by Nina Revoyr
Gwen was shivering, and she felt the rain pelting her arms and head. The dog cried and trembled beneath her. Then the hair stood up on the back of her neck. There was an audible buzz in the air, electricity crackling around them.
“Strike coming!” Todd yelled, and then a light so bright and vivid that Gwen thought it was the end of the world. She heard screams, male and female, and knew that one of them was her own. The earth rocked and bucked as if from an earthquake. Then a sharp crack unlike the earlier sounds, the sound of wood giving, a crash of impact. Slowly Gwen opened her eyes. She felt herself uncertainly—arms, legs, head. She wasn’t hit. She looked at the dog, who peered up at her, mute with terror. She raised her head, against instructions, and found the others looking up too. A hundred feet away, there was a tree with a gash in its middle, the top half broken off, fire burning at the spot where the lightning had hit.
“Holy shit!” Tracy shouted, exhilarated.
“Keep your head down!” yelled Todd.
“Did you fucking see that?”
“Yes! Shut up and stay down!”
But that strike was the worst of it. The next few flashes were close but not directly upon them. Ten minutes later the heart of the storm had passed over them. Twenty minutes after that the rain had stopped. Now it fell on the lake where they’d refilled their water; Gwen saw the drops hit the mottled surface and then fall more gently, creating circles that expanded into each other. They watched the storm’s progress as it moved across the valley and over the opposite range—the dark clouds, the diminishing flashes of light. By now the rain had doused the fire in the tree, leaving a fresh black simmering scar and the scent of burned wood.
“You all okay?” Tracy called out as they stood up stiffly, shaking their limbs, taking account of themselves.
“That was fucking close,” Oscar said. “Jesus Christ.”
“Yeah, seriously,” said Todd. “We were lucky.”
“I’ve never experienced anything like that,” Oscar laughed. “I almost pissed my pants!”
“I’ve been in thunderstorms before, but this was something else.” The dog ran over to Todd and shoved her head between his legs. He bent over and stroked her back.
“Is everyone okay?” Tracy asked again.
They all nodded. Gwen was still too shaken up to speak.
“That was amazing!” Tracy said, grinning.
Gwen looked at her, too tired to respond. Really, Tracy? she thought. She walked off without speaking, making her way back to where they’d discarded their things. She picked up her pack and poles, and brought them back to where the others stood. Tracy had recovered her pack too, and now she set up her stove behind a tree whose trunk and branches were folded in on themselves like a person in some elaborate yoga pose.
Todd pulled out his flask and unscrewed the top. “This’ll help us with the cold. And also with the shakes.”
They stayed for twenty minutes behind the shelter of trees, warming their bellies with tea and whiskey, reassuring the dog, standing around the concentrated heat coming from the stove, trying to dry their clothes. The storm was completely over the far ridge now, and the sky above them was clear and blue. The plants and trees in the canyon all looked fresh and new, the rocks were polished clean.
“We better get moving, guys,” Gwen said. “If I stay here much longer, I may not be able to get up again.”
Tracy packed the stove, and they all looked up toward the top of the range. From where they stood, they could make out a small gap between the peaks, half-covered with a field of snow.
“How long do you think it’ll take to get up there?” Gwen asked. She’d learned that she couldn’t really judge the time it took to cover any distance. Ground she’d thought would take a long time they’d covered quickly; other spots that seemed close had taken hours to reach.
Todd squinted toward the top. In the poststorm light, Gwen noticed his sandy gray stubble, the scruffy hair beneath his ball cap. He looked like a lion who was just past his prime, weather-worn and tired, but still strong.
“Might be two more hours,” he said. “It looks like a couple of miles, if we head left and then traverse. But there’s no telling what the going is like.”
“Looks shorter to me,” Tracy said. “And there may be places we can scramble straight up.”
“It’ll take what it takes,” Gwen said, surprising herself. She was sick of this conjecture. Even though she’d asked the question, she now realized she didn’t care about the answer. What did it matter if it was two miles or twenty? They needed to get over the damned pass, was all. They needed to get out of these mountains.
They started up the slope in the same order as before, with the dog again leading the way. Gwen’s clothes were wet and clammy, which was bearable in the sun, but each breeze sent a shiver through her and made her worry for the coming of night. She pulled the bottom of her shirt away from her body to help things dry; she tried to ignore the wet squishing in her shoes. But it felt good to be moving again, planting one foot in front of the other, inching toward the pass, toward safety. She felt her legs getting stronger with every step. She felt her lungs expand and take the oxygen they needed from the air.
Soon they were above the tree line, the only plants the hearty, close-to-the-ground wildflowers that might have been here since the birth of the range. Above them the spires loomed sharp and foreboding, and it scared Gwen to look at them, so she looked instead to the west. They could see the whole valley they’d walked through, shadows starting to engulf the far end.
They walked fifteen minutes, twenty, moving steadily up the slope, their clothes finally beginning to dry. They were hiking about fifteen feet apart now, not speaking, each lost in his or her own thoughts. When I get home, Gwen told herself, I’m going to take a long, hot shower and fall asleep in my bed. She couldn’t wait to get back to the ordinary, to the habits of everyday life. She imagined, with an eagerness that startled her, going back to work and seeing the kids.
Suddenly Oscar’s shoulder jerked forward and he fell to the ground. He hit with a thud and cried out in pain.
“Oscar! Are you okay?” Gwen yelled, snapping out of her reverie. He must have lost his footing or sprained an ankle.
Then she heard the report. She stared at Tracy blankly as she registered what this meant; instinctively she dropped to the ground just as something whizzed past her head and another gunshot echoed through the canyon.
Someone was upon her and she realized it was Todd; he pushed her down and covered her with his body.
“Keep your head down!” Tracy yelled, and they did, and then the three of them crawled over to Oscar. He was on his left side, facing upslope, hand holding his right shoulder, curled into himself and moaning. Blood flowed from between his clenched fingers.
“Let me look,” Tracy said, but he didn’t respond so she pried his hand away. Gently Tracy and Todd turned him onto his back. Gwen saw the ripped sleeve, the fabric soaked with blood. The others held him and peeled back the sleeve, revealing a bloody groove of ripped flesh. The mountain lion on his shoulder had been cut in half.
“He fucking shot me!” Oscar cried. “I can’t fucking believe this!”
Gwen couldn’t believe it either. She lay speechless as the others tended to him. The dog had run back down the hill and now she settled on her belly, staring, as if even she were aware of the gravity of the situation.
“The bullet only grazed you, Oscar,” Todd said. “It took a chunk out of your shoulder, but it didn’t stay in.”
“Where the fuck is he?” Tracy asked, raising her head and trying to look into the canyon.
Todd pulled her down again. “Careful!” Then: “I think down there somewhere,” pointing to a spot in the general direction of where they’d started that afternoon. “There, or one of the side slopes. Somewhere in range. Can’t be more than a couple thousand feet.”
“A.J. must have gotten loose,” Tracy said. “He must have had another gun.”
“
I knew we should have killed him,” Oscar said, writhing in pain. “Goddamnit, we should have taken him out when we had the chance.”
Gwen felt the accusation there but tried not to let it bother her.
“Save your strength,” said Todd, holding him still. “We need to get you out of here.”
“We need to get all of us to a less exposed spot,” Tracy said. “There’s some rocks up there—do they look big enough for us to hide behind?”
Gwen and Todd looked to where she was pointing, at a small pile of boulders about forty feet away.
“They’ll have to do,” Todd said.
It seemed like the longest distance she’d ever travel. They started moving on their bellies through small rocks so sharp it was like crawling through glass, and immediately a shot rang out, and then another, one ricocheting off a rock just below them. Gwen saw the dust flying up from the impact; she heard the others swear. She had managed to gather both her poles and one of Todd’s; the other had skittered down the slope. Oscar, with Todd’s help, pulled himself along with his one good arm. Todd still had the rifle over his shoulder and he glanced down a few times, as if gauging whether the shooter was within range. Tracy reached for her gun but Todd yelled, “No! Let’s get to the rocks.”
We are not really doing this, Gwen thought. We are not really crawling on our stomachs on an exposed mountainside, trying to avoid getting shot. But they were, they were, and somehow between praying and careful movement and plain good luck, they made it to the cluster of boulders. Several of them were couch-sized, and as they slid behind them, another shot hit a boulder nearby, a small cloud of dust and tiny rock bits bursting out from the spot of impact. Then the shooting stopped. A.J. or whoever the shooter was must have realized that they were protected, at least for now.
Todd and Tracy got Oscar behind the boulders and laid him flat on the ground. Tracy balled up her jacket and placed it under his head. The boulders were tall enough that they could sit up safely, and so they did. Todd looked grim, and even Tracy had a different expression on her face, as if even her most outlandish hopes for the trip had not included this.
Oscar was breathing fast, eyes closed, repeating, “Jesus. Jesus Christ.”
He might die out here, Gwen thought. They might all die out here—it was looking more and more likely. They were trapped by a gunman on an exposed mountainside, with little food, no water, and no path of escape. She thought of her family, her friends at work—all the people whose lives would continue without her. She thought of what they’d think if she died.
But she couldn’t give in to panic—not now, not yet. There were things to be done, there was help to give, and this is what she’d focus on. She twisted around to her pack and unzipped the main compartment. She pulled out her first aid kid, scanned the contents, and quickly got to work.
Chapter Fourteen
Oscar
A rock jutting into his side, and piercing pain in what had been his right shoulder. He gripped the round of it, as if to hold it together. The pain was bigger than the place where the wound was; it consumed his whole body. Something soft was placed under his head. Someone cut away his wet sleeve. Then something tried to pull his hand from his shoulder. It touched him and he screamed.
“Sorry, Oscar.” A voice, scared and worried, probably Gwen’s. “We’ve got to stop the bleeding. I’m sorry, there’s going to be a bit more pressure.”
Something pressed and he felt a searing pain; they might as well have stabbed him with knives. He gasped but managed not to scream again.
“We’re almost out of gauze. This is soaked,” a voice said.
“Here, use my extra shirt.”
“Won’t that get the wound dirty?”
“We can press it over the gauze. We’ve got to get the bleeding to stop.”
His breath was quick and shallow, he wasn’t getting enough air, but he could not slow it down. His heart skittered and skipped like a nervous bird. I am panicking, he thought consciously. I am falling apart. He opened his eyes and saw the blood all over his front and hands; he closed them again quickly. He was aware of how much farther they had to go, and he knew he couldn’t make it. He thought of Lily and his mother, their beautiful faces, which would cloud with sorrow if he didn’t come back. But these were distant thoughts, outside and apart from his central awareness, which was: I’ve been shot, I’m shot and bleeding, this may be the end of it all.
How could this have happened so quickly? One second he was hiking, relieved to have survived the thunderstorm. Then the impact like a spear through his shoulder. It had sent him tumbling forward and only then had the pain come, the awareness of ripped flesh, the shocking forever change in his physical being where the bullet had torn through his body. He’d hit the ground hard, scraping his forearm and cheek. When he saw the blood he knew what had happened. He’d tried to rise again but he couldn’t get up; the next shot ricocheted off a boulder right in front of him. Somehow he’d been dragged and shoved behind this large boulder. And the pain kept coming in waves, each one bigger than the last.
“The bleeding seems to be slowing down,” someone said, and he felt a change in pressure against the wound, a slight letting up.
“Let’s try to get it cleaned up and bandaged,” said someone else. He did not know who was talking and he didn’t care; they were all outside his pain, all not-him; he was locked in himself and yet away from himself, so that it took him several minutes to realize that the groans and cries that filled his ears were coming from his own mouth.
“What are we going to do?” one of the voices asked. “He’s got us totally in his sights. We can’t move!”
“We’ve got to take him out of commission,” said someone else.
“How?”
“We’ve got to ambush him, like he just did to us.” This was a male voice, Todd’s.
“How the hell are we going to do that?”
“There’s only one way to do it,” Todd said. “I’ve got to wait until dark and go down there and find him.”
“Are you crazy? He could shoot you.”
“As opposed to what he just did?”
“But you don’t even know where he is. He could be anywhere.”
“He could. But wherever he is now, he can’t stay there. There’s no cover, and he’s as exposed as we are.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying he’s probably going back down to that bit of wood, the place where we slept.”
“You think so?”
“Yes. There’s no other place. It’s where we’d go if we could, if our positions were reversed. At least until it was safe to move again.”
Silence for a moment.
“Look, let’s figure this out later. Right now we’ve got to get Oscar stabilized.”
“There is no later. We’ve got to decide what to do. I need to go back down and take care of that guy, and the rest of you have to get over the pass.”
“He’s right,” said one of the other voices. Tracy? “There’s no other way.” Then: “I can go down with you.”
“No, you need to get the others out. Oscar and Gwen can’t make it without you.”
A pause.
“I guess you’re right.”
Silence for several seconds. Then Oscar felt someone close to him again. “This may hurt, Oscar,” said the first voice again. “But we need to remove this compress. And then we’re going to bandage it up again.”
There was a moment, and then another, when nothing happened, and Oscar lay breathing fast, his body tense. And then something pulled against his raw ripped flesh and a violent pain coursed through him. He screamed again and his heart jumped and fell and then he passed out.
Chapter Fifteen
Todd
He left as soon as it was dark. After checking and double-checking the plan with the others, he pushed off from their hiding place behind the rocks and made his way down the slope. By the time he left he couldn’t make out their features, and in a way he wa
s glad, because he didn’t really want to be able to see them. Not with the task that he knew he’d be best suited for. Not with what he had to do now.
The going was rough because of all the loose rocks, and he was moving straight down in the dark. This was more dangerous than traversing—it was easier to slip, or to trigger a rock slide that would alert A.J. or his brother that he was coming. But traversing took time, and he didn’t have time; he needed to get down to where the shooter was and ambush him at first light. He chose his footing carefully and used his one pole, but even so, he stepped on a loose rock and felt it give way, wrenching his legs apart. Then he was on a patch of loose scree and skidded ten feet downhill. His elbow hit the ground and his jacket tore; the butt of the rifle, which was slung over his shoulder, jammed into his side. But at least the rocks stopped when he did, didn’t make noise or tumble farther down the slope. His missteps, little avalanches, stayed his own.
The stars were out and the sky was filled with streaky clouds, remnants of the afternoon storm. This was good—the moon two nights ago had been so bright it had lit the entire canyon. Two nights ago, at the campsite where Gwen had seen the fawns. It felt like a lifetime ago, and it was.
The moon was still behind the eastern range, and he wasn’t sure when it would top out and spill light into the canyon. Or if it would at all, with the clouds above him shifting and combining, splitting apart again. Right now, as he was making his way down the slope, the others would be moving up, leaving the rocks and trying to gain the pass under cover of darkness. They wouldn’t be able to move very fast. Oscar had lost blood, he was weak and in terrible pain. But he was grim and determined. Todd looked up to check if there was any sign of movement, even a flash of white fur. The dog had lifted her head when he left but had stayed with the others. He couldn’t see anything—the whole slope was encased in moon shadow, the same shadow that protected him too.
