Page 73 of Protecting the Flame

Chapter 4

“That’s en-enough, th-th-that’s enough.”Averting his face, Hunter gave her hand a weak shove. He sucked a dribble of broth from his lower lip. “Don’t waste any more food on me.”

“Come on,” she coaxed, trying to maneuver the steaming mug back to his mouth. “You have to stay hydrated at the very least, and Will said the salt was good.”

“Huh. G-g-good for yuh-you.” Hunter let out a weak laugh that nevertheless fizzed with both despair and a sort of hysteria. Shuddering, he hunched down in his seat as if trying to capture as much heat as he could. “C-c-can’t stop sh-shaking. That’s b-b-b-bad, isn’t it?”

Well, it certainly couldn’t be good. It was early afternoon of the seventh day. The day before, she’d disassembled enough of the cockpit to move both the fire and reflective barrier closer to Hunter. The cockpit was open to the night sky and would never be toasty, but heat pulsed at her back, and she’d dragged off her watch cap. She might be weak from lack of food, but at least she was warm.

“Look,” she said, sponging fever sweat from Hunter’s forehead, “you need to keep drinking like Will said. So you’ve got to cooperate, Hunter. Otherwise, what are we doing here?”

“G-g-good,” Hunter stammered then forced out the rest, “question. W-watching me d-d-die?”

She bit back the urge to snap. “You know why I’m here. I’m trying to keep you alive so you don’t die before they find us. You have to have faith, Hunter.” My God, what was she saying? But she did have faith and how weird was that? She had faith in Will. She might even have found a little faith in herself. After all, she was still here and Will was right: there was a life, a small flame inside, she had to protect. If she didn’t, no one would.

“F-f-faith?” Hunter gave that hysterical hyena’s cry again. “You th-think W-W-Will…if the g-g-guys my d-dad get h-here…”

“I know, I know.” She didn’t need chapter and verse again. Earlier, she’d thought she’d caught a faint grumble of something like a motor drifting up from the valley. She’d gone absolutely still, trying to parse that out, but the sound had been as ephemeral as a soap bubble and did not come again. Hunter hadn’t commented either. Probably her imagination, then.

She glanced at her watch. Almost two. Already, though, the distant hazy peaks were beginning to purple, and shadows gathered in the lower, northern slopes and along the valley’s floor.

“There’s only about three hours of daylight left, and it’s been two days since the drone,” she said. “Not much time left today for any bad guys to put in an appearance unless they’re into roughing it for a night.” Which they might be. Anybody who did hike or ride in would have to be ready for that possibility, but she kept coming back to the reality that people were looking for them. Surely, they couldn’t be so far off-course the plane wouldn’t be spotted, or the fires she kept going both here at the cockpit and back at the fuselage.

She and Will had discussed that, whether it made sense for her to keep shifting between the two locations, but she’d pointed out she would have little else to do, and staying on the move would be better than remaining in place. Besides, the more fires there were, the better the chance someone—like Hank Patterson’s people, that Kujo guy—might spot the thermal signature via the right kind of drone or helicopter. Although they’d switched on the ELT and switched off the other transmitter, the simple fact of no search planes or helicopters having appeared wasn’t a hopeful sign. On the other hand, military drones didn’t necessarily operate where they would be spotted or heard because this defeated the purpose of, say, sneaking up on the bad guys.

“Listen.” Squaring the mug on a bit of intact console near Hunter’s left hand, she stood, but too fast. A swoon of vertigo swirled through her head, and she staggered, nearly falling back into the fire.

“H-h-hey!”Hunter’s hand shot out and grabbed her coat to steady her. “Are y-you…”

“I’m fine.” She swallowed back against another swoop of dizziness. Her mouth was sour and rank, though she wasn’t worried about tossing her cookies. She had absolutely nothing in her stomach to vomit.

And therein was the problem. Other than a cup of broth drunk under Will’s careful eye the day before, she’d had only water. Her blood sugar had to be in the basement. It wasn’t that she had no appetite. She was trying to make the half an MRE and two energy bars, all the food she had standing between her and outright starvation, last. Well, there was the Almond Joy, but she would only touch that when she’d exhausted every other option. Tearing into it before then would be a complete jinx. Yes, call her superstitious.

Though she could still bait the wolves. It wasn’t a bad idea, except she didn’t have any weapon now other than the hand axe, KA-BAR, and her flare. That had been quite the discussion, too. Will wanted to leave the rifle, but that would mean them traveling with only a knife or axe and no ability to hunt. She would have the fires. So long as she tended them, she was reasonably certain she would be safe. She would also be starving, but six of one, half dozen of the other.

It was the afterward part, if Hunter died before help or the bad guys came, she was a little fuzzy about. The plan was for her to follow the trail the others would leave. It was, in fact, a decent idea. If worse came to absolute worst and Hunter died, she could either hunker down in place or leave. Without a rifle, she wouldn’t be able to take out the wolves or a cougar (or its friends; geez, she hoped it didn’t have friends). She could snare food, but she would have to be farther down-valley for that.

Oh, stop. She was tired of thinking and rethinking the same thoughts. “I’m going back to bank the fire at the fuselage. It won’t be dark for a couple hours yet, but I want to give myself plenty of time.” As Hunter opened his mouth to protest, she put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m not leaving you. I won’t be long, but I do have to do this. The more hot spots I keep going, the better the chance someone will see.”

“Oh-oh-k-kay.” Swallowing hard, Hunter jerked a nod. “Ok-kay. J-just b-be b-b-back before the wuh-wuh-wolves…”

“I won’t let the wolves get you.” Dragging on her watch cap seemed to take a lot longer than it ought to, but she still managed a smile. “You know what we really need? You ever seen Dracula? Not the one with Bela Lugosi but the remake with Gary Oldman. Coppola film?”

“Uh…” Hunter’s brow crinkled. “N-n-no. Who’s C-C-Coppola?”

“Director? Apocalypse Now? Never mind,” she said, waving away Hunter’s perplexed expression. “Anyway, there’s this great scene where Anthony Hopkins, who’s Van Helsing…do you know the Dracula story at all?” When Hunter shook his head, she sighed. “Well, you do know he’s a vampire, right? So, the good guys are out to stop Dracula only they get surrounded by these vampire brides in the woods, and so Professor Van Helsing lights this circle of fire to keep them out. It’s really cool. Anyway, that’s what we need, a ring of fire to keep the baddies at bay. Something that would burn a long time. Torches, maybe, or something.”

Hunter opened his mouth, closed it then said, “We m-might could d-do that.”

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