applied the compress to his knee. He felt better than at any time since the crash, but he knew he must resist hubris. He was still lost and still hungry.
The compress did so much for his knee and his general well-being that he decided to renew it when it had grown tepid. This time, however, with an intent to get hotter water more quickly, he found and dropped into the fire a larger stone, and kept it in the coals so long that had it been iron it would have turned white. He had prepared his tongs for the new and heavier burden, pounding the ends of the sticks between two rocks so as to fashion them into paddles. He was also ready to move quickly in bringing the hot stone to the water in the cup lest it burn through the now thin paddle ends, even though the wood was so green as to exude sap when he struck it.
The effort concluded in a damaging failure. The incendiary stone immediately burned itself free of the sticks, but not so soon as to fall harmlessly to the sand. Instead it fell within the cup, but off-center, and where it struck the inner wall of plastic, it burned through. Meanwhile its effect on the liquid was violent. Had Crews not instantly emptied the steaming contents onto the ground, the water would probably have boiled away within seconds, leaving the stone still hot enough to melt the bottom of the then dry cup.
After a momentary dismay, however, he determined to remain positive. The vessel was only half ruined. It was capable of holding about five-eighths of its original capacity and also could still serve as a scoop for digging. And he had learned a valuable lesson. Even in his situation, fire could not be seen as unconditionally friendly. There was no element in his current existence that could not become inimical, in fact lethal, without warning. It was in vogue nowadays to say the same about daily existence in any city, and Crews himself had said as much, sometimes to justify his drinking. Was it better to be mugged when sober? (That, in spite of all, he never had been the victim of such a crime was beside the point.) But this was quite another universe, one in which any advantage could be nullified without warning and without moral significance.
By now more than half of another day had passed, and the clouds that had been visible in the far western sky were moving closer. He could not think of a way to protect a fire from rainâany roof over it would burnâbut suspected that a blaze that was hot enough might survive a mild downpour. At least it was a theory worth putting to the test. He must replenish the supply of wood and if possible find some means by which to keep it dry. He remembered the birches, but he possessed no knife or other cutting implement. Next time he was lost in the wilderness he would at least bring a straight-edged razor and not a useless piece of electric-powered junk.
He wasted time in searching for a rock with a sharp edge until it occurred to him that he could sooner make one. In the woods he located a couple of hand-sized chunks of stone and struck them together until one cracked and separated into two pieces each of which was serviceably keen around most of its circumference. They were tools of not the most efficient form, but they could, when used with purposeful repetition, eventually pound an incision in a birch trunk sufficient to permit the peeling away of a strip of bark.
In this crude fashionâmuch of his effort consisted in slamming the rocks against a tree reluctant to part with its integument until battered into submissionâhe eventually girdled several birches and collected what looked like enough half-cylinders of bark to roof a woodpile when flattened and placed in a shingled arrangement.
Next he put the rocks to service as axes. When held at an angle, the sharp edges could chop thicker lengths of dead wood than he had been previously able to attack, though the crude implements would be ineffective against the stouter branches needed to build a
The compress did so much for his knee and his general well-being that he decided to renew it when it had grown tepid. This time, however, with an intent to get hotter water more quickly, he found and dropped into the fire a larger stone, and kept it in the coals so long that had it been iron it would have turned white. He had prepared his tongs for the new and heavier burden, pounding the ends of the sticks between two rocks so as to fashion them into paddles. He was also ready to move quickly in bringing the hot stone to the water in the cup lest it burn through the now thin paddle ends, even though the wood was so green as to exude sap when he struck it.
The effort concluded in a damaging failure. The incendiary stone immediately burned itself free of the sticks, but not so soon as to fall harmlessly to the sand. Instead it fell within the cup, but off-center, and where it struck the inner wall of plastic, it burned through. Meanwhile its effect on the liquid was violent. Had Crews not instantly emptied the steaming contents onto the ground, the water would probably have boiled away within seconds, leaving the stone still hot enough to melt the bottom of the then dry cup.
After a momentary dismay, however, he determined to remain positive. The vessel was only half ruined. It was capable of holding about five-eighths of its original capacity and also could still serve as a scoop for digging. And he had learned a valuable lesson. Even in his situation, fire could not be seen as unconditionally friendly. There was no element in his current existence that could not become inimical, in fact lethal, without warning. It was in vogue nowadays to say the same about daily existence in any city, and Crews himself had said as much, sometimes to justify his drinking. Was it better to be mugged when sober? (That, in spite of all, he never had been the victim of such a crime was beside the point.) But this was quite another universe, one in which any advantage could be nullified without warning and without moral significance.
By now more than half of another day had passed, and the clouds that had been visible in the far western sky were moving closer. He could not think of a way to protect a fire from rainâany roof over it would burnâbut suspected that a blaze that was hot enough might survive a mild downpour. At least it was a theory worth putting to the test. He must replenish the supply of wood and if possible find some means by which to keep it dry. He remembered the birches, but he possessed no knife or other cutting implement. Next time he was lost in the wilderness he would at least bring a straight-edged razor and not a useless piece of electric-powered junk.
He wasted time in searching for a rock with a sharp edge until it occurred to him that he could sooner make one. In the woods he located a couple of hand-sized chunks of stone and struck them together until one cracked and separated into two pieces each of which was serviceably keen around most of its circumference. They were tools of not the most efficient form, but they could, when used with purposeful repetition, eventually pound an incision in a birch trunk sufficient to permit the peeling away of a strip of bark.
In this crude fashionâmuch of his effort consisted in slamming the rocks against a tree reluctant to part with its integument until battered into submissionâhe eventually girdled several birches and collected what looked like enough half-cylinders of bark to roof a woodpile when flattened and placed in a shingled arrangement.
Next he put the rocks to service as axes. When held at an angle, the sharp edges could chop thicker lengths of dead wood than he had been previously able to attack, though the crude implements would be ineffective against the stouter branches needed to build a
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