“I ruined everything,” he muttered.
“Could happen to anyone,” Dad said, and pulled the jeans down Rick’s legs. His left leg, below the knee, looked swollen and slightly bent. Dad ran his hand along it. “There’s a break, all right.”
“What’re we going to do?” Julie asked.
That was when Rick stopped thinking of her as Mom. It didn’t seem quite so terrible to have gloated over a woman who was not Mom, just Julie.
“Hold his knee,” Dad said.
Julie clutched his knee with both hands, and Dad tugged sharply on his ankle. Rick flinched rigid as white-hot pain streaked up his body.
Dad fingered the shin again. “I think that set it. You okay?”
Rick nodded.
Dad stood up, looked around, apparently didn’t spot whatever he wanted, then crouched and pulled off Rick’s sneakers. Following his instructions, Julie pressed the soles of the shoes flat against both sides of Rick’s shin. A little more of her nipple was showing. Rick forced himself not to look at it. He watched Dad instead. Soon, the shoes were strapped tightly into place with two belts.
“That ought to hold it,” Dad said.
They helped Rick up. Julie suggested they support him under each arm and walk him back to camp, but Dad said that it would be easier, and less risky, if he carried Rick piggyback.
“You might hurt yourself,” Julie said.
“You kidding? The man of iron?”
Dad didn’t feel like a man of iron as he carried Rick over the rough terrain. He felt like oak, thick and solid and resilient. He wasn’t even breathing heavily by the time they reached their campsite.
Instead of putting Rick down, he waded into the lake.
“What’re you doing?”
“I want you to soak that leg for a while. The cold’ll keep the swelling down.”
“Do I have to?”
Dad crouched. The icy water soaked through the seat of Rick’s cotton underpants, shocking his anus and biting into his genitals. Then the water numbed his legs. Julie, behind him, clutched him under the armpits.
“Okay, I’ve got you,” she said.
Releasing his father, he eased backward against Julie. She lowered him deeper. Dad let go of his legs, then moved around to where Julie was. Together, they guided him closer to the shore. They found a flat rock for him to sit on.
Both legs were still submerged below the knees, but the agony was gone. Rick felt as if his balls had been released from a vice. He took a deep breath.
Dad and Julie both stood in front of him, thigh deep in the lake. Didn’t the water hurt
Julie had Rick’s jeans with the crotch at the nape of her neck and the legs draping her front.
“You should probably soak that leg a few times a day,” Dad said. He looked at Julie. “You make sure he does.”
“You’re going for help?” she asked.
“Don’t see any way out of it.”
“You’re going to leave us alone?” Rick was stunned.
“There’s no reason to worry. You’ve got plenty of food. Shouldn’t take me more than about two days to reach the ranger station. They’ll probably bring in a chopper.”
“God almighty,” Rick muttered.
“It won’t be so bad,” Julie said, and showed him a smile.
“Let him have some bourbon,” Dad told her. “That’ll help if the pain gets too bad. I’d better get a move on.”
Rick and Julie both tried to talk him into staying the night, but he argued that there were still several hours of daylight and he’d better get to the ranger station as fast as possible.
They left Rick.
Turning sideways on his tiny island of rock, he watched his father pack a few things in his rucksack, kiss Julie goodbye, wave, and start striding briskly up the trail toward Windover Pass.
That night, the wind woke Rick. It howled and shrieked through the canyon. It shook the tent in spite of the protective stone walls on either side. He was glad that Julie had moved his sleeping bag into her tent, but she seemed to be sleeping through the uproar. His leg throbbed. He began to weep. The pain was bad, but the fierce noises were worse. He felt as if their presence had somehow offended a monstrous thing that dwelt in the canyon; it hated intruders in its domain and wanted to crush them. Finally, unable to bear the terror, Rick shook Julie awake.
“Huh? What ... Jesus, what’s going on out there?”
“Just the wind,” Rick said, trying to keep his voice steady so she wouldn’t know he was crying.
“Sounds like the end of the world.”
“My leg hurts awfully bad,” he said.
“Maybe we should break out the booze. Do you think that’d be a good idea?”
“I guess so.”
“I could use some myself. What’s going on out there?”
Rick rubbed his eyes. He saw Julie sit up in the darkness. A moment later, light stung his eyes. She had turned on the dry-cell lantern hanging from a joint of the aluminum tent poles near her head.
She crawled out of her mummy bag. She was wearing a T-shirt, baggy gray sweatpants and wool socks. She put on her down parka. “Right back,” she said. On hands and knees, she made her way toward the front of the tent.
“Where are you going?”
“The bourbon’s in my pack.”
“Don’t go out there,” Rick said. There was a whine in his voice.
“I’d send you, but you’re gimped.” She opened the tent front and crawled away.
Braced up on his elbows, Rick stared at the shuddering flaps. He thought he heard a scream. Maybe it was only the wind.
Julie didn’t come back. The packs were only a few feet from the tent. Even if she had trouble finding the bottle, it shouldn’t take this long.
Suppose she
He called out to her, but she didn’t answer.
It got her! Whatever it was out there shrieking like a demon, it got Julie and ripped her apart and next it would come after Rick!
The tent flaps whipped inward and a scream stuck in his throat as Julie crawled in, her hair a tangle and the bottle in her hand.
“Where were you!” he raged through his sobs.
“Hey, calm down. What’s the matter?”
“You didn’t come back! I yelled and ...”
“I was out there anyway so I took a pee. Calm down, for godsake.” She sat cross-legged beside him and combed fingers through his hair.
Slowly, he regained control. He sat up, keeping his splinted leg straight inside his mummy bag, bending his other at the knee and turning so he could face her.
“Better?” she asked.
Rick nodded.
She unscrewed the cap of the bottle, took a sip, and handed it to him. He had tried wine and beer a few times before, but never whiskey. He drank some and winced. It tasted like medicine and scorched his throat, but then it felt warm and nice in his stomach.
“Like it?” Julie asked.
He wrinkled his nose. He took another swallow. “It’s okay.”
