Stranded

by Matthew P. Mayo

  “Oh Lord, what have I done?” I whispered, then sat on a stump behind me. I kept that wounded leg stretched out straight, as though it didn’t belong to me. It may sound strange, but up until this point, even with all the little cuts and small injuries I’d dealt myself so far, I had not thought about harming myself badly.

  But when I finally did, all manner of horrible thoughts flooded into my mind. I was in no state to give them the time of day. I gritted my teeth and lifted my skirts—all three of them.

  Beneath I was wearing a pair of William’s trousers, all trussed up at the waist, then two pairs of long underwear, my own and one slightly larger pair that belonged to William, or maybe Thomas, I don’t recall. They are bulky but I don’t mind. You get used to anything when you want to keep warm. And I long ago gave up on what I looked like. There is no one here to impress.

  There was a lot of blood. My leg felt odd, tight and tingling. I wondered if the axe hit something that leaks and won’t stop. Some sort of vein. I sucked air through my teeth and fought to keep my mind from turning fuzzy around the edges, then going black. I don’t do well on seeing lots of blood from a person. A dead animal does not have that effect on me.

  I forced myself to stay alert and aware of what I was doing. The cloth had been pushed into the wound. I bit the inside of my cheek hard, drawing more blood. I hurt at both ends then, too much to pass out. A scoop of snow did not help all that much, it turned red in my hand.

  I recalled when Papa went to help at a neighbor’s farm a couple of years back. Mr. Hendershaw lost a thumb because he looped a line around it when he was plowing.

  Old Jed, his mule, stumbled, the line went tight, and there was a popping sound. Mr. Hendershaw looked up, saw that thumb of his spin up in the air as if a giant had pinched it off.

  The important thing I recall Papa saying was that Mr. Hendershaw learned some things about doctoring from a physician when he was in the militia. He knew enough to slow the blood flowing to that hand, that way he would bleed out slower.

  Mr. Hendershaw told Papa he felt bad for the mule. I imagine poor Old Jed stood there, looking dumb and guilty.

  “Just like him,” said Papa, “to worry on how the mule felt.” As I recall, Papa said Mr. Hendershaw cut those leather lines, took one end between his teeth, wrapped the other a pile of times around his arm, above the elbow, and did his best to tie it off tight. Then he held his arm up high so the blood would have to work harder to get to the wound.

  Serious as could be, Papa said, “You will never guess what Mr. Hendershaw did with that thumb.” “He ate it,” said Thomas.

  Papa shook his head as if he didn’t know where that boy came from. “He stuffed it in his trouser pocket. When he remembered it later, he rinsed off the field soil, and put it in a salty brine. Then he sealed the top tight, and there it sits.”

  “No,” I said.

  Papa nodded. He knew what my next question would be. “I reckon Mr. Hendershaw would show it to you if you ask kindly. And maybe brought him a loaf of your bread.” He winked.

  And that is what I did. The thumb looked more like a puckered garden grub than a thumb. But the important thing is that I remembered I had to slow down the awful bleeding my leg was doing. I clawed off the leather belt I had buckled around my middle, over my outer coat. Then I slid the two knife sheaths off, and wrapped that belt around my leg above the knee. I dragged on the end hard, then laid it back on itself and wrapped the rest, keeping it tight all the while.

  When I had but six or so inches of the belt left, I jammed the end beneath the wraps. I hoped it was tight enough, because it ached something fierce. My leg from the knee down began to throb, but whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, I did not know. I also sat on the snow and raised my leg up, propping it on the stump, following Mr. Hendershaw’s logic of making the blood work harder to get to the wound.

  I wasted no time in inspecting the cut further, continuing to pack snow on it, then pull it away once it reddened with blood. I began to feel cold, colder than I usually felt. That was a sign of something bad, I felt certain.

  I bit the inside of my mouth again, and my eyes teared with the pain of it. But I managed to clean the wound by drawing handfuls of snow over it. The blood welled out of the gash, though slower than before.

  I didn’t know what else I could do. Until the blood stopped, I was not able to go much of anywhere and I only had at best two hours before dark came.

  I looked at the bloody snow and my heart flopped like a beached fish. What if all that blood smelled like something tasty to an animal? What if, what if, what if? I did my best to stop thinking of all those possibilities, worrying me to no end.

  I ate clean snow and thought long and hard about what to do next. The cold and wet snow helped clear my head. I got my breathing back down to where it should be. No sense getting all nerved up, girl, I told myself.

  After a good hour, the bleeding stopped and the top of the cut looked to be stiffening like the skin on a gravy. I took that as a good sign. It hurt like hellfire, but I tightened the belt. My leg had stiffened like a log, throbbing and angry feeling. It was swollen in pretty good shape, too. I gritted my teeth and stood.

  It took me a little while, and I remembered to toss my knives and axe down ahead of me so they landed in the snow below the door. The leg began to bleed again, and I felt it trickling down into my socks and boot. I tossed the firewood I’d gathered down toward the nest. If I was bad off tomorrow, I’d want wood close by. I reasoned my leg would need a couple of days to recuperate.

  By the time I made it down there myself, skidding and sliding down the embankment, my leg was paining me something awful. But I had to keep on. My teeth were gritted so tight I thought they might crack. The worst was yet to come, and I don’t mean lobbing wood through the door.

  It took me a long, long while to hoist myself up through the door. By the time I made it to my bed, I was near passed out from exhaustion. But I had to take full advantage of the daylight still coming in through the doorway. My lamp oil had long since given out and candles would not be sufficient for what I had in mind.

  I blew on coals in the stove, added tinder, and kindled a small fire. Then I rummaged and found my sewing basket. I’d last used it to mend holes in my mitten socks. I was forever mending something. But at that moment I had to mend my body.

  I chose the cleanest thread I could find, then heated the needle quickly over a tiny flame. I sopped up the blood crust off the cut again, keeping my leg raised as I had earlier.

  This time the leg didn’t want to give up so easily. It bled and showed no sign of slowing. I yarned on that belt, working it even tighter, and my leg hurt worse than ever. But it eventually worked. I wasted no time, and stuck my needle in above the two-inch gash. It looked like one of those slits you make in the top of a pie crust before you bake it. Only imagine if the pie was a fresh raspberry, all that ooze bubbling under the crust waiting to leak through.

  The needle slid through easier than I expected, and I drew it out again. I told myself it was no different than mending a tear on one of the boys’ sleeves. I used the bottom of a clean blue shirt to dab the blood and help keep it clear enough for me to see what I was doing. That needle was difficult to grasp, but I made sure not to space my stitches too far apart lest it open again.

  Somehow, as I sewed, the pain sort of stayed the same, not getting much worse, not letting up. That was as much of a gift as I was allowed, though.

  As soon as I finished and tied it off, I flopped back down on my bunk intending only to regain my strength. I still had to close my door tight and draw the bar, then make sure the fire kept burning. It is a trial to light with the flint and steel.

  But that is not what happened. I fell asleep and woke many hours later, cold. Cold to my bones. The door was open wide, as I saw stars through it. When I sat up my head dizzied, even in the dark, and it was an effort to right myself.

  I think perhaps it is even worse in the dark, for there
is nothing much for the eyes to focus on to help remedy the dizzy feeling. That is my amateur opinion, anyway.

  My second thought was of my leg, and that it should be hurting worse than it did. I reached down gingerly and was shocked to find it had swelled up to four times the size it normally is. It

  was cold, colder than the flesh of a dead thing. I uttered cries of fear then, I don’t mind saying.

  I left that leather belt cinched too tight for too long. I grabbed at it, but my leg had swelled up around it as if it were somehow pumped with water or air. It didn’t feel much like my leg, but felt like I was digging at some other person’s limb.

  I found the end I’d tucked in under the rest and worked with my fingertips, grunting and making little crying sounds that did not embarrass me one bit. I knew I had to get that belt off there lest I end up killing the entire leg. And if that happened, I was surely dead myself, for there was no way under God’s blue sky I could saw off my own leg to save the rest of me. I would be like an animal in a trap without the will power to chew on through and leave that dead limb behind.

  I had never been in such a desperate situation. My leg was a thick, fleshy log that did not feel a thing I was doing to it, even after I unwrapped the belt. I whimpered and howled and struck at it with my fists.

  I decided after too many tears that it needed time, since the whole thing didn’t get this big and horrible in a few minutes. Time tells all, as Papa said when he didn’t quite know the answer to something. Then he’d lay a finger alongside his long nose and wink. I think he liked to pretend he was being clever, knowing all the while he was full of beans.

  I also decided my poor leg needed heat. My nest is small enough I am able to lean out, rest an arm on a crate, and blow into the belly of the stove to revive coals. My hands and arms were shaking, though not from the cold but from weakness and fear. I thought of little else other than I had likely killed myself. I might be on my way to a painful, slow death in my nest. All because I cinched that leg too tight for too long.

  MARCH, 1850

  * * *

  There is little fun in my days. And when there is it is a small, sweet thing soon pinched out by worry.

  Today I saw a chickadee, and watched him for long minutes, lost in the moment of sunlight and the small darting way he had of dancing from one thin branch to another, pecking at tiny bugs he found toothsome. Soon he flew close to me, landed within five feet of me and regarded me as something he was unsure of. I sat so very still, held my breath, kept my eyes from blinking, and do you know? He landed on me!

  I did not feel him through my layers of wool and cotton clothing, but even if I wore a thin shirt that little bird was so light I might not have felt him. I shifted my eyes without moving my head, and saw him out of my left eye.

  He stood near the end of my shoulder, pecked once at a seam with threads sticking up like caterpillar legs—likely what attracted him. He soon fluttered off as quickly as he landed. I wish he had stayed a little longer. That would have been grand with me. Not since hugging Bib and Bub have I been so close to a living thing that did not want to do me harm. (I do not count the rabbit, as it was in death agonies because of me.)

  Since my leg is not yet healed, though greatly improved, I drag myself up and down the steps I have built inside in order to get to my little doorway. The steps consist of two small crates and one nail keg atop a small steamer trunk. I propped the trunk on a layer of rocks because it gets wet at the bottom when the stove heats up. It helped somewhat, but I have a devil of a time keeping my food, such as it is, dry.

  I feel sickly much of the time and there is a rising stink coming off the salted meat. That happens every time we get these warm days. Such is the smell that in the midst of this warmth it is all I can do to reach in the bins and shuffle the meat to coat it again in what salt remains.

  I was tempted to pack snow in with the meat, thinking the chill might help. But I thought it might wash off the salt instead. And if the warmth continues, the snow will melt anyway, and the meat will rot faster. At least with the salt on, I stand a chance of having some edible bites left.

  I decided to cook whatever hunks look rank. I had to cut off a goodly portion that went green. Some of it was worse than I thought, and it made me cough and gag as I sliced it. My eyes watered, too, but I got the job done. I saved what salt I could, hoping that if it had touched the tainted meat it wouldn’t carry the taint to the fresher meat. But I don’t know. Time will tell.

  As for the rest, I cooked up the questionable scraps and ate my fill, as I knew it would go bad soon anyhow. But that was only one meal, then I restrained myself from feasting.

  It was a good thing I did, too, for the bad weather came back hard and fast, and with it the snow and gray skies.

  Now I am in the midst of dreariness and cold and slicing wind. I don’t know how much longer it will last, nor do I want to know. I am better off wondering each day if there is an end in sight.

  If I am still alive come spring, I will have to walk on out of these mountains. Though with my game leg I am not at all certain I will be able to contend with the hardships I might face. I will not likely be able to outrun determined creatures. I do not write that with pity in mind, but as a matter of course.

  MARCH, 1850

  * * *

  When I was younger, Mama said I had too fanciful a mind. That may be true, for I prayed that the sound that haunted me last night was nothing more than the wind. But no, my mind is not as clever as the thing I heard. As to what it was, I am unsure.

  I do not think it was a bear. Papa told me bears sleep away their winters. It strikes me I am doing much the same, though in fits and starts. I spend much of my time sleeping, or as near to it as a body can get without being asleep. It is a lazy way to live, but there is little I can do about it.

  I wonder if this is what a fool feels like, if old Clarence Bugbee from back home felt like this, trapped in his cracked mind, staring at the world around him as if he was newly born, or had never been awake before. Papa said he was fine until his father accidentally knocked him on the bean with the post maul. They had been setting fence when that mashed-wood head of the great mallet slammed down onto Clarence’s own head. He was not but ten years old—

  It is later, hours later. I had to leave off in the middle of that silly story about old crack-minded Clarence because the sound came back. Though I still do not know what it was, I can tell you it is not any animal I have ever heard.

  MARCH, 1850

  * * *

  Should I die out here, all alone, it is far more likely that I will be eaten by animals, the very animals I have come to respect and loathe, all at once. I do not care if that makes sense. That is the way of things with me. My life has withered to two things, making fire and finding food. Everything else about it has become more complicated than anything I have ever done.

  I do not want my body to be chewed on and fought over by animals, my bones to be dragged off to wolf dens and buried in dirt by grizzlies and gnawed on in rocky caves by lions. If I am to die I want to protect my body somehow. If I am wrong and Papa and the boys are still alive, and one day are able to make it back here, then they would know I waited for them. I have put so much work into waiting here, I must see it through.

  MARCH, 1850

  * * *

  As I mentioned some days ago, I have only two concerns—food and fire. Fire and food. And it is my fondest hope that once the weather becomes warmer I will be able to dispense with making fire—at least of a size big enough to warm me.

  If I do not manage to kill food, I will not need fire for anything, for I will be dead. That is the beginning and end of it.

  My last hope is that I will be found by a group of travelers who chose the same route as did we. I have tried to figure out the earliest someone might leave Missouri or anywhere east of here. Even if they were to depart now, it would be months before they made it to me, if they chose to travel this northerly trail. It does not appear likely.r />
  It has become trying to concentrate on such concerns. I need more food, better food. I cannot wait for spring so I might feel warmth once again. There was respite from the cold some weeks ago. War m winds surprised me when they blew over the mountains from the west.

  I thought for a time, was convinced of it, actually, that winter was leaving me. It felt good, though too early. I was suspicious of it. Still, I came to believe, wanted to believe, that the great Rocky Mountains, for all their size, had suffered a less extreme winter than other places. The warm winds melted snow and the sun warmed my bones. I lay out in it, on my back atop the roof of the nest, well enough away from prowling creatures, should any dare approach. And I let the heat soak into me.

  For many days it was lovely and perfect. Great patches of brown grasses peeked out as the snow sunk into the earth. Channels opened on the river, wider each morning. I allowed myself happiness. I smiled for the first time in weeks, months, who knows how long? But it did not last. I should have known nothing good ever lingers.

  One afternoon warm air of a kindly Mother Nature breathed on me from the west. I watched the blue sky, speckled with white clouds far off and high, then dozed in the sun when I should have been gathering firewood. That was how convinced I’d become that the fine weather really was spring. Some time later a sudden cold breeze woke me and I gasped. I even sat upright before my eyes opened. The sky had turned the color of ash, blackening as I watched. That night, snow fell and the air chilled so that I wondered if the warmth had happened at all.

  MARCH ?, 1850

  * * *

  Two days ago, it appeared spring finally decided to grab hold and do its job. That abiding news came in the form of a whole lot of melting snow. My nest was a dripping, sagged thing that sunk into the earth more with each minute that passed.