“I see you’ve broken down camp,” Schoville said, noticing for the first time that everything was packed and ready to go.
“I didn’t know how long you’d be, so I got started without you.” Patrick bent down and slipped his pack over his shoulders, and then handed Schoville the other two. “I suppose we should move on,” he said, gathering Linley into his arms. “No use in standing around.”
The rain held off for most of the day. Even though the air was humid almost to the point of being unbearable, the men were thankful for the reprieve. The ground was still a sloppy mess, covering their boots in almost ankle deep mud, but at least it was old mud.
But despite everything going in their favor, Patrick, Linley, and Schoville did not make good time.
Patrick limped along, wincing with every step, and Schoville, who normally berated his comrade for slowing them down, lagged far behind with one hand clenched to his stomach and the other clamped over his mouth.
“Can…can we stop for a moment?” he asked. “I need to—”
He could not even wait to finish his sentence before he sprinted off between two thick fir trees and disappeared.
Patrick sighed. At the rate they were going, they would get nowhere before dark. But he might as well use this opportunity to set Linley down for a moment and see to his own needs.
He walked a few paces off. Even unconscious and with her eyes closed, Patrick did not want to risk Linley waking up to find him relieving himself in her presence. As he unbuttoned his trousers, he remembered the advice Schoville gave him about his feet. And, to be honest, Patrick was pretty damned close to pissing on himself if it meant any relief from the pain.
But not even a few weeks in the wilderness could change him that much.
It seemed a little bit of the old Patrick was left in him after all, and there were just some things he simply could not do.
He finished, buttoned himself up, and walked back over to Linley. It had been nearly a week since he spoke with her, yet he saw her every day. Patrick studied the hard angles of her face. The hollow spots where her eyes used to shine. The cracked, bloodied lips that once kissed him with so much passion, but were now drawn tightly over her teeth.
He hardly knew her.
Where was the girl who danced, and laughed, and made love with him? The girl who made giving up everything he’d ever known without a second thought seem worth it? The girl he wanted to spend his life with?
He missed that girl.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Patrick sat by the campfire, struggling to pull the mud-soaked boots off of his swollen feet. “You’re very sick. Do you think you might have caught what Linley has?”
Schoville shook his head. “No.”
“Are you quite certain? Because it seems to me—”
“I took in too much river water,” he said. “I nearly drowned.”
Patrick watched as Schoville brought the last of their canteens to his mouth with trembling hands. He looked gaunt. His skin glistened with sweat. He could not even keep drinking water down, and every few minutes, he scrambled for the bushes.
Clearly, the man was ill. Just how ill, was the question.
“We have had nothing to eat for days, and now there is no more clean water,” Patrick said. “She is unconscious, you are sick, and I can barely walk. At the rate we’re going, we are all going to die out here.”
Schoville retched, spewing all the water he just drank out onto the ground at his feet. “You are over-reacting.” He heaved again. “…This illness of mine will run its course in a few days...I’ll be fine. You’ll see.”
Patrick dropped the argument against his better judgment. He couldn’t afford to worry about Schoville, too. He felt himself growing weaker. And also felt the blood squishing in the toes of his boots.
He loosened the laces as far as they could go, but it was no use. His feet would not budge. It was just as well. Patrick was afraid to get a good look at them anyway. God only knew what horrors awaited him at their bottoms.
Behind him, Schoville belly-crawled to the trees for the third time that night. His trips were more frequent than before, and far more urgent. And every time, he made it less and less further from camp.
That time, he barely made it behind the tent.
Patrick did his best to ignore him. A man in that situation deserved his privacy. So Patrick continued wrestling with his boots, finally dislodging one foot and half of a bloody sock.
He studied the foot. It was a pulpy mess. Pruned skin and yellow puss dripped from the soles. The toenails—those that hadn’t fallen off—were discolored. Everything bled. Everything stunk.
Patrick gagged.
He clenched his teeth and ripped off the other boot. The situation there was much the same. His feet were rotting off before his very eyes. He was wasting away from the ground up.