by K Larsen
“It’s not Christmas yet and I haven’t gotten anything to exchange. It doesn’t seem fair.”
“Think of it as a gift for both of us. First time I ever tried making these, but there was a decent enough diagram in the field book.”
He walked around the corner carrying a pair of rudimentary crutches. They were basically two tall Ts nailed together out of pine two-by-fours. Meghan felt grateful and flattered and amused. It was such a practical present, a necessity, but it was touching too, in a way that felt meaningful.
“You made me crutches?” She brought both hands to her face. She was blushing, she was teary-eyed, her emotions hurtling through a blender on high speed.
“I think that right foot should be ready for weight bearing. Just for necessities, no fox trot or Irish River Dancing.”
“You spoil me.”
“Haven’t had anyone to spoil for a while,” he said thoughtfully.
“Why do you live out here, Tristan? Social anxiety?”
Tristan brought the crutches over, dismissed her question with a shrug. She didn’t know much about the Unabomber, but Tristan didn’t seem like the politically radical type. He wasn’t stashing arms or doomsday prepping with walls lined with canning, blue tarps, whiskey, and guns.
He helped her stand on one leg, fit the crutch under her armpit and made some marks with a pencil on how much to adjust for her height.
“I’m just a loner, I guess. Never was much for loud music or crowds. I don’t like cities with buildings where they crowd out the sky. Wide-open spaces make me feel wide-open. I can breathe out here away from the masses.”
She watched him stoke the fire after he expertly poked the coals into a hellfire rage. He tore long strips from an old flannel and carefully wrapped the upper portion of her crutches for padding.
“Splinters,” he said by way of explanation as he tore through the fabric with his teeth. The cabin was alight with shadows that danced out of the woodstove. Her face felt heated and her heart strangely warm. When Tristan came back from the kitchen, he carried hot soup in two mugs. He lifted her feet and sat down, replacing them over his lap.
As she sipped her soup, it surprised her that being this close to him felt like the most natural thing in the world. Practically cuddling on the couch like an old married couple, maybe this was what all rescued dogs felt like. Indebted to their new master, ready to leap at their beck and call, beholden for the collar and the bowl full of mush.
Maybe she’d been brainwashed. Maybe she had Stockholm Syndrome. Or maybe she’d just met a great guy under the most bizarre circumstances. Either way, she was sleepy and warm and full of shockingly good soup.
“You’re a great cook,” she said.
Meghan set her empty mug down and pressed her hands together under her cheek as she rested her head on the pillow.
“Was that venison?”
“Grizzly Bear.”
She kicked him in the ribs with her good foot. Her eyes were closed but a smile curled on her sleepy face. She could already read his voice and anticipate his humor, like they’d left together on this insane, never-ending camping trip.
Seventeen
Meghan
She imagined it to be around four in the morning when she kicked the blankets off. Her face was slick with sweat and she swiped her fingers across her upper lip where it had accumulated in droplets. She opened one eye and gave a dirty look to the woodstove. It wasn’t raging like before, but those damn hot coals were unleashing a heatwave that was stifling her sleep.
An hour or so later she tore at her clothes. Her fingers felt stupid, like swollen paws that had no idea how to get the job done. She imagined all four walls of the cabin were on fire. Flames licking upwards, fighting to reach the ceiling.
“Fucking waffle-knit, heat-tech, dry wick,” she muttered as she yanked it from her body. Her fingers didn’t yet have the dexterity to manipulate the tie at her waistband.
“Christ,” she muttered as she tried to pull them down despite the tether.
Her hair was wet. The couch even felt damp. What the fuck was up with the weather on this mountain?
She turned her head to lay the side-eye on the engine from hell that heated the cabin, but it looked dark, except for the faintest glowing embers pulsing weakly between the iron slats. She screwed up her face confused by the raging swelter.
But when she finally toed off her bottoms with the help of her good foot, the ice-cold air on her heated flesh felt like heaven licking her skin.
“Holy shit,” she said to the velvet silence that surrounded her. She splayed her limbs and opened her ears to the muffled nothing; not wind blowing, not shutters flapping, no crickets, not even any creaking floorboards. She let the cold air slither up her flesh dousing the fire that seemed to run under her skin. She was breathing hard, like she’d been running, but she was lying perfectly still.
“Mom?” she called out into the void. She remembered the owl and the stars.
When she woke up again, it was forceful, like being shoved from unconsciousness into a board meeting full of executives and she was expected to give the power point presentation.
Tristan was looming over her and he was holding open her eyelids. She felt upside-down, inside-out, confused and twisted. Forming thoughts felt like brain aerobics.
“Meghan, you’ve got a high fever. I’m going to try to bring it down. Hang in there.”
Tristan. The mountain man. Beard. Red long underwear.
She lifted her chin, the task felt insurmountable. Her vision was blurry. Her body looked naked, like a big swath of slick skin laid over the couch.
“Ten toes?” she asked. Meghan felt proud and competent for forming the words and communicating.
“You’ve been out for more than twenty-four hours.”
“I’m a cheap date,” she tried to say, but her voice came out all scratchy.
Tristan looked pained. He put a hand on one hip and looked away from her.
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed but he was back by her side. He was touching her with something, ice cubes? It felt refreshing and cut through the fire like a tonic to her skin.
Soon, she was overcome by the stench of rubbing alcohol. So strong she gagged and squeezed her eyes shut against the burn. They teared anyway through her closed lids.
“Tristan!” she hollered. She wanted to kick, to stomp her feet.
He finally stopped and the acrid smell dissipated. She hacked a dry cough, but wasn’t strong enough to bring her hand up to cover her mouth. The weakness clued her in to the realization she was in deep shit.
Tristan placed a cold washcloth on her forehead and it made her flesh scream.
“Meghan, I’m gonna have to pack you with some snow in towels. I know it’s not ideal. Your skin is really sensitive to temperature right now—both hot and cold, so I won’t let it touch you if I can help it.”
She thought she heard him mutter fuck as he wrenched the door open to go out in the whiteness.
Fuck was right. She was surrounded by snow and ice, but her body was a blazing inferno—an erupting volcano in the middle of a snowstorm.
When he came back, he was carrying a metal bucket, a small trowel, and a handful of towels. He quickly got to work on making what looked like snow burritos and placing them around her body. Tristan worked hard, as if doing this were his job. Meghan watched him intently trying to focus her runaway mind on the strength of his hands, the satisfaction of watching his forearms as they dug, twisted, and rolled.
I’m ruining this guy’s life, was Meghan’s fleeting thought. Here he might be enjoying the storm, watching his movies, reading his books. But instead she occupied his time by being a perpetual train wreck, crashing into his life and upsetting the balance of the universe.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Her words sounded thick, slurred like she’d been drinking or had suffered a stroke.
He shook his head after barely glancing up at her. He was on his knees in front of the couch
working diligently. Her body was cooling and with every snow pack he placed next to her, she swore she could feel her head clearing. The colors in the room became more vibrant, she stopped panting, and she could focus clearly on Tristan.
“Do you know the joke about the big hike up the mountain?” she asked him. A smile broke on her face. She felt dizzy, slap-happy—she was pretty sure she was delirious.
Tristan read and shook a thermometer before slipping it under her tongue. She raised her eyebrows at him, asking if he’d heard the joke.
“Lemme see. I’ll never get over it?”
She giggled with her lips closed around the thermometer.
“Your eyes are so bloodshot,” he said. His scanned her face like he was looking for answers he already knew he’d never find.
Meghan liked the way he looked at her. Even though his expression was conflicted, no one had looked at her with that kind of understanding, that depth of connection in years.
He pulled the thermometer out and squinted at the line of mercury. His brow stayed furrowed and Meghan didn’t want to hear the damage.
“What do you do if you’re hiking and come to a fork in the road?”
“Stop and eat lunch. Meghan, it’s not good news. I’m sorry.” His eyes seemed to well with tears and it caused a subsequent plumbing problem in her heart. Why did he live alone when he was so packed full of beautiful emotion? Such a wonderful man, all by himself on a mountain. She never wanted him to be alone again.
“Will I die?” she asked him. Her eyes began to fill like his. “It’s okay. Not your fault. You did everything you could.” She lifted her heavy hand and laid it on his forearm. She tried to give him a comforting pat, and realized that her red and stiff hands now resembled her grandmother’s.
“The problem with severe frostbite is that it’s real easy for infection to set in. I don’t want you to see it, but our little pig is no longer gray. He’s gone to the dark side and that’s what’s causing your high fever.”
“Do you have antibiotics?” Again, she felt a surge of pride at her ability to recall words, and processes, and even speaking through her cracked lips.
“Even if I did, you’d need a large dose intravenously. We’ve got to remove the infected area and it’s small enough to do. I stayed up half the night reading and we’ve got the tools. All I need is your cooperation and ultimately, your permission.”
Oh Jesus.
The idea alone made bile swirl in her gut.
She was only going to concentrate on how handsome his hair was, how good he’d look in a catalogue for outdoor equipment or hiking gear. She’d lost herself in the feel of his rough hands taking care of her, how they brushed, calloused and resolute, over her sensitive body. Focusing on his full lips, how they peeked out sensually from his scruffy beard. The deepness of his voice made her docile and the distress on his beautiful face made her feel special and important.
“I have booze. Iodine too.”
She nodded. She smiled. She closed her eyes to block out any choice. She’d hand herself over to this man and trust him with her life. She had no other option, except to burn up on the couch, turn everything to cinder, and extinguish herself once her fire burnt out.
Eighteen
Tristan
He’d gotten the pruning shears out of the greenhouse last night and first washed them thoroughly. Then he’d heated those suckers in the fire until the metal tips turned red and the plastic on the end of the handles started to smoke and burn.
He’d read Shackleton’s “South,” and of course, “Into the Wild,” sat through the film 172 hours and nearly vomited at the stress it had caused him. He’d imagined extreme scenarios and what he’d do if he became trapped in them: running out of food or water, getting too sick to care for himself. He’d even studied wound care and first aid. But nothing, he thought, could have prepared him for this.
A woman, and a beautiful one, appearing out of nowhere as if she’d fallen from the sky along with the snow. Splayed out naked on his sofa, like an art-class figure model, eyes glassy and full of admiration and love.
First the frostbite, then the infection, followed by a dangerously high fever. No gentle and slow attempts to ease him back in socializing—that would be too easy. More like a life or death amputation, on a stranger, stranded in a snowstorm. He had no one to consult with and couldn’t fully rely on her delirium for consent. But he refused to let her die in his arms and he would go to any length to prevent that from being the outcome.
And did he mention that she was beautiful? Meghan. Trusting, lying there without her clothes on. Sweating and hallucinating, asking for her mother when she, herself, was one. He’d have to make sure she lived for the two sons she spoke of. She surely had more family and a nice life to return to. He wished it wasn’t all up to him.
He had knives, sure, even a meat-cleaver. But nothing sharp enough to cut through bone smoothly like he needed it to be. He didn’t want jagged edges, and a single whack might bite off more than he could chew. He needed something small that would fit between her toes, cut clean and clear through so that he could cauterize the wound.
He owned a forged steel anvil for any metal working he did, onto which he flattened a common teaspoon with a few blows from his hammer. Every time his arm came down toward the small silver target, he inwardly flinched at the excessive pain this would cause her. She was asleep when he removed the red-hot pruning shears from the woodstove and replaced them with the spoon. He didn’t have morphine for pain or any narcotics. He used ibuprofen for headaches, clove oil and Bourbon for those of the tooth.
“We’re going to have to do this. Now. There’s no more time.” The words sounded foreign as he spoke them.
Meghan nodded. “We’re going to have to do this. The toe has to go.”
“Shit.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I’ve got an idea though. To make it a little easier.”
Meghan looked at him hopeful just before her eyes fluttered closed again. He needed to move quickly.
He stood, went into the kitchen. Bourbon, he had a bottle stashed up high in the pantry. He pulled it down and took a healthy swig for himself to calm his nerves before grabbing her a shot glass.
He sat contemplatively by her side as he watched the shadows from the fire flit across her face. He took her temperature in her armpit and upon seeing the number, decided the sooner the better.
“Meghan.” He shook her shoulder gently. “Meghan, it’s happy hour.”
Her eyes fluttered open and she smiled at him serenely. It was the delirium he told himself, not because she’s happy to see me.
“I need you to try to sit up. I’m gonna get you drunk before I take advantage of your smallest digit.”
“Can I have Caviar for my last meal? And French fries with ketchup?”
“Very funny. You’re a fever comedienne.”
“What were you, Tristan? Before you came out here and got married to the mountain.” He pulled her to sitting by slipping his hands into her armpits. He could still smell the rubbing alcohol on her skin. He needed to bathe her, but the toe took priority.
Once she was sitting, he handed her a shot glass so full that the liquor spilled over the sides onto his fingers. She knocked her head back and took it all, then coughed ferociously into her hand.
“Fire water,” she said as tears streamed down her face. “Let’s play a drinking game,” she told him. Her cheeks flushed in full rosy blush from the fever and booze combination.
“I think you want me with a steady hand.” He knew he was taciturn, but he was doing his best. It was hard to adjust to talking, but banter with her came surprisingly easy. He didn’t feel that frog in his throat that appeared on his jaunts to town, when the lady at the checkout wanted to chat about the weather.
“I certainly wasn’t a doctor. Climatologist. Research mostly at weather centers. Data science, you know crunching numbers.”
“How many years do we have left before huma
ns destroy the world?”
She took the proffered shot from him and dipped her head in thanks. She dropped it back and downed it, licking the remainder from her lips.
When she did that, it made him glance down at her breasts, and lower to the soft flesh of her stomach. He felt the one swig of booze slosh lazily through his system. He wanted to touch her, not cut her.
She’d taken three shots and she closed her eyes again. He could detect freckles on her nose and a touch of peach fuzz on her upper lip.
“Do you need another?”
Her eyes popped open and she gazed at him intensely.
“If I don’t make it, everything goes to my boys. Obviously. But I would like to leave you my car, and my movie collection, and my library, as a thank you.”
“Wow, I should kill people more often.”
She leaned forward and wrapped her fingers around the back of his head. She pulled him toward her and pressed her warm lips into his. He froze for just a fraction of a second before he opened his mouth and tasted the sweet Bourbon of her lips. She was going to make it as hard as possible for him to hurt her. But her kiss was so hot that it scared him into moving quick. With both hands behind her head, he devoured her mouth, let his hands then wander down to the pretty slopes of her shoulders. Her heartbeat thudded as her body worked to fight the infection. She was very much alive and real, and his procedure potentially fatal.
“Lie down and cover your face with the towel,” he told her. The sooner they got it over with, the faster he’d know the outcome.
“I’ve been blindfolded once, but nobody ever asked me to put a bag over my head.”
“Told you I’m a foot guy.” He made sure her face was covered before he grabbed the sterile pruning shears.
Tristan wrapped the other four toes on her left foot tightly in gauze. No mistakes. No room for errors or hack jobs.
“I trust you,” she said softly. Her voice was muffled under the covers.