Cold River Resurrection Read Free Page A

far off, on the other side of the clearing, and she moaned.
    Gotta get out of here, gotta leave, gotta  run.
    Pain flashed as she tried to stand, fighting panic.  She whooped, fought for air, and got to her feet, trembling, her legs weak, her mind screaming for her to run.
    If you panic now, Jen, she told herself, you are go ing to die here for sure.  Make a fire, wait for morning, then make a huge fire, catch some attention.  She shook, afraid of every shadow, every noise making her jump, and she slid down to her knees.  She clasped her left hand over her right to stop the shake, then scraped up some twigs and fumbled in her pack for her lighter.
     
    Jennifer woke in the night, the fire at her side a small mound of embers. She sat up slowly, her head a dull throb.  She pulled her water bottle from her pack and took a long swallow, then another, and snapped the lid back on.
    If I make it through the night . . .
    A shadow moved in the clearing, dancing on the breeze. The shadow joined with others and then moved away, a solo disco of darkness and light.  Jennifer didn’t think she could possibly be more scared than she had been earlier, but she was wrong.
    The shadow hopped on one leg, and where the head should have been, the moon peeked through. The lunar skull skipped on the shoulders of a one-legged man, a ghostly dance by Mr. Ferragamo Oxford.
    Jennifer moaned and shrunk back against the tree, the bark lancing pain through her shirt.
    This is not happening, Jenny. This is a shadow.
    Instead of running, she was unable to move. Her mind screamed the insanity of what she was watching, her body a rigid knot as the shadows played in the dark. She clutched her pack to her face, and began to stroke the cloth as if Nanna were there.
     
    In the early light of morning, the shadows were gone, and Jennifer knew what she would do. She wasn’t going to take the time to build a fire. She stood and carefully checked her body, wiped her forehead, and ate an energy bar. She carefully took the items out of her pack:  Two energy bars, a thirty-two ounce water bottle (minus a few swallows) a pocket knife, some rope, a lightweight sleeping bag, a piece of jerky, a star guide, a first aid kit, and a paperback by Michael Connelly, The Brass Verdict .
    She stretched, ignored the pain, and walked to the edge of the clearing.  She talked herself through the next part.
    “Walk through the clearing, Jenny old girl, yep, just walk through it.”
    She started into the clearing, walking on a careful line to the remains of the man. He was in the same position as the day before. So he didn’t dance after all. She stared at the remains. The ant (or its cousin) from the day before , scooted out along the leg, then hurried back out of sight. Well, more of your brothers will find Mr. Farragamo here when the day warms up. She looked around, thinking that whatever had been feasting on him might be back for another snack. She turned and walked toward the other shoe. She stared at the foot, and stepped back and took a deep breath. It was daylight, and she was going to get tough. Get out of here.
    She began talking to herself again. “Walk through the clearing, Jenny. Walk to the nearest stream. Walk downhill to a logging road. Get the fuck out of here.”
    She had read somewhere that the Indians had logged the place to the point of unsustainable yield, whatever that meant, so there must be plenty of logging roads on the mountain.  Find a logging road.  Follow it down to a bigger road.  Get saved.
    A good plan.
    By midmorning she was well beyond the clearing. The game trail she had been following ended at a sheer cliff of basalt rock, a hundred feet to the forest below. She worked her way around the cliff, sliding on her butt and grabbing branches to slow her journey. At the bottom, in the forest again, she drank deeply from her water bottle. She ate an energy bar and began walking toward what looked like another opening in the trees.
    As she got