All-Natural Nightmare, Part 3

“So guys, a question.” I posed, trying to reverse the negative vibes ,“Remember when we had the opposite problem, and thought we’d never drink water again, and Spa mentioned we still had whiskey in the bag?”

“Yes.  Awful.” Schill unsurprisingly recalled. 

“And I told him ‘I’d sooner fellate a terrorist?’  What’d you guys think of that?”

“Loved it.  Thought I might die smiling,” Schil replied.

Spa confirmed “Yep.  Anything with terrorists is funny.”

We laughed through thunder and lightning surrounding us.  It almost buried our uncomfortably unavoidable thoughts about the temporary nature of life.  Almost.

             We were sharing  Spa’s map, while he broke a mental sweat with a compass and GPS. 

“I’m not too bummed.  We lost time but got that extra water earlier.  Shouldn’t be a problem.” I answered, oblivious to the fact that no one had asked me. “This view’s pretty spectacular.”

Aside from the lack of a visible path or trail, the view rivalled any form of substance abuse to make the mind go blank.  After reaching an impasse in the drainage ditch we assumed was the trail, we took the path of least resistance out of the ditch.  “Least Resistance” soon became a relative term.  The path we optimistically imagined we were on deteriorated to waist-high scrubs and cacti of equal proportions in all directions, leaving us with only one option: climb.  Roughly 1,500 vertical feet and an hour later, we stood atop a real life Pride Rock crowning  a huge thorny hill or a tiny thorny mountain.  And the view knocked our $19 wool hiking socks off.

“How’s my bandana flow?” I asked, offering Schil my camera.  Despite the impossibilities of sharing the Big Bend scenery with the world, I was determined to proselytize via facebook photos at least enough to make men jealous and make women wonder how I’m still single. 

“Adequate.” Schil responded.  My red bandana and blue fishing shirt flapped freely in the wind.  I heard the shutter snap and looked into the wilderness, feigning pensive. 

“So how boned are we, Spa?” I inquired. 

“Minimally,” he responded, “We need to head about 400 meters that way,” he gesticulated accordingly, “and we should hit the trail again.”

Schill and I’s telepathically agreed not to argue.  Onward we trudged through the bramble, both wondering who the hell uses meters.

“Seriously though, you’ll need a callsign upgrade,” I informed Spa, “Schil is a decently tough name for a mountain man.  And look at the beard.  He’s like a homeless Chuck Norris.”

“Yeah, I could use some rugged-ing up.” Spa replied, “but you already called me Spa in the Costa Rica chronicles. Consistency is crucial to my character development.”

“True. But your name makes me think of a middle aged woman with cucumbers on her eyes and a golf pro in her mouth.”

“Dude, there was a golf pro at the country club I grew up at, and if one tenth of the stories I heard about that guy were true, you’re gonna see a lot of pro golfers who all look alike coming out of Denver in the next few years.”  Schil contributed.

“I chose my career poorly.  How about WipesWithRocks?  I still think that’s crazy.” I responded.

Schil and I laughed.  Spa had earned a legitimate bachelors of science in alpine survival on his Alaskan adventure.  This expedition taught him some of the less-than-fine arts of wilderness life. I was more eager to adopt some kernels of wisdom than others.  To keep my mind on more savory subjects, I wondered aloud about the appropriateness of using my borrowed military-issued Ka-bar knife to cut cheese and salami. We agreed that since the cheese was not French, but “Murrican,” I could go without penalty.  Huge relief. 

“How are we on water?” I probed.  My gallon jug was considerably lighter than when we left the unexpected cache.  I doubted any strength gains were responsible for this weight difference. 

“Not good,” Schil and Spa echoed in unison.  Schil tried to take a pull from his camelback.  The hiss of air through the nozzle added audible emphasis to the statement immediately prior.

“This four quarts a day thing…is that for people?  Or for small lizards?”  We shared an uneasy laugh at my comment.  This laughter stemmed far more from not wanting to acknowledge the gravity of the situation than actual humor content.  Remoteness and dry water bottles could make Newt Gingrich think he’s Jerry Seinfeld. 

Onward we marched.  Some hours later, we settled for a break. 

“You’re dry too?” I asked Spa, already knowing the answer.  He merely nodded, his makeshift turban adding a Darth Vader-esque gravity to the confirmation.  Realizing the pointlessness of this water break with no water, we took a moment to survey what lay in front of us.  The beauty of the landscape decried its obvious danger.  Generously distributed iron gave the local stratigraphy the illusion of being life-bearing, or at minimum friendly.  Canyons seemingly hand-shoveled out of the Earth danced in unpredictable patterns for miles in every direction.  The path ahead sloped gently downward until disappearing out of sight around the mountain we would next descend. 

Dehydration has curious effects on a body.  It saps the muscles of their strength and handicaps coordination and balance.  But moreover it cripples the mind.  Focus is impossible, and in narrow mountainous paths this is particularly dangerous.  I thought back to the Hampton Inn at Fort Stockton.  Arriving after 1am and leaving after only a few short hours, we had been surrounded by more food and water in that time than in the 48 since.  The powdered fake eggs at the breakfast buffet weren’t so bad, in retrospect.  Even the 4 hours of sleep, paltry by modern yuppy standards, reigned supreme over tossing and turning in a tiny tent on top of rocks and unforgiving caliche.  The towel service woul-

“SHIT!”

Pain.  Much pain.  Lack of focus led me to step on unworthy terrain, and rewarded me with road rash which felt like a napalm splash on my right thigh.  I searched for the camouflaged Taliban sniper who had just shot my knee, which was now 9 months pregnant with a pain baby.  Not my finest hour. 

“Ugh…how far are we from the cache?” I inquired, righting myself wholly without dignity or grace.  We had previously stashed water near the phony touristy ranchhouse we had been approaching for the last two days.

“Does it matter?” Spa contritely replied.  This was less of a smart-ass quip than a simple rhetorical statement of logistics.  We had passed the point of no return.  If we wanted water, we had to walk to the water.  It was closer to go forward than back. 

“Shit…” I reiterated, illustrating the diversity of the word. Glancing from Spa to Schill, I noticed the dazed look of a Loony Toon freshly struck by a frying pan.  I then realized that while my water supply had been on empty for an hour or two, he had been out since lunch.  The heat was palpable, and he was wilting.

“I don’t feel so good. How do I look?” Schil’s highly technical medical complaint was as slurred and dry, like a drunk high-schooler who just rinsed his mouth out with sand.

Eloquence begets eloquence, and Spa calmly replied, “Like shit.”