Coming Home

[2medicine woman]

Good chapter! It sounds like Einar's thinking is more rational now. Maybe actually eating is helping his mental functions. Now, I have to wait to see what is going on in the meadow. Grrrrrr!

Thanks for the new post. Love this story along with the previous books too. Do you have any other writings out for public perusal?

We had 10" of new snow dumped on us last night. It was majestic to watch. Snow is mysterious and powerful. I am always in awe of Mother Earth's beauty and power.

2medicine woman

[MissPatRN]

Well I have finally caught up, so I can thank you for all 3 books.
Started on Survival board and thankfully you added connections to the other 2 sites.

I think I am following Medicinewoman with every book. I sure do like her!

I really appreciate your fine writing, giving all your time and sharing all of your knowledge. I also appreciate the absence of curse words and sexual situations.
I feel so blessed when I am able to read books that are written by Christians.
Have a blessed day

[FOTH]

Mar 5, 2014 17:10:29 GMT -6 2medicine woman said:

Good chapter! It sounds like Einar's thinking is more rational now. Maybe actually eating is helping his mental functions. Now, I have to wait to see what is going on in the meadow. Grrrrrr!

Thanks for the new post. Love this story along with the previous books too. Do you have any other writings out for public perusal?

We had 10" of new snow dumped on us last night. It was majestic to watch. Snow is mysterious and powerful. I am always in awe of Mother Earth's beauty and power.

2medicine woman

Glad you got to enjoy the beauty and power of all that new snow! Isn't the time just after a big storm, when everything is so still and silent and fresh with its new covering of white, a wonderful time?

No, I don't have any other writings like this one out there for folks to read. Einar's stories are my first and so far only attempt at writing fiction. In the past, my writings have mostly been of a much more technical nature. Though I did dabble in poetry, for a while.

Mar 7, 2014 18:24:21 GMT -6 MissPatRN said:

Well I have finally caught up, so I can thank you for all 3 books.
Started on Survival board and thankfully you added connections to the other 2 sites.

I think I am following Medicinewoman with every book. I sure do like her!

I really appreciate your fine writing, giving all your time and sharing all of your knowledge. I also appreciate the absence of curse words and sexual situations.
I feel so blessed when I am able to read books that are written by Christians.
Have a blessed day

MissPatRN, glad you have found your way here!

I'll look forward to hearing your perspective on things, as the story goes along. I appreciate hearing that you enjoy the stories, and the way I write them. Thanks!

___________________

With the coming of full dark a silence settled over the ridge and the long, sweeping slopes of timber and rock below, and so complete did it seem that Einar found himself wondering after a time about the safety of having a very small fire. The idea was dismissed almost immediately. Too much risk should one of those planes choose to return, and he was, beside, now too close to the area where he believed them to have been landing to risk either the light of a fire or the scent of its smoke. Could have used a fire, lower half still damp from struggling through the snow and the cold really starting to get to him now that he had stopped moving. He’d found a decent place in which to pass the night, a sheltered little depression on the leeward side of a massive if gnarled old limber pine, its wide trunk and root system providing good protection from the winds that whispered icy and persistent up along the ridgeline and beneath its spreading boughs a fair-sized area where the snow had already melted out, leaving masses of somewhat dry needles which would serve to insulate him from the earth beneath.

None of this, however, solved the problem of his wet clothes or the way they were beginning to freeze on his body, and not wanting things to progress any further in that direction he stripped from the waist down, hanging everything in the tree for a little freeze-drying overnight and hurrying into a pair of dry socks—the only spare clothing he had brought along—before curling up inside his mostly-dry parka. Resting, warming a bit, now that he’d got out of contact with his wet clothes, Einar was grateful that he could make himself small enough to use the parka as a sort of sleeping bag, a very useful ability under present circumstances—though at the same time he knew that he would be a good deal warmer, regardless of the situation, had he possessed a bit more natural insulation on his body, a bit more bulk.

Though able to curl into a rather compact bundle when need be, the position made Einar’s injured leg cramp dreadfully after a time, but when he in his half-sleep sought to straighten it enough to ease the cramps, frigid night air was allowed into his little cocoon and he soon found himself wide awake and shivering uncontrollably. Not working so well, and he shifted position slightly so that he could look out from under his parka hood and see the stars where they arced sharp, white and unblinking above the canopy of spruce boughs which were his concealment for the night. Bright they seemed, dazzlingly bright and near, and he wondered if the starlight might allow him enough sight to begin making his way once more towards the lands above the canyon rim.

Movement would be good, seemed, in fact, the only real option if he wanted to start getting warm again. Which he knew he had better do. Current situation was growing increasingly untenable as the cold crept in and finished numbing his legs, leaving the rest of his body aching and straining as it sought to maintain a useful degree of warmth. Yet, lifting his head and taking a better look at the night landscape, Einar knew he must wait for a lessening of the darkness before he moved too far. Any major travel undertaken now would bring with it a serious risk of ending off far off course come the morning, and having to backtrack. He did not have time to backtrack. And if he was waiting for daylight, might as well do it right where he was. Tempting as movement sounded, he knew that unless he was ready to really travel, cover some distance and get his blood moving, the endeavor would only leave him colder, more worn out and still needing to find someplace to pass a few nighttime hours. Nothing wrong with his current location. Best stay right where he was. Had to stop that cold air, though, and ignoring the cramps that gripped calf and upper leg he brought both knees up to his chest, rolling the backpack over the opening thus left at the bottom of his parka and sealing himself more effectively into his good dry cocoon of skins and fur.

Took Einar a long time to begin warming up, and in fact he never did really manage it, but did at least succeed in halting the rapid loss of heat which had previously been threatening his ability to hold out until the morning. Perhaps not ideal conditions, but they would keep him alive, and that was the only thing which really counted, that night. Drifting somewhere near sleep, Einar found himself glad that Liz was not there to disagree. Though of course, would have been a lot warmer had she been present…

Dawn, and the first flight of the day, took him by surprise. Rigid and unmoving as the sound droned overhead he struggled with eyelids frosted in the night by his breath, finally got them open to see just the faintest hint of daylight through the spruces, not yet bright, but it was enough. Time to be moving, but the task was a bit easier said than done, at first. He’d quit shivering sometime in the night, whether because the parka-cocoon had done its job reasonably well or because his body had simply run out of the limited resources necessary to keep up such intensive activity, he could not be sure, and he found the realization mildly disturbing considering the distance he had to cover that day, figured he’d better try and eat something. Just as soon as he’d got himself untangled from the jumble of elbows and knees in which he’d spent the night, and all of which now seemed tremendously stiff and unwilling to change position.

Success after a bit of struggle, Einar pounding on numbed legs as he half crouched, half leaned against the gnarled, wind-twisted bulk of the night’s shelter-tree, working to get some blood moving. Not much response from his body, and he knew there probably wouldn’t be until he’d given it some energy with which to work. Fumbling with the backpack, finding food that Liz had sent with him, he ate, putting aside the thought that it was compromise, surrender, to thus give in to bodily needs and demands when he ought instead to have been using the occasion as another opportunity to exercise his resolve, increase his ability to resist… No need for such thoughts that morning. He had to find those planes, determine the level of threat presented his family by their continued presence in the area, and act quickly on a plan to mitigate it. Which reminded him. He hadn’t yet even bothered to stand up and peek around the wide, rambling base of his shelter-tree, and have a look at the view as light strengthened on the land.

If Einar had hoped to have a useful view of his future route from the ridge-crest, the coming of dawn found him sorely disappointed. Though the ridge was high and his vantage theoretically good, any view he might have managed of the meadows above the canyon rim, or even the forest surrounding them, was entirely blocked by a rise of timbered land which lay off to the south of his present position, and whose bulk he had been unable to discern in the previous night’s darkness. No grand vista, then, no way to visually plan his route to the last detail as he would have liked to do, and without detailed sectional maps of the area, he was left to remember, and to guess. Guess, mostly, because he had never really got a good look at the area to which he was headed, save from the opposite wall of the canyon, and at that time, he had not been studying it with such an approach as he would now be trying in mind.

Well. He rose, stashed in his pack the few items he had removed in preparing breakfast, and slipped into his icy pants and boots. Better get moving, see what I can see from the top of that big timbered rise, over there. Know I have to cross it to get where I’m headed, one way or the other.

[2medicine woman]

Darn it Chris! I thought I was finally going to see the meadow.. meanie! LOL If you can leave your frozen jeans long enough, they will dry in the frigid temps. Freeze dried.

I learned a new term, woodsman. I think I am a "woodswoman". (I wonder if that is an actual word?) I am completely at home in the forests. I do not feel fear or apprehension. I do not feel lost or out of place. I know what I can and cannot eat. I love fish so I usually spear some, depending on the type of water I am near. I love the berries Minnesota offers. Nothing better. It makes me ill when I see those pathetic boxes of blueberries or strawberries in the store. Yuck! Also, wild rice is abundant in the northern 1/2 of the state. and.... only natives can legally harvest it. Other races (does that sound right?) have to buy a license and then they have to harvest it in the same manner we do. Good stuff. Like nutty tasting. It's really not rice at all but the settlers thought it was so they called it that. It is a grass seed.

Hey, how did I get off track here? hahahaha!

Thanks for the new post. BUT -- no more keeping us hanging waiting for Einar to get farther up to see where the planes are going and what they are doing.

tok'sa ake

[icefire]

I'm with 2medicinewoman...I want...No, I NEED to know what the heck is going on in that meadow,and what is with all those planes, and what do they mean for Einar and family, and...and....and....

You are being SUCH a tease, stringing us along like this. I can't wait for the next installment!

[FOTH]

Icefire and 2medicinewoman--alright, no more waiting! I'm sure Einar, too, is quite anxious to find out the purpose and business of those planes...

2medicinewoman, pretty neat about harvesting the wild rice. Do you go out in a canoe to do that? How much do you harvest, most years?

Yes, jeans will indeed freeze dry if left out on the line long enough in freezing weather! If they didn't guess I wouldn't end up with too much dry laundry in the winter, here... Though if in a hurry I do sometimes hang a few things inside--or just wear the item until it dries. Lots of options.

________________________

Moving with relative ease over the morning’s hard-frozen crust of snow and spurred on by a pressing need to generate some warmth after getting back into his icy clothing, Einar hurried down across the narrow, semi-open saddle that lay beneath his sleeping spot, breathing a sigh of relief when he could once more enter the dark timber and begin his ascent up the steep, timbered slope beyond. Had not cared for the thought of encountering one of those planes while not under what he considered to be adequate cover, and hoped very much that as he neared his target area, the trees would continue to offer him the concealment he needed. A period of quiet as Einar climbed, the planes, it seemed, having completed their task for a time and taking a respite, but their recent nearness and the knowledge that the last one had never made its return flight and so must remain on the ground somewhere down beyond the summit of the timbered rise kept him moving with a speed and alertness approaching what he had been able to manage in previous years.

Topping out on the rise, Einar remained frustrated in his quest for a clear view, timber and terrain conspiring to block him, but at least he was that much closer to his goal, and knew it. Could remember enough of the surrounding territory to know that, should he keep to the high ground while heading in the direction of the canyon’s head, he would have to either reach the meadows or run into the canyon, itself, at which point his intended direction would be clear.
All good news, for it meant he could keep moving, and without movement, he could feel that he was going to be in real trouble, at least until he got those clothes dried out. Not waiting around to find out just what form that trouble might take or how serious its nature—had a pretty good idea, from past experience—Einar took off through the timber, this time angling downwards slightly as he traveled, plotting his course in keeping with where he believed the canyon to lie.

Some time later—difficult to tell exactly how long, as high, thin clouds had swept in to conceal the sun—his movement was halted by a series of weird metallic popping sounds not at all in keeping with the type of woods through which he currently traveled, and far too near for comfort.

Stopping, crouching behind the nearest concealment—a cluster of bare, leafless wild rose canes; better than nothing—he got his knife into his hand, kept quiet and waited to hear it again. At first all was quiet, soft sounds of seeping meltwater in the moss and an occasional sigh of wind through the spruce tops unbroken by harsh, unnatural outbursts such as had first seized his attention, and after several minutes of stillness Einar found himself beginning to wonder if the entire thing might have been the unfortunate and all-too-realistic creation of his overly tired and still under-nourished brain, an auditory illusion of the sort that had from time to time been known to plague him in the past under such circumstances.

He doubted it. For one thing, he’d been eating far more regularly and a greater amount of late than he’d done in months, and ought as a result to be seeing fewer such incidents, if anything. And, despite passing the night in fairly significant discomfort due to his damp surroundings and inadequate cover, he had actually managed a fair amount of sleep, which two facts taken together really ought to make any odd sounds he heard external in origin. And thus a mystery which must be solved, before he continued too much further.

No solving the mystery by remaining crouched behind his little cluster of thorn bushes, not unless the thing intended on stepping out of the timber and walking his way, waving a white flag, and seeing as this had not yet occurred—and that his injured leg was beginning to ache and cramp terribly in his current position—he carefully rose, keeping the knife at the ready, and slipped into the denser timber that stood in the direction from which the sound had seemed to emanate.

If Einar had retained any doubts as to the external origin of the strange sounds which had halted his travel, these doubts were quickly dispelled when a gust of wind, stronger than those which had come before, flattened the lithe spruce tops and brought with it an unmistakable flexing and popping which reminded Einar of a tin roof being torn apart by the wind. Metal, for sure, and certain now that he was on the right track, Einar kept low as he moved through the trees, slipping like a shadow from boulder to boulder and pausing frequently to listen, like a deer that’s got wind of some danger but is not yet certain of its position or exact nature. There, ahead, lay a gap in the trees, and Einar’s pace slowed even further, body dropping and his posture resembling that of an animal stalking its prey, moving in to cover the final few yards.

No prey in sight, however, and no danger either, once he painstakingly made it to the edge of the trees and looked out across what must have been hundreds of acres of snow-splotched grassland, its flattened, muddied surface appearing in wide swaths where action of the sun and wind had only recently set the snow to melting. Very recently, Einar could see, for still there remained the whitish spider web pattern of fungus which grew beneath the snow and never survived its passing by more than a few weeks. The meadows, then, but in them no hint of the planes or any human activity which might hint at the purpose of the aircraft in making so many trips back and forth, but neither did he see anything which might have begun to explain the strange metallic sounds he had been hearing whenever the wind came up, so he knew further exploration was in order.

There is was again, the sound coming this time from a place far closer and just off to his left, so that Einar went to the ground again and began scrambling silently through the brush, stomach and elbow as he sought to stay low and avoid leaving marks which would give away his presence or his passing should the enemy later end up in that spot to investigate

Several dozen yards to the right and nearly half an hour later, Einar’s efforts were rewarded with the first glimpse of a sight which might begin to explain both the strange sounds of the afternoon, and the planes which had originally brought him to the area, a series of tents, tarps and even a small generator all neatly arranged neatly within a half circle of large limestone boulders in a shallow depression some hundred yards from the timber’s edge. A natural place for a camp of its size, sheltered somewhat by its unique terrain from the winds which otherwise whipped and howled unbroken across these vast meadows of snow and grass, and Einar could not help but admire the abilities of whatever person had chosen the spot.

No one seemed to be around, a fact which puzzled Einar as he lay studying the camp from his position just inside the timber and half beneath the rotted remains of an ancient log, and he fought off a strong and sudden urge to dash out across the open space separating him from the camp, and quickly explore the place before its absent occupants could return. He would be doing nothing of the sort, would, he knew, now have to begin a slow and painstaking process of scouting and surveillance which he could only hope would lead to answers about the place and the sort of threat it might or might not represent to his little family some eight miles distant in their basin shelter. Besides which, the place presented him with one immediate mystery to solve, which was the location of the last plane to have flown over, the plane that had not returned. As yet, he had seen no sign of the aircraft.

[icefire]

AAaarrrgghhhh! Once again, you've left us hanging! Chris, you have become the master of the cliffhanger! Now, PLEASE quit hanging those cliffs and SPILL wehat's going on! Pretty Please" With chocolate and whipped cream and a cherry on top?

[2medicine woman]

oh no! Maybe the plane went down someplace. Good chapter Chris. I do so love this story.

Yes, in Minnesota, wild rice is regulated to make sure it is not harvested into extinction. All must harvest it by non motorized boats. Native culture uses a canoe. One person usually poles through the rice while another uses "knockers". This is a specific size stick that is brushed gently down the rice stem to get the grain to drop into the bottom of the canoe. Also, letting other seeds return to the waters for another crop in the next year. Rice is very sacred and a good source of protein. It is nutty in taste with a slight vegetable after taste. I really like it. It takes more cooking that the white rice you can buy in the store. It is a great venue for wild meats. Deer, rabbit, bear are perfect when cooked with rice. Wild onions, mushrooms, acorns or walnuts go well too. Darn, now I'm hungry. LOL

Thanks for the new post. I appreciate your work and the effort you put forth to write.

tok'sa ake

[FOTH]

2medicine woman, thanks for describing how your harvest rice. Bear meat, wild rice and inky cap mushrooms (one of the kinds I harvest, here) do sound like a wonderful meal, together! You're making me hungry, too.


Thank you all for reading!

__________________________

Before he could go searching for the plane which he was sure must have remained somewhere in the meadow, Einar knew he must do his best to try and identify the locations of the people who must surely be associated with this large, sprawling camp. One mystery, at least, had been solved for him, a strip of old roofing tin secured somewhat precariously to a frame of two-by-fours and old pallets providing explanation for the metallic flexing and popping sounds which had earlier caught his attention. The entire ramshackle structure appeared from a different time to the crisp new tents and tarps which made up the remainder of the structures, some old hunting camp, perhaps, that these new people had used as the base of their operation until they could get something better set up. But, to what purpose? Surely not hunting, not this time of year. The only thing that would be in season, so far as he could remember, would be big cats, and no one set up expansive camps at the edge of hundred acre meadows to go in search of mountain lions… Terrain wasn’t right, and neither were the tactics. Everything looked too new, too fresh-out-of-the-box, to be associated with a hunting trip. Besides which, he saw no sign of horses. Smelled none, either. Something very odd about the entire setup, and he intended to discover its nature.

Squirming carefully through the heavy brush just inside the treeline, Einar worked his way around camp to the right, reaching an area where the brush was interspersed with large, lichen-spotted boulders of yellow-grey limestone, their surfaces pockmarked with myriad craters ranging from the size of tiny pinpricks all the way up to depressions in which Einar could have curled up and hidden himself for the night, had he been of a mind to do it. Between and beneath these rocks he concealed himself as he crept along, ground muddy now beneath him, snow all but gone. It was largely gone out in the meadow, entire swaths bare and—for he now saw the improvised landing strip—apparently solid enough in some places to support tundra tires. Looked, from the series of muddy streaks and tracks worn into the thick grass of the meadow, that the strip had seen a fair amount of use in recent days, which would be in line with the numbers of trips they’d been seeing from the aircraft that had passed over their shelter.

A few more cautious feet, then, and he saw it, not too far from a group of jutting limestone escarpments—wings, he would have called them, sticking right out of the ground as if to announce that yes, of course, here one must land and leave one’s plane—which closely adjoined his own group of boulders. So near that he could have crept up and touched its tail, had he wished.

Would have been a good way to begin gathering more information about the group that—somewhere out of sight—was making itself at home in this meadow far too close for comfort to his home and his family’s, element of surprise on his side, but he knew that to go out in the open was to risk possible face-to-face confrontation with whoever might be up there, and that was something he wanted to avoid for the time, if at all possible. Such a meeting would almost surely result in someone not coming away alive, Einar, through necessity, forced to protect himself and by extension his family from discovery and the renewed search that would follow, and though reasonably confident both in his ability to come out ahead in any such conflict and to prevent the others from knowing what had become of their missing companion…he wished if at all possible to avoid such potential loss of life.

He had certainly killed before, both in the jungle and after, firearms—faces through the scope, watched for days, sometimes, until the time was right—explosives, a knife once, his own hands, that sharp sliver of bamboo that had been the only weapon available when he’d slipped out of his cage in the swamp…but it wasn’t their faces he saw when he closed his eyes, not the memory of those men that troubled his conscience. He had, in those situations, done what he had to do to go on living, or to protect his unit, and he did not regret his actions. The faces that plagued his dreams were, instead, those of the young man he had left behind in the adjoining bamboo cage to die a horrible and prolonged death at the hands of the enemy, his, and that of the little Montagnard girl at whose birth he had been present and who he had later been powerless to save after an NVA raid on her village.

He had tried when, returning from a patrol on which the girl’s father had somewhat reluctantly acted as local guide, they had found among the smoking ruins of his and several other huts the bodies of mother and child. The mother was clearly gone, shot several times in the neck before the place had been torched, but that little girl…Einar shuddered, wished the images were not so very vivid before his eyes, even after all those years. The father had come running out of the smoking remains of his hut with little Hyon, barely a year old, stiff and dreadfully disfigured in his arms, had brought her to Einar who, as semi-official medic in his very small unit, had helped out at the child’s somewhat complicated birth, had laid her across his lap and insisted that he do something. The girl had been beyond help, Einar nearly gagging, even now in memory, at the smell of charred hair and human flesh…not the first time he’d experienced them, or the last, but it was different, somehow, in battle, the horror mitigated by action…

No breath left in the little body but the father had kept insisting and Einar did try, gentle compressions on the tiny chest even as the horribly blackened flesh came away on his hands, exposing ribs… When it became clear that there was no hope the father had taken her and sat with her beside her mother, eyes on the ground, unwilling or unable to leave with Einar and his team when the time had come for them to go. It was Hyon’s face, and Andy’s, that Einar saw at night when the sleepless hours grew long, theirs that appeared, at times, when he looked on those he loved, Liz, Will, especially Will, as he began approaching the age at which that little girl had been lost, those memories, he was sure, the source of the cold, sick dread he felt at times behind the smile he tried to wear when his son’s eyes met his own. The ones he had not been able to save.

Einar shut his eyes and pressed a fist to his forehead, burying his face in the moist, half frozen leaf mold—scrub oak, and he guessed the leaves must have blown in from somewhere and become trapped under the rocks—beneath him in an attempt to close out the lingering smell of charred flesh, swallowed the nausea that threatened to well up in his throat and tried to return his attention to the present. To the plane. Still no activity around the aircraft, and once more he swallowed a wild urge to dash out there and take the thing, head up and find a landing spot in a meadow near the shelter and quickly transport Liz and Will far from this place before any danger could come to them… Not the way. Not that day. Hidden, he possessed the advantage, and needed to keep it that way. So instead of dashing for the plane he retreated back beneath the rocks, searching until he found a spot from which he had a commanding view of nearly the entire area around the camp, and prepared to watch, and to wait.

[2medicine woman]

That must be horrible to be haunted by the charred body of a little person. I had a similar experience with this years ago. I was working and slipped out the door to have a smoke. Just lit my cigarette and a car came around the corner I was standing by. It was going normal speed but.. a child fell out and to my horror, the drive ran the child over. I was frozen in place, in shock of this sight. I ran in and called the emergency number. The mother was hysterical and running all over the streets. I ran over to the child, it had half of her head cracked. I knelt down and prayed. The police came and I got out of the way. Next thing I know the officer comes over to me carrying a baby. He handed it to me and left. I wrapped the blanket closer to the baby and just held it. It was sleeping. Sooner than I could imagine, everyone was gone except a few by-standers and a LEO and me. He asked me who I was and if I was related to the people involved. I said no. He asked why I had the baby. I said "an officer gave it to me." He told me he'd be right back. I am not easily panicked or frightened. When the baby finally left with relatives. I sat on this low stone wall, lit a smoke, and cried. I was shaking and crying. I went home later and stayed home with MY children for a week. I finally let The Creator take my horror and sadness from me. Such a terribly sad event.

We do not have the capability to think like a supreme being. There is no way to see anything good or positive in events like this. Only through our solid beliefs do we find any release and solace....sighs...

Good chapter Chris. Your ability to take the reader right into the story is a gift. You would be a prize to sit around a fire and just talk. I can hold me own well in a conversation too.

[FOTH]

2medicine woman, I am sorry you had that experience. Very difficult. Glad you were able to go and spend time with your own children, after.


Sorry, there will be no chapter tonight, but I will have one ready for tomorrow.

[FOTH]

Binoculars under a rock, himself positioned carefully back from the daylight so as to prevent any possibility of a flash or reflection from the lenses giving him away, Einar studied the camp, learning its every visible detail and waiting for the return of its occupants from whatever urgent business currently had them out in the field. What he really wanted was to enter a tent or two and get a look at the gear these people had brought with them, thus gaining, he would imagine, some very solid idea of their intentions up on the high plateau. Such action, however, considering the fact that he had so far gone undetected, carried with it a risk which he deemed unacceptable under the circumstances. Suppose the activity had nothing to do with a search for him or for his family? Well, that would certainly change, after his image was captured on some hidden, motion-activated camera the visitors might have placed near one of those tents, intended, perhaps, to capture images of wildlife or weather, but instead revealing the presence of a strange wild man who fairly closely resembled a wanted fugitive…

Einar chuckled silently to himself at the irony of such a situation, should it happen, but he knew there was nothing funny about the possibility. Such an incident could spell the end for him, his capture or death, and terribly hard times for his family up there waiting for him in the shelter. Staying hidden was and must remain his only course of action, at least until he was able to determine the intentions of the unwelcome campers. Wished he could see more of their gear from his position, but as everything was under tents or tarps, he settled in to wait for the return of the people, themselves.

Waiting, and Einar’s injured leg, aggravated by the long climb, made the stillness difficult as minutes stretched into an hour and beyond, thing freezing up on him so that after a time of lying still on the chilly, damp ground he could barely move it, and he just had to hope that a need for sudden movement would not come without warning… Rest of him seemed to be freezing up, too, not so much from stiffness as from the cold itself, great shivers racking his body after a time and leaving him unable to keep the binoculars usefully steady.

He laid the glasses aside, shifting position in an attempt to get more of his body out of contact with the damp and partially frozen soil, but it was difficult there in the close confines of the space beneath the rocks. The only way he could accomplish much was to press himself up into the limestone, which, besides requiring an exhausting effort and eliminating his view of the meadow, did little to mitigate the chill. Would just have to live with it, but already he was growing sleepy, having already been nearing exhaustion after his trek through the downed timber and snow, what little energy might have remained accessible to him being rapidly consumed by his shivering. Just one solution, really, that did not involve fire, movement or other means which were solidly out of his reach, and knowing the urgency of the situation he dug into his pack and pulled out some of the jerky Liz had sent with him, breaking off a piece and setting it to soften in his mouth.

Only then—would-be meal not softening at all, just sitting there like a strip of aspen bark on his leathery-dry tongue—did Einar realize how far behind he must have allowed himself to get on water while traveling to this place, but when he tried to take a drink it was to discover that his water had frozen solid. Hmm. Must be colder than he’d realized out there, and slightly dismayed but not too concerned he rolled the water bottle beneath his body to hopefully begin thawing. All this effort had so exhausted him that he now felt more inclined to lie down and sleep than to keep watch, and might have succumbed to the notion, had he not been so focused on his mission.

No sign yet of current human activity around the camp, and with dusk coming he wished they’d hurry and return, so he might have some time to observe before it got dark and they went to bed. Wished…well, couldn’t remember what else he wished, tried to swallow the jerky that had been sitting in his mouth waiting to soften for far longer than such a thing should have taken, nearly choked trying to get it down. What is this, Einar? What on earth are you thinking? Pulled the water bottle from the concave spot beside his hip bone where he’d put it to begin thawing, and where it had been rapidly robbing what little heat he had left circulating in his blood, staring at the ice inside.

No sense pretending, here. You’re gonna freeze to death in the night under this rock if you don’t find a way to get hydrated and give yourself some serious energy. I mean, really. Look at it. Already too cold to feel your limbs after lying here for…what? Maybe an hour? And no wonder, either, with your knees and elbows being by far the widest points on your arms and legs these days and so of course nothing left to insulate all the blood running through them…they’re just acting as big long radiators, radiating all your body heat right out there into the icy air, and before long you’re not gonna have any warmth left in your core, either, and you’ll just fall asleep. And that will be it. How about trying to be sensible for once, and give yourself enough to eat? Some peanut butter, or something. Didn’t Liz send along a bunch of peanut butter?

Wasn’t easy getting to the pack where he’d stashed it behind him in the crevice under the rock, but after some cautious struggling and manipulating—couldn’t afford to scrape rock against rock, make a sound that might be heard by the men who would surely soon be returning to the camp—he managed it, found the peanut butter and lay there scooping it up on his finger, the warmth noticeably flowing through him as he ate. Still nothing going on at camp, and resigning himself to go on waiting, Einar figured he could now afford to use a bit of body heat on thawing the ice for some water, tucked the bottle back beneath him. What seemed like another long hour later—but could not have been, for it was not yet dark—several swallows of water had collected in the bottle, ice beginning to melt. Einar drank them thirstily, swallowing only with difficulty until he’d got some of the water down and hoping he might, in the future, remember never to consume half a jar of peanut butter when he was so dry and far behind on water. Not a pleasant experience! Not that he would be particularly likely ever to encounter peanut butter again in his life in the mountains, anyway…

It was nearly full dark by the time the camp’s mystery occupants began trickling back in, headlamps blinking in the distance, and when they came it was not as a single group but in twos and threes, individuals—men, mostly, but Einar was able to make out one or two women, as well—dressed casually and for the cold, layers of down and fleece, a conspicuous absence of any sort of uniforms leading him to hope they might prove to have nothing to do with a search of any sort. Raising his head off the ground and straining to listen Einar was able to pick up only the occasional snatch of conversation, most of it seemingly to do with weather conditions, terrain and the state of a large open field that lay somewhere a mile or two distant, and which some of them seemed to have visited that day. What might be their interest in this spot he could not tell for sure, but wondered if they might be looking for a better landing zone, perhaps to bring something in which was not equipped with tundra tires. Before he could glean too much information everyone retreated to their tents, cooked hasty suppers whose odors reached him and twisted his still-hungry stomach in knots, and went to bed.

Einar, shivering under the rocks as night swept down over the plateau and brought with it a wind which rustled tent flies and tarps and pried crept with icy tendrils into his meager shelter, considered retracing his steps and leaving as everyone slept. Trouble was, he didn’t yet know enough, knew he needed to observe the morning’s activities, hopefully catch a bit more conversation and perhaps even follow one of the parties when they left the camp, before he could say for sure what the planes and their passengers intended by being in this place. No sense leaving before he hand answered that question to his satisfaction. Staying, then.

Growing cold again in the wind he finished the peanut butter, checked to make sure the pistol was tucked in close to his body where it would be easily accessible in the night and took one last glance out at the dimly-moonlit silhouettes of the tents before curling up in his parka and drawing limbs in as close to his torso as possible in the confined space beneath the rocks.