by Jerry Cole
The trail continued up into the forested foothills of the mountains. The Roaring River gushed and babbled beside them, full and noisy. Beautiful, but looking entirely unfriendly to raft. Daniel swallowed, thinking about trying to ride down that thing. Donahue was going to get them all killed.
The sun rose towards the middle of the sky as they climbed higher and, when he didn't think about Asher or the trip back down, Daniel began to genuinely enjoy himself. The trees and plant life were beautiful, the day was cool and pleasant, and the view was spectacular. He ran his hands over the pale white trunks of birch trees and watched the vibrant leaves spiral down ahead of them like something out of a fairy tale. A tunnel of autumn arches sheltered them, instants of bright blue sky blossoming between brown branches whenever the wind stirred.
Daniel paused as they reached a high point in the trail to look away, catching a glimpse of an elk through the trees, carefully picking its way through the underbrush. He watched in silence, appreciating the quiet moment as the rest of the group pulled ahead, leaving him behind.
"Oh, how pretty."
Daniel looked up in surprise when he heard someone speak, realizing Lynda had stopped to watch as well. She kept her voice soft so as not to startle the animal, and they watched together as it nosed through the leaves and pine needles.
"This has been so great," she said with a happy sigh. "I really needed this. It's been so long since I got to be out in nature."
Daniel felt suddenly in over his head. She was trying to be friendly and start conversation, and all at once it was like he'd never talked to another human being before. He scrambled for a topic.
"It seems like you and Jacobs are getting along," he said, then immediately regretted it, afraid he'd overstepped polite boundaries.
"Yeah," she sighed wistfully. "It's not going to work though. He's still in love with his ex-wife."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Daniel said, and meant it. Doomed relationships weren't great conversation starters.
"How are things with you and that trail guide?" Lynda asked suddenly, giving him a saucy, sidelong glance. "I noticed he's been following you around since we got here."
Daniel grimaced. "It's not like that," he said. "I'm not like that. I don't think he is either. He's just an asshole who's decided it's entertaining to harass me."
"Really?" Lynda seemed surprised. "Do you think there are people who would spend that much time just on bothering someone?"
"Absolutely."
Lynda shrugged, looking back towards the elk.
"Maybe he's one of those immature guys," she said. "The kind who never figured out yanking on a girl's pigtails isn't the best way to get her attention."
"If he could get to be our age," Daniel replied, tone dry as the Sahara, "and still not have figured that out, then he's definitely not someone I'd want to be dating. Even if I was into guys. Which I'm not."
"You know you don't have to be so closeted," Lynda patted him on the shoulder consolingly. "It's 2016. I'm pretty sure the office would accept you."
"Uhg," Daniel huffed, clapping a hand to his face. "I'm not closeted! I'm not gay! I wish people would stop assuming things. Especially when I tell them flat out it isn't true."
Lynda took a step back, surprised by his vehemence. The elk, startled by Daniel's voice, darted away deeper into the woods.
"Sorry," Lynda sounded like she meant it, brows furrowed in concern, but then she pressed her lips together and glanced after the group. "We had better catch up. They're getting pretty far ahead..."
She hurried away, leaving Daniel to stew in his regret. So much for this trip being his chance to make friends. He didn't want to be so prickly and unpleasant all the time. So why did it always seem to happen anyway?
He caught up with the group, but stayed near the back, not yet ready to try socializing again just yet. Maybe there was some book or manual out there everyone else had read on how to successfully have relationships, and he had just missed it somehow. He couldn't think of any other reason he'd be so inept at this.
Chapter Seven
Gradually, the deciduous trees thinned out, replaced by evergreens as they got higher. In places the trail was entirely obscured by a bed of pine needles, thick and fragrant and soft underfoot. Eventually, the pine began to thin as well, and the path wound through a cleared, rocky valley beside a deep, glittering lake. Daniel breathed deeply, the air cold and clearer than he'd ever tasted in the city. What a beautiful place.
When he looked around, he saw the group spreading blankets near the lake shore. "Are we stopping for lunch?" he asked someone.
"I guess so," she answered. "At least until Mr. Donahue gets back."
"Mr. Donahue?" Daniel frowned. "Where did he go?"
"He and the secretaries got tired of walking," Daniel's coworker replied with a shrug. "They decided to stop and wait for the truck Donahue hired to bring the rafts up here."
"Of course he did." Daniel sighed, rubbed his eyes tiredly, then went to find a place to sit and eat where he could look at the water and not think about his annoying, incomprehensible boss.
He considered, for a moment, asking Lynda if he might sit near her to eat. But remembering the look on her face when he'd snapped at her earlier, he decided not to bother. Instead he sat apart from the others, eating an unsatisfying sandwich alone. At least the view was beautiful, he reminded himself. And he'd only have to put up with this for a few more days. Who was he kidding? He'd have to put up with the loneliness the rest of his life probably. He stuffed more peanut butter and jelly in his mouth and tried to ignore his feelings.
He glanced at the others again and noticed Asher wasn't with them. He must have decided to take the truck with Donahue after Daniel scared him off. Was he really just trying to be friendly and being horribly bad at it? Daniel supposed it would be hypocritical to judge Asher if that were the case, considering his own difficulties with socializing. No, he thought a moment later. No way! There was no way a man that handsome and charismatic could possibly be that bad at socializing that he would think insults were an acceptable form of conversation. The man was just a garden variety asshole. That was all.
Daniel had just finished his sandwich when he heard an engine and looked up to see a suped-up four wheeler hauling a trailer full of rafts clattering up the trail. Asher was driving, Donahue behind him, while the secretaries clung to the bouncing, rattling trailer, looking decidedly unhappy about their situation.
"There you all are!" Donahue called, waving to the group, "I hope you're ready for some intense white water rafting! This is going to be fantastic."
Daniel wasn't paying much attention to Donahue's cheerleading. His attention was preoccupied by Asher, who looked more upset than Daniel had ever seen him. The man's face was set like granite in a fearsome scowl, his jaw clenched, and his eyes hard. He was glaring daggers into the back of Donahue's head as Donahue organized the unloading of the rafts. He looked like an entirely different person without the lazy, teasing grin Daniel had grown used to.
There were three rafts, each one big enough for five people. Donahue and his secretaries quickly claimed one and the rest of Daniel's office mates split between the other two. Daniel dawdled, unsure which one to try claiming a seat in. Should he try to sit with Lynda, who he’d offended earlier today? Or was it better to sit with people he'd never spoken to before at all? Unable to decide, he realized too late that both boats were full and he was standing next to Asher, contemplating the long hike back down.
"Looks like you two will just have to take the spare!" Donahue laughed, pulling a last, much smaller and more worn looking orange rubber raft off the truck. It was just big enough for two. Daniel looked at Asher, preemptive misery already building like storm clouds on the horizon. Asher was still just glaring murderously at Donahue. What had the other man done to spoil Asher's mood so drastically?
"That's fine," Daniel said, taking the orange raft and beginning to drag it towards the mouth of the river where it left Lawn L
ake. "Let's just get this over with."
When they got back to camp, he was giving up. He would just sleep in his tent the rest of the trip and wait for this to end. Asher said nothing, only stormed after him in tense silence.
"You first, you first!" Donahue pushed Daniel and Asher towards the water ahead of everyone else. "You're the guide, after all!"
Daniel eyed the water. It was running fast even here, and on the way up, he'd seen how shallow and furious it swept over the stones. He looked at Asher, hoping the other man would put stop to this madness. Instead he just tossed his bag into the raft and started wading out with it, grunting at Daniel to get in. Daniel, swallowing his nerves, obeyed, throwing in his bag as well and scrambling in after it. He looked back anxiously, and suddenly realized there weren’t even any signs posted. If this was the Roaring River, shouldn’t it have a plaque or an info board, like every other rock and tree of any significance in this park?
Asher climbed in as soon as Daniel was settled, Daniel holding onto the stony shore to keep them in place as he did so. He could feel the current tugging hard at the boat, eager to pull them away. When Asher was seated, Daniel let go and the raft shot off at once, the rest of the group dwindling quickly in the distance. Daniel looked back and watched them recede, suddenly worried.
"Focus, Daniel," Asher snapped at him, steering them around a rock with his oar. "I'm going to need your help with this."
"Right. Sorry," Daniel grabbed his own oar to assist in steering them down the rapid current. "This will slow down eventually, right?"
"I sure hope so," Asher muttered as they both paddled frantically to avoid an overhanging branch.
"What do you mean you hope so?" Daniel asked, the other man's flippancy bothering him. "Haven't you done this before?"
"Hell no," Asher confessed. "I just went along with your crazy boss."
They crashed over a small fall, water rushing over them and temporarily making speech impossible.
"You're the trail guide!" Daniel shrieked when he could speak again. "It's your job to tell him when things are too dangerous!"
"What gave you the idea I could tell that asshat anything?"
"No one can tell him anything, but you could have at least not gotten right into the water like it was fine!"
They slammed into a rock, and Daniel fell against Asher's broad back, nearly dropping his oar. The raft scraped over it and kept going, the current too fast for them to slow down from one collision. Daniel looked back but couldn't see anything through the spray. Was it just him or was the raft deflating?
"Are the others behind us?" he asked. "Should we try to slow down?"
"We can't!" Asher said loudly as Daniel straightened up and struggled again to paddle in time with him. "If we try to go against this current we'll just end up spinning."
"Really?"
"Probably!"
"Have you ever been rafting in your life?"
"No, actually! Shut up!"
"Shut up?! I'm going down rapids with a trail guide who's never rafted before!"
"Yeah! So you should probably let me focus!"
Daniel laughed bitterly, mocking himself and his own luck as much as he was mocking Asher.
"I should have known," he laughed, voice cracking "I should have figured it would end up this way. I knew this trip would be a disaster from the beginning."
"If you could not do your whole pretentious pessimism thing right now," Asher grated out as they scraped over more rocks, catching actual air for a moment before hitting the water again with a teeth-rattling slam, "that would be great!"
"It's your fault it's been so awful!" Daniel snapped. "You can at least do me the favor of letting me complain about it!"
"Why should I?" Asher snarled back, narrowly shoving them away from another rock. "You made it clear as crystal my opinion doesn't mean a damn thing to you when all I ever did was try to make conversation with you. I guess there's a reason you're always alone—no one can fucking stand you!"
"Yeah well I never asked you to take pity on me, did I?" Daniel threw his oar down into the boat, too angry to focus on their situation. "I never asked for shit except to be left alone! And what the hell is your problem with gay people anyway?"
"What makes you think I have a problem with gay people?" Asher turned to stare at Daniel in utter, furious bafflement. "I AM-"
"ROCKS!" Daniel shouted, uselessly, a second before their raft collided with the jagged stones and flipped over, sending Daniel, Asher, and their bags flying into the rushing water.
Chapter Eight
Water.
Filling his lungs and his eyes and his ears. The roaring of the river and of his pulse when he slipped below. Snatches of sky. Brief desperate gasps for air quickly choked as the water pulled him in again. The bruising pain of rocks slamming into him over and over. A pair of deep blue eyes reflecting his own fear back at him.
A moment of peace, liquid suspended, infinite black above him and shimmering blue below, like drifting in the upper atmosphere. In the dark, the currents pulled him in a strange waltz around Asher, both of them reaching for each other through the void. They spun around one another like the leaves that drifted on the surface, weirdly serene. Their fingers brushed and then were wrenched apart. Peace vanished as Daniel sunk.
Then darkness, and a vast nothingness which Daniel expected never to end. This was how he was going to die. Fighting with a homophobic trail guide on an ill-advised camping trip he had done his damndest to avoid. What would his parents think when they heard the news? He imagined they'd be sad. He wasn't close with them, but they were still his parents after all. But maybe after a little while they'd be relieved not to have to think about him anymore. He'd always felt like they only put up with him out of obligation. Just staving off their own guilt...
There was warm pressure on his lips and a lump in his throat that rose and spilled out of him in a great, hacking cough. Someone was gripping his shoulder, turning him onto his side as he vomited river water in wracking gouts that left him shaking and dizzy. His entire body ached like he'd been beaten with a sack full of rocks. Which, Daniel realized as he remembered the river and acknowledged that he was still alive, was basically what had happened. How wasn't he dead? He struggled to focus his vision and saw the blue eyes that had haunted his trip down river staring at him in concern.
"There you are! Stay with me. You can't pass out again, alright? You have to stay awake."
There was an arm around him, cold as his own skin, dragging him up to his feet. He tried to put his weight on his right ankle and felt it buckle. He didn't recognize his own voice when he cried out in pain.
"I know, I know," said a voice in his ear, drowning out someone babbling about how much it hurt, which he belatedly realized was him. "Just lean on me. Just a little further. You can do it, buddy. Keep your eyes open. Just focus on me. I'm right here..."
The world faded out again for bit, then someone was shaking him by the shoulders, forcing him back into wakefulness.
"What did I tell you about passing out? You have to stay awake!"
"I'm trying," Daniel mumbled, his vision swimming. "I'm sorry. I'm trying."
"It's alright. Just keep talking to me. Tell me what you can remember."
"Rafting. Rocks. Hit my head."
"Further back than that. What's your name? Where did you grow up?"
Daniel shook his head and then regretted it at the flare of pain that brought. He still couldn't seem to focus properly. There was someone in front of him, looking at his hurt ankle. Those blue eyes were staring right through him.
"Daniel," he answered, and was surprised when he had some difficulty dredging the information up. "Carter. I grew up in...Central Florida. My parents... Dad was a contractor. Mom had...a lot of jobs."
His head started to bob again and then someone was shaking his shoulders again, making him open his eyes.
"Come on, keep talking! Memories, Daniel. Uhh...family Christmas! Go!"
"Gran
dparents’ house, till they died. Could smell candied nuts a mile away. Family screaming at each other over every stupid thing. Always hated loud noises. Hiding in the yard till I got frostbite, wishing it was over..."
"Count backwards from ten for me Daniel."
"10, 9, 8, 7- AH!"
There was a sudden sharp pain in his arm. The world snapped into relief. He swore, vehemently and blasphemously, kicking at the rocky ground under him as fiery pain lanced through his shoulder and down his arm, burning as it went. Asher was in front of him, still holding Daniel's wrist and shoulder, his expression fraught with worry.
"What the hell was that?" Daniel asked, hunching over as he became aware of pains all over his body. He'd never felt this bad in his life. There wasn't an inch of him that didn't hurt.
"Your shoulder was dislocated," Asher explained, letting go of Daniel with a sigh that spoke of both relief and exhaustion. "I got it back in."
"Shit," Daniel whined, holding his screaming arm. "That was the one part of me that didn't hurt."
"Yeah, you're welcome." Asher grumbled, and then made a wheezy, fluttery pain sound that was so unlike him Daniel was temporarily distracted from his own distress.
"I'm afraid I'm gonna need you to return the favor now," Asher said, moving his jacket aside. Daniel felt nausea boil in his gut as he saw a rough black pine branch embedded in Asher's side. Asher looked pale.
"It's not deep. But I can't..." he paused to breathe, clearly struggling, "I can't get it out myself. And if I pass out without bandaging it, I'll bleed to death. I need your help."
"Are you crazy?" Daniel shook his head. "We have to get you to a hospital! We can't take care of something like that out here!"
Asher took another series of strained breaths. "Look around."
Daniel obeyed. They were in a clumsily constructed lean-to, just loose pine fans leaning against the side of a large rock, rapidly thrown together a few feet from the river. Outside, the sun was setting scarlet and turning the rushing water red. The silhouette of mountains beyond the river was not the same as what Daniel remembered seeing from Lawn Lake or from where the Roaring River ended at Horseshoe Park. But that didn't make sense.
