by Alex Morel
“Paul,” I say, gently slapping his cheek.
He stirs but looks glassy-eyed and dull, like a baby who has eaten too much sugar.
“Paul!” I shout at him. “Can you hear me?”
His eyes focus a little and I stroke his hair.
“What happened?” His question is more a croak.
“You fell.”
I sit back on my knees and look down at his body. His right arm is bent backward. My stomach twists at the sight of the unnatural line of the bone. I have to put my hand up to cover my mouth. There’s nothing there, but my muscles strain to release drips of bile.
“Fix me?” he says calmly. “You can do it; I’ll show you.”
I’m not sure what to do, but I nod assuredly. “Of course.”
“Find two straight branches, very straight. No, make it four. And give me all your sleeping pills or whatever you were taking. The ones you were going to kill yourself with.”
I hesitate for a moment and then reach into my pockets and pull out whatever is left. It is a good pile: enough to knock somebody out for a long while. Not enough to off him, but probably enough to get through whatever we have to get through.
I hand them to him and I remove a bottle with melting snow from underneath my jacket. He opens his mouth and I pour a bunch of pills onto his tongue and then help him as best I can with the water. A lot of it spills, which pains me, but I ignore it and slowly he swallows the pills. He falls back and groans from the pain, and I realize that’s my signal to find the branches.
I look around and realize Paul’s fall has brought us to the base of the bridge that connects the two valleys. If Paul can survive this, we are close to making our way home. We have to survive, I tell myself.
The woods are thick, but not impenetrable. Breaking off the branches from a live tree proves to be difficult for me. Some of the branches are too thick and provide too much resistance and the very breakable ones are simply too thin to serve as splints.
I walk into the woods, looking for fallen trees or branches. Fifty feet in, I look back and realize I am farther away from Paul than I’ve been since the ascent. My boot prints disappear under the shrubbery. I think of shouting to him, but I realize I’m on my own at this point. It’s up to me. He will need me now to leave this valley.
I stop for a moment and take stock of everything. I close my eyes and try to imagine the trail back to Paul. I know where I am, I think. I open my eyes and kneel in the snow, looking at the trail of steps I have just taken, and I visualize myself walking back to Paul.
I keep moving forward until I find a clearing with a fallen pine. It looks like it has been lying here for a while. I walk to the top end, where the branches are younger and thinner. I break off four sturdy branches and head back to Paul, following my prints, still fresh in the snow.
I think about one therapy session with Old Doctor when the trees were just beginning to bud, so it must have been early spring.
“You like to read, Jane?” Old Doctor asked.
“Yes, but not if you tell me what you want me to read.”
“I see. I’m the same way.”
“Good.”
“But,” he mumbles.
I couldn’t take it. “Always a ‘but’ with you people. I wish you would just say what you want to say. Always a bait and switch. I’m just like you, BUT. I like movies myself too, BUT . . .” (Of course, this was early on, before I got the hang of what was needed to manage Old Doctor.)
“You’re right, Jane.”
“But? Come on, what’s the BUT?”
“No, no. You’re right.”
We sat there staring at each other for about a minute, maybe two, and I waited for his qualification. I thought if I spoke, he might be able to dodge it and make his point with some other turn of phrase. If I waited, I knew, he would undoubtedly provide it.
“Emerson believed that all the human world could be explained, in Nature, if one sat long enough, patiently enough, with enough focus and insight to pull the lessons from beneath the hard bark of an old tree.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I like the sound of it.”
“You want me to read him? Emerson?”
“Not really, not unless you’re interested.”
We sat again in silence. His watery-blue eyes had no emotion on the surface, but in that moment I thought about all the tears, shame, anger, and misery they had probably witnessed. I wondered if he absorbed all the pain he listened to. Then I snapped out of it.
“Double reversing now. I am not falling for it,” I finally said with a smirk and a great deal of satisfaction.
“I am not your enemy, Jane.”
“Are you in charge of when I can get out of this place?” I asked. “Because, actually, I think you might be.”
He smiled.
“You are the most important person in this process.” He said this calmly. It bugged me that he wasn’t getting really angry.
“So I could be at home studying a tree in my own backyard.” I snorted. “Is that what you have my mother paying you the big bucks for? So you can tell all of us trapped people to go out and contemplate trees?”
“I was offering up something for your further thought or meditation, in response to your suspicion about our conversation.”
“Bullshit,” I said, looking right at him. I knew he was being honest, but backing down would be too embarrassing.
“Our time is up for today.”
“You always have that trick.”
“I suppose we both do.”
Chapter 28
I follow my path in the snow back to Paul quite easily and find him sleeping. I lay the branches down on the ground and shake him gently. He comes to fairly quickly.
“You can’t sleep now,” I tell him.
He looks at me dully, the information not processing through his brain as quickly as normal.
“Right,” he says, “should stay awake after a head injury.”
He looks at the pile of branches.
“You’ve taken a lot of pills, Paul. I’m going to have to wake you every hour or so, just to be safe.”
“Take off the branches and find the straightest one,” he whispers.
I pick out two short, thick pieces and pull off the small branches.
“Okay,” Paul says. “Make my arm straight like yours and then lay it between these branches. Then wrap one of the extra shirts around it as firmly as you can and tie it off.”
“I can’t straighten your arm.”
He ignores me. I take a sideways look at Paul’s arm. It looks fine through to the elbow, but then a little more than halfway down the forearm, it breaks the wrong way. Even underneath his jacket, the angle is profoundly distorted.
“Put your hands on my arm, as gently as you can.”
I place my hand on the top part of his arm.
“Undo the snap by my wrist, gently, please.” I can’t believe I am going to do this, but I know that I need to save him and I think that—to save myself—I need him.
I pull his jacket sleeve open, and Paul winces with pain but nods at me to keep going. I can see the sweat building up on his forehead.
“Pull back the jacket sleeve, and the sweater and the turtleneck.” He shuts his eyes as I begin and adds, “As carefully as you can, please.”
As I pull back his jacket sleeve, the bulge from the broken bone protrudes more clearly, the thin underlayers holding the form of it. Paul muffles deep, painful groans by biting on the outside of his left jacket sleeve. But he can’t suppress a yelp of pain when I begin to pull back the tight-fitting turtleneck sleeve. There’s blood staining the sleeve, and I realize part of the way down that a little piece of the bone is sticking into the fabric, holding the sleeve to his forearm.
“I’m so sorry!”
“Aahhhh!” he screams. He pounds his good fist against the snow two or three times, screaming, “Fuck!” I stop pulling and watch his sleeve for a bit as a little more bl
ood pools into the cloth.
“Leave it on. Leave it on.” He pounds his fist twice more and then looks at me with wild and alert eyes.
“Do it, Jane . . . set it now!” he commands.
“I can’t hurt you!” I shout.
“Just push the bones together and get them as straight as you can. Put them between the sticks and wrap it up as tightly as you can. Please, Jane!”
In a swift motion, I grab his arm and push the bone back down into what I hope is its proper place. Paul screams like a wild animal caught in a trap and then goes silent, slumping to the ground. His shrieking rings in my ears.
I say his name, but he doesn’t respond. Pain, of the severe and unrelenting variety, can cause people to pass out or numb up. Or it could just be the full load of pills kicking into his system. I look at his arm again, and it is straight now, but still twisted so the hand doesn’t face the right direction. I hold the forearm steady in my left hand and turn the wrist and the hand into place. The sound of bones crunching is stomach-turning.
I slide the flattest branch under the arm and then I place two skinny straight ones on either side. I take one sweater sleeve and put it under the forearm right at the elbow and slowly wrap it around and around, as tightly as I can manage, until it reaches his wrist. I grab the fourth stick and slide it in between his arm and the flattest piece of wood, creating a splint to keep the hand from dangling.
I look at Paul and he’s still out cold from the pain and probably the pills. I look up and see that the day is almost over. I look around and try to imagine what he would decide to do. First shelter, that’s number one. Then water. I pull out the bottle of melting snow from between my back and jacket. Then I feel for his, lifting up his jacket to pull out the pouch of water.
When I push my hand up under his jacket, I feel a swollen lump on his ribs right beside the bottle. I touch his ribs gently, following the laceration and the bump, from the left side of his rib cage all the way to the front near his heart. I wonder if his ribs are broken too.
What if he dies? Please don’t die.
“Don’t second-guess, Jane,” I could hear the Old Doctor speaking. “It’s neither helpful nor worthy of your time.” Focus, Jane. I look around again and quickly head back toward the dense forest with the fallen tree. I find the tree and gather as many dried-out branches as I can break and carry.
It takes five trips, but eventually I carry enough to where Paul is lying and make a pile. I open both sleeping bags and cover Paul up while he sleeps. I look up to the sky—for help, I guess. Maybe just pity. Maybe just for an acknowledgment that I’m not alone. But no magical voice shouts down with wisdom from the heavens. It might as well be dead up there. All the living is being done down here.
I look at Paul sleeping and realize how little use he will be going forward. A broken arm, a head wound, and, possibly, crushed ribs: there is no way he’s going to be able to climb out of here.
I gather stones from the pile Paul landed on to make a bed for a fire. Then I make a little grid of the thinnest and driest branches. I go into Paul’s knapsack and pull out his dry matches and his brother’s diary. I open it and pick up the letter and reread it.
Tears come to my eyes and I choke up. I think of what Paul and his father are tossing away, but I know it is no worse than what my father stole from me and his mother stole from him. I stuff the letter in my pocket for safety and wipe away my tears on my sleeve. I promise myself I won’t knowingly hurt another soul if I can get this fire started.
Then I go to the back of the book and tear out ten blank sheets of paper. Then a bunch more. I twist them up tightly, like cigarettes without tobacco. I used to roll my own cigarettes, so I know how much longer the paper will last that way. I tuck them carefully under the grid of branches and twigs. I open the thin box of dry matches. There are only three left. I strike one and it lights the first time. I light the end of the first five twisted pages, then blow on the match end. I quickly turn it around, light the other end, and use it to light the remaining paper twists.
The twigs smoke and smolder. I start to blow and blow underneath them, pushing as much oxygen into the tiny flames as possible. Sparks fly and then the embers glow brightly, but nothing much happens. I start to get nervous, so I pull out a few more sheets of paper and twist them up again, carefully placing them beside the brightest embers. After a few minutes of my blowing, a little fire settles and grows beneath the branches. I lay a few large dry pieces down and then it really picks up. “Yes!” I scream. “Thank you!”
I’m not talking to God. I don’t know what or who I’m talking to. But I start thinking about everyone I’ve ever loved: my father, whose watch kept me connected to him when I needed him most; my mother’s smile and laugh, as rare as it was since my dad died, is still in my heart; my grandmother and all the Christmas mornings before everything ended; even Old Doctor, my foe and friend. Who else?
I look at Paul beside me. His angelic face is sweet and rough all at once. His baby blue eyes. I know no matter what happens, those eyes will always be in my memory and my mind will always hold onto every moment we have spent together. And then I think of Will, a person I’ve never met but whose words are little vessels of energy traveling across time and space to lance the sickness in my soul.
Now the driest pieces of branch pop with heat and I quickly put an even bigger piece of wood on them. I take a few moments and warm my hands. I’ve been wearing gloves and have kept my hands from freezing, but the heat coming off the fire stings. I realize how deeply the cold has penetrated into my bones over the past three days.
After a few minutes, I shake Paul gently awake and help him move closer to the fire. He is groggy, but conscious and able to move over. He tries to tell me things, but it is nonsense at this point. I whisper into his ear and tell him to rest. He listens to me and closes his eyes, quickly nodding off again.
I pull the rabbit from the bag, which is now full of blood. I am able to jam one of the sticks under its white fur and skin. After some work, I am able to remove the head and get my fingers beneath the lining of the skin, and with my fingers and the sharp end of the stick, I rip as much of the skin from the body as I can. I take the same stick and jam it through the mouth of the rabbit. Then I hold it over the fire like a child might hold a marshmallow at a campfire. I could never have imagined myself capable of taking a life, never mind dressing and eating it, too. Who am I?
The fire is hot, and the aroma makes my mouth water, and then I imagine what a bear or a wolf might think. My heart sinks, and then I decide that I can’t control everything. Cook the rabbit; eat the rabbit.
I take the rabbit stick and slide the stick end between two rocks and let the rabbit dangle near the fire. I rub Paul’s back and then wrap myself around him to try and keep him warm. I look up to the sky. It is overcast and cloudy. There’s a big cold world out there, but I believe this little fire is enough to keep us warm, if only for a few hours.
Chapter 29
I wake alone and near the fire. During the night I rolled away from Paul, who is still sleeping. I can see his chest heaving up and down, so I know he is still alive. It is still dark, and stars fill what’s left of the night sky, but there’s morning light flowing up over the bottom edges of the horizon.
I am so cold that I feel my body shivering inside and out. I had hoped to wake up a few times during the night to poke the fire and wake Paul, but my exhausted body had other plans. I look at what remains of the fire. A few embers still glow, and I quickly move over and blow on them gently, stoking them until they redden with heat. I rip a large chunk of pages from Will’s notebook and rebuild the fire with twigs and small branches until the flames begin to lap at the air.
“What are you doing?”
I turn around and see that Paul has sat up and is staring at me.
“I’m saving the fire—it was dying.”
“What’s that?” Paul says, pointing at the burnt rabbit I let slow cook all night.
I pick up the stick with the rabbit on the end, and it is charred black and dry as a bone. I grab a leg and tear it off. With my fingers I pull back whatever skin remains and then I bite down. It is heaven. Salty and chewy and heavenly. I take another bite and then another. I’m like a wild animal ripping away the meat.
“How did you get that?” he asks.
“I killed it. I stepped on it and then stabbed it with the stake you made me.”
I rip off a leg and hand it to him. He bites into the flesh and then quickly devours it. We quickly tear off the remaining meat and devour what’s left of the rabbit. When we are done, we just stare at each other. And then Paul laughs.
“You’re a savage, Solis.”
“I think I am,” I say with a smile. He seems to be more like his old self, like the anger from yesterday dissolved with his fall.
Paul touches his forehead, and dried blood flakes off onto his jacket. He stares at me, apparently trying to put the pieces together. He is a bit groggy, and his eyes are glassy.
“What happened to me?”
“You fell and hit your head. You broke your arm,” I say.
“My chest feels like it was kicked in, too.”
He looks at me, and then he points at the fire.
“That’s amazing,” he says. “How did you start the fire?”
“I used paper from your brother’s notebook. I had to. I’m sorry.”
Paul’s face drops for a moment, and then he puts his head in his good hand. He’s thinking about what he should say or do—whether I should be banished or embraced, I imagine. He looks up, and his eyes are blurry and watery. Then he speaks.
“You kept us warm. You made us food that might save our lives. That’s more important than a memory.”
I nod.
“You read it—I remember you read the letter,” he says quietly.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
Paul gazes into my eyes. Then he shimmies himself closer to the fire. He winces with each little movement. I pick up his sleeping bag and put it over him and we snuggle together close to the fire. I pull another leg from the rabbit and hand it to his good hand. He bites in and groans from pleasure.
