THIRTY
CARA
Wildfires! Forest fires! The world is one big dumpster fire!
—@conservationnowand4ever
Cara’s stomach was rumbling, but she hesitated to ask Fisk if he’d brought anything else to eat.
“Edible plants are a lot harder to identify than I thought,” she said, going at it sideways.
Fisk halted Maybelline and let the sheep and goat wander ahead as he leaned down and foraged beside a log. “There are always bugs.”
“You have to be kidding.”
He showed her his palm, offering a wiggling beetle for her inspection. “Insects are the most abundant protein source on the planet.”
“Snail slime for wrinkles, sure, but snails are edible to begin with.”
“So are many bugs. Don’t knock ’em ’til you’ve tried ’em.”
He dropped the wiggling insect without popping it into his mouth, she noted.
Fisk reached into Maybelline’s saddle bag, pulled out two flattened PB&Js, and handed one of them to Cara. It was touching to think that, while she cowered in his hidey-hole, he had been making her a sandwich. And even smashed and jelly-soaked white bread was a delightful treat, considering the alternative.
Fisk was probably the first survivalist Cara had ever met. Definitely the first one she’d ever spent any time with. And maybe it really was the Stockholm Syndrome talking, but she did appreciate being accompanied through the wilderness by someone so capable. Under slightly different circumstances, she might really believe she wasn’t a hostage.
Fisk saw her glance at his holstered handgun. “Believe me, if I was the kind of guy to do half the things you’ve been thinking all day, I’d have found a gal with a lot less to say and more meat on her bones.”
Cara laughed for the first time in... she had no idea how long. “Why didn’t you just leave me in the bunker?”
“I had to get the animals out of harm’s way, so I figured I might as well do the same for you. You had about as much chance of escaping the fire without help as they did.”
“Isn’t your bunker fireproof?” she asked as they continued to hike, sandwiches in hand.
“Theoretically, but I built it for more long-term, man-made disasters.”
“The last few years have been crazy—politically, environmentally, really every way,” she said, continuing to look for common ground.
“No crazier than it’s ever been.” Fisk took a bite of his sandwich, chewed, and talked with his mouth full. “Can’t trustthe government to have anything but its own best interests in mind. But you learned that the hard way.”
“So you believe me?”
“I believe you got yourself into a hell of a pickle and you won’t be free for long. Not if Sheriff Burke has anything to say about it.”
“I don’t understand why you’ve gone to so much trouble to help me.”
“Maybe I don’t like helping the government.”
“Hiding me away from the authorities, then dragging me countless miles into the middle of nowhere is a lot more than just not helping the government.”
Fisk stopped to watch as his sheep go around a muddy hole in the trail. “Do you know what burn pits are?”
She knew they were a military thing, and judging by the pain in his faded blue eyes, they were bad. “I’ve heard of them.”
“During the Gulf War, we got rid of trash by burning it with jet fuel. Everything—medical supplies, paint, plastic water bottles, batteries, even entire Humvees. I was in charge of a unit whose job it was to manage a burn pit over an acre in size. Our barracks were next to that spewing fireball of billowing black smoke.”
“Given what you were breathing down by your compou?—”
