Cover of Night Read online

  She didn’t ask where he intended to find dry wood; she had absolute faith that if there was any out there, he would find it. She stopped at the entrance and pulled off her wet poncho, reaching out to hang it on one of the fir branches, then quickly ducked inside. An extra flashlight would have come in handy, but she didn’t have one.

  “Here,” he said, pulling a thin green tube out of his pack. As soon as she saw it, she knew what it was, having seen them in stores that carried outdoor gear. He bent it to start the chemical reaction and the tube began to glow.

  Light was a wonderful thing. She immediately felt better, even though she was just as cold and miserable as before.

  He knelt at the entrance and began shedding supplies and gear, trying to wiggle out of most of it without pulling off his poncho, though he especially didn’t want to get his blanket and the sleep pad wet. All of the climbing gear went at one end; she pulled hers off and placed it down there, too.

  She had become used to the weight of the water in the improvised sling, but as soon as she took it off, she breathed a huge sigh of relief as her back and shoulder muscles relaxed. The water was a big part of their burden, each of them carrying about twenty pounds of it, or two and a half gallons.

  “Do you have dry socks with you?”

  “In my pocket.”

  “Before you do anything else, get those wet shoes and socks off, dry your feet, and put on fresh socks.” Then he was gone, ducking back into the night. She watched the bob of the flashlight for a moment, then did exactly as he’d said. He was the survival expert, not she.

  She put aside her wet shoes and with difficulty peeled off the two pairs of socks. Her feet looked dead white. She cupped her hands around her toes, but her hands were also cold and that didn’t give her much relief. Briskly she began rubbing her feet, both to get them dry and to get the blood flow going again. What she needed was a pan of hot water to soak them in, but this overhang didn’t have plumbing, so she kept rubbing and chafing, and slowly began to warm both her hands and her feet.

  The light the chem tube gave off was dim and weird green in color, so she couldn’t tell if her toes were getting a little pink or not, but they felt somewhat warmer. Quickly she pulled the fresh socks out of her pocket and put them on. Joy of joys, they had absorbed some of her body heat; it was almost like wrapping her feet in heated towels. The sensation quickly faded, but it was wonderful while it lasted.

  Her sweatpants were wet from the knees down, but she didn’t have another pair of pants to put on. Then she remembered the silk long johns she’d put in her jacket pocket. She got them out, then swiftly shucked the wet sweatpants and pulled on the formfitting long johns. They were dry, but felt too insubstantial in the cold, so she pulled her blanket around her, then started arranging the meager space in their shelter.

  That consisted of rolling out the sleep pad on the layer of tree limbs he’d put down, then placing his blanket roll on top of it. She moved their slings of water to the back of the space, where she hoped they wouldn’t freeze, and got out a bottle of water for each of them. Their available food was more muesli, some individual boxes of raisins, and miniature PayDay candy bars. To her surprise, his pack yielded some corn chips. She shrugged; maybe he was a corn chip fanatic. She could understand that. For a few days every month, she would kill for chocolate—perhaps not literally, but she would certainly knock down old ladies in the grocery store parking lot to get to any Hershey’s bars they might have in their shopping bags.

  A smile touched her lips. Tanner had once offered her a Hershey’s Kiss to make her feel better. She’d burst out laughing and hugged him exuberantly, confirming in his mind that chocolate could heal all woes.

  Cal reappeared, carrying an armful of sticks and twigs under his poncho. He dumped them in a dry spot, then took the trenching tool and swiftly dug a small pit at the inside edge of their enclosure. When he was finished, he said, “I need some rocks,” and he was off again. Finding rocks didn’t take as long as finding dry wood. He made a couple of trips, lining the bottom of the pit with the rocks. Then he arranged a layer of twigs, then the sticks on top. “This is just to get a fire started; then I’ll look for more wood,” he said as he seized the bag of corn chips and tore it open. He popped one chip into his mouth, then took out another one. Laying it aside, he got the waterproof box of matches and lit a match, but instead of holding the flame to the twigs, he picked up the corn chip and delicately held it to the match.

  To her surprise the chip began to flame, fire sitting in the curve of the chip like a baby in a swing. “I’ll be damned,” she murmured.

  “High oil content,” he said, sliding the chip under the twigs.

  She leaned forward, watching the corn chip in fascination as the twigs began to catch and smoke curled upward. “How long will it burn?”

  “Never timed it. Long enough. Don’t let the fire get too hot; feed it just enough to keep it going until I get back with more wood.” He went back into the night.

  The fire was engrossing, and the warmth that began to bathe her face was pure heaven. She watched the corn chip until it was no more and was tempted to light another one, but instead she carefully monitored the little fire and let it die down before she fed it another small stick.

  He amassed what looked like a small mountain of sticks and dry bark in the far end of their shelter before he deemed it enough. Then he cut young, limber branches from the nearby trees and sat just under the overhang while he quickly lashed together a frame, using long strips of fiber pulled from the branches themselves to tie everything together. He began weaving the remaining branches in and out of the frame, overlapping and interlocking. When he was finished, he propped one end of the frame against the outside edge of their enclosure and drove a stick into the ground to prop up the other end. He’d made a screen that blocked most of the opening, to hold in more of their precious heat and keep out the wind, and he’d done it in little more than half an hour.

  Then he sighed and rubbed his hands over his face, and she saw how tired he was.

  “Sit down,” she said, moving over on the pad to give him room. She handed him a bottle of water and a bag of muesli. “I also have raisins and PayDay bars, if you want them.”

  “Both,” he said. “We’ve burned a lot of calories today.”

  They were silent while they ate, so tired they had to concentrate on the act of chewing. When she ate the raisins, she could almost feel the sugar in them racing through her bloodstream in a rapid burn. She laid the little cardboard box beside the fire, to feed to it later.

  He noticed her shoes and moved them closer to the fire, as well as her socks. That was when he saw her sweatpants. He froze for a moment, then slowly reached out and drew them closer to the fire, too, arranging them so the wet parts were nearest the heat. He darted a quick glance at her, clearly wondering if she was naked under the blanket.

  Smiling, she parted the edges of the blanket to show her silk long johns. Some of the tension went out of his shoulders, and he gave her a rueful smile in return. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

  After they ate, nothing seemed as interesting as getting some sleep. He pulled off his boots and dropped the light stick down in one of them, effectively turning out the light except for the green glow coming from his boot and the much more comforting light from the fire. Wrapping himself in his blanket, he stretched out between her and the opening to the shelter.

  Cate lay down on the pad and pulled her blanket around her. “Aren’t we keeping watch tonight?”

  “No need.” His voice was a sleepy murmur.

  “We’ll take turns on the pad.”

  “I’m fine here. I’ve slept on the ground more nights than I can remember.”

  She started to protest, but her eyes were too heavy. Instead she sighed and dropped off to sleep.

  She woke sometime later—could have been an hour, could have been several hours—shivering as cold air crept under the edges of her blanket. She opened her e