When Calls the Heart: Jack and Elizabeth's Reunion

Fort Clay

After Jack arrived at headquarters, his commanding officer informed him that he had to be transferred to Fort Clay. All the recruits were being diverted to that location because of its training grounds. A small flood at headquarters training grounds prevented as such. Another few hours of traveling in the stagecoach, and he finally arrived to his destination. Everywhere he looked was the red surge he loved. The one that was in his blood, his family, the one he stood and fought for. All he hoped was that these three months would fly by quickly so that he could return to his family.

A fellow Mountie exited the building and approached him. "Good afternoon." The man extended his hand for a shake and Jack took it. "You must be Jack Thornton. It's an honor to meet you. I've heard a lot about you. My name is Nathan Grant."

"Nathan. Good to meet you," Jack replied.

"You must be tired after all that traveling. Let me show you to your room for the duration of your stay and you can get settled in."

"Sounds great," Jack said. He was exhausted. First the three hour long stagecoach ride to the train station, then four hours on the train, then another three and half hours on a stagecoach. He was beat. Nathan left him after showing him his quarters, but before Jack collapsed onto the bed, he had to get all the pictures of him and Elizabeth and James up on his desk and wall before he didn't have the chance to. It took him no longer than ten minutes and he was done. He plopped down on the bed, removed his jacket, and laid down. Soon after his head hit the pillow,  his eyes followed suit as he drifted off to much needed sleep.

The next morning, Jack woke up refreshed and well rested. The first thing he needed to do after he got dressed and shaved, was to find the order papers that would tell him the group he was assigned to, and where they were starting their training. As soon he found that out, he proceeded to that very location. His recruits were there waiting for him, lined up, ready to go. Good men, he thought. "My name is Constable Jack Thornton. I will be your trainer for the next few weeks, and then you will move onto the next stage of training with another Mountie. The first thing that you will be learning and honing is tracking. Mounties have to be able to track anything or anyone, whether it be stagecoach wheels, animal footprints, human footprints, you name it. Some will look alike but will be for different things. Am I understood?"

"SIR, YES SIR!" They shouted.

"Good!" He shouted back. "Let's begin, gentlemen." Jack turned around and started heading into a small wooded area where it was partially wet, but some tracks would still be readable. "Keep your eyes peeled, gentlemen! I have a list of everything that we track down out here. As soon as we cross them all off the list, we move onto the next part."

For the rest of the day, the recruits were able to track down three out of the twelve things that were listed on the paper. Over the rest of the week, they would reach up to seven things. It took them ten days to finally track down all twelve things. The next thing they learned was learning how to repel themselves from the top of a tall wall, using their rope. Then they repeated the process with adding climbing the wall on one side and repelling down the other. "At times like these, you may have a group of people that cannot repel safely down a cliff or a side of a house, or tall building, and you may have to go up repeatedly and repel down repeatedly with someone else." Then Jack passed out a twenty pound bag of rocks to each of his recruits, and had them do the process repeatedly. "Twenty pounds of rocks the first couple of times is not that heavy, but when it gets to about the eighth of ninth time going up and coming down, it starts to feel like the weight of an average person."

He was astonished at the perseverance of his men and what lengths they were willing to hold onto in order to complete this task. He had about twenty men in his group, and over half of them were panting and sweating and looked like they were about to give up. "Come on, men. I know you're tired, but their are people that still need help, and they need you. Are you going to let them die?"