Island Rush (23 page)

Chapter 22

We were both kneeling in the stream and facing upriver, the water pouring by us in long glass licks.  After only drinking from my hands, it made me realize how thirsty I really was.  That’s why instead, I dipped my head down, drinking the water like an animal.  My lips grazing the water… oh man, there was already a stronger sense of relief.

I took in heavy gulps, tasting the fresh water and more.  I was tasting more than water, but a bliss I have been craving for way too long.  My throat sighed in relief, and it made me want more.  The more I drank, the better I felt.

Suddenly, I felt a firm hand grab my arm and pull me back, ripping my mouth from heaven.  Turning to see him next to me, Mr. Rush was kneeling like me, but he wasn’t drinking the water.  Instead, he gave me a disapproving gaze.  “Don’t go overboard. You will get sick if you consume too much at once.”

I groaned in annoyance but knew he was right. I couldn’t allow my body to take over my mind, even if all I wanted was water.  I did as he said and went back to using my hands.  Once I took in enough water, I didn’t hesitate to completely stretch out in the creek and drench myself.  I wanted to feel as clean as possible, so I took full advantage of this, washing away the dirt on me and hopefully my stench. I even fully dipped my head into the water, which made me feel more refreshed.   

After at least receiving the sensation of being clean, I pushed myself up and took a deep breath.  I saw that Mr. Rush did the same and washed off, We stayed like that, relaxing in the water and avoiding each other’s gaze.  There was a strong lack of conversation between us too.  Though I wanted to be stubborn and keep it that way, it bothered me to the point where I found a reason to speak. “What now?”

He glanced at me before looking away, back up the stream. “We need shelter. We can gather up some vines here and find a good use for it. We also will need to figure out how to build our shelter.”  He thought for a second when he paused.  “Food will be hard, definitely.”

I understood that too well.  “All we had was fruit, and that is not enough to live on.”

He nodded from where he was still kneeling across from me in the water.  “Well… this gives us the chance to really commit to learning how to fish.”

“That’s another thing,” I realized. “We need to make another spear.”

He nodded again.  As I tried thinking of other things, my eyes wandered aimlessly down.  That’s when I noticed that my small cuts were clear, which made me smile.  One more plus to freshwater: it doesn’t burn to clean out any cuts.  Plus it’s safer to clean them too with this water. 

“First, I think we should start with shelter. We aren’t going to be able to learn how to fish by the end of today so we might as well get something accomplished by then.”

“That’s true.”  Both tasks didn’t sound bad, but I wasn’t looking forward to working on these things with him.  Sighing, I stood up and stretched, walking up the bank. I sat down in the grass under a tree. 

“We can’t do it here, though,” he said, standing up himself. I looked down at him from where I was sitting in the cool grass and lowered my eyebrows.

“We can’t do what here?  Build the shelter?”

“Yeah.  It’s too close to the ocean, and it would be cold at night.  We can now take advantage of the woods for cover.  We have a creek to follow back to the ocean so we won’t get lost.”

I liked how that sounded.  Anything to make the nights just a little less harsh.  So with that came our first objective: finding a good spot.  We needed to find a location that was upstream, but still close to the stream. 

In no time, we were moving.  We walked up the stream, moving deeper into the woods until it surrounded us and the creek.  We didn’t speak a word to each other the entire time either.  We just kept following it as it curved through the land and led us further in.

It felt like a long time passed thanks to the thick silence between us.  More realistically, I would say that maybe ten minutes of walking went by.  That was when we heard a distorted sound. It was faint with the noise of the creek next to us, but a new sound was there.  He heard it too because he stopped walking with me and started looking for the source.

I followed his gaze upstream and noticed that, once again, the creek turned in a different direction. Whatever it was sounded like it was coming up ahead so we kept pushing on until it got louder.  I had a good idea of what it was as we continued walking deep into the woods.  Then, the creek stopped where I expected it to.  We now stood where we were so many days ago.

I stared at the little lake that flowed out to the creek.  I also took in where the sound was coming from — the waterfall.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I scoffed under my breath.  It brought me back to when we first got here.  Reminded me of how long it took us to find this the first time. “I thought this lake was miles from the ocean. It took us over a day to find it last time,” I said, recalling those first few agonizing days. “Didn’t even take ten damn minutes now.”

He finally spoke, trying to make me feel a little better. “Well before, we came from further down the beach. We must have been moving at an angle the first time and only thought we were going deeper into the woods.”

That made complete sense. It reminded me of the first time we actually saw this beautiful area.  We had been staring down at it from a slightly higher area than this.  My eyes instantly went to the right of the waterfall, where we came from the first time.  I didn’t expect to see the suitcase we had recovered, but it was here!

Moving to where the suitcase was lying on the ground, I knelt down next it. It made me remember that we used it to hold some of the berries we picked from bushes close by.  It was many days later, though, and those berries were rotten. It stained some of the now damp clothes in the suitcase too.  But hey, clothes are still clothes and can be used! 

My hands immediately grabbed something to put on.  Rocking black shorts and just a bra weren’t doing it for me anymore.  I grabbed some jean shorts and an olive green tank top.  When I put the shirt on, I froze when I looked down at myself.  Mr. Rush most likely noticed my distressed expression. 

“What is it?” he asked.  He appeared worried. 

“Do you see anything different about me, about how I look?” I asked.

He must have because I sure could. I was skinnier than before — to the point where it was scary.  Before all this happened, I had a few curves.  Now, I looked much smaller.  I hadn’t noticed it before, but now I do.  I slid on a shirt that was my size and it was too big for me. 

Waiting for an answer, Mr. Rush looked cautious and maybe a little guilty. “Well, w-what…” He trailed off before clearing his throat.  “What do you mean? You look… okay.”

I rolled my eyes at him and wanted to laugh.  “No, I meant do you see a difference in my weight?”

Understanding lit his features.  He didn’t dare look at my body, probably feeling guilty enough about what happened a few nights ago.  “I’ve noticed you’re thinner than you were before. It was expected, though; all we ate was fruit.  I never heard of someone gaining weight by only eating fruit,” he chuckled weakly at his terrible attempt to break the tension.  It grew.

I stared down at myself and the shirt.  Grabbing the loose fabric, I frowned as he spoke.  “Don’t be worried about your health.  I have lost a few pounds myself.”

I noticed that about him too before he brought it up. I sighed.  “How do you not worry about that? There are no hospitals, no medicine here. We have nothing to rely on,” I said, unbuttoning my black shorts.  It made me sigh in relief. After so long in those shorts, I was happy to wave goodbye to them for now.

“We have each other. I patched up your back and feet.  You wrapped my hands and cleaned up my cuts.”

Listening to his words as I pushed my black shorts down, I was not pleased.  Even more so when I saw he was distracted by the fact that I was changing shorts.  His eyes deliberately avoided me, and he was much tenser.  It annoyed me that he had to act like a little boy.  

“The second after you give me this teamwork B.S., you can’t help but be immature. So sorry it’s the end of the world if a girl who isn’t your fiancée changes her shorts in front of you.”

He stood there speechless for a moment.  Then he shook his head. “All I can say is that I’m sorry.  But you really need to get over it.” 

“You think the word ‘sorry’ means much to me, sir?”  

“I—” he cut himself off.  “Whatever.  We need to start on the shelter, and I think we should make it here. It’s far enough in, we have a lake of fresh water, and for fishing, and we can walk the creek back to the ocean. Will that be good enough for you?”

I felt like I was being just as big of a baby as he was, but I couldn’t help it. “What say do I have in it? All I am to you is some child,” I said simply.  I saw him flinch at my words, which I didn’t expect but I wouldn’t complain. 

He had about enough.  A second later, he walked off and moved through the trees, his head tilted up and searching.  Probably for supplies, we could use to make the shelter.  It made me sigh.  Why did I allow this to go on? If I had just sucked it up, we could have been a team as he suggested. 

Sighing and pursing my lips, I stared at him through the trees.  He stopped and was standing under a vine he found, studying it. Despite my personal issues with him, we did need to get work done and build a shelter.

I tried preparing my cheeks to stay their normal color as I started to approach him.  By the time I got to him, he had managed to snap the vine, making it fall to the ground.  Ignoring me, he started wrapping it in loops, making it easier to carry. I followed him as he made his way to the next vine a few feet away.  I felt like I was going to be sick with embarrassment when I spoke.  “You got to give me something to do,” I mumbled.

He looked at me with a raised eyebrow.  His mouth was set in a tight line. “Oh, so you just out of nowhere decide you want to work with me?”

“I don’t want to work with you or be a team. Since trying to run away didn’t help much last time, I’ll need to do my half.”

He eyed me, no doubt looking for some sign that said I was joking.  He must have seen the truth there because he shrugged. “Fine. Make a big pile of those huge leaves we found before,” he said, voice icy.  I retreated quickly from him, happy I could do something that didn’t require interacting with him.

It didn’t take me long to find the leaves I was looking for.  I gathered the massive leaves after snapping them from the bushes and started dragging them back.  I let them go in an open area by the bank, unsure of where we should have the shelter.

I found Mr. Rush had several vines with him.  They hung around his neck (probably because he gave up trying to roll them all up). He walked up to where I stood and dumped his treasures next to mine. We were already sweating.  I could only imagine how hot we are going to be when we actually start to build the thing.

“Where are we building this?”

He scanned the land that surrounded us.  I followed his eyes when he turned and looked behind us.  There were trees scattered in the grass before the woods became thicker.  “Well, maybe we should build it among these trees.  Maybe build it right off the lake, have it a couple yards into these trees.  It would give us a lot of room and give us cover at the same time.  And a nice view,” he said, gesturing to the waterfall and lake behind us.  “Question now is how,” he muttered, refusing to meet my eyes.  

“I think I might have a way,” I said after a long moment in thought.  Looking at the spacious and durable trees in this long grass, it gave me an idea.  “All we really need is protection and cover.  A roof and one wall blocking the wind or rain would do.  So I was thinking something like a lean-to shelter.  We could use two of those trees that are only a few feet apart from each other,” I said, my gaze looking over the area before us. “If we can find a thick and sturdy branch and somehow nail each end to both trees, it could hold anything.  The two trees and the branch hanging between them could act as a support for a leaning wall we could make.”

Mr. Rush put on a serious face, trying to picture what I was saying.  Standing beside me and looking at the trees too, he was silent for a moment before speaking.  “So… you’re saying use two trees as posts?  Then connect something between them so it could hold everything we lean against it?”

I nodded to him, smiling softly at the rush of possible ideas in my head.  “Yeah, but I mean after we have that acting as a wall and a roof, we can hang stuff around it for more cover.” 

Finally giving in, he turned his head and looked down to me.  His eyes clear of what happened earlier, they were wide with excitement.  “That actually is a very good idea.  We could maybe make the wall out of thick logs or branches, bind them together and go from there.”  He nodded and scoffed at how easy that idea was.  Of course, we weren’t actually building it yet.  I’m sure we would run into complications.

“We are going to have to make this thing very sturdy and safe.  This isn’t just a shelter for a few days.  We are going to need to depend on this for a while,” I said.

“Right,” he agreed, looking over the area again.  This was going to act as our new home.  Thinking it sounded crazy but it was true.  Mr. Rush continued with another idea to contribute.  “We can always use the logs and branches that are on the beach from the storm too.  That would save us a ton of work.  It’s going to be hard hauling it all the way up here, but it will be worth it.”