The tall, dark-haired young woman walked along the canyon floor, pausing as the ground rumbled under her, as it had many times in the past month following the biggest earthquake in California history. Nearby, she could hear the sound of rocks and dirt tumbling down the canyon wall, and she ducked behind a large tree to wait it out.
As the aftershock ended, and the crash of rocks and dirt ceased, she heard the sound of something larger hitting the ground with a thud, along with a moan of pain. Cautiously, she peeked out from behind the tree, then crept forward. If it was a wounded animal, it could be dangerous, but she wanted to investigate to see what it was.
At the base of the cliff, she found a young, redheaded woman lying in the brush, which had broken her fall. A worn-looking backpack and purse lay nearby.
Creeping forward, she crouched down beside the redhead, looking more closely at her. Her eyes were closed, and she had some ugly scrapes and bruises from her fall, but she did not otherwise appear to be injured. Her breathing was strong and steady as her rescuer checked her for broken bones and other injuries.
Satisfied that there were no injuries beyond the scrapes and bruises, and possibly a concussion, the dark-haired woman gripped her under the arms and dragged her from the brush. Even though the redhead was thin, she was still too heavy to lift easily.
She lifted her as high as she could, grateful that she was considerably taller than the redhead, and allowing only her feet to drag on the ground, hauled her in the direction of her camp, set up amongst the boulders under a sprawling oak tree. Pulling her into the tent and laying her on the sleeping bag, she commented, “You’d better not die on me after all that trouble.”
The redhead did not respond. Sighing, her rescuer hurried back to the scene of the accident to collect the backpack and purse. She hoped very much that the woman would be all right. Her mother had taught her everything she knew about medicine, and she was an herbalist, but she wasn’t a doctor. If something was seriously wrong, she would have to go for help, leaving her charge defenseless and alone.
*****
Rose opened her eyes slowly, groaning as she rubbed her head. She had a splitting headache, and the rest of her body felt like she’d been beaten. Examining her head, she found a lump on the side of it, but nothing more. Sitting up slowly, she looked around in confusion.
Where am I? The last thing she remembered was falling down the cliff, and then nothing else. But she wasn’t lying in the rocks and brush; she was in a tent on someone’s sleeping bag, she observed. Someone had picked her up, but who? Where was she?
Abruptly, one of Rose’s questions was answered as her rescuer stuck her head in the tent, smiling to see Rose sitting up.
“I was beginning to wonder if you were going to wake up,” she commented, kneeling down next to Rose.
“What happened? Where am I? How long have I been here?”
“You fell down the cliff when the aftershock struck. The trail is completely gone now. I guess you were trying to cross it. As to where you are, you’re in my camp, near the town of Cuyamaca. You’ve been here about two hours.”
“Okay.” Rose tried to take all this in. “Who brought me here?”
“I did. I would have brought you to the road, but it’s a long walk, and I didn’t think I could haul you that far, at least not without hurting you more. You don’t appear to be gravely injured.”
“Tell that to my head.” Rose touched the lump on her head again, probing it with her fingers and wincing.
“It might not hurt so much if you’d leave it alone.” She put out her hand. “By the way, I’m Daffodil Kirkpatrick.”
Rose shook her hand, not sure she had heard right. “Daffodil?”
“That’s right, Daffodil. My mother named me that, after her favorite flower. It’s unique.” Daffodil sounded a bit defensive.
“Does anyone ever call you Daffy?”
“Not if they know what’s good for them.”
Rose winced. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to be rude. I guess you saved my life, anyway.” She shrugged. “I’m named after a flower, too. I’m Rose DeWitt-Bukater.”
“Your name’s more common than Daffodil, anyway.” She bowed as best she could in the confines of the tent. “Daffodil Kirkpatrick, latter-day hippie—my brother says wanna-be—and unrepentant vagabond, at your service.”
Rose couldn’t help but laugh. “Thank you.”
“No problem. You’ve been out here a while.”
“I thought you said I’d only been here a couple of hours.”
“Out there.” Daffodil waved a hand at the mountains surrounding them.
“What makes you think that?”
“You mean besides the worn bags and clothes, and the fact that you’re tanned and too thin?” Daffodil shrugged. “You talked a lot while you were asleep.”
“I...talked a lot? What did I say?”
“Let’s see...your mother is greedy, your ex-fiancé abused you, your new boyfriend, named Jack, died on the night of the earthquake—”
“Did I say how he died?” Rose looked at her in alarm.
“No. You didn’t have anything to do with it, did you?”
“No.” Rose lay back, her heart pounding. If she had mentioned Cal’s part in Jack’s death, their deal would be void. Cal might go to prison, and Rose would be back where she started from. “He died in the earthquake.”
“Okay.” Daffodil raised an eyebrow, not quite believing her, but didn’t press the issue. From the way Rose had cried when she mentioned him, she doubted that she’d been an accomplice to her boyfriend’s death. Shrugging it off—Rose would tell her if she wanted to, and if not, she wouldn’t—she went on, “You left Masline after the earthquake, and don’t want to go back to your old life. You looted a broken Big Lots to get your supplies—”
“Those things would have wound up in the garbage anyway,” Rose defended.
Daffodil put her hands up in defense. “Far be it for me to criticize you for taking trash. If it’s been thrown away, it’s public property—within reason, anyway. Of course, identity theft is wrong, but other than that—one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”
“It wasn’t thrown away yet,” Rose admitted, “but it would have been. I just helped clean up a little and keep the landfills emptier.”
“Like I said, I’m not criticizing. I’ve gone through the trash a time or two myself.” She paused, then went on. “You left Masline, and headed for the mountains. You’re a long way from there now, so you’ve traveled a fair distance. Masline must be a good seventy-five miles from here.”
Rose hadn’t realized she had come so far. “I guess I have been out here a while.”
“Well, you’ll be here a while longer, until you feel better. I don’t want you walking away and passing out from a concussion. You’ve got a nasty lump on your head.”
“I felt it.” Rose was about to lie back down, tired from her long travels and her injuries, when she smelled something cooking. Her stomach immediately reminded her that she hadn’t eaten much in days, and she sat up straighter, trying to see around Daffodil and out of the tent.
“Are you hungry?” Daffodil asked her, seeing Rose’s widening eyes and the way she moved her head to try to see out of the tent.
“Starving. Do you have any food to spare? I’ll pay you back...”
“Don’t worry about money. I gathered some wild greens and added them to the dried stuff I’m using to make soup. There’s some herb tea, too, and some apples.”
Rose’s mouth watered at her words, even though she had never tried wild greens and wasn’t sure she wanted to. “You’re sure you don’t want any payment?”
“I’m sure. I made enough for two. Anyway, sharing food with someone else is an ancient form of human interaction. I want to make the world a better place, you see.”
“Yeah.” Rose smiled at the idea and tried to crawl out of the tent, stopping and holding her head as the world spun dizzily.
“Just what I need,” she mumbled to herself. “Another head injury.” At Daffodil’s inquiring look, she explained, “I hit my head on the dining room table about six weeks ago and got a concussion. At this rate, my brain’s going to turn to mush.”
“It’s not mush yet,” Daffodil assured her, helping her out of the tent. “I’d let you eat in here, but if anything gets spilled, it might attract bears or other unwanted creatures.”
“Bears have their place in the world, you know.”
“Yes, but not in my tent. Come on.”
Rose felt a little better once she was out in the open air and sitting on a low, lichen-encrusted boulder. She looked up at the canopy of branches overhead, hearing the sound of a running stream not far away.
“Nice camping spot,” she commented. “Is the water clean?”
“It is now. I boiled it.”
“It was dirty water? You made soup with water full of dirt?”
“Of course not. The water is clear. Bacteria and things can live anywhere, though.”
“They can?” Rose’s eyes widened. She’d been drinking water straight from clear streams.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t learn that in biology—that’s the problem with all this teaching to the test. You don’t learn anything useful. You didn’t bother to boil wildland water before drinking it, did you? I bet you didn’t filter it or add iodine or water purification tablets, either. You’re lucky you didn’t get sick.”
Rose shook her head, a little sheepishly. That probably accounted for the episodes of upset stomach she had endured. She had blamed it on the food from Big Lots, but maybe the water was to blame.
Daffodil shook her head. “You’re what used to be called a greenhorn, and is now known as a weekend warrior. You’re out here, but you don’t know what you’re doing. You’re lucky you didn’t make yourself sick, or become a meal for a bear or mountain lion.”
“I’m sure I came close enough,” Rose admitted, “especially this afternoon.”
“True enough. If I hadn’t found you, some predator probably would have. Not many people come through this way right now, especially with the trail out.”
Rose sighed. “I know. I just...I had to get away.”
Daffodil gave her an understanding look. “I know the feeling. Are you ready for dinner?”
“Yes!” Rose couldn’t contain her eagerness. Daffodil laughed, dishing up a portion of the soup, along with an apple and a plastic cup of herb tea.
The sun was growing low in the sky as the two women ate, Rose devouring her food in record time and eating everything left in the cooking pot. After also eating several packets of saltines, she was finally full.
Daffodil just stared at her, shaking her head. “You really haven’t been eating much, have you?”
Rose shook her head. “I didn’t have much, and didn’t want to go into a town to buy more.”
Daffodil gestured around her. “There’s food here, if you know where to look.”
Rose looked at her skeptically. “You mean like wild greens?” In truth, the greens in the soup had tasted good, though she wasn’t sure how much of that was because she was hungry and how much was because they were actually good.
“And lots of other stuff. How do you think the Indians survived here?”
“I never really thought about it.”
Daffodil sighed. “Stick with me and I’ll teach you how to stay alive. Because if you keep wandering around like this, you’re going to need some survival skills. Come to think of it, you might need those skills anyway. Every bit of information is useful.”
Rose nodded, still skeptical, but seeing the wisdom of Daffodil’s words. “Well, I can try to learn, as soon as I am able—if you can put up with me that long.”
The dark-haired woman grinned. “I can tolerate a lot. We’ll start as soon as you can stand up straight.”