“Get on my back,” I told her.
Her eyes widened. “I don’t think so.”
“It’s the only way we’re not going to come in last.”
I bent down, and she hooked one leg over my hand and clung to my shoulders. I stood up and pulled her other suctioned leg free. She wrapped her short legs around my waist.
I placed the shotgun between my shoulders and her chest. “Can you keep that dry?”
“Yeah.” She was breathless from her efforts as she clung to my shoulders.
It helped to have my hands free as I powered through the bog. It was a workout getting us both to the skeet platform, and I was breathing hard by the time we arrived, but her added weight actually helped break the suction of the mud and moss.
She sat on the edge of the platform, not even bothering to stand up, while I shot down all five of the clay plates. She didn’t speak when I stepped into the water, just climbed back onto me and took the gun from the loader. But by the time we made it to the other side, her thighs were trembling from the effort of holding on. Once on her feet, she seemed even less steady than normal.
“You okay?” I asked, as we pulled off our hip waders.
She avoided my eyes. “I’m fine.”
The courseonly got more difficult after that, and the incoming weather alternated between sleet and pouring rain. By the time we got to the rowboat and the small lake, Mila was a huddling, shivering mess. After the lake, we had a decent hike up a wet,treacherous mountain path and then traversed creaking rope bridges that stretched over a rushing stream below.
Mila was a trooper, working hard to keep up with me, but I could tell she was struggling with the cold and the wet.
When we hit the wall and net station, I wasn’t sure if she’d make it. It was a typical military course. Competitors alternated between crawling along wet sand cratered with cold puddles and scaling big wooden walls made slippery with the rain.
Mila probably had an easier time with the crawling than I did, but when we got to the first wall, she stopped short. “I can’t do it,” she said with conviction. “I’m done.”
I ignored her. “Come on, time to climb up. I’ll help you up, and all you have to do is hang on to the rope.”
“I can’t do it,” she resisted.
I made a cradle with my hands. “Step up and grab hold of the rope.”
She wobbled, but she moved up that rope as I lifted her more than halfway up the wall.
“Can you hang on if I let go?”
“I don’t know,” she squeaked.
“Try,” I said, as I let go of her foot. She held on. I scrambled up the wall beside her until I was straddling the top of it with my legs. I reached down, grabbed her wrists, and hauled her up until she was straddling the wall and facing me. She made a squeaky noise in fear that almost made me laugh, but I was breathing too hard with the effort.
Mila shook harder than a leaf in a storm and clung desperately to the beam. “How do we get down?”
I swung my leg over and jumped the eight feet, landing in the soft sand in a control crouch. I turned around and looked up at her. “Your turn.”
“I can’t.”
I looked up at her. “What’s the problem?”
“I can’t jump because I can’t move.”
“Lean forward and hold onto the beam with your arms. Then swing one leg over.”
She shook her head.
I put my hand on the ankle that hung down on my side. “I’ll catch you.”
“No, thank you.”
