The Hit by Alex R Price

Author:Alex R Price [Price, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Squaretop Mountain Publishing LLC

Halen felt bad for leaving Tracer before he had recovered enough to take care of himself, but she was still mad at him. How could he not tell her? How could he keep that kind of secret? She shook the idea from her mind. She had friends and family back home. She had a life and a career. She had to get back. She had to tell her friends she was alive.

Sunrise found Halen sipping a cup of coffee made over the revived embers of her fire. She had tended it between fits of sleep, adding stick after stick from her dwindling pile of wood. Rocks held her emergency blanket in place above her bed while reflecting the heat down on her. A collection of pine boughs kept her off the heat-sucking earth. The rocks to either side also reflected the heat from the fire onto her as she curled into a wool blanket.

After finishing her cup of coffee, she stowed her camp gear and drowned the fire by diverting a tiny stream into the firepit. It sizzled and complained about the intrusion but was quickly turned into a black ashy soup.

Following one trail or another, she crossed multiple small streams that fed into larger ones which fed into larger ones yet again. A few ducks spirited away when she happened upon them suddenly. Squirrels were in abundance, and a porcupine lumbered down the trail ahead of her. She waited for him to amble off, but he chose to climb a tree instead. Halen kept her distance and watched from a nearby rock. The mobile pincushion reached for branch after branch, scaling the tree in search of some delectable bark.

Halen thought she’d be in a rush to get back to civilization, but instead she had become continuously distracted by the forest dwellers who lived along her path. She slowed her steps almost as if she were in a gallery filled with fine art. Every step offered an infinite number of shapes, angles and colors to study that coalesced into stunning works of art, from the hard-angled rock to the softest flower petal growing right next to it.

She studied the dazzling colors of a butterfly and the camouflage of a small spider. She soaked in the pine-scented air as she strolled through the trees, and later rotting vegetation filled her nose as she skirted a marsh.

Deer dashed through the trees, and a moose, belly deep in a marsh, stripped fresh leaves off the willow bushes. Some animals she knew, but others were a mystery to her. The landscape around her seemed to infuse her with some of its beauty, making her feel appreciative of taking her next breath. This was that silver lining encompassing a very dark cloud. She would never have been this appreciative of nature if it hadn’t been for Tracer.

The thought had broken through the wall that separated her wondrous surroundings from the unpleasant way she had come to such a place. The unsettling feeling she had been shoving back reared its ugly head.

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