17. we moved at a better pace

We moved at a better pace. And by better, I meant better for me. For the most part that meant slower. I had given Thomas some water. And one of my Cliff bars. The sugars and carbs should help. Not sure for how long. Looked like he lost a huge amount of blood. Tightening the turnicate helped too. As long as there wasn’t any more all out running. That pace earlier would have killed me. Might as well have left me for dead.This speed was tolerable. We kept it constant. Breaks were short. A time to get some water. Stretch. And work out any soreness. Particularly in the shoulders. Then we were off again. Toward the mountains. Not toward our cabin.

“Wait. Where are we going?”

“What do you mean?”

Joanne wasn’t stopping. We kept moving forward. Thomas still spaced out. Or just not giving a shit about what we were talking about. I could hear him whine whenever he made a miss-step. We tried our best to stay sync’ed. I think our conversation threw us off.

“What do you think? The cabin isn’t this way.”

I looked at her when I asked this. She had that WTH-face when she turned to me. That is, “What the hell?”

“Why on earth would we want to go back there?”

With that I developed my very own WTH-face. It was all common sense. Something was missing. Still I had to press the issue and lay out the facts.

“Why? It’s the cabin! We could rest. Thomas could rest. There’s Food. Water. Not to mention shelter. It’s safe and sound there.”

“Safe? With all the wolves there?”

“Wolves… what?”

My mind was in free-fall again. This was not making sense. I wanted to stop and get exactly what she meant. Wolves? But wolves were safe right? I thought about telling her, but the mention of danger put a kick in her stride. We began to move faster. And I was running short on breath. It wasn’t helping. Brain analyzing. Feet staying on pace. Arms keeping Thomas up. Eyes watching everything. So it was hard taking in Joanne’s information.

“Isn’t that why you’re out here?”

“No. Bored as hell. Went for a walk. Hike. Along the road. Hoping to catch you. Wait. You drove back to the house?”

My sentences were short. Joanne either noticed my limited cardio capacity or noticed there was only one road between the house and town. She stopped. Finally.

“Yes. We drove back.”

She was staring straight at me as I assumed my usual pathetic out of shape pose. Apparently, I get more oxygen into my body this way. I didn’t or couldn’t say anything so she went on.

“Before we got into the neighborhood we saw wolves. Hundreds, could have been thousands of them, just walking around the houses.”

“That’s impossible.”

“I assure you. I know what I saw.”

“No. I mean, I was on the road. There’s only one road in and out. I would have seen you or at least heard you.”

So there was the whole incident by the river. Off form the main road. Where I eventually took a nap. But still. A large SUV barreling down a gravel road was more audible than a sly wolf creeping around. And there was also that other issue that was on my mind.

“And where’s the car?”

“In the river.”

She paused like I should have known. I just kept on looking… stupid.

“The bears rammed us on the side. Sent us through to the river. Where you were. You ran off when you came your way. I don’t blame you there were at least five grizzlies on our tail.”

Yeah, the stopping, the recovered breathing, the filling in on what happened, and the time to think, all didn’t help. My face went from WTH to WTF, as in “What the fuck?” Nothing was making sense. And every time Joanne clarified something, everything made less sense. They weren’t there. I would have noticed. I know it was a crazy way to wake up. But still. I think I would notice commotion like that.

I resigned to listening.

Joanne went on explaining. What she assumed I did. Running scared. I was, but not about what she thought. I wanted to correct her. But when she started mentioning on how the grizzly bears behaved, I decided not to interrupt her. When they crashed into the water. She thought they were done for. It was that deep part of the river. It would have been a matter of time before the car filled up. And poor old Thomas was taking a beating. They had to get out. But that meant facing the animals. And that was the thing. They were devouring all the fish. With a mad look in their eyes. Not sure what she meant. But it was enough for them to just focus on eating. They eventually went down stream. Feeding off anything living. Giving them enough time to get the hell out of there. And the crazy thing was, the bears didn’t follow. At least didn’t appear to. That’s when I came back into the picture.

There was plenty to digest mentally.

But I couldn’t do it here. Needed time as well. My mind couldn’t take any more. So I just wanted a simple answer.

“Okay. So where are we going to go?”

“Up into mountain. Maybe find a cave. But mainly to keep an eye on everything below. They come in mass.”

Thank goodness something made sense to me.