I was imagining her walking down the aisle toward me in a beautiful white dress, surrounded by our friends and family, when the sound of a voice scared the absolute shit out of me.
“Hey, man!” someone shouted from my left. “This is private property, and you’re trespassing.”
I turned to locate the source of the voice, and found a man dressed in camouflage staring at me from several yards away. Oh, and he was holding a shotgun that was thankfully not pointed at me.
I held my hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was trespassing. I’m lost and have been walking through these woods since sometime last night. Is this your property?”
“Yes, it is,” he confirmed.
It felt like a ton of weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. If he owned the property, he knew where we were, and more importantly, how to get out of the woods.
“If you’ll show me the way to the nearest road, I’ll happily remove myself from your property.”
His eyes roamed over me from head to toe and came to a stop on my bloody hands.
I shrugged. “I’ve had a really rough day. All I want to do is get out of these woods and go home.”
“Yeah, you look like you’ve seen better days. Follow me. My cabin’s not too far away. I’m sure you’ve already figured out there’s no cell phone reception out here, but I can drive you into town so you can call somebody.”
“Thank you. Seriously. I was beginning to think I’d never find my way out.”
“How long did you say you’d been out here?”
“I don’t know exactly. Since sometime last night.”
“How’d you wind up out here? This area’s pretty remote.”
“I was camping with a group of friends and got separated from the group,” I lied. I wasn’t going to take the chance of scaring him off by telling him I’d been kidnapped and escaped after waking up tied to a chair in an unfamiliar cabin.
“Well, shit. They probably reported you missing and are out looking for you. Hopefully, I can get you to town before I end up with a search and rescue team traipsing all over my land and scaring off the wildlife.”
There was no need for him to worry, but I couldn’t exactly tell him that either. “I hope so too. You’re doing me a huge favor, so I certainly don’t want to cause any trouble for you.”
He waved his hand dismissively. “You’re not causing any trouble. I just don’t like people. I come out here to get away from others, not unite with them.”
“I can understand that.”
When we reached his cabin, I waited outside while he went inside to get his keys. He came back out and tossed me a bottle of water.
“Thank you,” I said and proceeded to down the contents in one go.
“Here. Take this one too. I’ll run in and grab a couple more.”
“Appreciate it. I didn’t realize how thirsty I was until just now.”
“I bet so,” he chuckled.
“I’m Jimmy, by the way. What’s your name?” he asked once we were on the road.
“Coal,” I said simply and didn’t offer my last name.
“Are you from around here?”
Since I didn’t know where we were, I just said, “I’m from Devil Springs.”
He let out a low whistle. “Y’all don’t have places to camp closer to home?”
“Yeah, we do, but I wasn’t the one who planned this trip. I just came along with the group.”