subrosa: the adventures of bill chase chapter_05

Chapter 5


We went to sleep early, as soon as the light faded from the sky. The sky was full of dark grey clouds; from our countless days of hiking, we had learned that rain came from clouds.

We had been exposed to many trials of endurance through the recent past; it was added hardship when everything we had and everything we touched was dripping wet. Today was the first sunny day we had had in a long while. It felt good to be dry once more. We longed desperately for our comfort to last more than a day.

As I waited for sleep to enfold me, I thought about the past days and remembered pictures of our journey. It was next to impossible for me to picture the memories as something that we had really experienced, but it left too much of a physical impression on me to only have been a dream.

We were lucky enough to wake up dry in the early morning. The night’s rain was minimal. We ate and packed. We were still dry. The clouds disappeared from the morning sky, leaving us to what looked like a pleasant day of hiking.

As we started our first climb from our beach site with little food left in our bags, we felt a hope that something new was going to happen on our journey. Our optimism might have been disguised fear of the pending hunger and struggles that awaited us.

It seemed that after a short ascent of one hill, we would have a day of easy hiking. Halfway up the hill we were sweating profusely and had to stop to remove some clothing and drink some water. Before reaching the top of the hill a light rain had joined us so that we had to stop again to put on our raincoats. The raincoats were good at stopping outside moisture permeating, but unfortunately we became drenched from sweat trapped inside our rubbery nylon rain protection.

Our spirits sank as we pushed up the hill. It was staring to make Brian irrational. When a branch hooked on to his pack, he turned to curse and fight with the inanimate life form. It was the first time I had ever seen him lose his temper.

But our real troubles started when the wide path, which we had been following, gradually disappeared. Before we could realise what was happening, we found ourselves crashing through wet, tangled foliage. We continued, in a mad determination, to climb over fallen trees and plough through bogs.

We were frustrated, soaked, disoriented and nearly exhausted when we stumbled onto a clearing. The rain was a light mist, so it seemed like a good idea to stop for a while to dry out a bit.

Fearing the rain would start again, I started a small fire under the protection of a large fallen tree trunk. It was a slight error in judgement on my part. The fallen tree sheltered the fire from the misty rain, but the tree was not as solid or wet as I had assumed. We were getting nicely dried and rested when the decayed tree caught fire. The tree was mostly hollow so that when it started burning it was instantly out of control. We had visions of the mountain ablaze with us standing in a clearing watching the destruction caused from my stupidity.

We tried putting out the flame by piling rocks on the original fire but our effort proved to be useless. Quickly, we found a branch and levered it against the tree inferno, breaking the half away that was not burning. We pushed it well away before returning to the other half that was entirely consumed in flames. Our mission seemed only half as dangerous now. The next idea became a success. We broke off pieces of the decayed wood and spread them out on the wet ground. After much prying and hitting, we had destroyed the last ember. Charred pieces of dead tree lay scattered on the beaten landscape.

Our rest turned out to be a lesson on fire control. The dryness we had achieved had been assaulted by the sweat from our work. To make our plight worse, the dark sky let fall more rain. We were a badly timed punch line of a poor joke.

We decided that the woods were not meant for hiking in, so we set our sights on the lake that was a long way below us. Our descent was slow with the only sense of direction being down. It looked like our troubled adventure would continue in a state of despair. We knew we were in for a sleepless and uncomfortable night.

By the time we managed to forge through the broken landscape to the lake, we had reached a new height in exhaustion. We might have admitted that we were in some way enjoying our new life of hazardous, wet travel, but we were too involved in it to realise it. We built a small fire, while the rain subsided for a short time, to eat our last bit of beans. The trip down the mountain had been dangerous. It felt good to be motionless while we ate. We shivered from the cold wind as we nibbled our humbled meal.

After we had cleaned up, we had to decide what to do that might prolong our survival. Our need for food meant that we had to move on. We noticed wood floating in the water and contemplated whether or not we could use it to our advantage. Combing along the shore, we collected as many logs as we thought we needed. We hauled them into an inlet to arrange them; the two longest logs went on the outside, and the rest went in the middle. With Brian holding them together, I secured the logs with the long rope we had. It was a huge floating floor.

It was a great invention.

With two long poles, we pushed off from shore and let the waves and wind take us down the lake. It was slow moving but it required little effort. After a short jubilant discussion, we fell silent. Although we were confined to a very small area, the coldness and wetness of our environment seemed to separate us.

It rained off and on through the night. I hugged my knees to try to keep in what little heat my body might have had left but I still shivered the night away.

It was not until morning that we came out of our huddled sleepless trances to regain our bearings on our confusing predicament. I stood up to stretch and survey the surroundings.

"I am getting about ready to stand on solid land," I said to open up communication with Brian.

"I am ready as well."

We attempted to paddle to shore with our poles. We did not make much progress. It was light enough now for us to realise that what we thought was a lake, had become a river. It was much narrower than when we started out the day before. The shore lines were more like walls than banks; getting off of our frail island of driftwood did not look too hopeful. Observing the positive points, we noted that the rain had stopped in the night and it seemed that the air was a little warmer. The fire ball light source was lifting mist from the river. The sight of it pulled us into a new dream.

"As the river gets narrower, the water moves faster. We cover distance quicker but somehow it does not seem safe."

Brian agreed. "Yes, what does not feel sate is being out of control. We are at the mercy of a river that looks like it does not have the capacity for mercy. It does not even have knowing to know we are here."

In a short time, we were being swept along dangerously. The water splashed over the surface of our craft. Our hope of any dryness faded.

Our fate looked inevitable, but neither of us was willing to face it. We secured our bags to our life raft and hung on as best we could as we got tossed down the now raging, rapid river.

"There are rocks just below the surface that could rip this craft apart," Brian shouted over the noise of the thrashing water.

"Like the ones above the surface just a ways down the river."



by Joanne B. Washington

read on. chapter_06



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