Over the River

…After a few more minutes at the roadside, Jake shook off his funk, and they got back on the bikes. Jake was immediately paying for the time they had spent stopped; his sore muscles had stiffened back up, and his knee and elbow now ached deeply. His face wanted to wince when he pedaled, but he was trying to hide the pain from Crystal. Every crank of the pedals caused a grimace from deep inside, but as long as he kept moving, he thought he could probably make it. He hoped that by the time Wolf Creek Road began to climb after the tunnel, he’d be limber enough to ignore the soreness. As they neared the tunnel, Jake and Crystal both saw them at the same time. Far inside the tunnel, several backlit silhouettes were crouching over something at the edge of the roadway. The tunnel was barely two lanes wide, and they both remembered what they had always been told; they certainly didn’t want a face to face confrontation with the notorious “tunnel men,” but Jake didn’t want to show Crystal any fear. But before he said anything, Crystal beat him to it. “Jake, who’s in there? What are those guys doing? Are those… those tunnel guys? Jake! Wait!” and she stopped her bike cold, right in the middle of the road. Jake rolled past her, but stopped right away, and slowly rolled his bike back to hers. “Crystal, you never want to let somebody think you’re afraid. That’s never good.” “But… I am afraid! Just yesterday, somebody trashed your bike and stole my backpack and nearly clubbed you with a tree branch! Suddenly, this doesn’t seem like the peaceful little town we moved to. Your face has a fresh bandage on it, and I don’t feel like getting mugged two days in a row, okay?” “Okay… let’s just calm down a little bit.” he whispered in a reassuring tone. “And let’s not attract attention to ourselves either. I don’t think they saw us yet, so let’s move our bikes out of their sight by the entrance over here.” They rolled their bikes to the right of the tunnel entrance, and just up the hill where the grass met the gravel, and leaned their bikes against a tree. Her stomach was in knots. Standing in the shadow of the tree, she whispered in his ear, “What can we do, Jake? To go over the hill will take us way too long, and…” “Crystal, we’re definitely not climbing over that hill, no way, my knee is flat out killing me. I wasn’t going to say anything, but I can barely ride the bike! Over the hill is out of the question.” “Okay Jake. I’m so sorry. But if we turn around and go back into town, we’d have to go all the way to Castle Fork, and turn back up past Albrights, before we could wind our way back to the bottom part of Wolf Creek Road. It’ll add, like, almost an hour to our trip, and Bud and Sadie are expecting us. We’ve never been late, and they would worry themselves sick…” “I know. I know. The more I think about it, the more I think there’s only one way through this problem. Full speed ahead, right up the middle. My knee won’t enjoy crankin’ that hard, but what choice do we have?” Face to face with him now, and close enough to feel his breath on her face, she agreed, “I know, I think you’re right. I was just thinking the same thing. Let’s do this.”