Incorporated

Frying Pan

      After finding Guychel helplessly hanging from a tree, and after over an hour of trying to get him down, the pair were more than ready to rest. 

The night never seemed to end. They stayed tightly wrapped in Blake's parachute to try and stay warm and, subconciously but not really, safe. The pilot occasionally woke to mutter a French prayer. Blake woke more often to listen for the sound of foosteps that he knew logically would never come, but the fear of the possibility drove that knowledge away.

Early morning found them both shivering and cold. The parachute was heavy with dew, as was everything else. Blake rolled out and onto the forest floor, heady from fatigue. Last night was a close call. 

He sat down on one of his suitcases and shivered. 

Guychel soon rose from the mass of synthetic fabric, but didn't say a thing. Neither man uttered a word, as men do when they have nothing to say. 

Blake looked around, orienting himself with his new surroundings. The jungle looked ancient and untouched in the morning mist, and bird calls rang through the tree tops. Not far from where they had stopped to sleep was Guychel's parachute hanging limply from the canopy like a disposed plastic bag.  

Blake stiffly got off his suitcase and went to relieve himself by a tree. 

He started to think of what to do next. He had a compass in one of his bags. He would have to ditch almost everything, anything that he couldn't carry in his small backpack that was in one of the suitcases. Maybe two shirts, one for the cloth and one for extra warmth during the night if they were stuck longer than 14 hours without shelter. He looked over at the pilot, who was now relieving himself as well. Blake hoped he could keep up. The logical part of Blake's brain told him to leave Guychel behind if he started slowing him down; the moral part told him that leaving him wasn't an option. 

 He dumped both suitcases out on the ground and took what was most needed, stuffing most into his extra backpack, and putting the rest of the essentials into a shirt that he blocked off at the neck for Guychel to wear like a satchel. They would have to share a single flat canteen, half full, and a single plastic water bottle. No food, either. Blake decided to put his handgun, the Mark 23, in Guychel's makeshift satchel. He kept his folding knife in his pocket. The rest were odds and ends. He wasn't sure how well Guychel would do while wearing those sandals. If they had to bushwack for too long, he would have more than just a few scrapes and blisters. 

Blake rubbed the night's worth of facial hair on his chin with a thumb and index and studied the compass.

"Ready to go?" He asked.

Guychel nodded, obviously not in the highest of spirits.

He took one last look at the compass before pushing through the forest on what would be the first few minutes in a long few hours of hiking.

* * * 

 The sun had yet to reach it's equinox when the pair hit a small river. They strained water using one of the shirts, soaking it in the river and wringing it out repeatedly into the canteen. The process seemed to take forever, but at last they could drink and have more water for later. Both of their legs and arms were torn and scraped from the often heavy undergrowth that thwarted any attempt at moving quickly through the bush. Blake tried to ignore the hunger that gnawed at his stomach. He couldn't imagine how Guychel was feeling, not being used to such demanding conditions. He was doing surprisingly well. 

"This river, it must lead into the Rio Cassai." Blake said in between one last sip of water.

"If we follow it to the main river, we'll eventually hit the train tracks. Or even better, we might hit a road."