Be Not Far from Me

Ashley’s foot is throbbing, and she is “freezing” when she wakes up (52). However, she quickly corrects her language; she did almost freeze once several years ago during a cold snap when she went outside her trailer and almost didn’t make it back. Her dad found her in the snow, but she would have frozen to death otherwise. Ashley is also hungry, but hunger is familiar to her. She went without food for days at a time in the past when her dad didn’t have enough money for groceries. In those times, Meredith would notice and take care of Ashley by bringing an extra sandwich to school for her.

Ashley checks her foot for infection when the sun comes out. She doesn’t see any infection yet but knows that it can come on quickly and, by then, it’s too late to stop. She thinks she probably has about three days before people realize she never made it home; her dad is working overtime and sleeping at a friend’s, so he won’t realize she isn’t home. Ashley decides that she needs a goal for the day. Setting a goal helps her fight through pain and fatigue when she runs cross country, so she makes the goal of walking two miles in the same direction that day. She makes a sling for her injured foot using her shirt so that her foot is tied behind her bottom. She decides to head west and has a good sense of direction, but she realizes that the leaning caused by her injury will pull her south.

After walking for three hours, she stops for a drink at a stream but falls backward and lands on her injured foot. While trying to recover from the overwhelming pain, she thinks of Duke and the time she spent at his house. With the presence of his five younger siblings, Duke’s house was always full of noise and activity. However, when Duke’s father came home, silence would ensue, a sign of the kind of fear Duke’s father evoked in his children. Ashley soaks her foot in the icy stream water, which helps to numb the pain, and she tries pressing different parts of her foot to assess the damage of her injury. She experiences intense pain after barely touching the base of her two smallest toes. After recovering from the initial shock, she presses again and pus comes out from under the skin. Her foot is infected.

When Ashley hears thunder in the distance, she starts to build a shelter. As she gathers branches, she finds a worm and eats it, knowing it contains energy that she needs. She also thinks of Davey Beet as she works, the person who taught her all her wilderness skills. Ashley’s dad sent her to Camp Little Fish, a Christian camp, the summer she was 10 years old and in subsequent summers. Davey, five years older than Ashley, was a counselor there. She went on one of his wilderness hikes and immediately found that she respected him. She listened intently as he talked to campers about survival skills.

Ashley finishes her shelter just as the rain starts to fall, and she builds a fire using friction, another skill Davey taught her. Ashley always had a crush on Davey, but he didn’t see her that way because of their age gap. Davey did admire Ashley’s attitude and mind, though. He nicknamed her “Ass-kicker Ashley” when she hit a camper on the head with a stick for throwing a toad in the fire (78). During Ashley’s third summer at Camp Little Fish, she was the only camper to sign up for Davey’s wilderness hikes. Among many other outdoor skills, he taught her to identify birds and mushrooms and to track animals in the woods. A few years ago, however, Davey walked into the Smoky Mountains after his girlfriend broke his heart, and he was never seen again. When Ashley first heard about his disappearance, she was shocked. If anyone had the knowledge to survive in the Smokies, it was Davey. If he didn’t make it in these woods, Ashley wonders what chance she has at survival.

When Ashley wakes up on day three, a possum is chewing on her injured foot. She throws a stick to scare it away and removes her t-shirt bandage to examine her foot. When she smells the stench of rotting flesh and sees that her pinkie toe is almost gone from the possum, she knows that part of her foot is dead and will need to be amputated. Red runs up her ankle, a sign of the infection spreading. Ashley continues hobbling west, with no idea if she is headed toward civilization or not. At midday, she rests near some clovers and eats some of the leaves. Ashley has always hated litter, but now she longs to see a sign that another human passed this way. She always sought solitude in nature, but now that she has it, she misses human companionship. Ashley reflects on a memory from when she was young, when she saw a dying raccoon being followed by a buzzard. Even though the raccoon knew it was dying, it kept walking, looking over its shoulder at the buzzard. Ashley took pity on the raccoon and shot the buzzard, wanting the raccoon to see its adversary die first; she then shot the raccoon to end its misery. In this moment, Ashley feels like the raccoon, looking over her shoulder and trying to stay a few steps ahead of death. She continues walking and stops for water a mile later. She eats more edible plants that she finds near the stream and builds a fire for the night. As darkness falls, she sees the blinking red light of a plane overhead and feels the separation between herself and civilization.