Chapter 28 Luke and Zia Talk (1/2)
They all finished their dinner sitting outside the cave, thereafter they washed the dishes. Each one of them was sleepy. It had been a long day. Because of the attack on the camp by the bear they had got up at 5 a.m. and all the descending from the cliff to the dried up river bed in the valley and the long walk and finally taking the wrong turn had tired them out.
Dragging their feet towards their sides of the cave, they quickly got into the warm cozy comfort of their sleeping bags. As soon as their head touched the soft bags as they lay down, all of them dozed off. By 10 p.m. some of the boys were snoring. Sherpa was wide awake and he kept the fire burning slowly to ensure no wild animals would come this way. The fire would scare them.
Luke and Sherpa had decided to keep watch for 3 hours each. Sherpa was on the first watch from 10 p.m. to 1.30 a.m. Luke would have taken over after 1.30 a.m. to 5 a.m.
After 4 hours, Sherpa got up from his watch position at the entrance of the cave and went to wake up Luke. Luke awoke, but was highly annoyed with Sherpa, as to why he had kept watch for 4 hours. Anyway, he told Sherpa to sleep; as now he would keep watch and would keep watch till early morning.
Luke sat near the cave entrance where Sherpa had been sitting. A lot of things were on his mind. He also felt that there was something wrong about the dried grass placed conveniently inside the cave and the twigs outside. Then fact that the cave looked as if no one had ever entered it. It was quite uncanny.
At around 4.30 a.m. Zia woke up.She saw the figure of Luke silhouetted against the fire at the entrance of the cave. She thought that she would give him company and talk to him about things that were on her mind.
”Good morning Luke, mind if I join you?” she asked as she joined him.
Luke couldn't see her but heard her voice and his heart missed a beat. Zia wanted to join him at his watch. ”Howromantic!”
”Good morning, shouldn't you be asleep, are you not tired.”
”No, I have rested and feel ok. I got up early, seeing you sitting her on watch and I thought I'd join you and discuss some things that are on my mind.”
”Ok, sit down and tell me what is troubling you?” replied Luke feeling concerned.
Zia sat down besides Luke about a few inches away. She turned towards her left side so that she was facing Luke while she spoke to him.
The fire they had lit last night had almost died down. It would be daybreak soon Luke thought that he also needed to talk to her but was it the right time, or should he wait for tomorrow? He was caught up in his thoughts.
”I just need an opinion that when you and Sunny inspected the cave, you did not find any footprints etc indicating it had never been used. But then how come the dried grass was kept on the side and twigs outside the cave?” she pondered aloud and added, ”I feel someone deliberately kept the twigs outside and the dried grass inside for us to use. After keeping these things and cleaning the footprints etc, he or she left via the tunnel in the adjacent cave which you have closed by placing the tent bags at the narrow entrance of the tunnel from the cave side.”
”I may be wrong but I have a hunch that we are not alone here, someone is watching over us. Not in a malevolent way but in a benevolent way.”
”This someone knew we had taken a wrong turn and that we would not be able to reach the village no matter what we did. Apparently he, on his own, or his friends or helpers went ahead of us to make these tiny arrangements so that we would spend the night comfortably.”