Ash gasps when his body hits the river, his breath coming in short, jagged bursts. His life jacket floats him to the surface where he can breathe air instead of water.
The dangers keep changing. He turns to his back and places his feet out in front of him. He pushes off with his feet from the boulder the river hurls him towards. The swirling currents pull at him. The buoyancy of his life jacket fights the insistence to yield. Then, as though the river never wanted him anyway, he is ejected from the swirling tumult of the rapids and deposited into an eddy.
The cliff of the western bank ends, shifting to green, rolling hills. He swims for the shore. The downpour stops as suddenly as it had come. Blood trickles down his leg, and his lungs burn. He forces his numb limbs to move. When he is clear of the water, he turns back to scan the wide expanse of the river.
He keeps from berating himself, for now. He needs to stay focused, and thinking about how he has failed Cedar is of no help.
He scans the surface again. All he can see are boulders, and white, churning water. He swears. He walks farther south along the now gentle, rolling hills of the bank. Ahead of him, he sees the battered canoe pinned against a rock. Moving away is something swimming in the water. It moves slower than any water creature, but smoothly enough that he guesses it to be Cedar, and she is well enough to swim.
He runs into the river, meeting Cedar as she reaches a place too shallow to swim, and helps her to her feet. He holds her in a crushing embrace. She shivers, and leans into him, drawing from what warmth he has.
Ash draws back and tugs her hand. He leads her out of the water. “Are you hurt?” He massages her scalp, searching her head for cuts and bruises. He runs his hands down her arms and legs.
“I’m f-fine,” she stammers. Ash glances back to the boulder she had swum from. The canoe is gone.
“We need to build a fire.”
“Your leg!” she exclaims and stoops down. Her hands are shaky as she wraps them around his leg to examine the wound.
“You can help me with it later. Fire first.”
She heads into the trees, never so far that he cannot see her. The last thing they need is to be lost in this forsaken forest.
CEDAR USES A LARGE rock to dislodge a generous-sized tinder fungus from a large, ancient tree. It will be useful for starting a fire. The large trees create canopies over the forest and there are plenty of dry grasses and sticks for kindling.
A fire can ignite tree roots underground and spread. She is careful to choose a place near the river’s edge to deposit her bundle of fuel. Ash is breaking off pine boughs, but the small pocketknife that had been zipped in his pocket does not make the job much easier. Still, he takes his time and collects a large pile. Sleeping on the ground with no cover and in wet clothes could be a death sentence.
Cedar lays out her sticks. She has done this countless times, but her hands are shaking and numb. It takes her several attempts before she gets a spark, but a spark is all the encouragement she needs. She feeds the tiny flame dried grass and then pine needles. She will need Ash’s pocket knife to remove the hard, outer layer of the tinder fungus in order to use the inner sponge like material. She watches the fire grow. It seems to be doing well enough without it. She adds a few small sticks, rearranging them and creating barriers from the breeze for the growing flames. Her shaking hands fumble her efforts. The fire cannot grow fast enough to ward off her chill.
Ash arrives behind her. “I’ll tend the fire. You need to get moving to warm up. Don’t run. There are too many places to turn an ankle or slip on the bank. Maybe some lunges, or pushups or something.” He hesitates. “Will you warm up faster without all those wet clothes?”
She peels off her baggy sweater, t-shirt, and pants. For the first time, she thinks of the stone and breathes a sigh of relief to find it tied in place by the strips of fabric. She leaves on the undersized tank top and her panties. Ash gathers her clothes and lays them by the fire. She takes a few steps away and starts moving. When she turns back to the growing fire, she tries not to notice that he also has shed most of his clothing. She moves closer to the fire and she stands with Ash while they wait for their shivering to subside.
The revival of their energy, caused by adrenaline and cold water, begins to wear off, and exhaustion descends.
CEDAR AND ASH SIT back to back near the fire. The thin material of her top is nearly dry. Cedar can feel Ash’s body convulsing in shivers, but his bare back against hers feels still warms her.
She rises slowly, careful not to knock Ash off balance, but he moves his weight over his knees. She collects more fuel from their pile and throws it on top. She turns their drying clothing over again, bringing it as close to the fire as she dares. She returns to Ash, and checks his leg.
“I’m o-okay,” he shivers.
She looks up at him with a sharp glance. “My mother died while traveling this river. You are ill. You’ve swum in near-freezing water. The last thing you need is an infection in this leg.”
“I’m sorry, about your mother,” he says.
Cedar keeps her eyes fixed on his leg.
“How old were you?” Ash asks.
“Four.”
“I was fifteen.”
Cedar moves to sit close enough that her bare arm is against his.
They watch the fire. One of them rises occasionally to feed the flames. Their clothes become dry enough to be of use again.
Their bellies begin to demand attention at their usual mealtime, but the pangs slacken somewhat as time goes by with no means to satisfy them.
They move without comment to the pile of pine boughs and lay close together.
Morning will bring more decisions about what they will need to do to survive.
CEDAR INSPECTS ASH’S LEG as soon as it is light enough to see.
“Let me try walking on it,” he mumbles, waking up. The smell of pine surrounds them. Their scratched faces bear witness to their lack of bedding.
Cedar helps him to rise and he gingerly puts weight on the leg.
He grins at her. “Yep, good as new.”
Cedar frowns. “I’m going to forage for food.”
“Stay close. The last thing we need is to get separated.”
Cedar heads to the tree line. She keeps the river and the clearing between the trees and the bank always in view. She returns with only a handful of berries.
“There’s no sign of the boat,” Ash says, accepting the offer of half the berries.
They savour the fruity burst of sugars while they survey the water. They need to find clean drinking water. The water from the river seems clean enough to drink, but if it makes either of them ill, a difficult situation will become catastrophic.
As she looks at the cliffs farther upstream, she is struck by the familiarity of the unique landscape.
“We should see James’ party coming down the river in a day or two.” Ash’s tone lacks its usual confidence. They could have passed by them while they foraged, or portaged on the eastern bank without being seen.
Dark clouds are gathering above them. She turns around and walks along the tree line. She thinks more clearly when she is moving.
She can feel pressure building in the air. If the rain lasts long, they will not have a chance to get warm by a fire. Any shelter they can build, and with no tools, will be of little use.
Something about the tree line strikes her as odd as she walks back and forth between the river and trees. She stoops down and examines a small sapling. She looks up at the mature trees. She walks a little farther, stopping to examine the occasional sapling. She walks back towards where Ash sits on the ground.
Ash leans forward, arms on his knees. “What is it?”
“These trees, they look as though they’ve been planted.” She steps back and surveys the line of trees once again. They are not exactly in a straight line. Yet they are too deliberately spaced, and too close to the same size to be an accident of nature. She can see no random clusters of competing trees, and no parent tree to the species the saplings belong to.
She looks into the forest and observes the most likely path for human or animal to tread. She walks a ways in. She notices a bent branch here and there, or a small torn limb where it might have impeded the passage. This would fit the pattern of a large animal, but also a human.
Ash follows her, though she can hear the effort it costs him by his shallow breathing. She ventures farther in until she finds herself surrounded by maple trees. Following a hunch, she examines one tree, then another. She walks her fingers up and down the bark until she finds it – a circular hole in the tree’s bark.
“Look at this.” she says, fingering the small hole and the surrounding bark. She does not pause to explain to a clearly mystified Ash. She moves onto another tree, then the next. When she finds one with a small metal spout protruding from the hole, Ash finally understands.
“A spile. Someone has tapped these trees,” Ash says.
They look deeper into the forest. The path appears deliberate, and to their frenzied minds, even manicured. Cedar takes Ash’s hand. He gives it a small squeeze. In unspoken agreement, they drop hands and start on the narrow path.