ChapterFifteen
Sunny’s entire body ached with exhaustion, like letting her tears free also emptied her of what strength she had left. Thunder rumbled low, quickening her heart. It wasn’t often that they’d get thunderstorms up there in the Alaskan Interior. When they did, it either meant wildfires or downpours. Neither would be good at the moment.
“We need to find shelter.” Davis scanned the sky, then the forest ahead of them.
“Yep.” She didn’t know what else to say.
She was too tired to even think at the moment, though his earlier words about why he hadn’t called sure seemed to not have any problem replaying in her head. Shaking out her hands to wake herself up, she surveyed the area they were in. Being on the top of the ridge should help them find some place not a soaking marsh. However, if it rained, there wouldn’t be anywhere dry. A section of older spruce up ahead caught her eye.
“Davis, let’s go check out that area.” She stepped up next to him when he stopped, and pointed to the mature trees.
“Good idea.” He nodded, then extended his hand. “Lead the way.”
She smiled over at him. Even with all his military training, he was letting her take the lead. Her exhaustion couldn’t keep down the thrill his action brought.
Searching the terrain for the perfect shelter was always difficult in Alaska. Many of the trees, especially the black spruce, were too spindly to provide any protection or grew so thick one couldn’t get between them. Add how the ground could be solid one moment and marshy, uneven ickiness the next didn’t help. Permafrost sure knew how to cause problems. Thankfully, this area was free of it, and the spruce grew tall.
She spotted a decent black spruce ahead and made a beeline for it. The height wasn’t as tall as some others, which would be good if the thunder rumbling meant lightning storm, but the branches grew thick and wide. She rubbed her foot at the ground beneath, glad to find dirt and spruce needles rather than wet moss.
“This should work,” she said, just as the clouds opened up.
She grabbed her collapsible saw from her pack, then tossed the bag up against the trunk of the tree. If they didn’t want to get rained on all night, they’d have to reinforce what the tree had. Davis set his pack next to hers, then turned to her expectantly.
“I’m going to cut some boughs from the other trees.” She clicked open her saw and pointed her chin at the closest spruce.
“Good. I’ll get the ground ready.” Davis ducked under their shelter’s branches and got to work.
What? No fight over the more laborious job? With the way her shoulders ached, she might even give in, but she loved that he knew she could handle it. She rolled her neck and got to work.
She cut branch after branch off of the neighboring spruces, chucking them into a pile near their shelter. The pelting rain made the saw slippery and increased her frustration. Davis worked just as hard, running down the slope repeatedly and coming back with armfuls of birch leaves for their bed. In the back of her mind, she worried about leaving so much evidence of their location, but it couldn’t be helped.
When she had a good pile of branches, she picked out the smallest ones and threaded them in among their spruce’s own. Davis helped, working from a few feet away. When they got too high for her to reach, she let Davis continue and shifted her focus on weaving the larger boughs into a front wall.
Davis soon joined her, their hands brushing occasionally as they wove. They didn’t speak, just worked, anticipating what each other would need. She knew it was because of his military training and her own wilderness background, but it had to mean something that they worked so well together. Right?
“Let’s see if we’ve got enough.” Sunny lifted one side and waited until Davis grabbed the other.
They fitted it up against the bottom limbs of their shelter. She snatched a couple of zip ties from her pocket and secured the wall to the tree. It probably didn’t need it, but she wanted to be sure it wouldn’t get ripped off if the wind picked up.
She wiped rain off her face, wishing it would just give them a break, and stepped back to survey their work. “I think that should be good enough. Let me check inside.” She kneeled down and peeked her head through the small opening they’d kept. “It’s dry.”
“Climb on in, and I’ll just put these leftover branches above us.” Davis touched the small of her back, rushing the chill from the rain away in a whoosh, before his feet squelched through the mud to the last branches.
She crawled in to the farthest side, more than happy to be done for the day. Pulling her pack into her lap, she rifled through it, setting the items they’d need for the night aside. It wasn’t much, some food, water, and her sleeping bag. She clicked on her headlamp and hung it from a branch. Their reinforcing job made it dark inside. She mentally cataloged the food that she had and calculated how long it would last between the two of them.
Not long.
Definitely not enough to get them to civilization.
Davis crawled in, and she quickly zipped her pack and set it aside. They’d just have to worry about that later. They had more pressing things to worry about than lack of grub, like homicidal people chasing them. She could scavenge the land for food when they ran out.
“Well, this is cozy.” Davis’s low voice curled warmth in her stomach.
“At least it’s not wet.” A gust of wind pelted rain against the branch wall and made her shiver. “Too bad we won’t be able to start a fire and dry out.”
“You have a change of clothes, right?” Davis wiped at the water dripping from his hair.
“Yeah.”