Chapter 6: The Gents Struggle

Eric became conscious and found himself partially beached on a dry shore bed at the bend of a river. He was aware of the lapping water and the sound of a bird off to his left. Slowly, he found that with each small wave of the river a shooting pain was coming up his leg. He started to crawl out of the water and the pain multiplied. With one last effort he lunged forward and rolled onto his back. He almost passed out with the sudden increase in pain.

“Eric? Eric, where are you? Can you hear me?” Dalton’s voice rang out from somewhere upstream.

Eric could hear the underbrush crunching as Dalton worked his way downstream.

“Hey,” Eric called out. “Over here.”

Dalton crashed through the last of the brush and found Eric laying prone along the river. He could see that Eric’s right leg sat at an unusually odd angle.

“There you are, I’m so glad to see you,” Dalton said as he settled next to Eric.

“You, too, buddy.”

Dalton bent and peered closely at Eric’s leg. “Not sure if you broke it, or maybe just messed up your ACL. Either way, it needs help.”

“That’s your best conclusion? It’s messed up and it needs help?”

“Fuck you, it’s not my leg that’s messed up.”

“Sorry, yeah, I know it’s messed up. From what I can see we need to find something to create a splint. Can you find a couple of solid branches about two feel long?”

Dalton grunted as he returned to his feet and returned to the brush. He returned with four branches of various lengths and widths.

“I think these two will work,” said Eric as he picked a couple of branches. He set them on either side of his knee. He took a shirt from his backpack and cut it into long strips.

“Dude, that’s Stacy’s new shirt for tomorrow.”

Eric stopped cutting the shirt and looked up at Dalton. “Really? Do you think Stacy will care about this shirt given the current circumstance?”

“I guess not,” pouted Dalton at the rebuke.

“OK, straighten my leg the best you can,” instructed Eric. Dalton moved to Eric’s foot and gently twisted and oriented Eric’s leg as he screamed in pain. A few deep breaths later Eric leaned up and moved the branches.

“Here, hold these in place.”

Dalton held them tight as Eric looped the cut shirt around his leg and tied it tightly in four places.

“Do you have your walking staff? I put mine in my backpack before we started on the narrow ledge.”

“Yeah, I should.” Dalton opened his pack and found the staff. He handed it to Eric.

Eric also found his and struggled to his feet with the two poles. Dalton saw him look at his backpack. Dalton opened Eric’s pack and took out as much as he could transfer to his own to lessen the weight and then carefully hefted the lighter pack onto Eric’s shoulders.

“I didn’t see the medical kit,” said Dalton.

“Yeah, Stacy has it, along with the other emergency supplies like the GPS unit.”

“And we got the heavy clothes, food, and tents,” grunted Dalton.

“Yeah. It is what it is. From where you started, do you have any idea where we are?”

Dalton looked up and made face before shaking his head. “No idea.”

Somehow Eric managed not to grimace or comment. He knew Dalton would be clueless. Luckily, he had been Stacy’s nightly sounding board as she planned the hike. He had poured over the maps of the area for hours and knew he could probably identify their location if he could see a landmark though the trees.

“What was it like from where you started? Were there any clearings?”

Dalton shook his head. “No, it was solid underbrush and trees.”

“Then I think our way is defined. Let’s head downstream and see if we can get a view of the area.”

Eric found that if he gingerly placed weight on his right leg and did not twist his knee he could walk at a slow pace. Dalton took the lead and did the best he could to clear a path for Eric to follow. After twenty minutes they found a dry creek bed that used to feed into the river.

“Let’s follow this upstream,” pointed Eric. “My guess is that this was originally from a well that fed water into the river. Hopefully, we can get higher and see where we are.”

It was a hard pass, but eventually they found a small path to the top of the ravine. At the top they had a view of the land.

“Perfect,” said Eric as he leaned on his poles.

“Perfect?” spat Dalton.

“Yeah, I know exactly where we are.”

Eric pointed to the mountain to their left.

“That is the mountain we were on.” He moved his finger further to the left. “Behind those trees is the ledge where we were walking. It’s hard to tell the distance, but I bet were at least a couple of miles from where we fell. We must have ridden the landslide into the river, and then been swept away before we were covered.”

“Lucky us,” said Dalton.

“Actually, yes, very lucky on two counts. If we hadn’t been swept away, we would have been buried under tons of rock and dirt. And second, even though we were in the river, we didn’t drown as we were whisked downstream.”

Dalton didn’t appreciate the luck they experienced and pouted at their current lot.

“So how do we get out of here? I mean it’s great that you know...”

Eric shushed Dalton with a snap of his fingers and an ear crooked to the sky.

“Do you hear that?” he whispered.

“What?” said Dalton at full volume.

“Ssh, listen.”

The two stood and listened intently. Eventually, they heard a slow beat of a helicopter’s rotors.

“That’s my girl,” said Eric. “Stacy must have used the GPS device and called for help. That means they are both OK and they have help en route. We’ll be fine.”