Joe had mentioned the day before, that it was probably not safe to use the main road any longer. She knew now that he was right. At first she had thought that his reasoning had been influenced by the previous attack they had experienced, but now she was not so sure. Now she was convinced that he had already known, that he had somehow seen what was ahead, and knew that the only way for them to travel safely was via the back roads.
As she sat in the darkness waiting for the sunrise, she realized that she too had known. She had only to recall their conversation of the previous night. But, unlike the worry she'd had that they were too late, she was now slowly becoming convinced that they were not. That they had been meant from the first, to arrive after the start of the battle. That their place in the battle was still to come, that they had not missed it at all, and that maybe they had an entirely different battle of their own to fight, long before they found Frank Morgan. She sat and tried to make sense of all of the thoughts that seemed to be running loose in her mind.
She slowly became aware that the sky was beginning to color with the first rays of sunrise. The silent, night-black forest surrounding them began to awaken. Birds began to whistle in the pre-dawn air. Their whistled conversations flew back and forth, and were soon joined by the chatter of a multitude of squirrels who also called the forest home. The symphony created by the forest inhabitants began to break apart her troubled thoughts as she listened, and the black mood that had begun to descend upon her finally lifted as the first brilliant rays of sunlight began to stream down through the thick pines of the forest.
She rose slowly and began to re-kindle the fire. When Joe awoke a few minutes later, she had coffee heating, and had already prepared a small breakfast from the left over dinner of the night before.
Lazy curls from the wood fire drifted slowly up through the trees into the morning air, the smoky scent hung in the air, and invoked nothing but good feelings in her. When Joe crawled out of the tent, the black mood that had threatened to envelop her was completely gone, and had been replaced with a deep feeling of peace that calmed and soothed her soul. She knew they would have to be careful on their trek east, but she was no longer overpowered by the sense of foreboding that had washed over her earlier.
"Morning, babe," Joe said, as he sat down next to her and took the steaming cup of coffee she offered, "Sleep okay?"
She considered her answer only briefly, "No," she replied, "I woke up a couple of hours ago and couldn't get back to sleep. I kept thinking about things, Joe. Like what's ahead for us, and I couldn't shake the feeling that we have to be careful, but that we do have an important part to play. It’s sort of like; I just know that we didn't miss anything. Not really, we just haven't gotten to where we need to be yet... to our part," she looked into his eyes as she finished speaking.
"I know how you feel, Hon, I feel the same way," Joe said, "I spent a long time thinking about it last night before I could finally get to sleep. I guess I just don't care anymore. Not about the battle, but what our part in it is. We could drive ourselves crazy trying to reason it...whatever happens, happens, I guess, and we'll just face it when we get there," he paused for a second. "I think truthfully that we'll be okay, I really do. If I didn't I would say so. We'll just keep going...and Becky, I don't want to die again, I really don't, but if I have to I will. I know now what's beyond death, or what I used to think of as death. It's not bad, not lonely, not any of the things I thought it was. I can face it now, and I intend to, wholeheartedly."
Joe finished speaking, and when he did he pulled Becky to him and held her.
"Are you afraid, honey," he asked her.
"No," she replied, "not afraid of death anyhow, maybe just afraid of losing us, or not being together anymore, of being apart for a long time, I don't want that, Joe, I really don't," she began to cry as she finished, and Joe held her, comforting her as best he could. I don't want to be apart from you either, he thought, not at all.
Aloud he said, "Becky?" he waited until she looked up at him. "I don't believe we will be apart, I really don't. I think that we just have to be careful so that doesn't happen, you know, like if we just went ahead with no thought to what we were doing, we could find ourselves in a bad situation, or we might not be able to think quickly enough if something happened, and that might cause us to lose each other. But, I don't, and can't believe that we will. Not if we're careful, Becky, and that's probably what we're being made to see."
The symphony around them continued as the rays of sunlight fought their way deeper into the forest to awaken its inhabitants; they held each other and allowed the calls and whistles of bird-talk to dispel their fears. Its calming effect soon overcame the fear and apprehension thinking of the trip had heaped upon them.
Joe raised his head and looked into the eyes of a small gray ground squirrel that sat watching them on a gnarled limb of
