, “I completely understand. I used to, but then I never had time to keep it up. It’s easier for me to braid it and forget it.”
“Someone’s coming back.”
Gina listened and heard what he did. Someone was coming through the trees, not hiding the noise they were making. She picked up the 30/30 just in case. She jacked a shell in and cocked the hammer back half way. Of all of the rifles in their eclectic supply, she still preferred her 30/30. She knew how many shells she had and it was easy to maintain. It was a pre-64, so it was manufactured from lathed parts, not the pressed sheet metal of the newer Winchesters.
Matt and Gina sat transfixed by the noise coming toward them. “That’s definitely Sam, but what the heck is he doing?”
He came past the root ball of a fallen pine tree with a person hoisted up by the back of their neck leading the way. At the edge of the clearing, he shoved the person to the ground, “Now you stay down. I mean it. This time I’ll blister your ass!”
Sam had streaks of blood running down both cheeks, and Gina rushed over to him. “You’re bleeding, what happened? Who is that?”
The person on the ground tried to bolt for the trees, and Sam caught them with his foot and held them down. The body on the ground continued to fight him by trying to bite his foot. They hissed and used a guttural language that Gina couldn’t understand.
She dropped and grabbed Sam’s foot when she thought he was too rough. “Sam, stop this. This is a child. A boy.”
“That little hellion is a girl. She landed on top of me from out of a tree. I’ve spent the last hour trying to get her back here. Now I can see where I should have left her behind.”
At hearing Gina’s voice something in the girl changed. She turned her eyes to Gina, and they filled with tears, They rolled silently down her cheeks, not even washing the dirt from her face away. Her hair looked like a beehive of dirt, leaves and sticks, and she was little more than a walking skeleton. Gina leaned close, trying not to breathe in the rancid odor of the girl.
She wasn’t sure what to say to her, but her voice clearly settled the girl down. “Hi…what’s your name? Mine is Gina. Well actually it’s Virginia, but my friends all call me Gina.”
With each of her words, the girl relaxed and Gina pushed Sam’s foot off her. She glared up at Sam until he moved his foot. Gina felt her body tense up and put her hand on the girl's arm.
“We’re not going to hurt you. Are you hungry? Food?” Gina said and made a gesture like she was putting food in her own mouth. She saw the corner of the girl's lip lift in amusement. “Well, that was pretty dumb. I know you understand me, this is America and not a place where you wouldn’t know how to speak English. So you either want to eat, or you don’t. Which is i
t?”
The girl studied her for a second and then nodded.
“Sam, get a fire built and warm some water. Matt, throw the bag of pemmican here.” Before he could turn the bag loose, “No! Don't throw it. Sam, can you hand it here?”
“How about we sit you up?” Gina helped the girl sit and almost cried when she felt how skinny the girl was. Gina couldn’t feel an ounce of extra meat on her bones. Her pant legs were ripped short and the extra material wrapped around her feet in place of shoes. All she had on her top half was a men’s sweatshirt that was so dirty Gina couldn’t read whatever was written across the front of it.
Every time Sam moved, the girl flinched as if she was preparing to run. Gina couldn’t let her leave, but at the same time, if the girl wanted to bad enough, she would do it the first time one of them let their guard down. She would either stay on her own accord, or she would leave, and Gina wasn’t going to tie her up or allow Sam to either.
Gina balanced on her knees in front of the girl, “I know you’re probably scared right now. We are not going to hurt you in any way. If you want to leave, there’s nothing any of us can or will do to prevent that. You’re not a dog we can tie to a tree, so it’s up to you. On the other hand, we won’t sit while you steal from us or hurt any one of us. Do you understand me?”
She waited while the girl seemed to think over what Gina had said. She must have heard the sincerity in Gina’s voice as well as the truth. The girl nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving Gina’s.
“I promise,” she croaked out as if she hadn’t used her voice in a while.
“Okay, good. Now, this is all the food we have right now, but we’re going home where we do have food.” The girl nodded and took the square of pemmican from Gina.
“If I get up and find some clothes of mine to fit you, are you going to run?”
The girl was sitting with her eyes closed, chewing on the piece of pemmican as if it were heavenly. Continuing to chew, she shook her head, no.
Beyond the New Horizon (Book 2): Desperate Times Page 28
