“Fine, fine,” she grumbled as she reached behind him to unzip the sleeping bag. She slid out, reaching for her clothes as the outside chill reached their overheated skin. She winced, reaching for her left knee. “Ouch.”
He reached around her and grabbed his boxers. “You okay?”
“Tweaked my knee again.” She was already scrambling into her clothes, distracting him as she pulled on her bra and panties, then covered them with the green shirt she’d been wearing earlier.
“Hold on a minute.” He stopped her as she reached for her jeans.
“I’m hungry, Mark. Can’t you wait until after dinner?” she teased, pushing his hand away.
“Your knee.” It was visibly swollen, and as he reached for her, he discovered it was hot to the touch. “Did you ever get this looked at?”
She shook her head. “It stopped bothering me before I ever got around to it.”
He reached into his backpack for the Ace bandage in his first aid kit. “Next lesson: Always have a first aid kit in your pack.”
“Got it.” She nodded. “Wish I’d had one that day we were scoping out the new land.”
“The day you came down with the flu.” He began to wrap the bandage around her swollen knee. “Jess, what if you didn’t sprain your knee that day? What if this is another symptom?”
She froze, eyeing him warily. “A symptom of what?”
“I don’t know.” He thought for a minute. “Did you mention joint pain to your doctor?”
“I…I can’t remember. I think I did, back when this all started.”
He finished with the bandage. There was something nagging at him, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. “Well, make sure you mention it the next time you go in, okay?”
She nodded. “I will. Thanks.”
They finished getting dressed and crawled out of the shelter. The sun dipped low over the trees across the valley, casting the hillside in its amber light.
“It’s beautiful,” Jess said from behind him.
He nodded. “How’s the knee?”
“Sore.”
“Maybe we should head out now before it gets dark.”
She shook her head. “It’ll be sore whether I’m here or at home, and I’ve got to hike out of here either way. I don’t want to leave, Mark.”
He didn’t like it, but he couldn’t argue with her either. “It’s illegal to build a campfire out here. Even though I’ve got a special permit from the park service to camp overnight with clients as part of the course, they still won’t let us start a fire. But if you were in a true survival situation, you’d need to break that rule to stay alive so we’re going to prep a fire we’re not going to light.”
“Okay.”
He showed her how to build a fire-safe perimeter and gather the necessary kindling and wood to get started. “Best-case scenario, you’ve got matches in your pack.”
“Worst case?”
“You can use the battery in your cell phone, or any battery really.” He demonstrated with an old battery he kept in his backpack for just this reason, creating a spark but extinguishing it before it caught fire.
“Whoa,” Jess said, looking impressed. “That looks so much easier than rubbing two sticks together.”
“Yeah, that doesn’t really work, not for most people anyway. I’ll show you a few more fire-starting tricks after we eat.”
They sat and ate their dinner—such as it was—on a rock beside the stream. Then he stored their trash in a bear-proof container inside his backpack.
“Something else I should have?”
