She filled a paper bag with some groceries, mostly canned goods, while Joe opened the map and studied it on the counter at the front of the station.
"Looks like the best way out," Joe said, "Is still going to be 90. We should be able to skirt around most of the traffic, shouldn't we?"
"Believe it or not, I don't really know," Arlene answered. "I mean I live here, or did, but I didn't get out of the city at all, or hardly ever, so I don't know what its’ like."
She paused and looked at Joe as he bent over the map. He smiled as he spoke.
"I actually understand that," he said. "I didn't really know a lot about getting around outside of Watertown. I guess you learn how to get to the places you need to get to, and that's about it. No real big deal though. According to the map there are a lot of loops, sort of side roads that go around, and run parallel to 90, and hey, we've got four wheel drive, we can cut through the fields if we have to, right?"
Arlene shrugged her shoulders, as she replied. "I guess?" The attempt at humor was not lost on her, and she flashed a smile at him as she shrugged her shoulders again. "I guess if the cows don't mind."
Joe grinned back, and they both laughed a little as they walked back out to the truck.
"You know," Joe said as they climbed into the cab of the truck, "we should stop and pick up a couple of sleeping bags, and maybe a tent too. We still need to pick up a couple of rifles as well." He didn't want to alarm her, or make her start to worry, by bringing the subject up once more, but the truth was that he was fairly worried himself. If there were armed people running around killing whoever they chose too, it would be kind of stupid, he thought, not to have weapons. Arlene had the pistol, but Joe wasn't sure it would do a lot of good. She surprised him when she not only agreed, but didn't seem to lose her smile when she did.
"I think it would be stupid not to carry a rifle," she said, echoing Joe's thoughts, "you know much about them?"
"Not really," Joe confessed, "I've never even shot a rifle, you know, just never learned, I guess, or even wanted to. I think I could learn though. You know anything about them?"
"Well, now that you mention it, I do. At least a little. Not from shooting one, but more from seeing them. There are a lot of pawn shops on Beechwood, sort of goes with the territory, I guess. That's where I got this," she said, holding up the small pistol, "there has to be a sports shop out here somewhere." Almost as she spoke Joe spotted one across the crowded interstate.
"There is one," Joe said as he pointed.
They left the truck beside the stalled traffic, and walked through and around the cars to the large shop. They spent the better part of the afternoon outfitting themselves from the racks in the shop and carrying what they needed across the road to the truck. The pickup had a black vinyl bed cover. They opened it, stored the tent and the sleeping bags along with the other camping gear inside it, and then snapped the cover back into place.
"It probably won't keep everything totally dry," Joe said, "if it rains, I mean. This is kind of more for show than actual protection," he said indicating the cover. "But, it should still do all right."
They had both picked up weapons in the shop. Joe had picked out a deer rifle, a fairly impressive looking Remington. He had also picked up several boxes of the ammunition the rifle took. Arlene had settled on an entirely different sort of weapon. It looked more like a machine gun of some sort to Joe, and she also picked up several boxes of ammunition for it, and several spare clips. She explained to him that it really wasn't a rifle, but a machine pistol, and that it could fire better than seventy rounds a second if it were converted to full automatic. This one wasn't she said, but she had seen some that were. To Joe it still looked like a machine gun, and he joked that the sight of it alone would probably scare anyone off.
By the time they had loaded the truck and gotten under way it was late afternoon. Even with the late start, and the slow going due to the traffic, they managed to make it to Lake Easton in the Snoqualmie National Forest preserve, before night-fall.
The elevation had been rising all day as they climbed through first the foothills, and then the mountains of the Cascade Range.
Joe angled the truck off to the side of the grassy median they had been traveling, and followed a dirt road into the heavily forested park area. About a half mile in they came to a wide calm lake. The area was completely deserted. No cars, no trucks, and only a few empty, rustic buildings close by the water. They worked together to gather some dead-fall to build a small fire.
Arlene piled the dry wood next to a large stone fireplace, and Joe carefully arranged some of the wood inside the fireplace, over some smaller twigs and crumpled pieces of paper, while Arlene opened the rear of the truck and pulled out the sleeping bags, as well as some metal camp utensils they had picked up earlier. They debated on leaving the tent, but decided to set it up instead, close to the fireplace. The buildings were dark and deserted-looking, and not the least bit inviting
