Courage (3 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

After the beds were made as comfortable as possible with layers of cedar boughs, Lucas said, “Dad, I'm hungry.”

“So am I.” Jill agreed.

“How many cans of food do we have?” Jim asked.

“Tons dad, we have beans, even soup, we're fine. Hey, no can opener though.”

“No problem, I have one on my Swiss army knife.”

They moved Mary to a spot under the tree, still secured in her airplane seat. Jim was afraid there might be more injuries than were evident and it made more sense to leave her in the seat

“We need to find a place for us to use as a ‘bathroom', but not too far from our camp.”

“Like, what do we do, dig a hole?” Lucas inquired.

“Right now we just choose a site and later on we'll dig a hole if we can find something to dig with.”

Jim counted the cans of food; there were 4 cans of beans, two of peaches and two cans of soup.

“I packed more food than that, Jim,” Mary said.

“We haven't found them so far, maybe we'll look for them tomorrow. But today for supper we'll dine on French Bean Cassoulet with fresh spring water,” he said jokingly.

Even Mary laughed at the ridiculous menu.

Jim opened the can of beans and they all shared it with enthusiasm.

“Grandpa, one can of beans for all of them, that's it?” she asked.

“Remember they have to think of the next few days so they need to make the food last until they're rescued.”

After supper Jim told Mary that he wanted to see how her leg wound was doing. “Lucas, could you please bring the first aid box over here?”

He unwrapped Mary's leg and it didn't look too bad.

“You know it looks pretty good, I'll clean it again and use a sterile bandage to dress it.” It took about ten minutes to cleanse and dress the wound; Mary was obviously in pain, but didn't complain.

CHAPTER FIVE

Darkness came quickly and with it came the cold night air that was not expected by Jim and his family. But in the high mountains, when the sun goes down the temperature drops quickly. Jim estimated they must be 4000 to 5000 feet above sea level considering the dwarf cedars and scrub vegetation with only a few tall spruce trees in the area, but he wasn't sure. That meant they could be in either the coastal or the Rocky Mountains, unfortunately he didn't know which mountain range or how far up north.

“Lucas, Jill, bring the poles, they should be good fire starters, see if you can find bigger dry branches for the fire. We'll need a lot, I'd like to have it burn all night if possible.”

Jim cleared an area for the fire and scrapped the soil around the fire area to prevent fire spread. He carefully placed some rocks and stones to circle the fire area.

“Look this is a perfect fire pit,” Lucas commented.

They gathered firewood and within minutes a blazing fire was giving up much needed warmth. Luckily they had packed a good supply of waterproof matches.

“We have to put on all the clothing we have with us to keep the night chill out,” Jim ordered.

“We're getting dressed to go to bed instead of getting undressed, that's funny,” Lucas laughed.

They settled down on their cedar beds and Jill began to cry quietly, hugging her mother close. “I want to go home mommy, I miss my home,” she sobbed.

“ I know how that feel,.” Alicia said.

“Evenings and nights are the most difficult times for home sickness. You're tired by then and all the feelings overwhelm you, it can be very difficult,” I agreed.

“I've had that a few times and it's not a good feeling,” Alicia responded

Tears trickled down Mary's face too as she snuggled with Jill and prayed the search party would find them soon. Her leg was throbbing painfully and every time she took a deep breath there was a shooting pain in her right side. She was sure that she had a few cracked or broken ribs.

The family settled into a long night, made longer by fear of the unknown, except Lucas, he was excited about this new ‘adventure'.

“This is so cool, I can hardly wait to get back to school so I can tell all the kids about this.”

“Mom, dad, why don't you go to sleep? I'll stay awake and keep watch,” Lucas volunteered.

Jim put more wood on the fire before they settled in.

In no time at all Lucas was asleep, even before Jill and Mary. Jim tried to stay awake; he had a lot of worries on his mind. He didn't know where they were or if anyone had heard his S. O. S. call from the plane. He didn't feel that he knew enough about how to survive in the wilderness to keep his family safe. Would they be found in time? Were there wild animals lurking nearby that might try to hurt them? He didn't know if they should leave the crash site and attempt to make their way to civilization, and come to think about it, he didn't even know where civilization was! He blamed himself for this misadventure and for not knowing what to do in this situation. Why hadn't he read more about the Canadian wilderness and how to survive if stranded there? He had placed his family in a very dangerous situation because of his unpreparedness. Would they be strong enough to survive until they were rescued? The pain of his failures was tearing at him.

Sleep finally came to him, but the feeling continued in his dream, it was Jill who woke him when she heard him moaning in his sleep. He was drenched in sweat, and gasping for breath. It took him awhile to get back to sleep, for he was still very much troubled by his failure to anticipate and avoid their current situation.

Very early in the morning of the next day, Lucas woke with a start. He heard a strange noise that he couldn't identify and crawled to where his Dad was still sleeping and gently shook him awake.

“Dad, do you hear that?”

Jim listened for a few seconds then smiled as he looked over at the still sleeping Jill and Mary.

“Yeah, it's the hooting of a great-horned owl or the boreal owl.”

“They're just birds?”

“I'm afraid so son, sorry to disappoint you.”

“I was kind of hoping it was some big wild animal.”

“Well, it's not wild, it's not big, and it isn't even an animal.”

“I want you to walk around our camp and see if you spot any paw prints and if you do, call me. Be careful so you don't deface the prints if you find any, I want to see if I can identify them.”

Lucas was excited; I'm a tracker, wait till I get back to school, he thought. He crawled around the perimeter of the camp until he spotted a bunch of paw prints. “Dad, dad, look at this!” he shouted. “Oops, sorry I forgot,” too late, both Mary and Jill woke up.

“How are you feeling this morning honey?” Jim asked Mary.

“About the same, maybe a little better,” she responded. She hadn't slept well, every time she moved even a little, a shooting pain in her side woke her. She was cramped in the seat and her back and her shoulders also ached. But she didn't want to worry Jim.

Jill was fine, she ran to Lucas to see what the commotion was all about.

“Look Jill, these are real wild animal paw prints.”

“What kind?”

“I don't know, maybe lions.”

“There are no lions here, they're only in Africa, silly.”

“That's how much you know, these could be mountain lion prints.”

“Dad, Lucas said these are lion tracks.”

Jim walked over to Lucas and peered at the tracks. “They are tracks all right, raccoon tracks, looks like a whole family. Do you see the bigger paw prints? Those belong to the mom and dad and the juvenile raccoons made these smaller ones. They're curious creatures so they probably just wanted to investigate.”

“We have raccoons back home in our subdivision, that sucks, they're not even really wild,” Lucas wailed.

“They probably were going for water, smelled the fire and followed the scent here. They're harmless, but you still have to be careful, because after all they live in the wild and can be dangerous if provoked.”

CHAPTER SIX

“Kids, I need some help with your mother. We need to get her out of this harness and lay her on the cedar bed. She must be cramped from being in the seat so long. They unbuckled her harness, the kids took her legs above the knees and Jim firmly grasped her under the arms and together they very gently moved her to the cedar bed. She winced and a few tears escaped unbidden from her eyes. She didn't want to cry, but the pain betrayed her. It took about an hour before the pain subsided and she started to feel better. Her leg didn't seem to hurt as much, but her side was still painful when she took a breath.

“You know, I think we should bind your rib cage, maybe it will stop the pain.”

“Do you think it will help?” Mary asked.

“Well it won't make it any worse anyway. Jill, can you dig out a few t-shirts and bring them to me please?”

Jim did the best he could, and he wasn't sure if he was doing it right since he had only seen it on a medical show on TV.

“Look Mary, if it's too tight, tell me and I can loosen it a bit.”

After Jim finished, Mary said. “You know that feels a little better when I move or take a breath, thanks Jim.”

“Lucas, you stay with your mother, Jill and I'll go and search the area once more to see if we can find anything useful from the plane debris, maybe even the radio if we get lucky. Let's have some water and we'll have breakfast after we come back. Lucas, I'll leave my knife with you, see if you can clear a ten foot radius over there.” He pointed to an area that was covered by small dwarf cedars. “We'll make that our fire site in case we spot a search plane.”

“Okay dad, is that a plane up there, see that little speck way up there?”

“It's likely a commercial passenger jet heading to Vancouver or Victoria, but it's probably too far up to see our signal.”

Jim and Jill left to search the crash area for anything else that might be useful. They were in luck; the tent was hanging on a branch about five feet off the ground. A little more searching and they found one of the fishing poles.

“Dad look, there's the back pack with the warm clothing that Mom packed and over there's the sleeping bags.”

“Good eyes Jill, you're a life saver. Let's go back to the camp, but we'll come back later and search some more.”

When they returned to camp, they found Lucas had done a fine job of clearing the area and building a dry bonfire site.

“Lucas, that's awesome, good work buddy.”

Jim and Jill ran to Mary's side. She was smiling and said, “I feel pretty good, there's hardly any pain in my side and my leg seems better too.”

“Don't overdo it, if you get reinjured it will be more difficult to heal,” Jim admonished.

“Look mom, we found the tent, one fishing pole and the backpack,” Jill said excitedly.

“That's a good find, we can certainly use those things. I think that's where I put the Tylenol and I could really use a couple right now, in fact, that's where I packed the toothbrushes and toothpaste,” Mary said.

“It's just like being at home, we're going to have to brush our teeth every day,” Lucas muttered.

“What do you mean once a day? You know I expect you to brush twice a day, every day, Lucas Joseph Robinson!”

“I'll open a can of peaches to celebrate, that will be our breakfast. After breakfast Jill and I'll go down to the stream and bring back some fresh water.”

“The peaches do taste good,” Mary said.

“See you in a little bit, we'll get some water and if we're lucky, maybe a fish.” Jim said.

When Jim and Jill got to the stream, while trying to be nonchalant, Jim looked for prints or any sign of animals. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary. All was quiet and peaceful by the stream.

“Let's look for a worm and see if we can catch some fish,” Jim suggested.

Jim used a stick to poke around the edge of the water looking for worms.

“There's a worm, but I'm not touching it, they're yucky!” Jill said.

Jim put it on the hook and cast out to the middle of the stream and before he could blink, the hook was gone. Jim gave the line a jerk and reeled in a fish. He pulled the fish out and exclaimed, “I think it's a trout!” He did that three more times and said. “Jill honey, we'll certainly eat well today.”

“Dad, what's that in the bushes?”

“Where, honey?”

Jill pointed to a spot about 30 feet away. Jim looked and at first didn't see anything but finally he saw a pair of yellow eyes looking back at him. Jill grabbed Jim's legs in fear. “I can hear whimpering,” she whispered.

Jim took a few steps toward the eyes and was met by a deep menacing growl.

“Let's get out of here,” Jim whispered.

“Dad it sounds like it's injured.”

“Yeah, you could be right, you stay here and I'll go a little closer.”

Jim took a few steps toward the, whatever it was, but it growled and attempted to move back away from him.

“It looks like a coyote or a wolf and it's injured. I think we should share our lunch with it.” As he said this, he tossed a fish into the bushes for the animal. “We should get back, we've been gone longer than I meant to.” He was concerned that if there was an injured animal at the stream, there may be others around that had caused the injury.

They proudly walked back to camp toting water and the three fish, buoyed by the good luck they'd had. He was concerned though, that a wild animal was out there, possibly injured by another wild animal.

They built up their fire, gutted the fish, put them on a stick and within minutes it started to smell like lunch.

“Lucas, keep an eye on the fire and under no circumstances let the fish burn. Mary, Jill, we'll take inventory of what we have.”

“Mary, here's a chunk of charcoal, write down what I tell you on this white t-shirt.”

“Tent, fishing rod and line, 3 cans of beans, 2 cans of soup and one can of peaches, first aid kit, plenty of warm clothes and a lot of matches. And of course the Swiss army knife.”

“I packed other food and we should look for it as well,” Mary said.

“Good idea, but we won't starve, with the fish we catch we should be okay for a short time at least. Mary, we found an injured animal close to the stream, it could be a wolf or a coyote; I'm not sure which. But that means there probably are other wild animals around this area.”

“You think it's dangerous?” Mary asked.

“If it's wild it could be, but let's not worry about it right now, lunch is ready.”

They devoured the trout and it was delicious even though Lucas complained there was no salt. Mary said, “Salt isn't good for you, you're better off without it.”

After lunch Jill and Lucas were playing, chasing each other around the camp and giggling. “They seem to have accepted our situation,” Mary said.

“Lucas, Jill, let's get the tent set up and see if we can make things a little more comfortable.”

The three of them began to assemble all the tent pieces. “It says here in the instructions that we should be able to erect this tent in ten minutes,” Jim said.

After an hour of watching the others struggle, Mary suggested, “Let me read the instructions while you do what I tell you.”

With Mary's help the tent was up in half an hour. The kids cheered, crawled inside and made up the cedar bough beds, topped with their sleeping bags. Jim and Mary would sleep on the outside while the kids would nestle between them. They used some of the clothes for pillows and they had more clothes for covers if needed.

“This is real camping dad. We don't have neighbors right beside us, like in the campgrounds, we even have wild animals even though you say they're only raccoons,” Lucas announced with delight.

“Enjoy it while it lasts, son. The search party should be here any time,” Jim said hopefully.

“Look Jim, I found a pencil and paper in the backpack; what if I keep a calendar so we can keep track of time?” Mary suggested.

“Good idea, let's see, today is, well we left on the 5th of August; I can't believe that was just yesterday, so today is the 6th of August.”

“It's like we've been here for weeks, so much has happened!” Mary added.

“Guess what? Time to do the typing, eat supper and off to bed,” I suggested.

“Already? But I'm not even tired.”

“I'll tell you what, tomorrow morning we'll go fishing, see if we can catch a few for our supper.”

“Okay but I'm not touching the worms!”

“You're just like Jill.”