Fade to Grey (Book 1): Fade to Grey (21 page)

*click*

I’m back at my tent. It’s about 3:00 PM. I picked west, and
as far as I can tell I picked wrong. I didn’t see any sign of a campsite, or
any signs at all that somebody had been in that direction. I had a brief
fantasy that I had asked Doc for Emily’s hat, and Max used the scent from the
hat to track her down. Yep, fantasy. Max has a great nose, I just never had the
time or inclination to work with him on tracking.

*click*

It’s almost 11:00 PM. The weather outside is horrendous, wind
whipping and rain coming down in sheets. The temperature is still dropping fast.
Probably in the mid-thirties right now. I, however, am lying in my tent, toasty
and warm, smiling. Want to know why?  Good, ‘cause I’m going to tell you. When
I got back from my “westward fruitless expedition” it was about 3:00 PM. The
clouds were looking heavy and the wind gusts were increasing. I decided to head
east for about an hour, and if I didn’t find anything I’d come back to my tent
and refine my plans for a search tomorrow. Max and I started out, walking
around the gravel edge of the lake as much as we could to avoid the willow
thickets and briars. We found a heavily used game trail that zigzagged through
the low hills in the general direction we want to go, so we followed that for
about half a mile. I did find a few old tracks, human, impossible to tell how
old for sure, but at least prior to the last rain we’ve had. We were getting
close to the crest of a small rise when Max stopped, legs frozen in place and
shifting his head and neck left and right. He was looking straight ahead,
sniffing the air. I could see his ears cocking, gathering in some sound that
only he could hear. I gave a low whistle and motioned for him to wait while I
walked slowly up the rise. Ten feet further I caught a whiff of smoke. I
stopped, took off my pack and grabbed my binoculars. My intention was to use
the low elevation of the rise to find where the smoke was coming from. That
took about three and a half seconds. When I crested the small hill, I saw
another lake directly in front of me. But that wasn’t all I saw. About seventy
feet straight ahead was a yellow and black cabin tent, the words “National Geographic
Wildlife Survey Team” plainly stenciled in several locations. But I barely
noticed it because standing in front of the tent was a completely naked woman
with long dark hair, almost to her waist. She had a large cast iron Dutch oven
suspended on a metal tripod over a fire. A balled up cloth in her hands was
being dipped into the pot and then used to scrub her down. Everywhere. I held
my binoculars up to my eyes for a better look. She was short, maybe 5’ 1”,
willowy but very fit looking, I could see her abs clearly. I slowly lowered
myself into a crouch, Max had snuck up beside me and was watching the scene as
well. She was definitely Asian, or at least partly so. Max and I watched as she
quickly cleaned herself from feet to face, shivering in the chill wind as she
scrubbed. When she was done she picked up a towel that was lying on the ground,
wrapped it around her and went into the tent. I forced myself to wait five full
minutes. Probably a good idea . . . wouldn’t want to show up as a rescuer with
a hard on. After five minutes I re-shouldered my pack and walked down the small
hill. About twenty feet away from the tent I called out, “Hello the campsite,
is anybody there?” I knew somebody was there but I didn’t necessarily want her
to know that. I heard some shuffling inside the tent, so I moved a little
closer and called out again, “Hello, anybody home.”

A few seconds later a voice responded. “Yes, we’re here with
National Geographic, is there something we can do for you?”

“Yes, you can come out of the tent,” I said it kind of
playfully, but she took it the wrong way.

Some more shuffling came from the tent and then she said,
“I’ve got a gun.”

“Well, that makes two of us then,” I replied dryly.

“I’m serious, stay away or I’ll shoot,” she said.

I said, “Emily, if you shoot me you may never get back to
civilization.”

“How do you know my name?” she asked quickly.

Time to end this. “Emily, my name is Eric. I spent the last
two days busting my ass through twenty miles of thorns and swamps to find you. Your
grandfather Doc Collins sent me. Now if you don’t mind, you and I need to talk
and figure out our best plan for getting out of here, because the helicopter is
not coming back for you. Or me,” I added.

I heard some more shuffling then the tent flap unzipped a
short distance and a face peered out at me, a very cute face, elfin. Max was
about twenty feet to my right, out of her view for the moment.

She looked at me carefully, studying me, gathering details
that would probably be lost to the everyday observer. It occurred to me that she
was looking at me through photographer’s eyes. Not that I’m a model or anything
like that, I guess I just think that people have a tendency to view the world
through their own personalized glasses. Go with what you know, and all that.

Her face pulled back into the recesses of the yellow tent accompanied
by a quick “Hold on, I’ll be out in a minute.”

That “minute” turned into about ten as I waited outside,
getting both more amused and more impatient at the same time with each passing
second. She finally stepped out of the tent, hands in the pockets of an
oversized, bright yellow knee length parka. The look on her face showed that
she was still judging me . . . deciding. Max had moved up, he was about ten
feet from her in the seven-o-clock position. She hadn’t seen him yet.

“You know, I really could have shot you.” She said it in a
voice tinged with a mixture of local and distant accents. It sounded both
comforting and reassuring, but there was an underlying spice of exotic flair
that juxtaposed . . . Damn, did I just use the word “juxtaposed”? That’s gotta
be the third time I’ve done that in my life, and the first two times were in my
English lit class. Anyway, her voice sounded really nice. I noticed her hands
were still in her pockets . . . still trying to convince me of my imminent
personal danger if I wasn’t who I said I was. I decided to play along for a
minute.

“You mean shot me with a camera, right?”

She didn’t answer right away, almost like she was weighing
the options based on a myriad of potential responses she could give. I got the impression
I was dealing with a girl who was probably smarter than me. A lot smarter.

She took a sidestep to her left, eyeing the small rifle I had
attached with quick release straps to the frame of my backpack. Doing this put
Max directly at her six. She avoided my question about the camera and said, “They’d
never find your body, the bears up here are pretty hungry this time of year. If
I had to shoot you, I’d totally get away with it.” The mischievous sparkle in
her eyes conflicted with the serious tone she put in her voice.

“No, you wouldn’t get away with it,” I said with a slight
shake of my head.

She moved her face backward slightly, opening her eyes wide
in a fake “disbelief” posture. “Let me guess, there’s a whole army right behind
you, and if you give some magical prearranged signal they’ll charge out of the
bushes and fill me full of lead.”

I knew I shouldn’t have done it, but I did it anyway. I
couldn’t resist. I said, “No, the army isn’t behind me, it’s behind you . . . MAX
. . . PROTECT!”

I’ve replayed what happened next over and over again in my
mind. Every single time it gets funnier. It’s one of those memories that you
hope flash right before your eyes immediately prior to meeting your maker. A
reminder of life and laughter, at least if you believe that Roy Rogers quote “Everything
is funny as long as it happens to somebody else.”

When I gave that command Max lowered his front quarters
slightly, assumed the “rabid wolf” posture and started snarling and snapping
his jaws. Emily let out an unearthly shriek and took off like a bolt of
lightning, straight past me, accelerating with every step. Her parka flew out
behind her like a cape revealing pink long johns underneath. One of her sleeves
caught on the iron tripod, momentarily delaying her as she flew by as well as
knocking it down and dumping the water in the Dutch oven. A huge mushroom cloud
of steam and ashes exploded upward and enveloped her, temporarily blocking my
vision. When it dissipated I caught another glimpse of her running at full
speed, kicking her legs out like a duck with every step. She had been wearing
flip flops. To the very end of my life I would have bet my bottom dollar that
she had enough momentum to clear the fallen log on this side of what turned out
to be a large mud hole. She didn’t.

I don’t know how long I laid on the ground like a turtle,
backpack still on and holding my gut I was laughing so hard. It had to be at
least ten minutes. Max was sitting beside me and I swear his grin was bigger
than mine. Eventually I heard a voice shouting from the brush past the mud hole.

“That wasn’t very funny . . . it’s not going to bite me is
it?”

I forced myself to suppress my laughter long enough to get
out a “Come on back, he won’t hurt you.” I hit the release tabs around my
shoulders and waist, freeing the backpack and allowing me to sit up. I buried
my face in my hands, my body rocking back and forth with renewed hilarity as I
heard her approach. “Flip-slap . . . flip-slap . . . flip-slap . . .” The sound
stopped a short distance away. My shoulders started heaving up and down; my
chest was sucking in more and more air, building up to a crescendo and waiting
to be unleashed, the giggle loop in action. I looked up and lost it. She was
standing there, teeth chattering in the cold, covered head to toe in a
combination of ashes, mud and various twigs and leaves that somehow accompanied
the mud. Her face was a solid brown layer with the exception of two semi-decomposed
willow leaves that had somehow managed to stick directly above her eyes, emphasizing
her Asian heritage and giving her a comical kabuki theater puppet look. She was
holding one of her flip flops, the strap was broken. Her bare foot was slowly
tapping on the ground, waiting for me to stop laughing. I rolled onto my side,
chest still heaving as my hands fumbled into a small zipper pocket on my
backpack. I took out my little waterproof digital point and shoot camera, aimed
it at her as she frowned and fired off a few shots. Then I lost it again and
couldn’t stop laughing for another five minutes.

Eventually I was able to function again, probably due in
large part to the fact that she was still standing there with her teeth
chattering, jumping up and down and rubbing her hands on her shoulders to keep
the shivering to manageable levels. I gathered more wood and quickly got a fire
going. As I was doing that I told her to go into the tent and towel off as much
of the mud and dirt and she could before she changed clothes. When she came out
she looked vaguely human again, dressed in several layers of clothes and
covered with a University of Virginia raincoat, one of those cheap ones they
give out for you to attend the football games with. The weather was starting to
take another turn for the worse, the temperature was still dropping and the
wind was making it difficult to get any effective heat off of the fire.

“Emily,” I said, “I’m one hundred percent for enjoying mother
nature in all of her aspects, but maybe you ought to consider inviting me into
your tent so we can get out of this weather for a little bit.” She nodded her
head and went inside, I followed. Max trailed behind but wouldn’t come any further
into the tent than a few feet inside the door. I’m not the neatest person in
the world, but the inside of the large tent looked like a tornado hit it. Clothes,
sleeping bags, coolers and backpacks were scattered everywhere. Several large
Pelican cases were stacked against the back wall. She saw me looking around at
the mess and said, “Don’t ask.” So I didn’t. She was still shivering slightly
so I used my Pocket Rocket stove to heat up some water. I asked her if she had
any cups and she fumbled around underneath some bags on the floor and brought
out a few Styrofoam soup bowls.

“Will these work?” she asked.

“Yep,” I said, “your choice—hot tea or hot chocolate?”

“I would kill for a big cup of hot chocolate right now,” she
said nodding her head.

“Well let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” I replied.

When it was ready I poured it into the soup bowls. She sat
back and tilted it to her lips, inhaling the frothy steam as she sipped. I
watched as she closed her eyes, savoring each swallow. When she was finished I
refilled it with the contents of my bowl.

“You should take off your raincoat, it’s going to trap the
moisture and make you sweat.”

She set down her bowl and removed the thin plastic poncho,
then a sweatshirt. I caught her looking at Max out of the corner of her eyes,
so I formally introduced them. Max came over at my call and sniffed her
outstretched hand, then allowed a brief pat on his shoulder before returning to
the doorway.

“He’s beautiful . . . and huge. It’s like he just extrudes
vitality and authority. Do you think he’d let me photograph him?”

“Maybe you should wait until he gets to know you better,” I
replied, not kidding either. Like I said, Max will tolerate people at my
insistence, but when he decides he’s had enough—that’s it. He’ll either leave
the area, or through his actions will make the people around him want to leave
the area, quickly.