Chapter 1.
Damn it was cold. Jake shivered as he huddled under the fallen Aspen on the side of the mountain. He rubbed his hands together and then cupped them and breathed into them in a vain attempt to warm his hands. The moisture from his breath froze instantly to his mustache and left a cloud in the air.
The mountain was silent as death. The cold was sharp and cut through his layered clothing like a knife. He knew he didn’t have much more time if he didn’t find shelter and find it quick.
He shrugged his pack on his shoulders, trying to find a more comfortable position. It didn’t work but the movement offered a brief respite for his aching shoulders. He stood up and put his hands in his jacket pocket and scanned the area around him for a path to descend down the mountainside without risking his life more than necessary. The mountainside was steep and littered with a blow down of Aspen and Pine and Birch. Jagged rocks jutted out of the ground here and there and across the valley a giant granite cliff shot straight into the sky several thousand feet and from his vantage point appeared to be smooth as glass. To his left the valley choked into a point and rose sharply up to a plateau, the final 40 or 50 feet was vertical and he couldn’t detect any way to climb it. There was no way around it.
To his right the valley appeared to open up and spread out a little. From the luscious green in the bottom of the valley near the center, he could guess there was water there. That was good to know. Despite the intense cold, it hadn’t snowed yet, but the sky wasn’t looking too friendly at the moment and the cloud cover was low and moving. In another 20 minutes, he estimated, the granite cliff in front of him would only be visible about half way up and he was in danger of being overtaken by the fog.
Behind him, the forest became more dense and then thinned out. At the tree line, roughly 12,500 feet, the terrain changed from forest and scrub brush to a boulder field of smashed granite and frozen gravel. It was as if there was an invisible line on the mountain and above that line, all vegetation abruptly stopped. There was simply nothing but rock and more rock, with places to walk in between.
They were searching for him on the other side, so going back was out of the question. Apparently the only way out for him was to his right. He better get moving. He didn’t have much time and the temperature appeared to be dropping, if that was possible. He wished he had some gloves. Another item on his mental list of things to grab the next time he was forced to run away into the wilderness. It seemed he was always running anymore. He was having a hard time remembering when he wasn’t running. They were always after him and somehow always seemed to be right behind him. It was getting old and he was getting tired of running. So much for the glamorous life of an outlaw.
Jake was wishing for decent weapon. In fact he was wishing for a lot of stuff. They had come upon him last night in his camp and he had to run, only able to grab his pack that he hadn’t yet unpacked and was leaning against the tree behind him as he had been crouching over his small fire trying to get warm. The bullet had hit his small fire and thrown embers in his face. He acted accordingly and jumped and fell backward in surprise and scrambled out of the way and behind the tree where his pack was. His rifle had been laying beside him near the fire and may as well have been a mile away at that moment. He didn’t dare show himself in the firelight and expose himself to get shot. He had no choice but to get away and had to abandon his rifle. Worse even, he had to leave his small hip bag which had his gloves, ammo, compass, maps, water filter, iodine crystals, matches, tinder, and some other various odds and ends he had collected and found useful. Fortunately, he had his pistol and knives belted on so he hadn’t lost them. He had a box or two of ammo in his pack, but not much else.
“Mental note to self, always carry extra in my main pack” Jake scowled at himself. It wasn’t the end of world hopefully, but he had not been in this area of the country, at this altitude before and wasn’t exactly sure if he could make it to another town and maybe procure some replacements. He had a small amount of cash in his pocket, he could steal it if he had to but that left a sour taste in his mouth; even if it was life or death. If they would leave him alone long enough, he could work for wages and maybe get a hot meal and enough cash to help him along. Now where was the closest town?
He shrugged against the cold and taking his hands from his pockets, began to carefully make his way down the mountainside, trying not to fall and possibly injure himself. He knew if he did, he was dead man. That thought was enough to put up with the biting cold on his hands and fingers. After descending about 500 feet, his hands were useless and hurt like hell. He stopped and crouched down under a huge fallen cedar and put his hands inside his jacket and waited patiently for them to warm up again. A snowflake floated past his face and he was thankful it wasn’t windy, as cold as it was. Snow wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Besides hiding his tracks from his pursuers, it would actually provide some insulation and warm up the air, if only a degree or two. The really bad thing about the snow was the wet. If he got wet and his clothes and feet got wet, he may as well use his pistol on himself because he would freeze to death in no time. Hypothermia was already well into the beginning stages and he wasn’t too thrilled about that. He had to find shelter and find it quick and then solve the problem of starting a fire.
Jake stood up and carefully watched his back trail for a few minutes. He could faintly hear the men pursuing him as they yelled back and forth looking for tracks he left. He wasn’t sure how close they were, but he could hear them and that was too close. He turned and made his way a little faster down the mountain. Movement through the air stung his face, the cold felt like a thousand needles were brushing his face as the air passed over his skin. As fast as he dared he moved down into the valley. He knew it would be colder in the valley and colder up above him. The warmest place would be in the middle of the hillside, but there was no avoiding it, he had to go down.
After 15 or 20 minutes of traveling without a break, he stopped and warmed his hands again. He had to be careful not to break a sweat and create a layer of ice against his skin and create frozen clothes. That would be a death sentence just as sure as an injury would be at this point. As he warmed his hands inside his jacket, he watched his back trail. There was no movement he could see and the fog was closing in fast and dense. He couldn’t see more than 200 yards or so up the hill. It was eerily silent. He could almost imagine he could hear the woods and rocks around him freezing. The snow was falling slightly faster now and that wasn’t good for him. He was going to have to hole up fast and he needed to find a place where he could find some tinder and start a fire without bringing his pursuers down on him. Damn-it! Why couldn’t they just leave well enough alone? They were sure determined to get him. The greedy power hungry mayor of the last town hadn’t been too happy with his one night stand with his one and only daughter. Jake grinned to himself; something to remember with satisfaction. After the Mayor had threatened to charge him with a dozen trumped up charges and get him thrown in prison for rape, Jake had skipped town in a big hurry. He was just a drifter after all, and how was he supposed to know she was only 17? It WAS a bar after all. Evidently she was into a lot of things her father didn’t know about and she apparently had a thing for drifters. Nothing but trouble, he reflected, and might be the death of him yet. The Mayor had a drug problem and two unsolved murders and Jake was the perfect candidate to pin the rap for both on and cover up his black market business; something Jake had discovered quite accidentally and then guessed at the rest and the Mayor didn’t want any loose ends; thus the reason for the relentless pursuit.
Hands finally warmed back up, he turned back to the valley and descended the final 500 yards into the valley. The woods closed in around him and the snow wasn’t heavy enough to make it to the forest floor yet, greatly improving his odds of finding some dry tinder for a fire. He made his way toward the huge granite cliff and hopefully in a direction that his pursuers wouldn’t guess he went. The valley going south was the obvious choice since the other sides of the valley were boxed. He hoped to find a cave or overhang or something that would work to hole up in for a few days. He had a feeling it was going to really snow hard. The cold was becoming painful and he was worried about hypothermia. He had started shivering pretty hard not to long ago and his teeth were chattering almost uncontrollably now.
He went forward and continued in what he hoped was the right direction toward the cliff face. As he went he passed an old willow and cut four old dry branches and one green one and carried them with him. He passed an old fallen pine tree and after hunting around found a nice size chunk of relatively flat and very dry wood. After what he guessed was about a mile, he came upon the cliff face abruptly. The trees grew right up the face and there was a huge tumble of boulders and shale at the base of the cliff like he had suspected. He began walking along the edge of the rubble looking for a likely hiding spot. He almost passed it and only saw it when he turned around to investigate a shadow on a rock, or rather a darker hole than the others. There was no direct light to cause a shadow, the fog was thick and created a white ambient light that was getting darker. He suspected it was getting late in the day and that added to his urgency.
He slowly approached the apparent cave and carefully ventured into the entrance. He wasn’t prepared to scare up a bear or some other forest native. It was darker inside but he could still see well enough. It was two huge slabs of rock that had fallen together in a V shape and then fallen together against another huge boulder, making a perfect rock teepee. Another rock slide had come down on top of this rock teepee and buried it and sealed it further and partially covered the opening. He saw how he could build a fire against the corner where the two sides met on the opening side. It was a perfect reflector that would push the heat back into his cave and warm him nicely. He wasn’t worried about the men on his trail for the moment. It was likely they would give up for the night anyway, as cold as it was and starting to snow.
He dropped the willow and slab of pine in the corner and then dropped his pack. He wanted to get some wood gathered while it was light outside. He could make do with his flashlight for tonight after he got what needed.
He went back out and over to a cluster of rock mangled trees and gathered as much bark and dried wood as he could hold and took it back to his cave. He repeated this four more times until he was confident he had more than enough wood to last the night. He dug into his pack and removed four large 32 gallon 4 mil plastic contractor grade garbage bags and went back out on the forest floor and stuffed them with pine needles, then carried them back to the cave.
Once he had done that, he went out again and gathered a dozen bowling ball size rocks and carried them into the cave also. He arranged the rocks in a semi circle against the corner as a border for the fire pit. By the time he was done with that, it was almost impossible to see anything and he had to dig his flashlight out, He turned it on and leaned it against a rock, allowing him to work. By constantly moving, he had managed to keep warm enough, but now that he was in the cave, it was quickly catching up to him. He had to work fast. He dug the 550 cord from his pack and cut off about 3 feet. He took the green willow stick and carved a notch in each end and then measured the 550 cord against the stick, tying a knot in each end of the cord slightly shorter than the willow stick. He then put one knot in a notch and then bent the stick and put the other knot in the other notch. He had his bow. He grabbed one of the dried sticks and sharpened one end to a point and then carved four square sides about half way up. He took his slab of pine and using the blade of his Swiss Army Knife (SAK) he carved a hole and then switched to the saw and cut a slot from the hole to the edge of the wood. He took his saw and cut off a large corner of the slab and the hollowed out a depression in the center of it big enough for the end of his drill. He took a pile of pine needles and put them in the bed of his fire area, then took several dried leaves and crumbled them up and combined them with a small amount of pine needles and shredded bark in a small pile next to his plank. He had a scrap of leather in his pack and he took it out and put the pile of tinder on the leather scrap. He quickly looped the drill into the bow string, making sure the string was around the part of the drill that was flattened on four sides. This would allow the 550 cord to grab the drill and not slide and slip. He placed the sharpened tip into the hole on the slab. Then, using the piece he cut off as a bearing, he leaned down on the drill with all of his weight and quickly worked the bow back and forth. In no time, smoke appeared. Once the smoke was really going, he removed the drill and checked for a coal. He had one! He quickly dumped the coal into the pile of tinder and blew gently on it, slowly trying to coax it into flame. It smoked; smoked some more, and then a flame appeared and quickly grew as it consumed the dry tinder. He almost shouted for joy.
He carefully placed the rapidly growing blaze down into his fire bed with the pine needles and carefully began adding small sticks until the fire was established and he wasn’t worried about it going out. Once it was going strong and he had a few small logs on it, he went back outside and walked away from the cave into the darkness and looked back. There was a glow, but it was very faint. He was just going to have to chance it. It was now pitch black outside, the fog was thick and the snow was falling hard, quickly covering everything in sight with a layer of white. This was good for him. He had shelter, fire, and the snow was providing plenty of cover. The fog was thick enough that no one would be able to detect the fire until very close. He would keep his pistol handy tonight.
He walked back into his cave and arranged the bags of pine needles so he could sleep on them. On second thought, he pushed the bags into a corner and then took down the rock fire barrier he had built and built up his fire and spread it out over where he was going to sleep. With such a large fire, the cave got warm very quickly. It felt great and he had to open his jacket to cool off a bit. The heat was reflecting off the rock walls and back into him, providing lots of warmth from every direction. After about two hours of burning his fire this way, he used a big log and pushed it back into the corner again, carefully extinguishing every little ember in his sleeping area. The ground was hot to the touch and the rock walls were warm. “Very good,” he thought to himself.
He carefully emptied two bags of the pine needles and spread them out for his mattress over the hot ground, being careful to make sure the needles stayed away from the fire. It would be a bummer to get burned out of his otherwise perfect shelter. He unrolled his bedroll and put one blanket down over the needles. He sat down on his bed and leaned against the wall, enjoying the moment and soaking up the warmth. He was sure he would be okay, for tonight anyway.
The heat was getting to him and he realized how tired he really was. He still had some things to do though. He carefully folded up the two empty trash bags and replaced them in his pack. He packed up his bow and drill and bearing and wood slab. He dug out an MRE from his pack. He had three left, he would need to be careful. He knew what the rule of 3’s was. 3 minutes without air, 3 hours without shelter, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food. He knew food wasn’t a priority immediately, but in this cold, his body was burning calories at an incredible rate. He knew shelter and water were his top priorities. He had shelter now, he had a full Camelback attached to his pack, and he had food for now. Tonight he wasn’t worried.
He only ate the main meal from the MRE and put the rest back into his pack for later. He would need to conserve his food to make it last. It was going to take a lot of energy to get out of these mountains alive and without a rifle, he would have a hard time taking any game, especially in this weather. The forest natives were no doubt warm and secure in some hole somewhere, too smart to be out in this weather.
Jake enjoyed his meal and drank a few swallows of water. He suddenly remembered he had a stash of tea in his pack and dug it out and his stainless steel mess kit as well. He dug out his coffee pot and went outside and filled it with snow. He placed it on the fire and it was boiling in no time. He let it boil for what he guessed was about 15 minutes and then took it off the fire and poured a cup and put a tea bag in the cup. He put the pot off to the side to cool and then nursed his tea slowly as it cooled off enough to drink it. The internal warmth felt wonderful. When he was done, he poured the water from the coffee pot into his Camelback and then he replaced everything back in his pack and made it secure in case he had to run again like last night. He didn’t want to lose any more gear. He couldn’t afford to. He pulled his pistol and checked it, and then replaced it. He banked the fire against the night and added two rather heavy and dense looking logs. He lay down on the bed of warm needles and pulled the other blanket and the two bags of needles on top of him for additional warmth. .
He lay there for a while looking up at the rock ceiling and let the warmth spread through him. Exhaustion overtook him and he slept.
Damn it was cold. Jake shivered as he huddled under the fallen Aspen on the side of the mountain. He rubbed his hands together and then cupped them and breathed into them in a vain attempt to warm his hands. The moisture from his breath froze instantly to his mustache and left a cloud in the air.
The mountain was silent as death. The cold was sharp and cut through his layered clothing like a knife. He knew he didn’t have much more time if he didn’t find shelter and find it quick.
He shrugged his pack on his shoulders, trying to find a more comfortable position. It didn’t work but the movement offered a brief respite for his aching shoulders. He stood up and put his hands in his jacket pocket and scanned the area around him for a path to descend down the mountainside without risking his life more than necessary. The mountainside was steep and littered with a blow down of Aspen and Pine and Birch. Jagged rocks jutted out of the ground here and there and across the valley a giant granite cliff shot straight into the sky several thousand feet and from his vantage point appeared to be smooth as glass. To his left the valley choked into a point and rose sharply up to a plateau, the final 40 or 50 feet was vertical and he couldn’t detect any way to climb it. There was no way around it.
To his right the valley appeared to open up and spread out a little. From the luscious green in the bottom of the valley near the center, he could guess there was water there. That was good to know. Despite the intense cold, it hadn’t snowed yet, but the sky wasn’t looking too friendly at the moment and the cloud cover was low and moving. In another 20 minutes, he estimated, the granite cliff in front of him would only be visible about half way up and he was in danger of being overtaken by the fog.
Behind him, the forest became more dense and then thinned out. At the tree line, roughly 12,500 feet, the terrain changed from forest and scrub brush to a boulder field of smashed granite and frozen gravel. It was as if there was an invisible line on the mountain and above that line, all vegetation abruptly stopped. There was simply nothing but rock and more rock, with places to walk in between.
They were searching for him on the other side, so going back was out of the question. Apparently the only way out for him was to his right. He better get moving. He didn’t have much time and the temperature appeared to be dropping, if that was possible. He wished he had some gloves. Another item on his mental list of things to grab the next time he was forced to run away into the wilderness. It seemed he was always running anymore. He was having a hard time remembering when he wasn’t running. They were always after him and somehow always seemed to be right behind him. It was getting old and he was getting tired of running. So much for the glamorous life of an outlaw.
Jake was wishing for decent weapon. In fact he was wishing for a lot of stuff. They had come upon him last night in his camp and he had to run, only able to grab his pack that he hadn’t yet unpacked and was leaning against the tree behind him as he had been crouching over his small fire trying to get warm. The bullet had hit his small fire and thrown embers in his face. He acted accordingly and jumped and fell backward in surprise and scrambled out of the way and behind the tree where his pack was. His rifle had been laying beside him near the fire and may as well have been a mile away at that moment. He didn’t dare show himself in the firelight and expose himself to get shot. He had no choice but to get away and had to abandon his rifle. Worse even, he had to leave his small hip bag which had his gloves, ammo, compass, maps, water filter, iodine crystals, matches, tinder, and some other various odds and ends he had collected and found useful. Fortunately, he had his pistol and knives belted on so he hadn’t lost them. He had a box or two of ammo in his pack, but not much else.
“Mental note to self, always carry extra in my main pack” Jake scowled at himself. It wasn’t the end of world hopefully, but he had not been in this area of the country, at this altitude before and wasn’t exactly sure if he could make it to another town and maybe procure some replacements. He had a small amount of cash in his pocket, he could steal it if he had to but that left a sour taste in his mouth; even if it was life or death. If they would leave him alone long enough, he could work for wages and maybe get a hot meal and enough cash to help him along. Now where was the closest town?
He shrugged against the cold and taking his hands from his pockets, began to carefully make his way down the mountainside, trying not to fall and possibly injure himself. He knew if he did, he was dead man. That thought was enough to put up with the biting cold on his hands and fingers. After descending about 500 feet, his hands were useless and hurt like hell. He stopped and crouched down under a huge fallen cedar and put his hands inside his jacket and waited patiently for them to warm up again. A snowflake floated past his face and he was thankful it wasn’t windy, as cold as it was. Snow wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Besides hiding his tracks from his pursuers, it would actually provide some insulation and warm up the air, if only a degree or two. The really bad thing about the snow was the wet. If he got wet and his clothes and feet got wet, he may as well use his pistol on himself because he would freeze to death in no time. Hypothermia was already well into the beginning stages and he wasn’t too thrilled about that. He had to find shelter and find it quick and then solve the problem of starting a fire.
Jake stood up and carefully watched his back trail for a few minutes. He could faintly hear the men pursuing him as they yelled back and forth looking for tracks he left. He wasn’t sure how close they were, but he could hear them and that was too close. He turned and made his way a little faster down the mountain. Movement through the air stung his face, the cold felt like a thousand needles were brushing his face as the air passed over his skin. As fast as he dared he moved down into the valley. He knew it would be colder in the valley and colder up above him. The warmest place would be in the middle of the hillside, but there was no avoiding it, he had to go down.
After 15 or 20 minutes of traveling without a break, he stopped and warmed his hands again. He had to be careful not to break a sweat and create a layer of ice against his skin and create frozen clothes. That would be a death sentence just as sure as an injury would be at this point. As he warmed his hands inside his jacket, he watched his back trail. There was no movement he could see and the fog was closing in fast and dense. He couldn’t see more than 200 yards or so up the hill. It was eerily silent. He could almost imagine he could hear the woods and rocks around him freezing. The snow was falling slightly faster now and that wasn’t good for him. He was going to have to hole up fast and he needed to find a place where he could find some tinder and start a fire without bringing his pursuers down on him. Damn-it! Why couldn’t they just leave well enough alone? They were sure determined to get him. The greedy power hungry mayor of the last town hadn’t been too happy with his one night stand with his one and only daughter. Jake grinned to himself; something to remember with satisfaction. After the Mayor had threatened to charge him with a dozen trumped up charges and get him thrown in prison for rape, Jake had skipped town in a big hurry. He was just a drifter after all, and how was he supposed to know she was only 17? It WAS a bar after all. Evidently she was into a lot of things her father didn’t know about and she apparently had a thing for drifters. Nothing but trouble, he reflected, and might be the death of him yet. The Mayor had a drug problem and two unsolved murders and Jake was the perfect candidate to pin the rap for both on and cover up his black market business; something Jake had discovered quite accidentally and then guessed at the rest and the Mayor didn’t want any loose ends; thus the reason for the relentless pursuit.
Hands finally warmed back up, he turned back to the valley and descended the final 500 yards into the valley. The woods closed in around him and the snow wasn’t heavy enough to make it to the forest floor yet, greatly improving his odds of finding some dry tinder for a fire. He made his way toward the huge granite cliff and hopefully in a direction that his pursuers wouldn’t guess he went. The valley going south was the obvious choice since the other sides of the valley were boxed. He hoped to find a cave or overhang or something that would work to hole up in for a few days. He had a feeling it was going to really snow hard. The cold was becoming painful and he was worried about hypothermia. He had started shivering pretty hard not to long ago and his teeth were chattering almost uncontrollably now.
He went forward and continued in what he hoped was the right direction toward the cliff face. As he went he passed an old willow and cut four old dry branches and one green one and carried them with him. He passed an old fallen pine tree and after hunting around found a nice size chunk of relatively flat and very dry wood. After what he guessed was about a mile, he came upon the cliff face abruptly. The trees grew right up the face and there was a huge tumble of boulders and shale at the base of the cliff like he had suspected. He began walking along the edge of the rubble looking for a likely hiding spot. He almost passed it and only saw it when he turned around to investigate a shadow on a rock, or rather a darker hole than the others. There was no direct light to cause a shadow, the fog was thick and created a white ambient light that was getting darker. He suspected it was getting late in the day and that added to his urgency.
He slowly approached the apparent cave and carefully ventured into the entrance. He wasn’t prepared to scare up a bear or some other forest native. It was darker inside but he could still see well enough. It was two huge slabs of rock that had fallen together in a V shape and then fallen together against another huge boulder, making a perfect rock teepee. Another rock slide had come down on top of this rock teepee and buried it and sealed it further and partially covered the opening. He saw how he could build a fire against the corner where the two sides met on the opening side. It was a perfect reflector that would push the heat back into his cave and warm him nicely. He wasn’t worried about the men on his trail for the moment. It was likely they would give up for the night anyway, as cold as it was and starting to snow.
He dropped the willow and slab of pine in the corner and then dropped his pack. He wanted to get some wood gathered while it was light outside. He could make do with his flashlight for tonight after he got what needed.
He went back out and over to a cluster of rock mangled trees and gathered as much bark and dried wood as he could hold and took it back to his cave. He repeated this four more times until he was confident he had more than enough wood to last the night. He dug into his pack and removed four large 32 gallon 4 mil plastic contractor grade garbage bags and went back out on the forest floor and stuffed them with pine needles, then carried them back to the cave.
Once he had done that, he went out again and gathered a dozen bowling ball size rocks and carried them into the cave also. He arranged the rocks in a semi circle against the corner as a border for the fire pit. By the time he was done with that, it was almost impossible to see anything and he had to dig his flashlight out, He turned it on and leaned it against a rock, allowing him to work. By constantly moving, he had managed to keep warm enough, but now that he was in the cave, it was quickly catching up to him. He had to work fast. He dug the 550 cord from his pack and cut off about 3 feet. He took the green willow stick and carved a notch in each end and then measured the 550 cord against the stick, tying a knot in each end of the cord slightly shorter than the willow stick. He then put one knot in a notch and then bent the stick and put the other knot in the other notch. He had his bow. He grabbed one of the dried sticks and sharpened one end to a point and then carved four square sides about half way up. He took his slab of pine and using the blade of his Swiss Army Knife (SAK) he carved a hole and then switched to the saw and cut a slot from the hole to the edge of the wood. He took his saw and cut off a large corner of the slab and the hollowed out a depression in the center of it big enough for the end of his drill. He took a pile of pine needles and put them in the bed of his fire area, then took several dried leaves and crumbled them up and combined them with a small amount of pine needles and shredded bark in a small pile next to his plank. He had a scrap of leather in his pack and he took it out and put the pile of tinder on the leather scrap. He quickly looped the drill into the bow string, making sure the string was around the part of the drill that was flattened on four sides. This would allow the 550 cord to grab the drill and not slide and slip. He placed the sharpened tip into the hole on the slab. Then, using the piece he cut off as a bearing, he leaned down on the drill with all of his weight and quickly worked the bow back and forth. In no time, smoke appeared. Once the smoke was really going, he removed the drill and checked for a coal. He had one! He quickly dumped the coal into the pile of tinder and blew gently on it, slowly trying to coax it into flame. It smoked; smoked some more, and then a flame appeared and quickly grew as it consumed the dry tinder. He almost shouted for joy.
He carefully placed the rapidly growing blaze down into his fire bed with the pine needles and carefully began adding small sticks until the fire was established and he wasn’t worried about it going out. Once it was going strong and he had a few small logs on it, he went back outside and walked away from the cave into the darkness and looked back. There was a glow, but it was very faint. He was just going to have to chance it. It was now pitch black outside, the fog was thick and the snow was falling hard, quickly covering everything in sight with a layer of white. This was good for him. He had shelter, fire, and the snow was providing plenty of cover. The fog was thick enough that no one would be able to detect the fire until very close. He would keep his pistol handy tonight.
He walked back into his cave and arranged the bags of pine needles so he could sleep on them. On second thought, he pushed the bags into a corner and then took down the rock fire barrier he had built and built up his fire and spread it out over where he was going to sleep. With such a large fire, the cave got warm very quickly. It felt great and he had to open his jacket to cool off a bit. The heat was reflecting off the rock walls and back into him, providing lots of warmth from every direction. After about two hours of burning his fire this way, he used a big log and pushed it back into the corner again, carefully extinguishing every little ember in his sleeping area. The ground was hot to the touch and the rock walls were warm. “Very good,” he thought to himself.
He carefully emptied two bags of the pine needles and spread them out for his mattress over the hot ground, being careful to make sure the needles stayed away from the fire. It would be a bummer to get burned out of his otherwise perfect shelter. He unrolled his bedroll and put one blanket down over the needles. He sat down on his bed and leaned against the wall, enjoying the moment and soaking up the warmth. He was sure he would be okay, for tonight anyway.
The heat was getting to him and he realized how tired he really was. He still had some things to do though. He carefully folded up the two empty trash bags and replaced them in his pack. He packed up his bow and drill and bearing and wood slab. He dug out an MRE from his pack. He had three left, he would need to be careful. He knew what the rule of 3’s was. 3 minutes without air, 3 hours without shelter, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food. He knew food wasn’t a priority immediately, but in this cold, his body was burning calories at an incredible rate. He knew shelter and water were his top priorities. He had shelter now, he had a full Camelback attached to his pack, and he had food for now. Tonight he wasn’t worried.
He only ate the main meal from the MRE and put the rest back into his pack for later. He would need to conserve his food to make it last. It was going to take a lot of energy to get out of these mountains alive and without a rifle, he would have a hard time taking any game, especially in this weather. The forest natives were no doubt warm and secure in some hole somewhere, too smart to be out in this weather.
Jake enjoyed his meal and drank a few swallows of water. He suddenly remembered he had a stash of tea in his pack and dug it out and his stainless steel mess kit as well. He dug out his coffee pot and went outside and filled it with snow. He placed it on the fire and it was boiling in no time. He let it boil for what he guessed was about 15 minutes and then took it off the fire and poured a cup and put a tea bag in the cup. He put the pot off to the side to cool and then nursed his tea slowly as it cooled off enough to drink it. The internal warmth felt wonderful. When he was done, he poured the water from the coffee pot into his Camelback and then he replaced everything back in his pack and made it secure in case he had to run again like last night. He didn’t want to lose any more gear. He couldn’t afford to. He pulled his pistol and checked it, and then replaced it. He banked the fire against the night and added two rather heavy and dense looking logs. He lay down on the bed of warm needles and pulled the other blanket and the two bags of needles on top of him for additional warmth. .
He lay there for a while looking up at the rock ceiling and let the warmth spread through him. Exhaustion overtook him and he slept.