Jen's Legacy.

Royce walked slowly down the slope to the river, with Claire sitting on his shoulders. He was constantly and vibrantly aware of her semi-clothed condition, sitting on his neck and shoulders, with her shirt fluttering around his ears in the freshening breeze, always conscious of her breasts sitting just above him, accessible to him, crying out to be noticed. At least that was the way he felt, with his body constantly crying out for release.

He regretted setting out now. They should have stayed another day at their last shelter and have let Claire’s feet harden up, but they should have stayed for other reasons.

In that gully it would have been warm, and they'd had enough water; wood for a fire, and enough food for another day, plain and unexciting though it would have been. Being in love, they would not have complained, having enough other exciting things to do, and to learn about each other.

They could have played in that small strip of woods along the gully, exploring, running around naked together, chasing each other without a care in the world, like a couple of woodland nymphs, never far from each other, coming together often to kiss, to caress, to luxuriate in their love, and to drop laughing into the grass; going quiet as more serious things happened between them yet again. They could have been making love over and over again, pausing only to eat and to get warm by the fire—if they needed to—until they were ready to make love again.

That rest would have given her blisters more time to heal, and for them to learn much more about each other as they relaxed, and talked, and made love. Always needing to make love, which began to take on as important a role for them as breathing and thinking.

They were able to laugh and joke about that now, and think about what they might even then have been doing had they stayed. They could have made love two or three or more times already.

Their minds thought alike, with the same thought on both of their minds, marveling at what had happened between them so soon after meeting, not understanding how it had happened so fast, leaving their senses swimming, but knowing that they would be keen to make love again when they stopped, and before they did anything else.

They could have set out for Badger’s Crossing, later on Friday, much refreshed, even more in love; stock up on the food cache that Claire had mentioned was there. He could fish and they could continued to make love, or wait to be rescued, but he didn’t much like that thought. It wouldn't be a rescue, but a damned inconvenience to them both.

The crossing was an obvious staging point to investigate up and down the river, with other searchers starting from where she had fallen into the rapids, always concerned at what they might find caught up on the bank or floating in an area of still water.

Claire had her own views on that. By now, the headlines could be shouting that she, lone heiress to the Prescott billions, had gone missing in the canyon on Monday last.

Every adventurer within a thousand miles could, even now, be descending upon this place in the hopes of finding her or her body, to claim whatever reward her family would offer. Too late; Royce had already found her body, alive and well, very much alive, and very well, just as she had found his. They had laid claim to each other.

...Or her family would keep it quiet if they could, and would mount a private search effort. Her gran would be the one to see to that with Claire’s parents still being in Europe and on their way back even now, if they’d heard.

She and Royce shouldn’t stay in one place for long. She didn’t want to be found like that, and dragged in, ignominiously, like a bounty for the taking whether she wanted to be or not.

She would be found when she wanted to be found and not before. She needed to phone her grandmother to let her know that she was alright and tell her other things to reassure her, but there was no signal. As for reassuring her grandmother, she might instead be conveying mixed news. Her gran would be pleased to hear that she was safe and alive, but would not want to hear the rest of what Claire would need to tell her about what had happened to her and was still happening, or about how she'd met someone. None of it would sound innocent. No matter, Claire would have to tell her. She and her grandmother had few secrets.

By today, or soon after, weather-permitting, there would be a rescue started of some kind. Even though helicopters or planes might not be able to fly in such uncertain and inclement weather, there would be ground parties setting out to search stretches of the river from where it was known that Claire had fallen from the raft, and then farther downriver from there.

If, by any chance, someone stumbled over that first campsite and saw that scrawled message in the sand—if it had survived the storm of the previous night—then the rescue would change into a more optimistic venture. That information would be relayed out, and then the search would move away from the river and from a likely tragic outcome, and onto the northern rim where they would be relatively easily found. Too easily found!

It was not a comforting thought for Claire.

If any searcher blundered over the camp sites they had left behind, the evidence of what they had done with each other, would be obvious to anyone with any tracking abilities, and then the rescue might turn into a hunting party. They would be intent on tracking him down and rescueing her from her rescuer before he could do her any more damage of the kind he was obviously doing to her on a regular basis. Poor girl!

Poor girl my foot! She laughed, hearing Royce relate that possibility to her but did not have to wonder what evidence he referred to.

They had left more than enough of that behind wherever they had stopped; from bodily fluids (his, of course, though some; most, was second-hand, from her at their last camp) a different kind of hair (hers, if it had not all gone into that fire), and evidence of other personal things that had taken place with them never so far from each other, and only one obvious place where they had slept; little wider than one and half body-widths. They'd been sharing too much. There was a story being told for those who could read it.

She’d also captured much of what had happened, from time to time on her camera phone, usually without Royce knowing, or when he had been asleep, but he had also done the same for her, as she'd noticed, once or twice. They'd both needed to preserve important memories for their children to see (or maybe not). His battery must be low by now.

They would leave more evidence of what they were doing with each other at Badger’s Crossing too, but she had changed her mind about that rescue, which was why she’d left that lifejacket behind. Although, thinking about that, it might not have been the wisest thing to do.

That brightly colored life-jacket would be hard to miss on that trail, and would be another marker to show some of their progress and that they had at least got that far, as well as the direction they were headed in. Damn! Too late to change that now.

Claire was surprised how easily Royce carried her, but he was always very careful where he placed his feet.

On the few steeper and more difficult stretches, dropping a hundred feet or more at a time down a narrow trail, he put her down, got rid of his pack and carried them down separately, piggybacking her then, with her weight lower on him so he wouldn’t stumble and fall with her so readily; always madly aware that her shirt fluttered open around her, behind him again, and he couldn't take advantage of it. Damn!

Could he survive this before they got to Badger’s Crossing?

He had to.

He tried to make up for that frustration, by kneeling in front of her, moving between her legs and taking her into his arms when he got her down to where he’d left his pack, holding her close to him, his head resting between her breasts as he tried to recover. They were like that for a few minutes as they rested at the bottom to drink; to recover (he would never recover); and to kiss and caress (no time for anything else, dammit!), before going on, with her on his shoulders again.

There was now more of a sense of urgency about everything they were doing, driven from more than one direction with their emotions becoming like a tightly-strung instrument, with something about to snap if they didn't do something about it soon.