Morning all and welcome to Tuesday. The rain promised did not arrive and so last night I added fifteen new mosquito bites to my arms making sure the last of the garden’s produce did not sizzle in the heat. I’m beginning to thing they view insect spray as an appetizer. It was an itchy night. But morning has arrived and I am dotted with calamine lotion. So let’s get started. Timers at the ready and off we go.
Not sure where this is heading but I kind of want to see. I suspect it will be murder. But then I watched a lot of slasher films when younger.
Tuesday, August 29th: He watched it tumble down the hill.
He watched it tumble down the hill. It went end over end. Occasional flashes of color testified to a few items being tossed out of the top. Will wondered what they were. He tried to determine it by the color but came up short.
“Anything important in there,” he asked Frank. Frank looked glumly as the tumbling pack hit a rock caught air and fell into the river. The current caught it ant it was swept around the bend before Frank could answer.
“Everything,” he said. “Everything was in there.”
“Well, some things came out. Maybe you should go and collect them, see if anything is salvageable.”
Frank looked at him as though he lost his mind. “I’m not going down there,” he said.
Will shrugged. “Okay then, we should probably catch up with the others.”
“But my stuff,” Frank gestured down the hill.
“Are you going to get it or not?” Will asked.
“No…but…”
“But what?” Will asked. “Either you are going to get your things and see what can be saved or you aren’t. If you are going I will wait and if you aren’t then we need to catch up to the others.”
“My things…”
“Yes?”
Frank slumped and turned away from the cliff face. Deciding that they were catching up with the others Will moved back towards the trail. It was his day to be at the end of the group and make sure there were no strangers. He warned Frank about taking his pack off too close to the edge more than five times since lunch but had never received more than an eye roll. Will reached the trail and turned letting a dejected Frank walk ahead of him. He tried to remember the division of goods as they walked. All of those in the group were asked to divide up the necessities so that each would have part of the whole and no one’s load would be too heavy.
Will was only along as an escort since one of the councilors had car trouble and was going to catch up with them in the morning. Because he wasn’t part of the group all he needed for his own survival was in his pack, but he suspected the group would be going short.
Frank tried not to sigh or offer anything in the way of I told you so. He knew this group was composed of teenagers from families who were wealthy and who feared their children were too spoiled for their own good. The fact that the spoiling often came from the parents actions wasn’t something mentioned. This was a trip into the wild and the first one for most of them.
This was Will’s first venture with the group and he had been shocked when a few of the ‘campers’ nearly cried when they found out there would be no internet or cell service where they were going. A couple simply refused to believe it. Will was not one for people. He preferred his own company most of the time and only agreed to help out because one of the few people on the planet he considered a friend asked it of him.
He figured he would be fine as long as he kept his interaction to a minimum. It was nearly dark when they caught up with the rest of the campers. Will thought Frank would look the worst but it was over all quite the dejected looking group.
Ten til Midnight 