entered the high country and still his cell phone had no service. Suddenly he couldn’t stand the idea of Joy waking alone and frightened. And it looked as if he was on a fool’s errand anyway. Without another thought, he did an about-face and started back down the mountain.
Joy sat near the fire, her makeshift crutch next to her. She looked at it and looked around the little campsite then she eyed the crutch again. What was this? TheSwiss Family Robinson? Was there nothing the man couldn’t improvise?
A squawk from above made her blood run cold, reminding her of another thing besides inconveniences the Swiss family had been forced to contend with. She expected some wild creature to come bursting out of the bushes with hunger in its beady little eyes and an image of her on its dinner plate. She eyed a blue jay that squawked at her from a low branch with suspicion. She expected an angry flock of the feathered creatures to start dive-bombing her at her any moment.
But then a new sound joined the din from the birds. It was a cracking, rustling noise she hadn’t heard until then. Her heart sped up and she knew what real terror felt like. It was nowhere near noon so it couldn’t be Brian returning. If it wasn’t him, she knew from all the noise that it had to be something really big.
And it continued to move ever closer.
Joy struggled to her feet and held the crutch like a weapon. Heart pounding, she stood waiting for death in the jaws of a bear or something even bigger. Something the pitiful weapon in her hands wasn’t going to have the slightest effect on.
That was how Brian found her, blast him!
He pushed through the brush surrounding the campsite and stepped into the small clearing. Relieved and furious, she glared at him, fighting the temptation to take a swing at him any way for scaring a year off her life.
For leaving her.
“Uh-oh. I’d hoped you might sleep till I got back,” he admitted.
She nonchalantly lowered the crutch and balanced on it, trying to act as if she’d just been in the process of swinging it into position. “Did you? Did you also hear the chopper that passed directly overhead? It was gone by the time I could get out of the shelter.”
“Yeah, I tried to get their attention from where I was but the trees must have been too thick. And I realized as I was coming down from above why they probably didn’t see the camp. Out in the open a solar blanket would reflect the sun back up at them and act like a signal mirror to catch their attention. In here, all the foil did was reflect the trees. Unfortunately it was perfect camouflage. I hardly saw our camp till I was right on top of it. I’m sorry. I was only trying to keep us dry last night.”
Joy might be angry about his solo trek but she couldn’t blame him for making the night much more comfortable than it would have been without the rain protection.
“You did your best,” was all she could say without diminishing her righteous anger.
“But it kills me to think those kids felt what we just did when the chopper didn’t see us. That they might have seen us when we flew overhead yesterday and I didn’t see them.”
She felt her anger surge again. “And had you been here when the chopper flew by, you might have figured this out and we might be our way home right now. But no, you had to go off tilting at windmills.”
Brian frowned. “How do you know I didn’t get through to anyone?”
“Because the chances of your cell phone working here are slim to none. Why do you think I carry a satellitephone? I don’t care what the commercials say. You don’t always get reception from isolated areas. The nearest cell tower is probably fifty miles from here if not farther.”
“Why didn’t you say that yesterday?”
“Because we got off the subject of the cell phone and my brains were a little scrambled. Besides that, I thought we’d settled this. I’d already won the argument. Why would I waste my breath with unnecessary
Joy sat near the fire, her makeshift crutch next to her. She looked at it and looked around the little campsite then she eyed the crutch again. What was this? TheSwiss Family Robinson? Was there nothing the man couldn’t improvise?
A squawk from above made her blood run cold, reminding her of another thing besides inconveniences the Swiss family had been forced to contend with. She expected some wild creature to come bursting out of the bushes with hunger in its beady little eyes and an image of her on its dinner plate. She eyed a blue jay that squawked at her from a low branch with suspicion. She expected an angry flock of the feathered creatures to start dive-bombing her at her any moment.
But then a new sound joined the din from the birds. It was a cracking, rustling noise she hadn’t heard until then. Her heart sped up and she knew what real terror felt like. It was nowhere near noon so it couldn’t be Brian returning. If it wasn’t him, she knew from all the noise that it had to be something really big.
And it continued to move ever closer.
Joy struggled to her feet and held the crutch like a weapon. Heart pounding, she stood waiting for death in the jaws of a bear or something even bigger. Something the pitiful weapon in her hands wasn’t going to have the slightest effect on.
That was how Brian found her, blast him!
He pushed through the brush surrounding the campsite and stepped into the small clearing. Relieved and furious, she glared at him, fighting the temptation to take a swing at him any way for scaring a year off her life.
For leaving her.
“Uh-oh. I’d hoped you might sleep till I got back,” he admitted.
She nonchalantly lowered the crutch and balanced on it, trying to act as if she’d just been in the process of swinging it into position. “Did you? Did you also hear the chopper that passed directly overhead? It was gone by the time I could get out of the shelter.”
“Yeah, I tried to get their attention from where I was but the trees must have been too thick. And I realized as I was coming down from above why they probably didn’t see the camp. Out in the open a solar blanket would reflect the sun back up at them and act like a signal mirror to catch their attention. In here, all the foil did was reflect the trees. Unfortunately it was perfect camouflage. I hardly saw our camp till I was right on top of it. I’m sorry. I was only trying to keep us dry last night.”
Joy might be angry about his solo trek but she couldn’t blame him for making the night much more comfortable than it would have been without the rain protection.
“You did your best,” was all she could say without diminishing her righteous anger.
“But it kills me to think those kids felt what we just did when the chopper didn’t see us. That they might have seen us when we flew overhead yesterday and I didn’t see them.”
She felt her anger surge again. “And had you been here when the chopper flew by, you might have figured this out and we might be our way home right now. But no, you had to go off tilting at windmills.”
Brian frowned. “How do you know I didn’t get through to anyone?”
“Because the chances of your cell phone working here are slim to none. Why do you think I carry a satellitephone? I don’t care what the commercials say. You don’t always get reception from isolated areas. The nearest cell tower is probably fifty miles from here if not farther.”
“Why didn’t you say that yesterday?”
“Because we got off the subject of the cell phone and my brains were a little scrambled. Besides that, I thought we’d settled this. I’d already won the argument. Why would I waste my breath with unnecessary
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