Pursuit of Liberty: Chapter 4

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                Liberty awoke to the sound of birds chirping. The damp warm air was pressed against her face. She tried to orient her mind. It seemed to be so difficult. There was a fog that she felt that she had to push through. She put her arms on the ground and pushed herself up so that she was sitting up straight. She looked down at her leg and everything fell in place; the wagon crashing, the horse running off, her leg snapping at the knee, her father running off to find help and a strange man.

                She looked around the cave and saw the fire was still going strong so he must be near. The cave looked neat. The man, she could not remember his name, had made a makeshift home out of the cave. He had the fire in the middle of the cave. There were a pot and a pan sitting up against some rocks surrounding the fire. On the other side of the cave there was a hiking pack, it was open as if the man had grabbed some things and then left. She could make out in the ground where he had slept.

                Then she heard some twigs snapping just outside the cave. Her heart pounded. She did not know if it was the man or a wild animal. Either one could end up being dangerous. She tried to move further back into the cave, but the effort to move her leg was too much. She cried out from the pain that shot through her leg, just trying to move that quickly.

                The man came rushing into the cave with a large knife in his hand. Liberty screamed louder. The man put the knife back in his belt and laughed, “Geez kid you scared me. I thought somebody had come in here.”

                Liberty’s heart was still racing, “Well there was someone who came in here. A large bearded man with a knife drawn.”

                He smiled and looked down at her, “Did you sleep alright and how does the leg feel?”

                Her heart started to slow down and she decided that this man could not be all bad since he seemed friendly and had helped her in her greatest time of need. “What did you give me last night? I could not feel my leg and slept through the night. I didn’t even here you leave this morning.”

                “It is called, Valerian. It is plant that people grow up north. It reduces pain and sometimes in larger doses can cause people to go to sleep. I gave you a rather large dose last night. Would you like a little bit more? I am sure that knee does not feel that much better.”

                “I do not like this feeling of being out of control of my mind and body, so I will hold off. Where did you go this morning? And forgive me I have forgotten your name.”

                The man pulled out three eggs from his pocket and grabbed his pan. He cracked the eggs on the side and the yolk came out. He pulled out a spoon out of his pack and started to scramble the eggs until they turned into a pure yellow substance. “My name is Brac and I went out for breakfast. Are you hungry?”

                In fact Liberty was hungry, she had not noticed until she could smell the eggs cooking. She nodded her head. Brac had the pan over the fire and was swirling the spoon while the eggs cooked. He stood up and grabbed his canteen and tossed it to her. She caught the canteen and started drinking. She looked up at Brac. He was a tall man and he strongly built. He looked like he had done manual labor for most of his life. His hair was cut short as was his beard. There was something about his face that made him look like he could command armies and yet be just has happy to play with children. There was harsh gentleness about him. His eyes were a deep green.

                He poured half the eggs into the pan’s lid and gave it to Liberty. He ate the other half out of the pan. When he sat down he said, “When I was looking for the food this morning I went up the path. I did not know how far your village was so I thought I would try it first. It appears that there has been a mud slide and it is bad. I could not see the path anymore. The mud seemed to have come from high up on the ridge, because it goes down far. At some points it looks like it added three times my height to the path.”

                “Did you see my father?”

                “You know I was actually worried that something might have happened to him last night on his way back.”

                A lump caught in Liberty’s throat and tears began to well. “Are you sure you didn’t see anything. Nothing?!”

                “Liberty, I am sure that he is fine. He looked like he was a strong man and probably made it through.”

Brac felt bad, because he did not believe it, but it could be true.  The man could have survived. It was just that the mudslide had done a significant amount of damage and appeared to have been longer than his eye could see. Though he had never been on the path, the destruction caused by the mudslide had taken down some of the larger trees in the woods. He had did not known how he was going to get Liberty back to her village.

“Do you think that you can walk?” Brac asked Liberty.

Liberty looked down at her broken leg. It had been reset the night before by Brac. It had two sturdy pieces of wood tied together holding her leg straight. She did not even try to bend it and did not want to try to put weight on the leg. She looked across the cave and saw a long stick that Brac had not broken up for the fire. “I don’t even want to try, but I need to get back home. There is no way that I can walk on the leg; it is excruciating just sitting here. Maybe if I could have a walking stick.”

Brac looked around the cave and saw the long piece of wood . He walked over and snapped it in half. The piece was a little more than half her body height. He went over to Liberty and helped her stand. She tried walking and using the stick as a replacement for her leg. The pain from moving was just too much she had to sit back down. Brac helped her down, “There is only one other way we can take you and that is if I carry you.”

“No you are not carrying me. I will try to walk with the stick again.”

“It is going to take weeks for you to be able to have the strength to walk on that stick the miles that it will take to get to your village. It appeared from the top of the ridge that you still had a couple miles to go before the mudslide. Now we are going to have to go all the way up to the top and then come down in a safe spot. Where the road used to be is too rugged to even carry you through and I would be hesitant to go by myself. We cannot go across from up here because I do not know if there are still some lose spots and if we fall it could be deadly. The safest route will be to go to the top and go around.”

Liberty looked down at the ground a sighed, “This is going to be two day journey, I hope you are ready for that.”

Brac finished cleaning their pot and pan and was packing them away, “I am not sure anyone is ready for a two day journey with Liberty.”