This was my honeymoon, I kept reminding myself. We're having a wonderful time. How lucky I am that he trusts me enough to bring me hunting with his buddies. The underbrush on the coast was taller that I was and it was difficult to keep my bearings but so far I had managed to drive the designated areas and come out where I was supposed to in a reasonable amount of time. All except once. They had to wait for me for over a half-hour before I finally dragged myself up through the manzanita to the meeting point. This was new country for me and I hadn't known what to expect. We were elk hunting just beyond the Saddle Mountain Game Reserve and supposedly there were lots of elk here.
"Hi, guys!" I chirped with false bravado, smiling an idiotic witless smile as if I was having the most glorious time of my life. I had finally managed to claw my way to where they were, wherever that was. We were at the crossroad of two primitive logging roads so there was actually a clearing of sorts.
"You're late," my charming new husband rejoined.
"Aw, it's OK," Larry (bless his heart) quickly interjected,"we were just trying to decide where we're going to drive next. Did you see anything?"
"Yah," I said, "lots of brush. Wet brush."
"Well," Gary sighed, "I'm not even sure where we are and I haven't seen a thing." I could have kissed him. Maybe being a failure wasn't particularly personal after all. There was a lot of comfort in that thought and I clung to it.
"I saw a couple of nice bucks," Ken, my hubby, informed us, "Too bad it isn't deer season."
"Well, I've walked my short legs off and I can't see over the darned brush!" I was pretty exasperated with the charms of Saddle Mountain. "Not only that, but having to get over, under or around all of these downed trees really takes time. The elk can probably hear me for miles and I can't claim to be hunting when I'm crawling under some five foot high log." I was embarrassed by the sound of my own peevish voice and could feel the color creeping into my face. My face, however, for reasons I'll have to explain another time, was covered with soot-tinted Chapstick so maybe no one else would notice. Maybe the wind had even disguised my whining tone since Ken didn't pay any attention at all to what I had said.
"Anybody hungry?" Gary asked, producing mangled candy bars from his various pockets. I gratefully accepted a Baby Ruth which appeared to be well-used. My stomach growled the moment I caught a whiff of the succulent if mutilated offering. I guess I WAS hungry. I had been so concerned about getting to the right place at the right time that I hadn't taken a moment to consider how long it had been since my own meager apple and two candy bars had disappeared. In spite of the continuous drizzle, I was also thirsty but I didn't have a canteen. No one did. I also didn't have a watch.
"What time is it, anyway?" I asked, looking skyward. I couldn't have spotted the sun through the trees even if it wasn't completely clouded over. All three men looked down at their watches.
"Man, it's late!" Ken cried, "we'd better be making tracks back to camp or we're going to get caught out here in the dark!" I shivered, looking at where "out here" was and thinking there were a lot of other places I'd much rather be after dark. Like home in my own cozy bed with a hot water bottle at my feet. Hot cocoa wouldn't be too bad, either. I still didn't actually know what time it was, But the sudden activity of my companions hinted that it was well into mid afternoon and it would be dark before five. Earlier in the woods.
Everyone stood up, shouldering rifles as I collected candy wrappers from the ground and wadded them into my pocket.
"Well, I'm ready to leave. Which way?" Gary asked.
"Camp's that way," Ken said, pointing,
"Yah, I agree," Larry added, "let's get going. It gets dark pretty early and pretty fast here."
I looked from one to the other and gulped, trying to muster some courage, "No, camp's THAT way," I said, pointing in almost the exact opposite direction. This was just too great. I hoped it wasn't an indication of how the marriage was going to go. This was a disagreement of gargantuan proportion since, at that moment, I felt that our lives might depend on the outcome.
Ken looked at me with the exact expression I expected: how dare I disagree with him. "Right," he said, "we're supposed to take your word for it when we all know you get lost in the woods every time you turn around." Gary laughed outright but Larry restrained himself, feeling sorry for me.
"Maybe we should try to get our bearing somehow," Larry said, looking doubtfully at Gary and Ken. None of the men carried a compass and probably wouldn't have known how to use one if they did.
"Sure," Gary said, "and just how in the hell are we supposed to do that? Climb a tree or something?"
"Come on," Ken said to me, taking my arm, "we're wasting time. Let's get a move on."
"No," I said quietly although it was pretty obvious that I was adamant. I wasn't budging except in the direction I was convinced was the right one. And it wasn't the way the men were prepared to go.
"Oh, for heavens sake!" Ken was exasperated and I was embarrassing him in front of his friends. "You never know where you are in the woods, why now?" he demanded. "Don't make a big scene!" he hissed into my ear so no one else could hear.
"You can go whichever way you want," I informed them, "but I'm going THAT way." I turned to start my solitary and possibly hopeless walk alone.
"Wait!" all three men now sounded panic-stricken. They were faced with a willful vixen and none of them knew what to do about it. They did have presence of mind, however, to recognize the possible fateful consequences of letting me strike out on my own. Because I was young and a woman, they all also felt compelled to protect me even from my own poor judgement.
"I'll climb a tree." Gary said. We all looked at Gary. He weighed about 385 lbs. Even I had to laugh at the absurdity of his suggestion.
"No, I will," Ken stated. After all, it was his wife's fault and he was going to take the responsibility for her miscreant behavior.
"Nah, I will," Larry offered, "after all, I'm the lightest weight so I should be able to get up higher. With that the men began scouting for a likely candidate. They finally located a tall pine with few enough needles to get a view and ample branches for climbing. Larry began his ascent with Gary hollering encouraging comments from the ground.
"Don't look down, you might realize how far off the ground you are."
"Don't worry about falling. I'm sure you'll hang up on some branches before you hit the ground."
"If you do fall, be sure to yell so we can get out of your way."
"Hey, Larry, I think I hear a storm coming. Watch out for lightening."
Larry climbed in silence as high as he could go in the tree then clung there, getting his bearings. I'm not even sure what he could see from there.
"Well, what direction is it?" Gary demanded. Ken had remained almost silent. He was broadcasting such displeasure and annoyance that I had to move several feet away from him to keep from being zapped.
"Did you HAVE to do this?" he asked rhetorically. There was nothing particularly friendly about him. Larry began climbing down. When he finally reached the ground, he pointed. "The highway's over there, so our camp has to be in that direction," he said, pointing again, this time in the direction we needed to go. In the EXACT same direction I had originally insisted on.
Gary looked at me with a certain amount of awe. Larry grinned openly. Ken, however, refused to look at me at all. Both Larry and Gary seemed to feel much better now that they actually knew the way home and started out with plenty of enthusiasm. It was late enough that we needed to simply GET there and worry about hunting another day. I took the shell out of the chamber of my rifle and put it in my pocket, slinging my rifle. We turned from the light of the clearing and plunged into the shadowy forest to begin the trek back through the manzanita. Daylight had obviously diminished while we argued. Ken had been right in one respect, anyway, we certainly had wasted time. The one good thing is that it was downhill from this point.
We had diligently hiked about forty minutes before it was so dark we couldn't see anything. Larry lit a cigarette and I found comfort in its tiny glow. He was leading the way and I strained my eyes to follow the round orange spot. Suddenly it disappeared. Period. We halted, uncertain of what had happened.
"Uhhhhhhh. Shit!" floated up from somewhere below where we were. The sound was kind of muffled. Much rustling of underbrush and then the orange glow appeared at about the level of my feet a short way ahead.
Damn tree," Larry said. "If you come over this way slowly, I'll help you down it. It's only about a 5 1/5 foot drop near as I can figure." We inched over to Larry and one by one he handed us down to the lower level. Again we pushed our way through.
From somewhere on the right, a horrible commotion ensued. Undoubtedly an entire herd of elk had heard our approach and was now stampeding off somewhere into the darkness. I was pretty sure they'd manage to make it into the sanctuary of the game reserve before daylight. They not only seemed to be smart, they actually seemed to know where they were going. I certainly hoped they could see better than I could. It was pitch black and we were moving slowly, but we were moving. We had also given up trying to talk in our concentration. It seemed pointless to try encouraging each other under these circumstances and we wanted to be able to hear the things Larry was stumbling into. Still, I followed the little bouncing orange ball.
Three more times the orange glow disappeared. Twice we were able to climb down over the log. Once, however, the drop was about eight feet and everyone decided it would be best to work our way around it. Larry waited where he had fallen, nursing a few bruises and scrapes but was not seriously injured. I guess the thick manzanita is good for something. It had broken his fall.
Several times we heard a volley of three shots. Probably Bob, our other hunting companion, signaling us so that we could find our way home. We answered each volley hoping he could hear that we were getting closer as we fired a rifle into the black sky. We also hoped that Bob was not also lost and signaling for help. In the back of my mind I could just picture us finding each other in the dark only to discover that we were all lost. I was the first to hear what I thought was the sound of a truck.
"Sh!" I hissed. Everyone stopped. It WAS a truck, faint tho' distinct. Because of the quantity of brush and the incessant drizzle, we could not judge how far it might be and were surprised indeed when we "popped" out onto the highway. We were equally surprised to discover we had popped out about a quarter of a mile from our camp and could see the blaze of Bob's signal/bonfire from where we were.
"Hi, guys," he greeted us with a big smile, "what kept you? Dinner's been ready for, oh," he looked at his watch, "about four hours." I didn't even ASK what time it was. I never said, "I told you so," either, but ever since then when I dig my heels in, most people pay attention. Womans intuition, after all, is not to be trifled with.
