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Chapter 14
“Lane, it’s startingto get light out,” Desi nudged him as she gathered her clothes.
“Morning,” he said, sitting up. The first thing he did was check to make sure Abbi’s signal hadn’t moved.
“What I wouldn’t do for a coffee right about now,” Desi said, looking at him over her shoulder, before slipping her shirt over her head.
He raised his brows. “Oh really? It just so happens that there is some in the bag.”
She laughed, passing him his shirt and jeans. “I’m sure I’ll make it without one.”
“Ah, maybe you can, but I can’t. I’ll make a fire.”
Desi unzipped the tent flap and crawled out. Standing, she looked around. “It’s foggy out here.”
“Good, that’ll be to our advantage,” he said, as he joined her outside.
Lane grabbed the backpack out of the tent and opened it. Pulling out a thermos, he stuck it under his arm, and then handed her a small pot.
“Where’s the coffee?”
He shook the thermos. “In here. Hope you like sugar because I dumped a bunch in.” Taking the pot from her, he passed her the bag. “There’s coffee whitener in a plastic container somewhere in there if you need it.”
Desi peered inside, searching for the container and was surprised how much was in it. There were bottles of water, granola bars, cookies and muffins, and a roll of toilet paper which he took and pulled about a foot off the roll. “How did you fit everything in here?”
“Years of practice,” he said, gathering some rocks. “Whenever I travelled to remote locations, I had to carry everything with me.”
Desi noticed the worried look on his face as he made a small ring out of the rocks and stuck a larger one in the middle. He then stuffed the toilet paper around it and tossed some twigs on top of it. As she squatted beside him, she put her hand on his arm. “Do you think we will find her today?”
“I hope so,” he answered, putting the flame of a lighter to the wad of toilet paper. Within a few minutes he had a nice little fire going. The pot, he sat on the rock in the middle, it would heat up and act as a warmer.
“This won’t take long. If you need to go to the bathroom stay within earshot.”
“I was just thinking that myself,” she smiled, as she stood.
“Here, take this with you... you might need it.”
Desi stopped, expecting to see the roll of toilet paper in his hand. But what he held was a sheathed hunting knife.
She took it out of his hand and slipped it into her pocket. Snatching up the toilet paper, she looked at him and asked, “For what?”
“I’ll tell you when you get back...”
He didn’t want to scare her, but the look on her face told him he was too late.
She nodded and left. Not walking more than 5 feet away, she squatted behind a bush and looked around as she did her business. She was half expecting a bear or the very least a squirrel to take a bite out of her backside any moment. Quickly, she stood and did up her jeans as she headed back to Lane. He was pouring coffee into black enamel mugs, standard camping equipment and passed one to her as she sat down beside him on a fallen tree trunk.
“Okay, what has you worried?” She looked at him, shaking coffee whitener into her mug.
“When I was looking for rocks, I noticed a set of footprints.”
“Do you think they were your mom’s?”
Lane shook his head. “No. She knows my bike. She would have said something.”
