Page 72 of Protecting the Flame

Chapter 3

Willand the others left before noon. The last she heard from them, she’d been down at the cockpit and they were two miles distant from the crash site and at the very edge of their walkie-talkies’ range.

“You could follow,” Will said. “Mattie’s leaving blazes the whole way, and you should be able to follow our tracks.”

The temptation to do that pricked at her neck. “You know I can’t. We decided. Someone has to stay with Hunter and that’s me. So,” she changed the topic, “how’s it look?”

A long, static-filled silence followed, and she was about to repeat the question when he said, “I don’t know. We’re headed downhill, so that’s good, but all I see are mountains and more mountains. Best we can hope for is we come on a game trail or maybe an old fire road. If we’re really lucky, we find an old hunting cabin or something. Like that movie with Anthony Hopkins.”

“Oh, uh…” She knew which one he meant. “Plane crash, happens in Alaska, they get stalked by a grizzly.”

“That’s it. I remember I thought Alec Baldwin’s teeth were too white for a guy who’d been out in the wilderness for a week or something. But they found a cabin and a boat.”

“It was a movie.”

“And this is reality, Greg.”

“E.T.”

“I was always partial to Close Encounters myself.”

“Why?” Then she laughed. “Right. Because you wanted to be an astronaut.” She’d have pulled a Roy Neary, too, and gone off with the aliens. Man, if she got out of this, she was making a massive amount of popcorn and hunkering down with Netflix and Amazon Prime for a solid month. “Everyone else okay?”

“Well, considering that we only left you two hours ago, we’re fine. Mattie’s pissed, but she’ll get over it. She wanted me to tell you not to light the menorah again until we’re all together. Oh, and she said that if you eat the Almond Joy without her, you’re a dead man.”

“Deal.” Though she wasn’t sure she could honor that promise. “Is she there?”

“No, I moved off into the woods a good ways, you know, in case Hunter had…”

“Sure.” She listened to the air fizz and thought of all the things they’d left unsaid. “We better stop talking then. Save your batteries.”

“Right. Listen, turn on your unit about every six hours starting now, okay? Leave it on this band and when you come on, do three quick breaks. That’ll take less energy, but that will tell someone you’re there. I’m betting that if we find help or someone stumbles on us, they’ll probably have better handsets. Once they figure out you’re on, they can talk to you, let you know they’re on their way, probably even triangulate on your signal, okay?”

“Good idea.” She didn’t want to sign off. “I’d better go. Good luck, Will. Thanks for…” Being my friend. Being a good man. For being someone she wanted to hold close, skin to skin, with no barriers or regrets. His wife was one lucky lady. “Everything.”

“Thank me later,” he said. “You and I? We’re not done yet.”

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