52Chapter 2
Clara got out of the parking lot and onto the road before she let her emotions catch up to her. Of all the people to run into…Mathew Hawkes! Oh god! Her hands were shaking so hard on the steering wheel she had to hold onto it until her knuckles were white and she was afraid she'd break the ancient thing. Her breath was coming in short pants as she tried to get herself under control.
The whole reason she'd come up here was to escape, to get away from everyone and everything. No one to know she was here, to just….disappear. She'd been such a fool to even consider checking in at the station like the old man had said but what else was she to do? She couldn't remember how to get up to Uncle Jake's cabin. The last time she'd been up there she'd only been eight. Eight year olds don't remember things like north and south or landmarks. That was fifteen years ago! Things changed in that kind of time!
Her mind whirled in ever tightening circles until she let out a little scream of frustration and pulled over to the shoulder of the road for a few minutes. Maybe she should just go somewhere else. Maybe she could find another cabin somewhere else…. She stopped her brain in that line of thinking. She wasn't a mountain girl. She didn't know the first thing about survival up here. It had taken all of her courage just to get this far. Where else was she going to go? Out of the thousand dollars she'd started out with, she had four hundred bucks in cash left in her pocket. She'd spent six hundred of it on this truck, trailer, two horses, supplies, food for the horses and for herself according to the research she'd done of what she thought she might need when she came up here.
She took a few deep breaths, pried her hands off the steering wheel and ran them through her hair. God she hated her short hair. It felt…wrong to her. She'd had long hair since she was young and this short crap was just not her. But she'd have to make it 'her' if she was going to disappear. She sighed finally, working to unknot the tension in her shoulders. This wasn't helping her any. She just needed to get up to the cabin, assess its condition and figure out what to do from there.
Pulling the map out from her jacket pocket where she'd stuffed it, she looked down at it. She took in a deep breath to calm herself and then put the truck into drive. She winced at the clunking noise it made as she did so and prayed that it was just because it was old. Pulling out onto the blacktop she headed towards the road she was to take that headed up towards her Uncle's.
Half an hour later she found the turn off and slowed down to take the turn, wincing at the roughness of the dirt and gravel pack, giving a stray thought to the two horses being jostled around in the back of the trailer. She began working her way up the mountain, taking the twisting, turning road as it headed ever higher into the hills surrounding the snow capped peaks.
The farther she went the rougher the road grew, showing that it hadn't been traveled much in a long time, even by logging companies. Putting the truck down into second gear she took things much slower as the ruts and washouts became worse. Wincing with each jostle that she felt would have shook the teeth from her head, she prayed that the trailer would stay attached and the horses were still standing . Two and a half hours into the trip up the road, she heard something that made her heart nearly leap out of her chest.
A grinding noise could be heard coming from under the truck and with a sudden horrible clang, the truck came to an abrupt stop, the trailer's momentum causing it to jack-knife sideways somewhat and she felt as well as heard the screech of metal as the frame of the trailer bent and the back of the truck buckled. Then there was silence except for the screams of the horses in the back of the trailer and the thudding of hooves from inside.
Quickly scrambling out of the truck, Clara ran to the back of the trailer and climbed up onto the fender knowing she didn't dare open the back doors of the trailer for fear the horses would bolt if they were free or kick at her. She looked down at her two horses and saw their wide terrified eyes looking around wildly as they squealed in fear. She could see no signs of injuries and she scrambled down and ran around the side of the trailer to make sure it was still intact and not buckled in somewhere.
With nothing more than a bent frame, she sighed and assessed what was left of the truck and trailer. Bending down, she looked under the truck and saw the answer as to the noise and sudden stop. Imbedded in the dirt of the road was a long thick rod that ran from the back of the truck to the front and was broken off somewhere near the front of the truck. It even had brought the front of the truck up off the dirt somewhat and it now tilted at an odd angle. Apparently this truck wasn't going to be fixed easily or…ever again. She remained where she was, bent at the waist, looking at what remained of her trucks underside, her mind blank.
Finally she stood up slowly and opened the passenger door, taking out the map. She couldn't be more than a few miles away from the cabin. She could saddle up the horses, load up the most important supplies now and come back for the rest later. She looked up at the sky then down at her watch. She had plenty of time…it was barely noon and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Moving stiltedly she went back to the trailer, unhooked the bailing wire latch and opened the doors slowly.
Looking at the wild eyes of the horses inside, she swallowed nervously. A stray part of her brain asked her again why she was doing this. She had no answer for it…not now anyway. She had to get these horses unloaded, load up gear and get to the cabin. Then she might have an answer for that questioning part of her brain.
Four hours, two smashed fingers, a bloody nose and multiple bruises later, Clara sat on a downed tree next to the edge of the road looking at what was left of the trailer and truck, her mind numb for the moment. She reached up absently and took out the wads of toilet paper she'd shoved up each nostril in hopes of stopping the flow of blood. Her nose was tender and she ached everywhere.
The horses had given her a fight just to get past them to get to their ropes to untie them and get them out of the trailer. It had taken everything she had to hold onto them once out of the trailer to get them tied to trees so they could calm down. That's where the bruises came into play. While they were calming down, she'd given them hay in hopes of giving them something to take their mind off the ride and being inside the trailer. Then she'd gone about untarping her load and looking at her supplies to decide what to try and take with her.
Once she'd sorted out what she thought she would need…a tent, sleeping bag, saddles, food, a few tools, grain for the horses, clothing for her…she'd gone to saddle the horses. Thankfully in the last fifteen years, she'd managed to keep up with her horseback riding. It wasn't as often as she'd liked to but at least she had some clue about putting a saddle on a horse.
But with a spooked horse in an unfamiliar setting, it was pure hell trying to get things cinched down, tacked up and bridled. Hense, two smashed fingers when she had been knocked down and stepped on by one of them. They weren't broken but they were sore and hard to flex at the moment. Once she'd saddled them, then came the task of getting her gear loaded. She had to cobble together something over the second saddle to carry the supplies. That's where the bloody nose came from. Shear dumb luck caused the bag of canned goods to shift and slide off the saddle just as Clara was about to reach up to secure it, catching her in the face and nose.
She felt lucky not to have come away with a broken nose or two black eyes but it was still tender and she just wanted at this moment to lie down and give up right there. She was exhausted. She wanted to sleep. She felt like she should just go running down the road screaming at the top of her lungs. No one would hear her; no one would care. Maybe she would feel better afterwards. She let out a breath. It would just take more energy than she had at the moment so she gave it up as a lost cause.
Moving slowly from where she sat, she stood up and went back to the truck. Taking what supplies were left, she managed to get them all shoved into the cab of the truck then locked the doors. It wasn't like she had to worry about anyone stealing the truck. Busted as it was, it wasn't going anywhere. But she didn't want the extra supplies and grain for the horses to be stolen, gotten into by the wildlife or ruined by the weather. The extra hay was shoved into the far back of the trailer and covered with the tarp to keep it dry before she shut the doors up and latched them.
Sighing, she finally got up onto the horse with the lightest load and after consulting the map, turned the horses in the direction of the cabin. At this point, she 'almost' didn't care if the cabin had fallen over. She just wanted to come to the end of this nightmare journey. She was becoming too worn out for her brain to think of all the 'what if's' or run in dizzying circles of worry and fear for her to care much about anything anymore. But there was always tomorrow…