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The wheel of the old metal encased lighter turned like the wheel of Fate determining our fortune. I watched as the first sparks flew about and then the weak flame appeared in the October night. I sobbed as I held it to the dry tender willing it catch fire. Slowly the flame crept among the leaves growing stronger and brighter. I fed more leaves for the flame to consume as it built and started to smoke.
I willed myself to leave and scramble for another load of precious straws and leaves. Then another and another. I told Gayle to strip out of her wet clothes as I made another run to the bank. Now I picked up small dried twigs to feed to the fire. When I returned to throw them on the fire I noticed Gayle had not complied with my order.
Again I told her to undress as I went back for another armload of leaves to persuade the fire to escalate to the ignition point of the wood I had placed on it. As I dumped the leaves on the fire and it smoldered momentarily. I angrily shook her and told her to get out of her fucking wet clothes before she died.
That snapped her awake and once again I saw the animosity light in her eyes. Good, the hate will keep you alive, I thought. I went to grab bigger branches as Gayle stood to her knees and began to strip out of the cold, heavy, wet sodden sweatshirt.
I wished I had the opportunity to relish that sight, but, I remained busy alternating carrying woods and leaves to the fire. I noticed she had turned away from me as she fumbled for the snap of her jeans. Still the sight of her bareback was enticing as she struggled out of the legs of the jeans.
By the next trip, her bra and panties had amassed on the pile of clothes and she huddled modestly before the fire as the warmth returned to her. I now had enough of a stockpile that I warranted it was safe for me to undress.
Ignoring propriety I shivered as I stripped naked before Gayle. Did she sneak a peek at me? I didn’t notice and I didn’t care. We were two islands of shivering humanity huddled around a campfire gaining warmth as though we were Neanderthals in the Ice Age. As our bodies slowly came back from the brink of death I noticed Gayle began to quietly cry. I tried to ignore her vulnerability and allow her the fiction of privacy as the implication of our escape became more pronounced.
Her quiet sobs turned into weeping and soon escalated into full scale hysteria. I couldn’t standby anymore. I went to her and sat by her and forced her to accept my hug. I continued to hold her as she wailed into the frosty night. There was not an iota of sexuality in my gesture.
We were just two primitive beings stripped of the veneer of civilization trying to cope in a harsh unfeeling world. She buried her head against me and I caressed her just to connect to her. Just to let her know I was there to comfort her. She continued to accept me as the flame continued to warm us. Her crying convulsions ebbed and still she remained in my arms.
Then she looked at me and quietly said, “Thank you.”
And with that, the magic spell was broken, and we became uncomfortable in our nakedness as I went back to my initial spot of neutrality. We both continued to stare into the fire from our respective positions. I broke the silence to tell her I would get some wood to put her clothes out to dry. As I got up she averted her gaze away.
When I returned with some suitable wood, I dumped it close to her and announced I was going farther into the bank for more wood. She recognized this as my effort to tell her I wouldn’t invade on her privacy as she prepared her clothes. I waited as long as I could stand being away from the fire and then I returned.
To my surprise she had also lined out my clothes to dry as well. I quietly thanked her as again we averted away from each other. It must have looked comical from anyone else’s perspective. Here we were, grown adults, away from all the world, sharing a life or death experience and we both couldn’t overcome the awkwardness of simply looking at each other. It was though we both mutually agreed that we did not have permission to do so.
So we waited as our clothes dried. Both of us would experimentally test our clothes for dryness by reaching out and touching them. As the garments finally dried, we would turn away from each other and quickly dress. At long last, the heavier garments, the jeans and sweatshirts dried sufficiently to put on. Once we were both finally dressed it was time for our discussion.
“Gayle, we have to decide what we are going to do. Here are the obvious facts; we are stranded on the bank of the river, no one knows our predicament, we have no way to summon help since both our phones are fried from our swim. The only person that would miss us is your grandfather and he wont be back home till tomorrow.
Our options are; we remain on the bank and hope a boat rescues us, or, Robert returns and initiates a search for us when he misses us.” I paused and continued, “Or I could leave you here with enough firewood, walk through the woods back upstream and get the boat and come down and get you. What would you like me to do, Gayle?”
Without hesitation she stated she wanted to get back home as quickly as possible. I had expected that answer. Everyone would have answered the same way without thinking of the implications and consequences of that action.
I would have to navigate the bank of the river upstream without light, shod only in tennis shoes among the sharp and knobby roots waiting to trip me. Into the unforseen briars and brush waiting to trap me. I would have to stumble into the chill of the October night and grope forward until I came to our boat and face one last test. I would have to voluntarily dive back in that frigid water and climb back into the boat, start it up, and in the cold chill air pilot the boat down to the sandbar to rescue Gayle.
I went into the woods a last time to gather firewood, quick burning pine and longer sustaining oak to tide Gayle over. I told Gayle that if for whatever reason I did not come back to stay with the fire and keep it burning. When it became daylight, chances were a boat would appear that she could hail to her rescue. I told her I would follow the contours of the bank, so, I should remain in earshot of any potential rescuers.
As I began to leave, Gayle threw herself at me in an impulsive hug. God, I wanted to stay there locked into her arms, but, I had made a promise and I had to fulfill it. I walked away from her and quickly was in uncharted territory as my eyes tried to adjust to the night. I walked with arms outstretched before me to warn me of any peril. I shuffled my feet slowly among all the brush and brambles scratching me.
Often I would reach an impasse of impregnable brush and have to navigate around it to return to my course. Often I would fall, each time racking my ribs in pain from my colliding with the unknown object in the river. I could tell in the dim moonlight where the river ran below me, inviting me once again to fall into its trap. I lost all sense of time as my journey continued shivering in the cold. How had we traveled so far in the rapid current of the river? A mile? Five miles? More? I began to despair from not finding the boat. I knew every second there was Gayle worried alone in the woods and that gave me fresh incentive to continue.
I rounded a rise in the bank and there it finally was. A dark silhouette silently bobbing in the river. I mentally began to prepare myself for that God awful cold I would have to endure again as I walked to the final steps upstream that would ensure that I would drift to the boat.
Summoning up the last vestige of my courage before I once and finally came to my senses; I jumped into the river for the second time voluntarily that evening. The bone chilling cold again introduced itself to my body. Suffering from another relapse I could sense my body quickly shutting down.
I would not have near the time as I had initially to respond. As the cold cramped my fingers I reached and grasped the boat ladder at the starboard side of the pontoon. Somehow I managed to climb aboard and hurried to start the engine. The trustworthy Mercury outboard fired up as I jumped to the toolbox and groped for the flashlight and knife that were among the items stored. Turning the light on I went to each anchor line and quickly cut through them and suddenly we were adrift.
I ran to the cockpit and moved the throttle forward for maximum speed as I turned on the navigational lights and entered the main channel assured I would not run aground or into any unseen hazard.This content © Nôv/elDr(a)m/a.Org.
I felt the encroaching freeze working against me as the wind chill kept lowering my body temperature dangerously close to the point of no return. I squinted peering in the dark looking for signs of the campfire. There! That orange pinprick! Could it be?
I saw the form of a human dancing trying to wave me down. I shut off the throttle and killed the engine and allowed the momentum of the boat to wedge to a stop on the sandbar. The welcoming cheers from Gayle suddenly stopped as she saw my condition. It finally dawned on her what I had undergone and she rushed to assist me to get me close to the fire.