Part 3
Gail looked around, assessing their grim situation. The tree canopy was too thick for a cell phone signal, even if she had brought hers, and the nearest paved road was miles away. She couldn’t leave a vulnerable person to freeze in the mud, but carrying a grown woman through dense brush was physically impossible.
“Alright, here’s what we’re going to do,” Gail said, her voice dropping into the authoritative tone she used to manage her sons. She found a thick, relatively straight maple branch lying nearby and snapped off the dead twigs. “You’re going to lean on this. I’ll take your other side. We take it one step at a time.”
The trek away from the bog was agonizingly slow. Every step seemed to send a fresh jolt of agony through the young woman. Gail kept a firm grip under her arm, feeling the severe tremors wracking the woman’s body. The damp chill of the woods was already seeping through Gail’s own jacket, and the physical toll of supporting dead weight over uneven, root-choked ground was catching up to her.
After roughly an hour of fighting through the underbrush, they had barely covered any real distance. Gail’s lungs burned, and her bad knee throbbed with a dull, persistent ache. Spotting a massive, moss-covered log, she gently eased the woman down onto it before collapsing beside her.
“I can’t do it,” Gail wheezed, rubbing her thighs. “I abandoned a prize basket of porcinis for this, and my arms still feel like they’re going to fall off. You need to rest, too.”
“My back,” the woman whimpered, clutching at the fabric of her ruined coat. She barely had the breath to speak. “It feels like someone shoved a knife between my shoulders.”
“I still don’t understand how you got out here,” Gail said, catching her breath. “Those are city boots. You didn’t just hike into Blackwater Bog by accident. You sure you can’t remember anything?”
The woman stared at the dirt, shivering violently, and shook her head. She slapped at her neck, crushing a large mosquito against her pale skin.
Gail looked up. The gray light filtering through the trees was already beginning to dim, taking on the bruised purple hue of late afternoon.
“The sun’s dropping,” Gail said, the reality of the dropping temperature settling over her. “The mosquitoes are going to eat us alive, and once it gets dark, the temperature is going to plummet. We can’t stay out here.”
She made a hard, practical calculation.
“Sweetheart, I can’t carry you, and if we keep moving at this pace, we’ll both be stuck out here overnight,” Gail said, standing up. “I need to go get help.”
Panic flared in the woman’s eyes. She reached out, her muddy fingers gripping the edge of Gail’s jacket.
“I’m not abandoning you,” Gail promised softly, covering the trembling hand with her own. She unwound the bright yellow floral scarf she had tied around her hair that morning. “Here. Wrap this around your neck. The yellow will stand out in the dusk, making it easier for us to spot you.”
She pointed through the trees. “I’m going to cut straight through that ridge. The old logging trail is just on the other side. You stay right here on this log.”
Leaving the injured woman behind went against every maternal instinct Gail possessed, but necessity pushed her forward. She turned and began to fast-walk through the dense thickets, pushing through briars that snagged her clothes and scratched her cheeks. She moved purely on adrenaline, her boots sliding on damp leaves, until the trees finally thinned out.
Gail stumbled out onto the rutted dirt of the old fire road, bending over with her hands on her knees as she gasped for air.
A low, mechanical rumble caught her attention. Headlights cut through the gathering dusk. An old, rusted Ford farm truck was crawling down the dirt track, its bed stacked high with square bales of hay.
Gail stepped out into the middle of the road and waved her arms wildly.
The truck’s brakes squealed as it jolted to a halt. The driver’s side door groaned open, and Mac stepped out onto the running board, his thick eyebrows pulling together in confusion.
“What in the hell are you doing out here, Gail?” he barked, taking in her scratched face and mud-caked clothes. “It’s nearly dark. The coyotes are already waking up, though I reckon you’d give them a run for their money.”
He tried for a dry joke, but Gail wasn’t having it.
“Shut up, Mac!” she shouted, jogging up to the driver’s side door. “There’s a woman out there. Down by the bog. She’s freezing to death and she can’t walk.”
Mac’s expression instantly sobered. The irritation vanished, replaced by a sharp, focused intensity. He listened carefully as Gail breathlessly explained the exact ridge, the fallen log, and the yellow scarf.
“Do you want me to hop in?” Gail asked, grabbing the door handle. “She might need a woman’s help.”
“No. I’ve got it,” Mac said, pulling the door shut. “You need to get home. Your boys are probably calling the sheriff right now wondering where you are.”
He put the truck in gear. “I know this forest better than anyone. I’ll find her.”
Gail nodded, stepping back from the tires. She watched the heavy truck bounce down the rutted fire trail, its taillights glowing red in the mist, before turning back toward Apple Creek.
Her legs ached, and she was soaked to the bone, but as she walked, a familiar spark returned to her eyes.
“I’m going to get a lecture from the boys for disappearing all day,” she muttered to herself, rubbing her stiff lower back. Then, a slight smirk touched her lips. “But wait until the girls hear about this. A city woman, left in the bog with no memory… Lord, the whole town is going to lose their minds.”