He looked over to Ryan.
“True enough, I’ll keep an eye on her, and try to talk her back here,” Ryan said, getting up, picking up his stake, and setting out after Erin.
“Do it quickly,” Lee called after him.
Ryan paused to pick up Erin’s own makeshift weapon, which she had left behind in her ire.
“She gets impulsive,” explained Lynn with an apologetic air, watching Ryan heading onward after her friend.
“Impulsive can mean getting killed here very quickly, I’m afraid. We don’t know much about our whereabouts,” Lee said. “I just learned a very good lesson, almost a very hard one.”
He proceeded to tell Lynn more detail about their earlier encounter with the predatory birds, emphasizing the unpleasant surprises that had manifested. Lynn’s eyes widened as the full tale was told, as Lee quickly discovered that she had only heard the basic elements from Ryan upon their return.
Erin appeared back at the campsite several minutes later. She was bearing a couple of branches loaded with berries, a petulant look fixed upon her face.
Ryan emerged into sight behind her a few seconds later, shrugging his shoulders at Lee with a look of exasperation. He was still carrying her makeshift weapon.
Erin looked towards Lee, and her face beamed with a look of triumph. Sitting down, she picked, chewed, and swallowed a mouthful of the berries. She then held out the branches towards Lee.
“See, this is called persistence,” she declared acidly.
She took off a few more berries and ate them.
“She wouldn’t listen to me,” Ryan said. “I don’t know about those. You and I both were worried about whether or not those were safe to eat.”
Lee grew concerned as he watched her, as she had already proceeded well past the point of caution. The berries that she was eating he had indeed seen on his recent foray, and he had deemed it best to avoid them entirely.
His caution was affirmed a short time later, when Erin’s haughty smile swiftly faded, her face growing very pale. Dropping the remaining berries, she clutched at her stomach and started to heave.
Lee, Ryan, and Lynn jumped up immediately and ran over to the stricken young woman, reaching Erin as she violently regurgitated her recent findings back onto the ground. After a few more heaves, when nothing more was coming out of her mouth, her breathing slowly settled back down.
The others gently helped Erin lay on the ground, easing her down carefully. Once Erin was prone, Lynn darted off towards the creek. She returned shortly with a piece of cloth that had been torn off of her own shirt, dampened with water. Kneeling by her friend, she wiped Erin’s brow and patted the cloth lightly about her face.
The next couple of hours were filled with tension. Lee silently stood by the others with Erin, a great apprehension taking hold of him regarding the nature of the berries that she had consumed. He felt both anger and concern as he peered down upon the young woman, knowing that her suffering was wholly unnecessary. Her breathing was short and rapid, and her face reflected considerable pain as she cradled her stomach in a fetal position. The most bothersome aspect of it all was that Lee had no idea as to the outcome of her folly.
Only time would reveal the full answer.
As the moments passed, Erin went through another couple bouts of dry heaving, her stomach already having been thoroughly emptied. Her pallor continued to be troubling. Yet just when Lee had begun to dread the worst, her physical signs appeared to stabilize, and then slowly began to improve. Her breathing became more regular, and her face slowly showed less strain.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Lee remarked firmly, when it finally became abundantly clear that she was not mortally poisoned.
Erin’s reaction to his words demonstrated that her constitution was returning in full. She did not give him the courtesy of a verbal reply, simply shooting Lee a hardened, annoyed look, as if to say that she absolutely refused to concede anything to him.
“Pride isn’t going to get you very far under our circumstances!” Lee fumed with exasperation, throwing up his hands and tromping back towards the center of the camp.
Ryan shook his head and trotted after Lee.
Behind them, Lynn helped Erin back to a sitting position, and cautiously pulled her back up to her feet. She slowly guided Erin across the campsite, assisting her back under the shade of the shelter that they had fashioned.
“She’ll rest better out of the open. So what now?” Lynn asked the other two, after she had emerged from the shelter and returned to join them. As if to answer their unspoken queries, she stated, “What she did was completely idiotic. I’m not supporting her stupid choice, but she’s my friend.”
“And we’ll stand by her too, Lynn, as we’re in this mess together,” Lee replied without equivocation. “Even though I won’t hesitate to point out when she’s being a total fool.”
“I’m with Lee, on both counts,” Ryan added.
Lynn nodded to both of the males, “I appreciate all of that. She filters me out often enough, so it’s good that you two are blunt with her. Maybe something will eventually get through her thick head.”
“So what do you suggest we do now?” Lee asked, changing the subject back to the decisions imminently facing them. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Try and find somebody, or something,” Lynn answered. “It’s all we really can do, when we have no idea where in this world we are.”
“If there even is somebody out there,” Ryan commented ruefully.
“We’ve got to at least look,” Lynn replied.
“Then let’s start doing it right now,” Ryan said impatiently. After an extended pause, his next words took on a tinge of anger and desperation. “Let’s get on it!”
Lee knew that the sharp edge just exhibited in the young man was stoked by the torrent of worries swirling within him. He could not blame Ryan for his great trepidation. Lee shared it too, and was simply a little better able to stifle his own worries, packing them deeper down inside.
“After a minute or two,” Lynn stated firmly, steadily meeting Ryan’s heated gaze. “Whether her fault or not, let Erin get a little of her strength back.”
Ryan sat down with a huff, rolling his eyes. “Then I’m sitting.”
Lee replied gently, “We will wait, Lynn, but we need to learn everything we can about this world. And we need to learn very fast, if we are going to have a chance to make it very far. Now we know of those aggressive birds. Now we know about those berries. Two steps on that journey.”
As if to accentuate his point, Lee walked over and picked up Lynn’s stake where she had set it down. Returning, he handed it over to her.
“And you keep this near you, at all times,” Lee said adamantly.
Lynn set the end of the stake into the ground, gripped in both of her hands as she lowered her eyes to the ground before her. Lee said nothing more as he turned and stepped over to Ryan’s side. He lowered himself down, patting the youth reassuringly upon the shoulder as he took a place by him. Lynn sat down with them a few moments later.
Few words passed between the trio, as time marched relentlessly onward.
After about another hour had passed, Erin came out from the shelter and broke the impasse, indicating that she felt that she could handle some slow hiking. The group gathered its belongings together and left the campsite behind. Setting off at an easy pace, they halted sporadically, mainly to allow Erin to rest for a few moments.
While clearly not feeling fully well, Erin proved to be capable of handling the rather leisurely rate of travel without major incident, or sign of undue strain. A few times Lee considered urging her to press herself a little harder, but he bit back his impulses, simply grateful that she was cooperating without an acerbic display of attitude.