“Who are you calling?” She held out my plate and utensils.
“Walker.” Putting the phone on speaker, I took my dishes and put them in my pack as the phone rang.
“Hey, man. How’s it going?” Walker’s cheery voice rang through the camp.
“Snowy. But we’re warm and safe.” A quick smile danced over my face.
“Good, good. The whole area is still socked in. You two are going to need to sit tight another day or so.”
I huffed a short breath and closed my eyes. Wonderful. “Okay. Is there a timeline on when this crap leaves?” I glanced down at Lana, who stood beside me, a small frown between her eyes.
“Tonight,” Walker responded. “It’s supposed to break up later this afternoon and move on by eight or nine o’clock. Once they get the runway clear, I’ll go up and scout for a suitable landing site. Then, we can make a plan to get to you two and get you out of the bush.”
That sounded like it would be two days until we even had a chance of getting out of here.
I ran a hand through my hair. “Okay.”
“How are your injuries doing?” Walker asked.
“They’re fine. I can get around.” If I had to crawl and drag myself to the pick-up spot, I would.
“With a stick,” Lana chimed in.
I turned to look at her with a deep frown. She didn’t need to point that out. The last thing I wanted was for Walker to call in the Coast Guard.
She ignored my dark look and kept talking.
“Try to get as close to us as you can,” she said. “We can build a splint around his foot, but he still probably shouldn’t walk too far on it. The colors are… pretty.” She cast a quick look at me, an upward tilt to her pretty lips.
“Ignore her,” I said. “I can walk. It just might take me a while.”
Walker chuckled. “I’ll get as close as I can. If anything changes with you two, let me know. Otherwise, I’ll talk to you in the morning. About eight a.m.”
“Sounds good.” I bade Walker farewell, then hung up and powered down the phone.
Lana sighed and sat down. “Looks like we’re going to get good use out of that card deck.”
I barked a short laugh. “Yeah. First, though, we’re going to set up that early detection system.”
“Oh, right. I almost forgot. What do we need?” A furrow formed on her forehead, and she glanced down at our packs.
“Rope, knife, axe.” I ticked the things off on my fingers.
Since she was closest to the gear, she dug through the bags and handed me the items. Once we had everything and had donned our outer gear, I slung the rope over one shoulder and across my chest. Lana took the axe, and we wandered out of our little sheltered alcove.
“How far do you want to go?” She paused a few feet beyond the cave entrance and looked out at the forest, her eyes scanning the trees.
“Not too far. I want it to wake us up if we’re asleep.” I hobbled away about twenty feet to a group of saplings. “This should work.”
For the next couple of hours, Lana and I rigged three spring-loaded sapling traps around the perimeter of our shelter, one on each side and one straight up the middle. She did most of thecollecting of wood and rocks and the rope tying, while I held saplings down and laid piles of debris in the traps. Did I like her doing most of the heavy lifting? No. But I was wise enough to know that if I wanted to walk out of here in two days to meet the plane, I needed to take it easy on my ankle.
“Do you think this is enough? Should we add one more trap?” Lana looked up from where she bent down, tying the last knot. With the rope she found, we had enough to stretch the tripwire the entire length of the semi-circle.
“I think we’re good. The tripwire is connected all the way around, and we hid it well enough. I doubt anyone is getting through without us knowing. The traps are more about the sound than stopping anyone. The rope trigger is what matters, and we surrounded ourselves. Unless they come over the top and lower themselves down, we should be okay.”Hopefully.
I looked back at our shelter, which was little more than a shallow cave in the side of a twenty-foot cliff.
“Okay. Let’s head back inside, then. My hands are like popsicles.”
