“Why are you slowing down so much Steve?”, asked Kat, “are you okay?” That’s all I remember until I woke up nearly an hour later. “You had me worried Steve,” she said, “that old wound is giving you problems again, isn’t it?” “Yes,” I said, “I didn’t want you to know, but I guess it was worse than I thought.” “I checked ahead a little,” she said, “it’s not too far and we are out of this bog, then it will be easier walking, except for the hill.” A hill is not something I need right now, but I knew it was coming, hopefully I can make it up easily. “This is really slowing us down and that’s not good,” I said, “we’ll have to move faster once we get back to easier walking again.” “You won’t be walking faster for a while,” said Kat, “we’ll just have to take it easy the rest of the day.”

We did make it out of the bog easily and then began the steep climb up that hill. But amazingly, although steep, it was easy walking. At the top we stopped to rest a while and it looked like we would have some easy walking ahead as well. While we relaxed, the cats went to do some hunting for their lunch. And I started thinking, about who our enemy was that developed this little game, and why. The only enemies we have right now are Anthony Jr., Gisela’s brother who hasn’t even shown up yet, and John who is still in prison. They are all men, but so far we have only heard a woman’s voice. However, that could be done to throw us off. John always manages to find a woman to work with him, so that is a real possibility.

No matter what, I know that getting to that town isn’t going to end this game, it will continue, or they will kill us before we make it back. The cats returned smacking their lips, obviously their hunting was successful. Meow,meow=We eat over there so not disturb human tummies. “Thank you,” said Kat, “I appreciate that very much.” Meow.=We also see human people over there, man and woman, with guns. “Hmm, they are staying just out of sight,” I said, “guess they don’t want to be too close this time.” Meow,meow.=And they have binding colors. “Binding colors?”, asked Kat. “I think she means binoculars,” I said. Meow,meow.=That what I just say, binding colors. Meow.=They must be tired, not hear good. Meow,meow.=Yep, guess that it.

I get out our map again. “This is where we need to be by the end of the day,” I said. “Steve, we are never going to get across that river without a boat,” said Kat. “I have to admit, it doesn’t look too easy,” I said, “hmm, unless we change course and go up to here.” “But that’s up to the lake,” said Kat, “how will that make it easier? Plus it’s going to take us a lot longer going that far out of the way.” “Yes, that’s true,” I admitted, “or we could go down to here and this smaller lake. It has 2 islands which would help crossing the lake much easier, we could rest at each island.” “Yes, that does look better,” agreed Kat. But it still means a longer walk, and that’s something you don’t need.”

“True,” I said, “but that’s a long swim across that river, and I’m not really a strong swimmer, but with the islands in that lake, I would be able to do it.” Kat just looked at me, but she agreed to try it and off we went. It was slightly downhill but the walking was quite easy across granite rock hills topped with moss and pine trees. We pushed along at a decent pace, then we were going uphill once more. By 8pm we stopped at the top of a nice hill where we could see for miles to the north. “It looks so beautiful,” said Kat. “We should be able to see a nice sunset from here too,” I said.

We ate our last sandwiches and had the last of our water. “We’re drinking our water too fast,” I said looking at our empty canteens. “It was another hot day,” said Kat, “we needed that water.” The cats returned from hunting again and were excited. Meow,meow!=Come with us, we find water! “You go Steve,” said Kat, “my legs don’t want to move, and I can watch good from here.” So I followed the cats downhill and sure enough, they had found a spring, with beautiful ice cold water. I filled our canteens and we headed back uphill, which was a bit of a struggle, that wound was really bothering me a lot again and going uphill was especially hard.

Meanwhile, a phone conversation was happening elsewhere. “Twin Island Lake, okay, I got it K, we’ll have someone on the opposite side.” “Good, and don’t forget in the morning, but don’t kill anyone just yet,” said the woman. “No problem K, they know what to do.”

To Be Continued.

©2021 Steve McLeod.