Onion Fever, Part I

She felt desiccated, like an old onion wedge, left in the bottom of the pan after the roast is long eaten.  Dry, forgotten, unwanted, then ground in the garbage disposal during a vigorous scrubbing.  But it's only how she felt. That's what happens when you are stuck alone in a desert canyon, sending text after text before your cell phone dies, with nary an answer, then get up to extricate yourself and fall and chew up your knees, hands, arms on a crumbly bit of sand-paper sandstone.

Other than that, she was doing quite well.  She was 12 miles from nowhere, from some obscure trail-head at the end of a long road whose name she couldn't remember, 20 miles from the closest town (as the vulture flies) of 158.  Heck, she couldn't even remember what national park or monument or whatever she was in, only that Bill Clinton had made it such.

The hike in had been invigorating.  Only everything she valued on the way in--solitude, self-time, remoteness, serenity--were the very things she loathed now.  Waterless, foodless, scraped-up, and with blistery feet, her prospects looked poor.  Rationally, she was not in a good place.  Irrationally, she was even in a worse place. Common sense and reason suggested that she wouldn't survive without some good fortune and a good dose of energy that she utterly lacked.  Her edgy nerves, however, told her that she was all-but-dead.  Neither one was encouraging.

What to do?  Push out the way she had come?  Many, many hours from the best chance at a rescue?  Or go deeper in with some vague hope that there was a closer road or some other person in that direction?  (Oh how she wished she had studied the topo map more carefully before leaving!)  Or should she scale the treacherous face of the rock around her and hope she could see something promising?  That would surely spend her energy and seemed reckless--putting all of her rattlesnake eggs in one Anasazi basket, so to speak.

Ultimately, she decided on a couple things.  First, she would head out the way she came.  Second, she wouldn't do anything until the sun was a bit lower in the sky.  Third, she would abandon her back-pack.  Fourth, she would avoid risking gnawing on any plants en route, hunger and thirst notwithstanding.  Fifth, she would cut up some scraps of cloth to try to cushion her feet from her sandals.  Sixth, she would head out at a steady, purposeful pace and not think about anything but the next step.  That was the plan.  No thinking about the mountain lion tracks she thought she saw earlier.  No worrying about the obnoxious bats already shooting around overhead.  No thinking about food.  Definitely no worrying about water.  No hesitating or out-thinking herself.  No changing her plan.  No panicking because of the coyote poop here and there in the canyon.  No worrying about the heavy clouds moving in from the north (the very direction out).  She would follow her plan, clear her mind of all worry, and just take one step.  Then another.  Then another.  And not stop until . . . well, until there were no more steps.

One hour later, feet freshly protected with strips of a shirt, backpack abandoned, she set out and took her first step, a dried, pathetic onion looking to avoid the bottom of the drain.