“Because the council meeting is held out here.” Leading me off the trail, he pulled back a few low branches of a thick tree. He pointed to a small cabin not fifty yards away from where we stood. “That’s where the Elders meet to hear cases, settle disputes, and make rules.”

“I didn’t realize they were so close by. Aren’t you afraid they’ll know we’re out here?” I asked.

“No one’s there yet,” James said, allowing the branch to swing away. “No one ever comes out to The Cabin unless there’s a council meeting.”

As I followed him back to the path, I slid the black headband off my head. Without breaking my stride, I pushed the headband halfway down a branch on the first tree we came to on the path. The rustling sound caught James’s attention. When he turned back to see what was happening, I roughly pushed against the branch as if moving it out of my way. James gave me a smile and I caught up to him, catching his hand in mine.

We walked for another ten minutes, me memorizing every twist and turn on the path, burning images into my mind like my own personal GPS.

James pointed to a heavily wooded area. “We’ll make camp over there.” He started off the path before noticing I hadn’t moved.

“Give me a sec?” I asked.

With a nod, he moved a few yards into the woods. When I was positive he wasn’t watching, I fished the twine out of my bag and tied it around the base of a young sapling. When I stood, I saw James was waving me over. I pretended to zip up my jeans, then joined him.

James had already dug a hollow place in the ground. “Think you can you get some twigs?” he asked. “I’m going to head that way for firewood.”

It wasn’t long before we were sitting at a campfire that was almost identical to the site we’d left behind that morning. James opened his backpack, rifling in it. He passed the bag of jerky to me. The sandwich we’d shared at breakfast had worn off long ago. I found I no longer cared about how the jerky had been made. There were twelve pieces. We had to ration the food, but it was a struggle forcing myself to only remove one piece. I nibbled on the jerky, trying to make it last a little longer.

James ate one piece, then tucked the bag back into his backpack. “The tea will help take the hunger pangs away.” He pulled out a battered coffeepot, then poured water from his canteen into the pot and added one of the teabags he’d gotten earlier in the trade. He set the pot directly on the fire. A few minutes later, he filled a dented cup with tea and handed it to me.