Rules of Protection(77)

Determined to make my way back to Floss, I crawled up the bank and stepped farther into the woods. Following the river upstream, I carefully made my way over rocks, rotting branches, and dead leaves. The brutal terrain bruised and scraped my feet.

By now, Floss had surely realized I was missing. She would’ve alerted Jake, who would be out searching. They’d find me and he’d yell at me for being an overbearing pain in his ass and tell me how stupid I was. And he’d be right, of course. Because who the hell in their right mind almost kills themselves picking stupid berries? Well, besides me. Just proves that I don’t belong here. Damn it, Jake. Why’d you bring me here and make me fall for you? This is all your fault.

I snapped back to reality when something moved in the brush. A tiny reddish-brown piglet with broken stripes running down its sides stared back at me. The piglet squealed and ran skittishly back into the briars. It would’ve been funny that I startled the piglet, if several grunting adults hadn’t stepped out.

Before coming to Texas, the only knowledge I’d had of pigs was what I learned from watching Charlotte’s Web. Pigs were cute, pink, and friendly. But these weren’t pigs; they were wild hogs. Hank had warned me how dangerous they could be. I suspected the two smaller ones were females.

Physically, the third hog was different. He was big, black, and so obviously male with thick, wiry hair raised on the back of his neck in an aggressive position.

His massive head was too large for his body, and his legs and snout were longer than the females’. He made a scissor motion with his jaw to show me his exceptionally sharp tusks, ones he planned to put to good use. I could hear him grunting with agitation, my presence exciting him. Unlike Wilbur, he wasn’t cute, pink, or friendly.

Then he charged me.





Chapter Seventeen

I barely had time to contemplate what to do, but managed to scramble up the tree next to me. Thank God the branches hung low enough for me to pull myself up.

The grunting, pissed-off hog tromped back and forth through the briars, taking out his frustration on the base of the tree, slashing deep gouges with its tusks. I tightened my grip on the branches, digging my fingers into the ridges of the bark.

From the safety of the tree, I saw more hogs on the other side of the briar patch. The herd consisted of eleven feral hogs, counting the five small piglets running jerkily behind their mother. I wasn’t sure which piglet had noted my arrival, but now that I was helplessly stuck up a tree, I wanted to drop-kick the little f*cker.

I pelted the hogs with small branches in hopes of scaring them off, but every time one of them squealed, the boar became even more agitated, lashing out at the tree trunk again.

I’d paid so much attention to the danger below me, I hadn’t realized the danger from above. A sudden crack of lightning scared me almost as much as it scared the hogs. They startled and ran in circles, grunting and squealing as they regrouped. Once it started raining, they shot off into the woods, as if they didn’t dare get wet. Who knew pigs were made of sugar?

My muscles hurt, and as badly as I wanted out of the tree, I forced myself to stay put, in case the hogs hadn’t left the area. At least a half hour later, I swung out of the tree, picked up the largest stick I could find as a weapon, and resumed my hike, walking as fast as possible. Running would’ve been quicker, but not smart on bare feet.

Determined to keep moving, I waded through slick mud and trudged over sharp sticks and rocks that bruised and poked into my heels. Brush scratched against my legs. Thorny vines littered the ground, pricking into my feet as I stepped on them. My wet hair plastered to my scalp and rainwater dripped into my eyes, making me blink constantly to clear my vision.

I tried to think of it as a nature walk, but who in their right mind would be out in this weather? My clothes stuck to me, chafing my waterlogged, sunburned skin, but I had to keep moving. Every moment I stopped to rest or pull thorns from my dirty feet put me dangerously closer to nightfall.

The longer I walked, the more my stress level rose. What if Jake assumed I had run off again? Would he bother looking for me? No, I couldn’t let myself think that. Though Jake couldn’t go to the authorities and organize a search party without drawing attention, he’d definitely be looking for me.

I hoped.

Hefting myself over a large dead tree, I spotted a dilapidated hunting blind ahead. It was unoccupied, unless you counted the mud daubers building a home in the entryway. I didn’t want to stop moving, but walking through the woods at night in the rain wasn’t an option.

I climbed up the broken ladder into the moldy blind and found a dry spot in the far corner. The hunting blind probably hadn’t been used in years and was falling apart at the seams. The leaky roof, rotted through in several places, left the wooden floor damp and swollen. One dry corner was all I needed and, apparently, all I was going to get.

I leaned my back against a wall of questionable sturdiness and shook from the inside out. It wasn’t cold, but the cool rain had soaked my sunburned limbs, and the contrast in temperatures made me shiver with the chills. The idea of spending the night in the woods alone probably played a part in it as well.

My feet felt like raw, splinter-infested nubs, but were too caked with mud to see any real damage. I didn’t bother wiping it away, though. The mud soothed the ant bites, keeping them from itching or burning. Dizzy and nauseated, I curled into a ball with severe muscle cramps.