Chapter 8

Ron woke up before Brenda and was fixing a meal when she slid out of the shelter. She dressed in front of the shelter and walked over to the fire. She did not recognize what Ron was cooking. He saw her trying to see what was in the pot.

"Chickweed and blueberries," he said, "We are going to have to start living off of the land a bit. I don't want to use the last of our MRE's. If we get to a place where the land won't feed us we'll use the MRE's."

They both ate in silence. Brenda was not sure about the mixture but after she tried it she decided that it wasn't too bad. Not as good as a steak though.

"There are a lot of plants that you can eat in the wild," Ron said, " This time of year we can pretty much live off the land totally. I've seen blueberries, lingonberries and choke cherries as we have been walking. After the first big frost it will be a different story. Besides chickweed we can eat clover, squaw root and lamb's quarters."

Brenda continued eating and hardly said a word while they were getting ready to travel. They packed the gear on the sled and Brenda grabbed her pack and they started through the woods. Ron kept heading due north. The trees were thinning out a bit and the going was getting easier. They passed several small streams so water was not a problem. Ron pointed out several berries that they could eat and they ate several handfuls each. Ron cautioned Brenda about eating too many berries. They did not want to be slowed down by diarrhea.

The terrain was becoming rockier as they made their way on the second day. The going was a lot tougher and Ron knew that they wouldn't be able to make the same progress that they had the first day. Brenda had to rest more often. Her boots were beginning to bother her and Ron made a few adjustments to the padding. Ron started to worry. If he could not fit the boots better they would not be able to make the progress each day to get them out of this mess.

About mid-day Brenda screamed. Ron dropped the sled and ran back to her. She had a terrified look on her face and seemed frozen. A rattlesnake had been sunning himself on the rocks and was rattling and about to strike if Brenda had moved. Ron moved closer to the snake making sufficient noise to distract the snake and turn the snake's attention to Ron. The snake turned his attention to Ron and knew instinctively that Ron was out of striking distance. Ron moved further away from Brenda drawing the snake's attention away from Brenda. When Ron was far enough away the snake slithered off of the rocks and into the woods.

Brenda was still frozen. Tears were running down her face. Ron went over to her and took her hand and led her away from the rocks where the snake had been sunning himself. He continued until they came to a small stream and Brenda sat down hard on the stream's bank and started to cry. Ron stood next to her and let her calm down.

Brenda calmed down enough to talk.

I thought that he was going to strike," she said trying not to start sobbing again.

Ron talked quietly to help her calm down, "Did you notice the large bulge in the snake's body? He has just eaten a mouse or some other small rodent and he wouldn't have struck unless there was nothing else he could have done to get away from you. It would be hard for him to strike with the weight of that meal inside of him. That snake was tickled to death to make it back into the woods."

Brenda put her face in her hands and started to cry again. Ron got up and started to make camp for the day. He knew that Brenda had had enough of the woods for this day.

Ron started to build the shelter for them and let Brenda calm down. He piled the stones up to reflect the heat into the shelter. When the camp was as complete as he was going to make it, he went over to where Brenda was sitting and staring at the stream.

"Ron, when are we going to get out of this?" she asked as he walked up to her, "I can't put up with much more of this."

We're going to make it, Brenda," Ron replied, "We just have to keep going. There should be a few gravel roads through the park and when we get to one the going will be easier.

"I hope so," Brenda said so softly that Ron could barely hear what she said.

Ron waved his hand toward the shelter he had just built. "I have our deluxe hotel accommodations all ready for us and after I get cleaned up I'll fix dinner." He gave her a big smile.

Brenda turned to look at the shelter; "I used to think that roughing it was having to stay at the Holiday Inn.

Ron and Brenda spent the afternoon checking the gear and repacking what they could on the sled. They both bathed as well as they could in the stream. They did not have the luxury of a pool this time.