Chapter 2

For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction.

I think it was Isaac Newton that came up with that. Whoever it was, he was right. Nothing like proving it in the middle of winter over a raging river. There I was, playing hero, trying to save a stoned asshole from going over a cliff, thereby cleansing the gene pool. As soon as I pushed back on his feet, I felt my arms move. Since I happened to be mid-air at the time, my whole body moved along with them.

It was a 70 foot fall. I'd call it a cliff but it wasn't quite vertical. It was a very steep slope. Very steep.

It's rather fascinating to take a fall like that. I don't know if it's evolution or something the first cave man was born with but there's a built-in imperative to save yourself, along with a mechanism to help do just that. I didn't waste the trip down to the river looking over my life. The time actually increased, expanding what was probably under two seconds at 32 feet per second per second into what seemed like several minutes. Time is relative. Einstein.

I hit about a third of the way down. The surface was mostly dirt, though I could see some rocks in it, plus some sparse vegetation. It floated toward me, giving me plenty of time to plan my impact. I could feel the weight of my backpack, pushing me faster, though I know that was impossible. A tennis ball falls just as fast as a sack of sugar. I thought about my gloves, up at the top of the cliff now, doing me absolutely no good. I saw a weed, short tufts all around with some longer ones, up to five or six inches sticking out. I got my right hand into position to grab onto it, laying my left arm across my chest to reduce the impact when I hit. I thought about my down-filled parka, glad that it was cold enough for me to be wearing it, thinking about how it would cushion me when I slammed into the ground. There was an impulse to pull my head away, protecting my face from the fall. But if I did that, I wouldn't be able to see that weed. Right now, that weed was the only hope I had. I wasn't kidding myself about surviving in the raging river beneath me. I figured I had about one chance in a hundred that the weed would hold me. One chance I wouldn't have if I didn't go for it.

It almost worked out perfect. I came down and my open hand was four or five inches above the weed. I slid down and grabbed it. I could actually feel it slow me down as my face came down and my right cheek scraped across the dirt and rocks.

I was falling pretty fast when I came down and was carrying a lot of weight with that backpack on me. You add the two of those and come up with something. I know there's a scientific term for it but for now, I'll just call it oomph. At that speed, with my weight plus the backpack's, I just had too much oomph for that poor weed. I may have slowed down a fraction, but I sort of bounced and continued falling with a scraped up face and a good portion of that stupid weed in my hand.

I could see I was going to hit again and this time there were several rocks that were sizable enough to cause some major hurt. Time was still slowed down and I was able to work my feet around so they were pointed toward the cliff. I kept them bent until I got close, then pushed off.

I timed it right and did a good job of protecting my body from the dirt and rocks. It did nothing about protecting me from the icy water, though. I floated down on my back, looking up at the sky. What I could see of it, that is. It was really overcast.

I didn't notice Jimmy so I don't know if he was up there or not.

I could sense the water getting closer and closer. I was trying to figure out whether it would be better for me to be relaxed when I hit or tensed up. I was just about convinced I should relax and go with the flow when my body tensed up all on its own a split second before I hit the water.

Talk about weird. It was like I was attached to my body by a bunji cord. No, more like I was wrapped around it and could expand. I felt myself hit, then it was like my body was pushing the water away from it, making a hole. That hole splashed out all around me like the biggest cannonball by the fattest kid you can imagine. I felt the backpack slam into me and that's when it felt like I bounced up so I became bigger than my body. I don't think I was out even a second before I slammed back.

I was out of it; I felt dull, not there. That ended real quick when I went under and felt that freezing water on my face. Up till then, I'd been doing OK because of my parka and my jeans. As soon as my face went under, I started sputtering and tried to bend, getting my face out of the water. It didn't work, it was like I was being pulled deeper into the water. I struggled for a while until I realized that the backpack was probably dragging me down. I struggled, got my right arm free, then my left and I was able to get back to the surface. I even rolled over so I was right side up. I'd just taken a good, deep breath when I caught something white out of the corner of my eye. Then, my face smashed into a huge chunk of ice. And then, nothing.

I heard someone yelling at me. "Val. You promised. You said you'd come back to me. Come on. Wake up. Get out of that water."

I hurt. Oh, God, I hurt so bad. It was like every bone in my body was broken. But the worst part was that I was being shaken. Like someone had strapped me into one of those shaker things they put paint cans in when they custom mix the paint to match the bedspread you got from Aunt Agnes. And I could hear the wire handle on the paint can banging against something, maybe five times a second. I wanted to yell for them to turn it off but I couldn't make my mouth work.

I thought about Jimmy. He was probably laughing to himself about what a loser I was. Then I tried to figure out where I was. It sure didn't seem like heaven but hell couldn't be this cold. I thought about Limbo, but that was old news. What was it they announced about Limbo? "Sorry, we were just kidding for the past thousand years." Something like that.

Where was I? And what was that damned shaking and that noise?

Something rough and slimy hit me in the face. What the fuck? I took a chance and opened my eyes.

I saw a cloudy sky and looked around. I was wedged up against a boulder and the shoreline of the river. The water was still flowing over me but it wasn't flowing at the tremendous rate it was farther out. I saw a fish jump over me, just missing the boulder. That must be what hit me in the face.

I lifted my head up, then tried my arms one at a time, then my legs. Nothing extensive but I didn't think there were any major breaks. The first thing I should do was get out of the fuckin' river, I supposed. No. First, take a good drink of water, then get out. I bent my arms and pushed down on my hands, trying to lift my body. My right hand slipped off the rock it was on and my body twisted as I fell to the right. I went over the rest of the way and started to crawl out. When I got to the side, I took my drink of water.

The river was about three feet lower than the shore line. I made my way over to a thick root that was going into the water. The dirt around it was gone, probably eroded at high tide or when the ice melted or whenever the water got higher. I just about wore myself out climbing out of the water and I rolled over on my back, trying to catch my breath and relax some.

I looked over to the left and could see some light spots through the clouds. The sun was going down so that means that direction was west. Where the destination point was.

No time for that today. It was getting dark. I had to get some wood, make a fire, put up my tent, get out of these wet clothes, get some food in my belly.

FUCK!

I had no tent, no food, no matches. I reached down to my side and felt the empty holder where my knife had been. I had nothing.

I went to stand up and it was like I was being pulled back. After struggling for a while, it finally hit me that my down-filled parka was waterlogged. I worked my arms out of it and was able to sit up. I looked behind me and the parka looked like the Michelin guy. Only it was water, not air.

My teeth were chattering like -- like one of those paint shaker things. That's what I'd felt in the water. Me shivering, my teeth chattering. I was basically freezing my ass off.

I got to my knees, then tried to stand up. The first thing that happened is that my left foot collapsed and I ended up on my face. I had no feeling in the foot. I looked back at it and noticed for the first time that there was no boot on it. I quickly checked and found the boot on the right one.

I was all set to start crawling, then thought better. The clothes I had on weren't going to do me any good. They were all soaked through. If I left them out, there was a chance that some of the water would drain off. Maybe out in the open like this, the early morning sun could do something. I started stripping.

My shirt and my winter undershirt came off just fine. I bent my leg and looked at the foot. The toes looked all glassy, as did most of the foot. If I knew my symptoms, I had a hell of a case of frostbite. Well, there wasn't a lot I could do about it.

I undid my boot and worked it off using my left heel. I was able to get the sock off without any trouble. The toes and the foot looked good. I checked out both hands, then felt and pinched my nose and my ears. It seemed that the left foot was the only casualty.

I felt some pain in my right leg, the lower back of the thigh. I twisted around enough to see a rip with a stick, maybe an inch around sticking out about two and a half inches. The pants had turned burgundy around the rip. It went up a couple of inches but the blood had flowed downward about six or so. I grabbed hold of the stick the best I could and pulled it out. If a guy screams in the forest and nobody hears him, did he really scream? I heard it. Hell, I felt it.

One good thing. Pulling off the clothes I had was enough to stop the shivering. Not that I was warm. It was probably somewhere in the low 20s. And I imagine there had been some chemical reaction in my body when I yanked that stick out of my leg that took my mind off being cold for a bit.