“A stream would be nice,” he said.
Jack stopped four times so they could hush and listen for the sound of running water, but they never heard it, and exhaustion finally won out.
Jack climbed under a huge spruce tree and broke off as many lower limbs as his strength would allow. His family joined him under the overhanging branches, and they all lay huddled together on the forest floor.
Dee reached over, held Jack’s hand.
Cole already asleep.
Hardly any light left in the sky, and what little there was struggled to pass through the spiderweb of branches. Jack wanted to say something to Dee and Naomi before they drifted off, something about how proud he was of them, but he made the mistake of closing his eyes while he tried to think of what he should say.
He woke once in the middle of the night. Pitch black and the patter of rainfall all around them. The branches thick enough over where they slept to keep them dry. Jack’s body was cold but he could still feel the glow of the sunburn in his face. Brightness when he shut his eyes. Thinking, water is falling out there. Water. But thirsty as he was, he couldn’t bring himself to move.
* * * * *
THE woods smelled of last night’s rainfall and everything still dripped. They could’ve laid there all day under the tree watching the light spill through the branches, but he made them get up. Two full days since their last sip of water at that high lake on the other side of the mountain, and he fought a raging headache.
They left while it was still early. No trail to follow but the path of least resistance, slowly winding their way down through the spruce. Cole couldn’t walk, so Jack carried him on his shoulders. He felt dizzy, his legs cramping, thinking he should have dragged them all out from under the tree last night and made a catch for the rain. They were dying of thirst, and he’d let a shot at water pass them by.
Midafternoon and stumbling through the woods like zombies. Back down into pine trees, descending toward desert and the heat of it and the tang of dry sage in the upslope wind.
They would’ve missed it but for Cole.
The boy said, “Look.” Pointed toward a boulder a little ways off in the trees with a dark streak running down its face that glimmered where the sun struck it.
Jack lifted his son off his shoulders and set him down and ran for it, hurdling two logs and sliding to a stop on his knees in the wet mud at the base.
A steady trickle the width of a string ran off the lip of the rock. He bent down and took a sip, just one to make sure it tasted safe, the water down his throat so cold and sweet he had to physically tear himself away from it.
“How is it?” Dee said. “Safe to drink?”
“Like nothing you ever tasted.” Jack stood, traced the stream to where it disappeared into rock. “It’s a spring,” he said. “Come here, Cole.” He helped his son down onto the wet mud and held his mouth under the stream for thirty seconds.
“All right, buddy, let’s give sister a shot.”
They each got a half minute under the trickle, and then, beginning with Cole, took turns, each as long as they wanted, drinking their fill.
It was torture watching his children gulp down mouthful after mouthful, so Jack wandered away from the boulder to look for a place for them to sleep. Came upon it almost instantly—a stretch of dirt underneath an overhang that would probably keep them dry unless a wild storm blew in. He picked out all of the rocks from the dirt and found some patches of moss nearby which he peeled off the ground and spread out like plush moist carpeting. He sat down on the moss in the shade of the overhang and stared at the sky through the tops of the trees. Didn’t have his watch but he bet it was four or five in the afternoon. The light getting long and the clouds dissipating. The chill coming.
While his family slept, Jack lay under the trickle of water. It took fourteen seconds for his mouth to fill, and then he’d swallow and open again. Laid there forty minutes watching the sky darken, drinking until his stomach bloated and sloshed.
Their wet clothes froze during the night and they lay shivering under the overhang while the moon lifted above the desert. Jack got up and wandered out into the woods and broke off as many limbs as he could find. All pine—the needles densely clustered. Carried an armful back to their pitiful camp and laid the branches over the tangle of bodies that comprised his family.
He stood watching them.
Looked back toward the west, the mountain they’d scaled looming in the dark.
Broken granite shining in the moonlight.
And he felt something like a drug enter his bloodstream—several heartbeats of pride coursing through him, only it wasn’t really pride. Just knowledge. Clarity. A brief window passing through his field of vision. He saw himself objectively, what he’d done, how with his hands and his brain and his handling of fear, he’d kept his family alive this far, a realization surfacing, and it was this: a part of him needed this, loved this, loved being strong for them, going hungry and thirsty for them, even killing for them. He knew he would do it again and without a moment’s hesitation. Hell, a part of him might even welcome it. There was simply nothing in his experience that even compared with the thrill of killing to protect his family. In this moment, it was the purpose of his existence.
He felt, possibly for the first time in his life, like a f**king man.
At last, he crawled under the branches and wrapped his arms around his son.
Cole’s teeth chattered. “I’m cold,” the boy said.
“You’ll warm up.”
“When?”
“In a minute.”
“Can you die of cold?”
“Yeah, but that’s not going to happen to you.”
“I’m still not warm.”
“Be patient. It’s coming.”
* * * * *
JACK woke at dawn and laid his hands upon his children.
“They’re breathing,” Dee whispered.
“You sleep?”
“Not much.”
“We stink,” he said.
“Speak for yourself.”
“No, I think I can safely speak for you, too.”
He looked at his wife just to look at her. First time he’d done that in days.
Her cheeks smeared with dirt. Lips cracked. Sunburned all to hell.
“You’ve got a few dreadlocks starting there,” he said.
“I’m hideous, aren’t I?”
“Maybe a tad.”
“You smoothtalker.” She reached across the kids, touched his hand. “We can’t keep doing this,” she said. “You know that, don’t you?”