One of these days, it’ll stop raining.

He sat quietly in the cab of the truck, his boots and jeans coated with a stiffening layer of thick, red mud. He turned the ignition and began to start the truck, but released it.

No use. I’m not getting out of here today.

He was miles away from the ranger station, and it was cold. Too cold to walk in the pouring rain. 

He kicked himself for not bringing a coat, or even a disposable rain poncho. 

Morning had passed easily, driving the mountain tracks listening for the gobble of a turkey and marking locations on his GPS, but the rain had set in just after lunch.

He didn’t worry about it, and as he wove his truck along the clay roads, the fat drops falling loudly onto his windshield, he simply stopped moving.

The speedometer read twenty-five miles per hour, yet the truck sat motionless save the back tires.

He had shoved the lever on the floor forward, making the front end of the truck heave along with the back, and he had managed to crawl forward a few more feet before they, too, had dug their own hole, and each tire spun within the confines of its self-made prison. 

The mud had flung onto the windshield, and soon the wipers played in a landscape of dirt and rock. The rain kept falling, and when he gave up and simply sat in the quiet cab, the drops eventually cleared the windshield.

Water pooled in the mud hole he had created, and he feared the filling of his cab with the mud he was trying to escape. 

He cracked the window as a bolt of lightning lit up the mountain top, and the thunder crashed loudly around him. As the thunder rumbled away into silence, a nearby turkey gobbled at the shocking noise. 

He pulled out his phone, pulling up the weather app and sighing in realization that the rain would be falling on him for days. 

No. No, no no!

He slammed his hand into the steering wheel and threw his phone down into the floorboard.

He shook his head, minutes passing. He slumped back into his seat, then opened the door quickly and jumped into the mud. 

He searched nearby for anything he could use. He found some large rocks and a long tree limb, and he shoved them under the tires, mud coating him all the way up to his shoulders. He then tried to drive over them, gunning the accelerator and feeling the rocks simply seep deeper into the neverending depths of clay. 

He growled angrily, pushing the pedal down even as he accepted defeat.

The truck heaved back and forth, yet sunk deeper still. He got out again, looking into the gray sky and letting the rain wash some of the mud from his face.

When he looked back at his truck, he felt the weight of his misery grow into blind acceptance. 

The mud was now touching the cab of the truck, and the axles had buried themselves into hiding.

But something caught his eye.

Near the back of the truck, lying on top of the mud, was a speck of white. 

Something had clung to the tread of the tires, and he had flung it from its burial in his fit of desperation. 

He waded over to the tailgate of the truck, reaching out and sinking his hand below the chunk of white material. The mud was so waterlogged that the soupy contents of the pit moved easily out of the way of his hand, and he lifted the bone from out of the mud. 

It was a tusk. Long, fractured, and coming to a sharp point. It was longer than his own arm, and he marveled at the ancient find.

Elephant’s? 

He shook his head.

Mammoth. Ice Age.

He lowered the tailgate of his truck, placing the tusk down gently. He then waded through the area, sinking his whole arms into the slop. 

It wasn’t hard to find more bones there, and each time he felt an obstruction in the pit, he pulled it out and placed it among the others on the tailgate. Soon, he had a truck bed full of ancient bone, ranging from moose antlers all the way to tiny arrowheads, even finding a tooth that was so long that he thought it could have belonged to a saber-toothed tiger.

But after he found the human skull, he stopped. He held it for a moment before dropping it and stumbling backwards, falling into the mud. 

He connected the dots, but he kicked himself for not realizing sooner.

Trophies, buried together. 

He stared at the skull that was now sinking back into the soup.

Honoring a great hunter. Buried with him.

He staggered back to the truck, slamming the door closed as the rain picked up with even more intensity, and he could no longer see outside of the cab.

One of these days, it’ll stop raining.

When he woke from his sleep, it was evening, and the thick clouds only made it darker. He could still see with just a hint of daylight left, but nothing more than shadows stood out among the pine trees. 

The rain was still falling, and he lifted his feet to find that the bottom of the truck was now a shallow pond. 

He exhaled slowly, rubbing his face with his hand.

The radio clicked on, playing a local rock station, and he jumped at the sudden noise. He stared at the stereo, glowing bright green, and watched as the song information scrolled across the display. The truck headlights made an audible click as they lit up, illuminating the heavy rain in front of him. 

He gasped and pushed his back hard into the seat. The headlights turned off, and the radio fell dark and silent. The dome light flickered on, then returned to dark like the others.

He struggled to breathe, thinking of explanations as quickly as he could.

Water and electronics don’t mix.

He sighed loudly, relieved. Of course. He was sitting in a sinking truck, and the muddy water was wreaking havoc on the wiring. 

The headlights turned on again, and then the dome light. He chuckled a little, and the radio began again, too.

As he watched the radio light up, the volume increased. He leaned closer as the volume increased again. The knob of the stereo clicked three more times as the volume increased for a third time, and he grabbed at the door handle, falling into the lake that now held his truck captive. As he struggled to his feet, the truck door slammed shut, and he heard the locks click.

As he waded away, the light from the truck’s dome light illuminated a small square of the murky water, and he yelled as he noticed the dark red color of the once muddy hole.

“No!” he screamed. And it was all he could manage to think. He had but the one thought, so he kept screaming it. “No! No! No!”

He stumbled out of the bloody pit and fell backwards. He landed hard on his back, and as he struggled to breathe, he saw an orange light, sitting atop the closest hill.

People! Other turkey hunters maybe.

He stood and ran as fast as he could manage, falling several times over large rocks and dead trees, made invisible by the darkening night.

He approached the fire, finding that he was alone.

“Hello?” he called. “Hello? Can you hear me?”

No one answered, yet someone had built the fire. There was a ring of rocks around the edge, and something cooked on a spit over the flames. A mat was stretched out beside the fire, and a pile of fur, a blanket, sat atop it. He looked back at his truck, which was now dark. He grabbed the fur blanket, surprised to find it dry. He covered his shoulders and immediately felt warm and protected from the falling rain. He sat down on the mat, and behind the fire he noticed another tusk, yet this one was still connected. A large mammoth head, completely without flesh, stared at him from the ground opposite. 

He shrugged the blanket closer, covering his neck from the rain, and waited for whoever’s camp he was in to return.

When he woke, the fire was gone. No coals, either. No blanket, or mat, or skull. Yet, he was warm and alive, and largely dry, yet the early morning sprinkles began to seep into his clothing.

He turned to face his truck, only to find a large swath of brown that ran from the top of the neighboring hill, all the way to the edge of a nearby cliff face. 

Flash flood.

His face turned white as he realized how much water had run down the mountain. The brown smudge revealed its trail, and the water had almost reached him where he slept, yet, he had been high enough. 

Just high enough.

He looked around the area where he had slept, finding no evidence anyone but him had been there through the night, and when he searched the scene where his truck had been stuck, he found nothing left. No bones, no blood, and no truck. 

He glanced back at where he had seen the fire, just before the flood, and nodded slowly.

Barely–or maybe perfectly–high enough.