Chapter Two: Day One

Just before dawn Becky was still dreaming, but she gradually became aware that she was struggling to break free of something. Suddenly, she understood what was happening. She was entangled in her sleeping bag on the back seat of her car. She vaguely remembered tossing about as she slept, trying to get comfortable. She also had vague recollection of distant thunder and lightning. As the sun started to rise, she yawned and stretched. 

The events of the previous day flooded her thoughts. 

"That publisher could have at least offered me the option of doing a re-write," thought Becky. "Maybe if I had stuck around longer, he might have. I may never know for sure." 

Becky knew speculation in this respect would be a sheer waste of time. With that thought in mind, she sat up and realized that there must have been snow overnight, as it was visible on the front window. She was also aware snow could fall at any time year round, this high up in the mountains. 

"One good thing about a snow fall here, is that the snow plow will come through to clear the road eventually, unless the roads are so bad they have to be closed.That is a possibility too, but I hope it does not happen.”

Becky got out of her car and was pleasantly surprised to see that it barely covered the ground. 

"There is not enough here snow to plow, but there is enough to make driving treacherous!" 

She was astounded at the height of the deep green, woolly trees partially covered with sparkling snow. They were astoundingly beautiful! 

"I have to take some digital photographs!Otherwise, no one will ever believe how beautiful this actually is." 

Becky reached inside for her camera phone and within several minutes, she had captured some of the most beautiful photographs she had ever taken. She spotted a few wild animal tracks in the snow and took photographs of them, too. 

"I know that these are probably rabbit tracks, but I don’t recognize the others. Maybe they are deer.”  

Becky decided that this was one moment she would treasure forever. She took a photograph of herself against the backdrop of the rock cliff and trees, as well as another of her car, still partially sprinkled with snow.

Becky watched as the sun slowly rose higher and higher in the east. What a gorgeous morning it was in the Majestic Mountains! 

As she turned back towards her car, she was horrified to see black clouds billowing high above the mountains to the west. 

"Oh no, it looks like bad weather heading this way. To the east, the world appears as bright as joy itself, in contrast to the west with its darkness of sorrow. It's not unlike my life in so many ways!"  

She quickly snapped a photo in each direction. 

"I can see a balance in the nature. This is a remarkable combination of beauty and non-beauty! I will be glad that I took these photographs when the snow melts later."

She began thinking about her car with its dead battery.

“I should have bought some flares yesterday, but I did not think of it. Oh well, maybe I won't need them. If the sun stays out and it gets warm enough later, it could recharge my car battery and I will be able to drive out of here," she said to herself. "Just in case, I should check through my groceries and get prepared to ration them."

She reached into a grocery bag on floor by the passenger seat, pulled out a box of cereal and began to nibble on it. 

"This will suffice for breakfast!"

She washed the cereal down with bottled water and then used a few handfuls of clean, fresh snow to wash her face and hands. It was refreshingly cold, but invigorating. 

"I do not have a lot of extra bottled water, so I should not waste what I have washing."

Becky vaguely recalled passing a number of lakes beside the winding mountain road, but did not know how close any of them were to where she was now, as she had been too upset to pay much attention to them, or to anything else.  

Suddenly, almost directly in front of her car, a huge, bull moose lumbered across the gravel road. He stopped and stared at her, as if to ask what she was doing there. Then he turned away and headed into the trees. 

Quick thinking on Becky's part enabled her to snap a photograph of him, too. 

"Wow! That was so neat," thought Becky. "I am so glad to be here, at this exact moment in time. It does not really matter why I am here."  

The moose was the first of the wild animals that would cut across the gravel road almost directly in front of her car that day.

"I don't recall seeing an animal crossing sign anywhere," Becky thought, as she captured photographs of other animals scurrying across the road too. "I wonder where they are going. What is wrong?"

Becky looked to the west and suddenly knew what was happening. She could smell smoke drifting towards her from that direction too. There was not a lot of it, but it definitely was smoke.

"Oh my God," she said aloud. "That is not another storm. The lightning during the night must have triggered a forest fire there. It is a good thing that it snowed here overnight."  

Moments later, she spotted a small plane heading directly west. She took off her blue jean jacket and waved it in the air frantically, but it was too far away.

"Maybe there will be more planes," she thought to herself. "How can I get their attention?" 

"I know! My sleeping bag has a bright red lining."

Becky quickly pulled it out of the back seat and spread it, red side up, across the top of her car. She also began taking pictures of the smoke billowing on the distant horizon. "If it gets too smoky, I won't be able to get any good photographs. No one will see my red sleeping bag from the air, either."

Becky knew that someone might spot a 'help' sign too, so she decided to make one in the wet snow and gravel on the road, in front of her car. "If it is large enough, someone might spot it from the air." 

She made a huge 'H' from one side of the road to the other, approximately twenty feet in front of her car. 

"That works!"

She did the same thing with the 'E', the 'L' and the 'P'.  

"Break time!" 

She sat on the hood of the car and nibbled on some crackers and cheese. None of the small animals crossing the gravel road paid any attention to her, so she photographed them, as they went by.

"They are too busy fleeing from the smoke to pay attention." 

"Maybe I should build a fire here. I have some matches in the glove compartment. Everything here is quite wet,  and if I can start a fire on the road too, its smoke would be visible from the air."

Becky began rummaging through the trunk of her car, looking for something that would burn easily. She found a bag of old newspapers and ripped up a cardboard box.

"The paper and cardboard, along with some evergreen boughs and dead wood will create lot of smoke and won't burn very quickly either, so it should be relatively safe." 

Becky knew that time was of the essence and quickly gathered pieces of dead wood and cut off several wet, evergreen branches with the pocketknife from her backpack. She built her fire right in the center of the road, about twenty-five feet behind her car. It started immediately and its smoke began to rise almost straight up in the sky.

“That is good. The west wind is dying down. I will have to wait for someone to spot it. I am glad that I am wearing blue jeans and runners, as I may have to hike out of here."

She stocked up her backpack, just in case the distant forest fire headed directly towards her, which it might.