Tears break free and trickle over my cheeks. “If we hadn’t stayed the night. If we had pressed on or walked faster, we might have gotten here in time, and they wouldn’t have left us.”
He puts his arms around me and pulls me close. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine. How is it ever going to be fine? They left and now it’s just us, and how are we going to survive?” My tears wet his shirt and I can’t stop them. My body shakes, even though he holds me tight. “If I had never run away in the first place…” I sniff and I hiccup, and I realize that I’m done. I’m exhausted. I want to feel safe. “You’re right, I am weak. I’m not a quipped to survive in this world and I don’t think I can do this. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
He presses a kiss to the top of my head and continues to hold me. “It’s all right. We’re going to work it out. I don’t want to be alone either. I want my tribe. I need my tribe. It makes everything so much easier.”
“I’m sorry for dragging you away from them.”
“I do not blame you. It was my choice to go after you.”
I want to believe that he doesn’t blame me, but at the moment, all I feel is guilt.
We stand like that until my tears stop and I’m breathing against the wet fabric of his shirt, then he gently lets me go.
“Look, there’s a shelter already made. Let’s light a fire and take a moment. It’s not as if we can run off after them.”
I nod, because I don’t know what else to do. Once again, I gather up some bits of firewood so he can light them. With the fire going, I feel a little better.
I sit and warm my hands.
He doesn’t sit. He circles around the camp again; slower this time and he’s pausing to examine things.
I stand and walk over. “What is it?”
There are lines and dots on one of the logs by the fire. I’ve seen something like them before, when he wrote his name.
“It’s a message saying they have headed up the coast to find a better place to make camp. The same messages repeated in several locations.”
“That’s good news, isn’t it?” We only have to travel a few more days and we can do that.
He nods, but he’s scanning the area as if searching for something. “All the messages had a different direction. I think I left supplies and a more detailed message.”
“Okay, where does this one point?”
He turns me to face the direction. “You stay there. I’ll go to the other message. Let’s see if we can line it up.”
I stay where I am facing the way he pointed me, even though I don’t understand the message and I can no longer see him.
I’m so tempted to turn because I don’t know where he is.
“Walk slowly forward,” he calls out.
I do as I’m told, making sure I don’t go off course. From the corner of my eye, I see him walking. I scan the ground, looking for where we should intersect. At first I see nothing but a few stones scattered on the ground, and footprints left by animals. Could animals have found the cache and supplies?
We stop several paces away from the intersection point, and he seems as unimpressed as me.
“I glance at him. Do you want to do a third direction to be sure?”
He doesn’t answer. He just scuffs his foot on the ground to leave a mark, which I assume is his equivalent of an arrow, and then goes to the path we entered on.
We missed the message as we walked in, too worried about not being able to see the ship or sense his brothers.
He returns from the third location. “This is definitely the area.”
Aldit kneels and starts scraping back dirt. I get down and help. Both of us, digging in a widening circle. My fingers brush something that isn’t dirt, and at first I think it’s rock, but it’s too smooth. It’s plastic.
“I’ve got something.”
