“You ladies all in one piece back there?” Rory called to us.
Rachel said we were, barely, just as a long green branch popped into my open window, dragged itself across my chest, and disappeared behind us. I didn’t think the road could get any narrower, but it did, until I didn’t see any difference between what we were doing and driving through the woods. Rory drove fearlessly and too fast.
We came to a break in the trees where the sky could breathe in, then rolled into a field of wildflowers, waist-deep heather, and clover. Rory barreled through the tall grasses, freeing a knot of blue butterflies that swirled up in a purple twist. Wild rhododendron and laurel bushes crunched under the wheels and clawed at the undercarriage. He never slowed down.
The land dipped down farther and there was the sensation of falling forward into something we shouldn’t. I smelled mud and water. Cat-o’-nine-tails taller than the truck hammered at us. The wheels caught in some kind of suction and the engine ground louder than it should have for how fast we were going until we dropped down hard on the back left wheel and stuck there, me piled up on top of Rachel and Sandra. We were scared but couldn’t help laughing as we disentangled ourselves.
“Shit,” Rory said, smacking the wheel. “This wasn’t a swamp two weeks ago.”
The truck groaned and sank a bit more. Wedged in my seat, I watched a dragonfly maybe four inches long hang in the air a foot from my face, a masterpiece of color and construction. It examined me with thousands of black eyes before it helicoptered away.
Rory manhandled the wheel and lead-footed the gas. The wheels whined as they turned, digging us deeper. He turned to Pia. “Can you drive a stick?”
“Sure.”
We laughed. Pia could pilot a plane. Rory jumped out of the truck with the grace of a much smaller man, pushed his way through the weeds, and disappeared behind the truck. “On three!” he yelled.
Pia installed herself in the driver’s seat and took over. Several unsuccessful attempts to free us later, Rory made his way to where we sat clumped in the backseat. He draped his heavy forearms over the window, face, hair, and clothes more mud than anything else. “Hate to ask, but I could really use some muscle back here.”
Rachel opened her door, the corner of which wedged into the muck and high swords of grass because of the way we were pitched. Her hiking boots sank into a foot of mud; it flowed up over the tops of them, flooding them with carbon-black ooze. Sandra tumbled out after her, laughing and cursing, then turned back to me with a questioning look.
“Let me know if you need me,” I said with a weak smile, picturing snakes and other evil creatures that lived in muck.
I felt them heave into the back of the truck as Pia revved the engine, cursing and slapping at the dashboard. We surged half a foot, maybe, far from what we needed to get out of that hole. I sat in a ball of shame, loathing my fearful nature, a sudden headache pounding behind my eyes. More groaning and pushing, some heated discussion, then Sandra’s face in my window, coated in black mud. She smiled, her teeth and the whites of her eyes gleaming.
“Wini, hon, I think this might be an all-hands-on-deck sort of deal.”
The mud was up past her knees, almost up to her shorts. Shuddering, I pushed open the door and lowered my legs into it, never losing eye contact with her. She grabbed my hand and together we Frankenstein-stepped to the back of the truck, the hum of insects constant around our ears.
“On three!” Rory grunted, and Pia gunned the engine as we all leaned into the cold, immobile bumper. Sheets of slime shot back, covering every square inch of us; I tasted it in my mouth, felt it clogging my ears. I stood with the others, spitting, coughing, and laughing at the sight of each other. Baptized in primal ooze, a weird joy flooded me; the inception of a new kind of freedom. It was only earth, water, decayed plants and animals. We came from it and we were all headed back someday.
Rory rested his hands on his narrow hips. “Sorry about this, but, you know, shit happens.”
“Let’s keep going!” Pia yelled from the front, and we put our shoulders back into it. Each time more mud slammed back at us, but nothing was budging and the truck only sank deeper.
Pia sprang from the cab. “We need to put something under the wheel.”
She began to gather reeds and long grasses; we all did, Rory helping with a knife he carried. We put together a mat of stalks and branches and wedged it under the tire. The wheel turned once, then caught, and the truck leapt forward and up, as if flying into the morning sky.