fire watch - episode 003 - The Delilah fire mystery

part 11 hiking

They packed their bags.
They then got in the truck and began driving to the Yellowstone national forest park and mountain ranges. While they were driving they were listening to music and joking together like usual. After an hour, Delilah said "oh by the way, I just thought you should know, and this doesn't matter, and it probably won't even go anywhere, but I may as well say" Tom frowned "what is it?" "Well, next summer, I don't know if you want to come out here, but I won't be" Tom nodded "okay, I think I will be going here again, but that's fine that you're not coming, have you got something lined up?" "Yeah, leading up to next summer I am going to evening classes again then that will lead my into university next summer" Tom smiled putting his arm round her while still paying attention to the road "good girl, what is the course?" "Well the evening classes are for art and when I join university I would have had some experience, and I would've learned a lot, hopefully. So when I am in university I will be taking two courses, one of them is in the morning which is an English writing course and the people think I am actually pretty good already and will go far so that's promising.
Tom smiled nodding.
"Yeah, I've already said you're good at writing, I've read some of your stories and Jesus you need to write a third Prime-angels story, they were so awesome" Delilah smiled "it had one hell of a cliffhanger right?" "Yeah, it was awesome really well done" Delilah then had a thought "wait I did write a third one" "definitely reading that soon. What's the second course?" "This might surprise you, but it's an art course which will be done at night then I will sleep and do the whole thing again which I can do. Now, this is my thought you may not like this because even I think it won't go anywhere, but I can try to publish comics which I think is a really cool idea" Tom smiled "that's an awesome idea, you could make a lot of money, you have a gift of being able to project what you see in life and put it in writing, the moment you get your confidence you'll take the world by storm" she smiled shaking her head "no I won't. It will just be a hobby that might make some money, I am thinking of taking a job in a library" "yeah, you could do that, and you need to believe in yourself Delilah because I know you can do it. I have an idea, how about your write about what happens when we're there" "yeah, and I could draw some beautiful art, and I could write about some of the jobs we get" "well if you're looking for an artist place we've picked one hell of a place to go" "I know"
They continued driving.
Tom drove for about 7 and a half hours. When they arrived, Tom was absolutely shattered, so they slept in the car until the morning. When they woke up, they began walking through the rocks, trees and mountains. They saw a few animals on the way which Delilah enjoyed, always having a love for nature. They laughed and talked a lot about Tom and Delilah's future, Delilah said how she was scared about leaving Tom alone, but he said he was going to be completely fine. She also told Tom about some of her insecurities which actually shocked Tom, she said "well I have always had a lot of insecurities" "what kind of insecurities?" "Well first off I eat a lot of food like the same amount of food as everyone else does, but I never seem to gain any weight, it's strange I'm just always really thin all the time, and I don't know why, it's almost to the point of annoying" "don't worry about that, you look like a beautiful 21-year-old, being thin isn't a bad thing, some people would kill to be thin" "yeah maybe, I don't know, I think I've always been annoyed by my legs, they have always been too thin, and I'm tall, so it makes them somehow look even thinner if that makes sense" "don't worry about it, Monkey, trust me" "thanks dad. Another insecurity about me is one I've had for years but haven't stopped, it's my shorts" Tom frowned "what do you mean?" "Well people think my shorts are slutty" "no they're not, don't listen to people" "I don't, but that's why I don't really have any friends, I've had boyfriends, but they only dated me for my looks, so they didn't last long, when they find out what I'm really like, they don't stick around long. Do you ever worry about me?" "In what way?" "Well me looking like this, whenever I leave the house I'm a little scared" "well as a parent I think it's part of the job to be a little worried all the time, but I know you can definitely take care of yourself, need I bring up what happened in high school?" Delilah giggled "yeah I kind of scared the shit out of that boy, fucker deserved it" "you mentioned when they find out what you're really like they leave, well what are you really like?" "Well I love art and jokes, but they seem to just like bad girls, I'm not one of those" "so boys like soulless, sex dolls, you are clearly not one of those. Why do you wear the shorts?" "Because I love them, just because someone told me I shouldn't do something doesn't mean I'm just going to stop doing it, if that was the case I wouldn't be into basically anything" Tom smiled nodding "that's my girl, don't listen to those arseholes, they don't know what they're talking about" "thanks"
They continued walking.
Until they got to where they needed to be, however the problem was they were in the general area but couldn't find the look-out tower. Delilah who was holding the map said "err, it could be that way... or that way... possibly even that way" Tom smiled nodding "yeah, it probably will be one of those ways we just have to work out which one it is, but you never know it could be that way" she tried not to smile "shut up! I know exactly what I'm doing, I took Geography for a GCSE that basically means I'm an expert just trust me" Tom frowned "no, you didn't you took history, art and drama, the closest thing to that is history" "yeah, same thing isn't it?" "Yeah if you like" "geography is what happens to the area like volcanos, Earthquakes and shit, and history is marking out what happened there looking at time so in my mind I would be able to read a map better than a geographer... I don't really know what that point means, but you know we'll roll with it" Tom nodded "fair enough" Delilah looked down at the map "okay, the problem is I know where we are, but... there are many paths on this map all going in different directions, and I don't know which direction we are facing in comparison with the map... if that makes sense, probably not but hey that's fine. I think we go... this way" Tom nodded "okay I trust you to get us there but if this is the wrong way you will owe me a tenner" "done"
After a few hours of walking.
Tom asked "hey, Monkey, are you sure we're going in the right direction? Because I do believe that tenner is going to be mine" "I'm pretty sure" "can you give me a percentage?" "Err 76 percent, there are 2 possibilities, one more worrying than the other" "what do you mean?" "Well there were 6 paths leading us to different directions one lead us to the tower" "where did the others lead?" "Well... outside the park, so it's either I've walked us to the tower, or just outside the park" however she then looked excited "wait no, it's 100 percent" "why's that?" "Because that looks like a watch tower to me" Tom looked towards the trees to see a tower in the distance "yep that's the tower, good girl, come on" they walked towards it completely exhausted. The tower was tall. It was standing on wooden foundation poles. Stairs went around the square structure going around to a room, then stairs went up higher to another room, one for both of them and underneath were stairs going under the ground into a kind of wooden Cellar where all their supplies like food, medical supplies, beer, and many, many, MANY books were kept. Everything was kept down there for ease of storage. They looked around the tower extremely interested, Delilah said "do you want the top tower or the bottom?" Tom thought for a moment "I'll have the top one" she nodded "alright, sounds good" before they could go to their rooms Tom went into his wallet pulling out a ten credit note giving it to Delilah who laughed "hell yeah" the rooms of the tower had beds, a desk, cooking areas, posters and other important things, they had a wardrobe and other storage boxes. In the middle of Tom's room was a table which had a map on it, so Delilah had to come to Toms tower to work, his area also had the hand held radio and another bigger radio on the desk for communication with other towers and with their boss. They decided to go to sleep their hike had exhausted them, and they slept like rocks for 2 days straight well Tom did anyway.