The Wilds Read online

  I thought about it. How could I convince them that I wasn’t a threat, that I was indeed a nice guy, that they had nothing to fear from me?

  “I’ve got a gun, mister,” Gloria called.

  Wonderful news. It almost made me fill my pants.

  “If you don’t come down on your own, I might have to use it on you.”

  She fired. Into the air, probably.

  I crapped and peed simultaneously.

  “Okay!” I yelled. “I’ll come down. Just a minute.” Real fast, I shucked off my shoes and jeans. My Jockeys had caught the load. Got rid of them, and used my shirt to wipe. While I worked at it, I tried to talk my way out of things. “It’s a free country, you know. I was here first. It’s not my fault you decided to camp right where I already was.”

  “If you were here,” Susie called, “you should’ve told us.”

  “I was scared. I don’t know you two people. Maybe you’re nice women. Or maybe you’re a couple of lunatics.”

  “Very funny, mister,” Gloria said. She didn’t sound amused.

  After hurrying into my jeans, I put my jacket on. “I mean it,” I explained. “I was scared, so I decided to hide and look for a chance to sneak away.”

  “Stand up where we can see you,” Gloria ordered.

  Quickly, I slipped into my shoes. “You won’t shoot, will you?”

  “Just do what you’re told.”

  I got to my feet and looked down over the edge. The girls were standing side by side near the front of their tent, both facing me, their heads back. Susie held the hatchet low by her hip. Gloria held a revolver, her arm up and bent at the elbow so that the gun was close to her ear. She had it pointed straight upward, not at me.

  I raised my open hands, the way they do on TV.

  “Is anybody else up there with you?” Gloria asked.

  “No.”

  “Where’re your friends?” Susie asked.

  “I don’t have any.”

  “Right. Nobody packs in alone.”

  “I did.”

  Susie glanced about as if she expected a sneak attack by my gang of pals. Then she looked up at me again. “Where are they?”

  “There’s nobody but me. Honest.”

  “Do you have some i.d.?” Gloria asked.

  She was very good at saying things I didn’t want to hear. Already, I had stopped being invisible. Once she took a look at my driver’s license, I would stop being anonymous. God! She’d have my name, my parents’ address!

  Fortunately, the license was in my wallet, which I had left inside my backpack.

  “I haven’t got anything,” I said.

  “We’ll see about that,” Susie muttered.

  “It’s the truth. My parents won’t let me get a driver’s license until…”

  “Shut up and come down here,” Susie said.

  “Okay.” Nodding, I took a step backward.

  Gloria’s arm darted out. She aimed the revolver at me and shouted, “Stop! Come down the front.”

  Leaning forward, I peered down. And groaned. “I can’t. I’ll fall. It’s too steep.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” Gloria said. “Do it, anyway. I don’t want you out of sight right now.”

  When you’re trapped on top of a boulder, you don’t have a lot of choices. You can’t stay up there forever. They can either wait you out, climb up and get you, or find a higher place nearby where they can shoot down at you. (There were some trees within just a few yards of me.) So you’ve got to reach the ground, but you can’t climb down fast enough to get away unshot. Also, you can’t jump off the top without breaking yourself.

  So I said, “Okay.” With both girls watching, I started to make my way down the face of the boulder. It was awfully steep.

  About halfway down, my foot slipped. I gasped and tried to hang on. Nothing to hang on to, though, so I fell backward. The ground knocked my legs out from under me, then smacked my butt. Then my back hit the dirt.

  Gloria stuck the gun in my face. “Don’t move.”

  That was a laugh.

  Anyway, I just stayed sprawled on the ground, gasping and trying to get my breath back. Susie crouched and searched me. My jacket was open. She flipped it open wider and ran her hands under it, feeling my bare sides from armpits to hips. She pulled the hunting knife out of the sheath on my belt. She patted my front pockets. She even checked my ankles.

  While all that went on, Gloria stood about a yard beyond my head, leaning forward, her arm straight, the muzzle of her revolver no more than ten inches from my forehead. Looking at the hole gave me a funny ache – the weird kind of ache you get if you cross your eyes. So I didn’t look at it much.

  The way Gloria was bent over, her hair hung straight down past the sides of her face. Her face was upside-down, of course. She looked strange but beautiful.

  Susie made me roll over. The ground was covered with pine needles. They were dry and prickly against my skin. She felt around under the back of my jacket, patted my seat pockets, ran her hands down my legs. “I guess he’s okay,” she said.

  “Can I get up, now?” I asked.

  “Don’t move,” Gloria said.

  “What’ll we do with him?”

  “I’ll just leave,” I offered. “I’ll get my gear and leave. Okay?”

  “Not okay,” Gloria said.

  “I wasn’t doing anything.”

  “Like hell you weren’t,” Susie said.

  “We came out here,” Gloria said, “to get away from people like you.”

  “People like me? What’re you…?”

  “All the fucking perverts and rapists and murders.”

  “I’m not…”

  “You’re everywhere, goddamn it! It used to be, you could at least go to the mountains and get away from all the degenerate scumbags.”

  “Even the mountains aren’t safe,” Susie added.

  “They’re safe!” I blurted. “I’m not anything! I’m just camping! You came along to where I was. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I promise. Please.”

  “Go over and get my rope,” Gloria said.

  Susie went for it, her footsteps crunching pine needles.

  “What’re you gonna do?” I asked. “Can’t you just let me go?”

  “So you can sneak up on us again?”

  “I didn’t sneak up on you.”

  Susie came back and stopped beside me. “What now?”

  “Tie his hands behind his back.”

  Susie straddled me and tied my hands. After that was done, Gloria ordered me to stand up. Susie stayed behind me, holding the rope.

  They got me into position, a tree branch several feet overhead. Then Susie tossed the rope over the branch. She caught the end. She pulled, hoisting my bound arms up behind me and forcing me up on tiptoes.

  “Not that high,” Gloria told her.

  They made it so I could stand without getting my arms wrenched from their sockets. Then Susie tied the rope to the trunk.

  “This is crazy,” I said.

  Susie smirked. “What’re we supposed to do, let you go?”

  “Yes!”

  “You should just be glad we’re reasonable, civilized people,” Gloria said. “If we really wanted to play it smart, we’d incapacitate you.”

  “I am incapacitated!”

  “You’re tied up. There’s a big difference. To you and to us. This is a lot more dangerous for us.”

  “Consider yourself lucky,” Susie added.

  They left me there, and started breaking camp. “What’re you doing?” I asked.

  “Getting out of here,” Gloria said.

  “Now?”

  “Soon as we can.”

  “But it’s almost dark.”

  “We’re not gonna spend the night here, that’s for sure.”

  “Why? Because of me?”

  “What do you think?” Susie said.

  “You don’t have to go away.”

  “The hell we don’t.”

  “What ab
out me?”

  “You’re staying right where you are,” Gloria said.

  “Tied up?”

  “You got it,” Susie said.

  “You’ll be all right,” Gloria told me. “I’m sure you’ll manage to get loose sooner or later. When you do, don’t come after us.”

  “Or you’ll wish you hadn’t,” Susie said.

  “You got off lucky this time.”

  About fifteen minutes later, they hefted their backpacks and hiked away.

  It came as a relief to watch them leave.

  Things could’ve gone so much worse. They’d had me at their mercy. They could’ve done anything to me – beaten me up, tortured me, killed me. Apparently, I had lucked out in going after a couple of gals with scruples about such things. They hadn’t even taken my name, much less gotten their hands on my driver’s license.

  (I knew my license was safe because I watched them hike straight over to the trail and head north. They went nowhere near the place where I’d hidden my gear.)

  Without knowing who I am, they can’t do anything to me. Can’t tell on me, get the law on me, or anything!

  I got off lucky, all right. Nothing to show for being caught except a few bad scares, messing my pants, falling off a boulder and getting myself tied to a tree.

  Could’ve been so damn much worse.

  It actually did get worse around sundown. That’s when the mosquitoes came. With my arms tied behind me, I couldn’t do a thing about them. They flew underneath my open jacket. They settled on my face and neck and got in my ears.

  But the mosquitoes made me so crazy that I finally escaped from the rope. I’d been working at the problem from the moment the gals left. I’d been taking it easy, though, turning my wrists inside their binding, sometimes tugging, twisting some more, gradually working the tightness out of the rope. I’d been making progress without hurting myself.

  With the mosquitoes buzzing around me, landing on every exposed bit of skin, sucking my blood, making me itch all over, I went nuts and ripped my hands out of the rope. Took off layers of skin, but I didn’t care.

  Hands free, I slapped at the damn mosquitoes while I ran full speed to the lake. I paused long enough to strip, then ran into the water and dived.

  The huge, soothing relief of ice cold water on mosquito bites is one of life’s great pleasures.

  I stayed in the lake for a long time. It was dark by the time I climbed out. Dark and very windy. No mosquitoes found me while I got dressed.

  Back at the secluded place where I’d left my pack, I dug out a tube of ointment. Stripped again and hunted out all of my mosquito bites and dabbed them with goo. The ones I could reach, anyhow. I had bumps all over. Still do.

  Anyway, the ointment helped some, but not much.

  I climbed into my sleeping bag, feeling itchy and hot and miserable. Instead of counting sheep, I counted my mosquito bites. I tried to make up my mind which were the most itchy. It ended as a toss-up between the bites on my forehead and those on the backs of my fingers.

  Finally, I got to sleep.

  I woke up after sunup this morning. Searched around. No sign of the girls. Took another dip in the lake for the sake of my bites. Refreshed, I returned to camp and built a fire. Made my morning coffee, bacon and eggs. (Had to throw away the bacon bar I’d taken with me yesterday, as it had been in a front pocket of my jeans, gotten peed on, and later taken a dunk in the lake. But I had an extra in my pack.) After breakfast, dug out my journal here and found a nice private place in the rocks by the lake.

  Have been taking my time, filling in all the details. Though I’m still itchy, it’s eased off some. The sun feels very good. And so does the cool mountain breeze.

  Nobody else has shown up here at Big Boy.

  I wonder where Gloria and Susie are. Did they hike all night to get away from me?

  I have to go back to their camp, now. See if I can find my knife, though Susie might’ve taken it with her.

  Also, I left my water bottle on top of the boulder. I don’t look forward to climbing up there again, but I need it.

  * * *

  Pretty scary, going back. I was afraid they’d show up and catch me again. I kept looking around, listening. What made it worse was realizing they really might show up.

  Just suppose they started to worry about me? They were decent people.

  If I couldn’t get out of the rope, I’d die.

  They didn’t want my death on their heads, did they?

  Which meant they might come back and make sure I wasn’t still hanging under the tree.

  It was a thought that scared me the whole time I was there this morning.

  They might’ve shown up at any second.

  I climbed the boulder, anyway, brought down my water bottle and ran. Didn’t even waste time looking for my knife.

  A great, safe feeling to be back here at my secret camp.

  Except for my journal, everything’s packed and ready to go.

  Only one problem. I don’t know where to go.

  I should start heading back for the car. I only brought ten days of food, and this is day six. (Haven’t been eating as much as planned, though. I could stretch things out.) Another reason to start for the car is that Gloria and Susie went the other way. Turning back, I won’t run afoul of them again.

  Which is also a good reason not to turn back.

  It’s crazy. But the thing is, I can’t get Gloria out of my head.

  I’ve got to find her.

  Now that I think about it, maybe she’ll come to me.

  * * *

  And maybe she won’t. I just spent a few hours “hanging.”

  Figuring the gals might return to make sure I wasn’t still tied, I went back to where they’d camped. Hid my stuff. Put on my jacket, stepped under the branch, reached behind myself and took hold of the rope.

  It seemed like a good idea.

  Made me awfully hot and tired, but I stuck with it. Then some hikers appeared. I spotted them when they came around a bend in the trail. Fortunately, they were still a long distance off. I had plenty of time to gather my stuff and hide.

  They left the trail and headed for the lake.

  I stayed just long enough to see that all three were guys.

  So much for “hanging around” and waiting for the girls.

  Thought I might spend the night at Little Boy Lake, after all. So I stopped by its shore, ate some supper, and now I’m bringing things up to date.

  This lake really sucks. It’s so desolate it gives me the heebie-jeebies. No way will I spend a night here.

  Guess I’ll just start walking, even though it’ll be dark soon. See how far I can get before petering out – or falling off the trail and breaking my head open, ha ha.

  June 23

  Spent most of last night hiking. The trail led along desolate granite slopes. The bright moon painted the rocks white. All around, boulders draped patches of the ground with black shadows. The shadows didn’t frighten me, though. I saw them as friendly places where I might duck and hide if someone should invade my solitude.

  The only sound was the wind except when a stream was nearby. The rushy noise made by the wind was hard to tell from the noise of fast moving water.

  I met nobody at all on the trail.

  Did see some coyotes. Being gray, they were just barely visible in the moonlight. Ghostly. They didn’t scare me, though. We shared the night and the wilds. I thought how neat it would be to run with them.

  They wanted no part of that. When I put down my pack, they vanished. I went ahead and stripped down, anyway, and ran alone. The wind felt wonderful. I climbed rocks to a high summit. Standing at the top, I was washed in moonlight, rubbed by the wind.

  In my head, I pictured Gloria atop the summit. Gloria standing there instead of me, naked, skin like cream in the moonlight, hair streaming behind her. I pictured myself moving in behind her, fitting my body against hers, feeling her hair in my face, filling my hands with her breasts.

&n
bsp; At dawn, I spread out my sleeping bag beside a stream and slept. Awoke when the sun was high, built a fire, made coffee and a stew. After eating, I spent a while enjoying the icy water of the stream. Later, I sprawled out in the sunlight to dry. I slept some more, then dug out my journal.

  Now I’m caught up again.

  Don’t know what to do next.

  Keep going, I guess. Even if I can’t find Gloria again, I would rather go deeper into the wilds than return to my car.

  Where are Gloria and Susie? It seems like I should’ve overtaken them by now. They can’t still be ahead of me. I’ve gone too far, too fast, for that. They must’ve headed off on a side trail, unless I passed them without knowing.

  Nobody seems to be around this area except me.

  I’ve found a good, hidden place among the rocks above the trail. From here, I can see anyone who might come along.

  I’m eager for darkness to arrive – ready for a romp.

  June 24

  Last night was great. Ran in the moonlight. Climbed. But also spent a lot of time motionless, listening and watching. If you stand still for a very long time, you feel yourself being absorbed by the wilderness.

  You start to feel that you are becoming part of it all.

  June 28

  Hell, journal. Long time, no see.

  I’ve gone quite a distance since my last entry. Not on the trail, though. Just around.

  Romping.

  So much better out here without lugging a backpack. Left it hidden, then came and went. Came back only for food, and to flake out.

  Haven’t seen Gloria or Susie. God knows where they’ve gone, but I probably won’t see them again. That’s all right. Gloria was glorious. Best that she’s gone, though.

  Who needs her, anyway?

  Who needs anyone, when you have the whole wilderness to yourself and when you have complete freedom?