63 Days

“What is this?” a kid asked Murdock as he tossed gallon ziplock bags at all of us. We were sitting on the ground, indian style, holding empty peach cans in our hands.

“Its rice. And here,” he said tossing another round of bags out at us, this with something else in it, “this one has oats in it.”

There could not have been more than an inch of rice and oats each in the bottom of each bag. Food was a commodity at this point, all of us already guarding the stash we’d just been given. I’d been so hungry the first 3 days, and when we got the peaches on the 4th day, a day early, thanks to Stephanie, we ate them so fast that we all got sick. Sick is something you don’t want to be when you’re in the wilderness with no toilet paper, let me tell you. I put my baggies into my bedroll and tied it all up and put it on my back. It was snowing and we had to go 16 miles today.

“Lets talk about a few things” one of the counselors said to us. “We’re going to be walking past some possible tourists here on Hole-In-The-Rock Road. If you talk to them, you’re going back to the beginning of the program and you’ll start over with no food for 5 days. Murdock’s got his gun, and he’s brought out his doberman today. This dog is trained to attack, and I’ve even seen him climb 6′ chain link fences so you’d be stupid to try to run.”

Dogs…guns…this was out of control. I had to get out. I shot a look over at Natalie and she gave me a look of acknowledgement and then began her violent coughing. She was amazingly convincing. She gasped, she choked, she really did it up. One of the counselors asked her if she was ok and she looked at him with fear and pain and said “no…no sir…I’m not. I can’t breathe” as she gasped for air. He shot a look over to Murdock who dropped his pack, annoyed, and came over to her and felt her head.

“Wow, shit. She’s hot.” He said.

What the hell, how did she do that? A fever? She really was sick though, just not as sick as she made herself sound, but jeez, this was really impressive.

“Just keep hydrated, Natalie. We can’t do anything about this right now. Everyone, get up, lets go.”

We all lined up behind eachother and began our days hike. About an hour in, I started to limp. I had put sand in my socks and it was rubbing my heels and tendons raw. It was doing its job, and I glanced down and saw blood coming out of the back of my sock. It hurt like hell, but I had a plan. I kept on hiking.

Natalie kept her coughing act up, hacking out mucus, spitting it onto the ground. At one point she even gagged and threw up a little bit from her coughing fit. I noticed the counselors giving eachother worried looks over Natalie’s condition. Glancing down at my feet, I was pleased to see blood was saturating the back of both of my socks, around the achilles tendon. This is when I dropped to the ground, holding my feet.

“Wait you guys! I’m so sorry…I’m so sorry, don’t be mad…” I sobbed. I looked up at Murdock, who was coming over to me quickly, angrily.

“I can’t walk I’m sorry I’m so sorry…”

“GET UP! What is you probl-” he started. “Oh crap, what the hell is going on with your feet?”

“I don’t know” I responded. “They hurt so much, I can’t bend my feet. I can’t move my feet up and down.” I kept sobbing and holding my feet, slightly hunched over my lap as I sat on the ground. I watched his feet move closer to me and saw that he was kneeling down.

“Gimme those feet. Shit” he said, pulling down my socks, “you have no skin back here! How long have you been like this?”

“Uh, well, the whole time, I just didn’t want to get in trouble so I didn’t tell you…I’m sorry…I’m so sorry, sir.”

He looked up at nothing in the sky and told us all to hold on and he called the other counselors over to a tree. They listened and I could see that Murdock was starting to get excited about something, waving his arms around and such. I glanced over to Nat and she shot me a wink and began coughing again, but this time it was to the point of gasping and dry heaving. I heard one of the counselors say something about there being 2 of us, and something about how they couldn’t afford another couple of Stephanies.

Murdock came back to the group of us and said that we were going to get to our drop tonight where they were going to bring us all out some water and iodine, and when they came out, they’d check us there, at the truck. The rest of the day was painful, and I walked in hopeful agony that we’d get taken into Escalante to be seen by the doctor. There, we’d make our escape.

That night, a jeep pulled up and a woman got out. She talked to Murdock and I saw her look over at me and over at Natalie, who was carefully keeping her distance from me so that we’d not be suspected to be scheming with eachother. She walked over to me, eyebrows furrowed.

“Lets see these feet.”

I put them out for her to see and I heard her gasp as she turned them over. The skin was falling off of the back of each foot. Raw and oozing, she sat them down on a blanket she’d brought over.

“Why didn’t you tell us before this happened. There’s moleskin we could have used before this on your blisters”

“I didn’t want to get in trouble. I didn’t want to slow the group down. I didn’t want to be dragged” I said, starting to cry. Strangely enough, these weren’t fake tears. I really was terrified for my life at this point. I couldn’t get the image of Stephanie, teeth brown and filthy from dirt being kicked into her screaming mouth out of my head. I had been thinking it about it for 2 days now and I was willing to do anything to get out. I had to let someone know what was going on. The outside world couldn’t have known this was happening. They were killing us.

She stood and walked to Natalie, who was nowhere near me, and felt her head, listened to her chest through her back and then walked back to Murdock. Some animated conversation happened between the two of them, and I sat back, praying to God that somewhere in this world, separated from the rest of the universe, there would be a chance of escape. Escape is all I could think about. I couldn’t stay here in this desert another day with counselors who didn’t hesitate to let their hands graze your firm teenage bottoms, who didn’t look away when you went to the bathroom, who looked you up and down as you stretched, always waiting for a supple breast to push against your t-shirt.

Murdock came over and told me to get up. The female counselor went to Natalie and I saw her helping her into the jeep.

“You’re going into town. You’ll see a doctor tomorrow and then be back tomorrow night. Get in the jeep.”

I immediately started crying. I couldn’t believe this had worked. I’d rubbed the skin off of my feet for a chance at freedom, and as we drove off into the twilight, I saw the shiny black eyes of the other kids there watch me, sad as we left them. I wished I could tell them all that I was doing this to save them. I was going for help, but I couldn’t. One tiny 13 year old girl was weeping, and I saw her staring at her hands. I don’t know what she was thinking, but I wished I could take her too.

Another boy was with us, he had asthma. He didn’t have his inhaler, apparently they confiscated it when he came into the program because they said it could be abused as an amphetamine. His name was Forrest. His dad was famous. He put his arm around me, and it was then that I noticed that I was still crying. I couldn’t mess this up. I had to get out and save the rest of them.

The road was bumpy, and the sky was filled with white sparkly stars. The universe had decided to help me this night and had put down its hand to me, and I was determined to take it. Take it and not let go.