The day we left the Overhang was the day that I gave up on food. We were packing up the tents and, feeling strangely energized, I commented to Dominic about how our breakfast of leftover berries had really benefited me. Unfazed, he replied, “not really, you burned off whatever the berries gave you just packing up that tent.”
Well fine then.
Things weren’t really helped when Kevin shared a dream that he’d had that night: he was in a castle of stone and was approached by very purposeful guards. These seized him by the arms and dragged him to a great hall, wherein was a table piled high with food fit for Valhalla. But as soon as he reached out his hand, the dream vanished and he awoke in his sleeping bag, hungry and cold. My stomach rumbled.
We eventually found our way back to the roads, paved and otherwise. We slogged along, panting, sipping water every thirty seconds – I had the urge to hurl whatever the nothing was in my stomach whenever I went about forty-five seconds without a half-swig, and if I overdid it and got a mouthful I felt even worse for several minutes – and muttering, “I think I can I think I can.” We had left the hills behind and were passing inhabited lands, now, farms and horse ranches. At one point a floppy-jowled bloodhound came padding and bouncing from under a barbed wire fence and followed us cheerfully for the length of his property line, while we debated ways of taking him off guard and dividing up the best parts. Gray’s older brother even ate an ant when Kevin jokingly dared him.
We were taking a break on a dusty stretch of backroad when the familiar warning, “car,” now lacking its former chirp, was sounded down the line and we all swayed silently to our feet and dragged our packs aside. The rust-red pickup thudded and trundled along with ponderous curiosity until it braked beside my bag.
“What are y’all up to?” asked the shirtless passenger, one elbow leant against the sill and peering at me intently from between his smoker-induced crow’s feet. I’m sure we all looked remarkably out of place, myself shirtless as well, with my wash towels tucked into my ball cap a la the French Foreign Legion.
“We’re hiking,” I replied, suddenly cheerful in the presence of unfamiliar company.
“How far?”
“Dunno, ‘probly about sixty miles or so. ‘Least that was the plan; this is day four.”
“Why, just for fun?”
I nodded.
“Hell,” he muttered and looked from me to the line of grimy, bedraggled teenagers stretched along the road beyond the windshield. “Well, hope y’all make it, wherever that is!” Then he waved and the driver nodded as they pulled away.
We did make it. At the final campsite we were informed that a short trek the next morning would put us at the canoe landing. We all rejoiced and went to bed happily, the pain in our shrinking stomachs long dulled.
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