We slowly rose to our feet once the storm had dwindled to sprinkles and a cool breeze. Shook ourselves off like wet dogs. My shoes and socks were soaked, as were Emil's, but most of me was dry. Guess it pays to get down on my knees once in a while and be concerned about my immediate future. Could be that's what kept the trees off my back. More likely the old man knew what he was doing and I was overjoyed he had.
"What was it you yelled at me when the storm was blowing through?"
"St. Elmo's fire. That's what the glow was. Never seen it before. Tell you the truth, once is enough. And you calling me St. Emil while we were aglow was pretty darned funny. Woulda yelled it sooner out on the slab but I was laughing so hard about the fix we were in, I farted. The idea of having the Spam farts made me laugh even more. Afraid I was gonna asphyxiate myself. What a way to go. Sure made me thankful for the breeze but I feel for the poor folks downwind in northern Minnesota. Five minutes and they'll be wondering what died."
Off to our right the Eiffel Tower still stood guard.
"Well I'll be darned. Archie me lad, if she'll stand a blow like that I'd say we've done ourselves proud. Maybe I'll get us satin jackets with Cairn Construction Crew spread across the back in gothic letters entwined by a dragon."
"Or tattoos. Ever tell you about the one I almost got in San Francisco before shipping out? Archie it would have been a thing of beauty. And one of the great puns of all time. Might even have made the Pun Hall of Fame. It would have been of Toulouse-Lautrec. You know, the French painter? Anyhow, below, it would have simply said, 'Born Toulouse'. Well, the tattoo guy had no idea what Toulouse-Lautrec looked like. Oh, well. Good thing I didn't. Lena would have skinned me alive."
The tent and tarped over gear packs didn't look like they'd done as well as the three of us. A once towering spruce now spread across the campsite. The tent was flattened but the packs looked to have been spared. The canoe was buried in pine branches but unharmed.
"Not often things work out as you think they might, or fear they might." said Emil. "The tent tells me we did the right thing by staying outside. Woulda cleaved us in twain, or pierced us or maybe just pancaked us. We stayed outside because the thought of being inside the tent's dark and not seeing what was going on outside scared the bejeezus out of me but good. Besides, I figured the farther we could get from the trees without actually wading in the lake, the safer we'd be. Curling up in a ball in a lightning storm was just something I'd read. Don't know if that worked but I know for sure it didn't not work. Feel so good about how it turned out I almost want to pat myself on the back."
We studied our tent problem in the slowing drizzle. She was pinned by a pair of snapped branches. Those same branches also kept the trunk a few inches off the ground.
Emil turned, "Why don't you borrow a few slabs from the tower while I see if I can rummage the branch saw from the tarp."
Ten minutes later, the spruce trunk supported by the slabs, Emil slid down on his back and began to saw off the pinning stubs. Outside of two small tears and snapped poles, the tent was fine. Emil was able to cover both holes with an undershirt and secured it with a needle and fishing line from his tackle box. "Slicker than snail snot, lad. Now we're in business. No skeeters for us. If she clears off tonight we can peel the shirt back and look at the stars without having to go outside. Wish I'd have thought of that sooner."
Took a while for me to squirrel the gear from under the tarp even with most of the limbs removed. By the time our tent was moved, new poles sawed and gear repacked we both looked like we'd low-crawled through a bog. Felt like it too. But we'd survived. And had re-stacked the tower to its original fineness. Not much left to do but grab a snack, sit on the preservers, watch the curtain of clouds withdraw and the first stars let us know it was time for bed.
"I tell you Archie me lad, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. Unless of course it snaps off both your legs or bashes in the side of your skull and leaves you with the same brain capacity as a rutabaga." Emil paused. "But that was sure something, wasn't it? And it's not over."
"What? Is there more storm on the way? If I had my druthers, I'd say we've had enough."
"No, nothing like that. But day after tomorrow we have to bushwhack our way back to Wedge. Our food pack says we've only got three or four days left. Maybe the return carry won't be much different than the last but I doubt it. Sure sounded like the storm dropped a lot of trees back in the woods. If so, get ready for a full day's work. One way or the other, we'll find out."
His tapping of the pipe said it was time to brush our teeth and head in. Turned out the pillow of my air mattress was no more. A folded wad of dirty clothes did the trick. Coulda been a lot worse. I was so tired, the rising swamp smell from beneath my head sang me to sleep like a lullaby.
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