Tent City (3 page)

“How do you know what you are doing, Kit?” I ask.

“A lot of this farmland is my Grandpa’s, remember? Or at least it was.”

“Do you think anyone has seen us?”

“I want to go home,” Brody says. Oh boy, I knew this was coming, but I thought he would give me at least a couple of hours.

“We’re not going home yet, Brody. We’re going camping, remember?”

“I want Mom.”

“Can’t have Mom right now.”

“Looks like we might have water to cross over there,” Kit says, as she points to a creek that expands to a heavier river.

“Is there any way to go around?” I ask.

“I don’t think so. Unless we want to waste time and fuel. It doesn’t look too deep. Let’s give it a shot.” She looks optimistic, but I feel a little worried about having Brody with me.

I check the instructions and Dad has us traveling for another couple hours before setting up camp for the night.

“Okay then…let’s do it,” I say, scanning the land one more time. I know when driving four wheelers, I need to be confident and sure of what I’m doing. I imagine getting stuck or flipping it.  I tighten Brody’s helmet and then I go for it.

Kit has already cleared it. She gets hung up a bit in the middle, but she’s applied the gas just right and maneuvered out of it. As I come up behind her, I’m getting stuck in the same spot. I shift wrong and it lurches forward almost sending Brody off. I tell myself to stay calm.

Water is covering my boots and I’m regretting even going through this. I should have listened to my instincts and gone around. I rev the engine; nothing is happening. We are trapped and now it feels as if the water is crawling higher. I wouldn’t be so panicked, but Brody is here and I feel an urge to get him off. Kit splashes into the water, which comes above her knees and I pass Brody to her. He squeals as his boots lick the water.

“What do I do Kit?”

“Try to restart it.”

I do, and there is nothing. I don’t know if it means the battery is wet, or even if the battery is not supposed to get wet, or if it’s something else entirely. How am I supposed to know?

Why didn’t I pay more attention when Dad tinkered with these things?

The water is continuously streaming and is starting to unhinge the wheeler from the mud. Now it’s starting to slide downstream. Panic is rising and I’m considering bailing.

“Get off that thing!” an unfamiliar voice yells, as a kid with dark hair about our age comes running in our direction. He’s carrying a rope as he tumbles into the water.

“Are you deaf? Get off before you get swept down!” he shouts again.

I am stunned. Where did he come from? It’s as if he just appeared out of nowhere. But I do what he says and he wraps a rope around the base of the wheeler.

I don’t know what he’s planning on doing with it, but I don’t feel like I have a choice. I hop off just as it just starts to pick up more speed. I’m soaked with freezing water, but it’s no match for the adrenaline.

I watch him chase the wheeler as he tries to control it. It drags him along like a kid dragging a grounded kite. Then I see his plan. He’s not trying to pull it out himself. He’s hoping to get up far enough without losing it so he can secure it to a tree that’s just up ahead.

Kit jumps in to help him as I stand and watch with Brody. I am still wondering where he came from and can’t believe this is all happening. She gathers up the loose rope that is trailing behind. He is trying to get ahead of the wheeler that is careening down past the stream and into the river.

He runs up ahead, but it doesn’t look like he is going to have enough time to get it wrapped around enough times to stop it, especially since it has picked up speed. He’s got it wrapped twice, but he’s almost out of time. It doesn’t slow the wheeler down much. He bears down using the leverage of the tree to try to stop it. And to my shock, it’s working. The four-wheeler is suspended in the water. It’s still too heavy for him to pull in, but he’s got it stopped.

“Dani, come help!” Kit yells. I tell Brody to stay where he is and away from the edge. I run to the spot where the rope is wrapped around the tree.

“Do you guys think you can hold on to the rope?” he asks.

“Yes,” we say in unison.

Amazingly, he doesn’t just go for the rope and start tugging on it. He goes and finds a log and then somehow wedges it under the wheeler, taking some of the pressure of the weight off the rope.

Kit and I seem to have the rope secure, so I leave her to hold it and I run over to help him drag it back up the bank. It takes everything we’ve got and my hands are on fire. It seems like every time we start to pull it in, it slips back a little.

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” he says out of breath. “I’m going to hold here, but when I bring up some of the slack in the rope, you pull it tight and rearrange it on the tree.” Brilliant. Kit catches on as quickly as I do and she says she’s ready.

It takes about another half an hour to get the thing in, but we did it! It actually worked. We are all exhausted from our efforts. I collapse to the ground, a wet and muddy mess.

“Who are you?” I ask. “And where did you come from?”

“The name’s Jack,” he says, leaning to me to extend his hand, but then withdraws it, as he notices it’s stained with blood.

“Your hand! Are you okay!?” Kit’s eyes are as big as saucers. Has she never seen a little blood before?

“It’s nothing,” he says, but I see a slight grimace on his face as he tries to wipe the blood off on his jeans.

“Dani, we must have some kind of first aid kit. Did your mom pack one?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll check.”

I scan all the packs and on the last bag on Kit’s wheeler I find the kit. Of course, she packed it. It’s probably the first thing she thought of.

I also see something I didn’t notice before. It’s an envelope with my name on it with what looks to be like my dad’s handwriting. I’ll get to it later when things settle down.

“That was so cool,” Brody says, as he comes sauntering up. His yellow curls are bouncing and his big brown eyes are sparkling with excitement. I had almost forgotten he was here.

“I’m Brody, and I’m five,” he says.

“Well, nice to meet you Brody. I’m Jack and I’m 18.”

“Jack, let’s get you fixed up,” Kit says, as she arranges the tape and bandages on the dry wheeler.

“No, really I’m fine. I should probably get going anyway.”

“No, no, I insist,” she flirts. “It’s the least we could do. After all, you’re our knight in shining armor.”

He blushes slightly and I’m a little annoyed. Does she have to do this everywhere we go?

Although, I have to admit, he was cute. He was probably six feet tall, with dark hair and these amazing gray eyes that kept diverting to the ground. I didn’t get it though. Who was he? And how did he just pop out of nowhere?

“So what’s your story anyway?” I ask. Kit begins taping his hands and shoots me a dirty look. He straightens up the loose pieces.

“No story, just passing through.”

“So you’re one of those?” I ask.

Another drifter. That’s two in two days. Things must be getting worse. Since the food shortages, there are a lot of people that just go wandering around looking for food. They just pass from town to town until the people run out of sympathy and drive them out.

Just then, my dad’s words return to me, “Don’t stop for anyone.” But we didn’t technically stop for him. He saved us, or at least he saved the four-wheeler.

“So, I suppose you are looking for a reward or something?” I ask.

“Dani,” Kit chides, “is that any way to treat someone who just saved our lives.”

“He hardly saved our lives. So what is it? What do you want?”

“I don’t want anything. Like I said, I’m just passing through. Looked like you guys needed some help, so I helped, that’s all,” he says, keeping his attention to his newly wrapped hands; almost as if he wants to rip the poorly placed pieces off, start over and do it himself. 

“Well, you can just keep passing through then,” I say. We don’t need him around. For all we know, he’s going to rob us the first chance he gets. Times are tough and even the most moral people change their ways when they get hungry enough.

A brief look of hurt flashes across his face and he leans down to Brody.

“Nice to meet you kid.” He extends his newly wrapped hand and Brody shakes it.

“Does he have to go Dani?” Brody asks.

“Yes, he does. We don’t know him and we gotta get going anyway.”

At that, Jack begins to walk away. I feel a little guilty about the way I treated him, but we can’t take any chances. All I need to worry about is keeping the three of us safe and getting to our destination. I don’t need any distractions.

“Well, that was rude,” Kit says, as soon as Jack is out of earshot.

“Listen Kit, if we’re going to do this, we gotta play it safe. Things were bad enough before with all the food shortages, but it’s gonna get worse when people find out about the safety camps. We’ve got Brody to think about and I can’t risk it.”

“Let’s get moving then. I’m over this place.”

Most of the stuff on my wheeler is soaked, but I feel lucky we didn’t lose anything. I tuck the letter in a dry spot.  I’ll take better stock of everything once we get set up for camp later tonight. For now, we just have to keep moving.

“Damn it Kit, it won’t start.” I stalk around the wheeler in circles hoping the answer as to why it won’t start will fall into my lap.

I want to continue to try to restart it, but in the back of my mind I have an idea that I don’t want to flood the engine, if that hasn’t already happened.

“Don’t look at me, it’s not like I was the one who couldn’t get across,” Kit says. I do attempt to start it over and over again and it’s no use. Only a couple hours into this trip and I’m already defeated.

“Get off and let me take a look at it,” Kit says.

“What are you, some kind of mechanic?”

“You know, you’ve been acting like a real jerk today.”

“I know.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just feel so out of control. This isn’t supposed to be us doing this. It’s supposed to be our parents taking care of everything. I feel like one wrong move, and we’re dead.”

“Maybe you need to go for a run.”

“I know. It has been a couple of days.”

Running. Why didn’t I think of that? Maybe because now it feels like an unnecessary indulgence. It’s the one true thing that keeps me sane, but right now sleep is calling my name. It’s nagging at me with strings attached to my eyelids, gently tugging them down.

Although it looks like Kit knows what she is doing with the four-wheeler, it doesn’t budge. Doesn’t turn over, doesn’t even act like it wants to start.

“Ahhhhhhhh!” She screams into the air, which Brody finds amusing and immediately starts mimicking her.

“Kit, is there any way we can all three ride on one of them? We need to get moving. Dad says we have to make it by Tuesday.”

“I don’t think so. Maybe just you and I could, but we have Brody. Plus, we’ve got all this gear. It’ll never work. We’ll have to figure something out. But you look like you have died twice over. I think we need to set up camp back in those trees. You and Brody get some rest and I’ll see if I can figure this thing out.”