Ranger (The Bugging Out Series Book 5) Read Online Free

about.
    Elaine.
    I had to get back to her. Back to Bandon to make sure she was all right. That she hadn’t been spirited off from our getaway as I had.
    I shaved the frame. More. Harder. The mound of magnesium grew. And grew. I imagined I would need as much as possible, thinking that what I was dealing with would not be as pure as the magnesium firestarters most outdoorsmen were familiar with. I would have to make up for insufficient quality with abundant quantity.
    Finally, when my hands were nearing a point of uselessness, I stopped, satisfied with what I’d managed to shave from the old saw’s frame. I gathered logs that had been tossed about the cabin and arranged them around the pile of magnesium in the hearth. They were thick, as beefy as my forearms and larger, and would not be easily lit just by a brief flaring of intense heat that I hoped to generate. No, I needed actual kindling.
    Just above my head I found it.
    Jutting from the structure of the stone fireplace was a length of thick, seasoned lumber that functioned as a mantle. The rustic beam predated the blight by decades and, most importantly, was dry as a bone.
    I stood and worked the knife along its lower edge, the dulled blade carving long slivers of the rich wood with difficulty. My fumbling hands did nothing to ease the effort, but my determination to live would not allow me to stop. I’d been soaked and cold now for hours. The temperature had to be hovering in the mid-forties. After sundown it would creep into the upper thirties. The hunk of wood I was attempting to slice and dice might be the only thing that would allow me to make it through the night.
    Piece by piece I cut slender lengths of kindling, gouging the once lovely mantle. Once again, when my hands and fingers and arms were left trembling and weak, I stopped, awkwardly gathering the strips of old wood and arranging it above the pile of magnesium shavings.
    For a moment I cupped my hands in front of my mouth and exhaled, warming my fingers as best I could so that some dexterity would return to them. I would need that ability to hold and manipulate something small. If I could not manage that, then my time would run out.
    I looked to the box of matches on the mantle, stretching my fingers as I continued to breathe upon them. They moved without excessive tremoring, and they did what I wanted them to do. It was time.
    This had to work.
    I took the box and slid it open, removing one match as I crouched near the makings of a fire I’d collected and made. Behind me, rain hammered the world outside, small streams penetrating the roof overhead, nearby but not close enough to threaten what I was about to attempt. Darkness spilled into the damaged cabin, night coming fast. The cold was building by the second, it seemed. My mind and body craved warmth.
    “Come on,” I said to myself and I dragged the match head along the abrasive strip on the side of the box.
    A lovely yellow flame bloomed at the end of the match. For a moment I did nothing with it. I didn’t put it to the magnesium shavings. Didn’t move it an inch. I just stared at it.
    Then, I eased it toward my kindling and the accelerant I’d scavenged from the chainsaw. The tiny flame licked close to the silvery shavings. Closer. Closer. The precious fire was almost in contact when a sudden gust of damp wind ripped through the open front of the cabin, snuffing the match out and scattering the pile of magnesium.
    “Damn...”
    My hands trembled, iced to the bone now, knuckle joints almost locked by the penetrating cold. I used my left hand to brush the magnesium back into a pile beneath the kindling and shifted my body to better protect the makings of my fire. Then, I struck another match.
    I felt the wind rushing over my hunched back as I hovered over the tiny flame I held. The almost comically small bolt of hot yellow danced as the gust swirled past and into the hearth, but it held. It had to. Still one more remained, but I seriously doubted