by Lissa Kasey
Nate closed his eyes and let the words sink in. This was real. He reminded himself to enjoy the moment as fears of the future began to creep in. “Let’s go find some chipmunks to photograph or something.”
Chapter 23
They parked in front of the office again, and checked in with Graham who greeted them warmly. Then they headed in the opposite direction of the place they’d camped. Jamie had a backpack filled with snacks and water. Nate just had his phone.
They held hands for a while, walking in the peace of birdsong and a cool breeze. The normal morning panic didn’t come. And Nate was okay with that. Eventually they got to a rougher trail, broken with some rocks they had to climb upward. Nate lagged behind, mostly because he spent time admiring Jamie’s easy movement over the trail. Obviously Jamie knew where he was going. And while this path wasn’t as worn or as wide as the other one that led to their campground previously, it was a clear trail.
They reached a peak area where Jamie stopped and took off the backpack. He handed Nate a bottle of water. “Try to drink at least half of it.”
Nate did as he stared out into the distance. Trees, hills, a few cliffs, and lots of water stretched out before them. The trees were washed in a rage of fire orange, red, brown, green, and yellow. The blue sky met the edge of dark blue water, like a glance into Alice in Wonderland’s Looking Glass. A mysterious edge to the stretch of rolling waves.
Nate pulled out his phone and started taking pictures. They’d been hiking over an hour. They couldn’t have gone that far, Nate was just slow and the terrain tough. But wow, Jamie had been right, the area was stunning.
Jamie handed him one of Nate’s homemade protein bars. “Eat. We can go up one more ridge if you’d like. That’s another hour hike, mostly because it’s rock. Going up isn’t so bad. But coming down we have to be really slow. You burn a lot of calories hiking like this. And it’s easy to get dehydrated so I’m going to keep shoving food and water your way.”
“Can we stay here a bit?” Nate asked. He found a wide rock with a good view to sit down on. “It’s pretty. Like a postcard.” He wished he’d brought his notebook. “This is so beautiful. I wish all of life was like this. Happy, peaceful, and safe.”
“Life is a range of emotions,” Jamie said. “It’s what it means to live. I want you to try to remember that the next time a downswing comes. There will be an up. It’s just the nature of things.” Jamie sat down beside him, and Nate immediately settled into his side, enjoying his warmth. Having come from freezing Minnesota, the cold shouldn’t have bothered him so much. But the wind blew through him like waves of ice. Jamie took Nate’s hands into his and rubbed them. “I have some gloves in my bag.”
Ever prepared. Nate put on the gloves Jamie dug from his pack, and accepted a small notebook and pen. “You think of everything,” Nate said.
“Nah,” Jamie said. “Pretty sure you think of everything. I just think of you.”
Nate gave him a goofy grin. Jamie patted his side. “Get comfy. Write. I can see the wheels turning in your head. I’ll be your chair for a bit and keep you warm.”
They sat against a grouping of rocks, Jamie’s back to one area, Nate’s to Jamie’s chest. Nate wrote for almost an hour, the heat of Jamie warming him from the soul on out. Neither of them spoke. They didn’t need to.
Nate lost himself in words for a time, building a backstory for the fantastical characters Bastian’s story had inspired. The story was coming together. Nate would have to type up all this stuff later, but he focused on getting out the ideas, and piecing together his thoughts. His head bobbed a little and he realized he was falling asleep in Jamie’s arms.
He thought Jamie had fallen asleep and was making some sort of whining snore, but it just didn’t sound right. He stopped and glanced back. Jamie was awake and his eyes were focused on the tree line below them, like he was looking for something. His expression was serious and a little tight.
The sound came again. Muffled, tiny, and so distant Nate barely heard it. Like an animal cry. Something wounded. Nate’s gut clenched. “Jamie?”
“I heard it,” Jamie said. “Been hearing it for a while. Not sure what it is or where exactly.”
“Sounds like a wounded dog,” Nate whispered. A pitiful hopeless thing begging for help. He closed the notebook and shoved the stuff into Jamie’s pack before getting up and scanning the trees himself for signs of movement. Anxiety rose in his gut, filling his veins with ice water. Was something out there hurt? Could they help? How bad would it be?
“Let’s head back to the office and let Graham know,” Jamie said.
“No,” Nate said. “If there’s a dog hurt out here, we can’t just wait.” The cry came again, so lost and heartbroken that Nate’s heart almost burst with the grief. His soul had made that cry for two years. Dying inside, begging for help, while no one listened. Except Jamie. He wasn’t about to leave anything out there in that sort of pain. Nate dropped into a squat and had to focus on his breathing to stave off a panic attack. Holy fuck.
“Nate,” Jamie whispered, rubbing his back.
“Please,” Nate said. He sucked in deep gulps of air that didn’t seem to help much. “I’m terrified, but we can’t leave it. My heart can’t handle us just walking away.” Nate looked up at Jamie, who now stood behind him, swinging the pack onto his back. “Please.”
“Okay,” Jamie said. “But stay close to me. We’ll be heading off trail.”
Nate nodded, fighting to calm himself. When he could finally breathe again, he followed Jamie, and they carefully picked their way down. The trail had been a picnic of a hike compared to the path they found down. It felt like it took hours. The cry came and went, fading until it vanished for a long time, then started again. Sometimes Jamie stopped, and they waited listening for the sound, praying it came again, just so they could point themselves in the right direction. Nate was exhausted but kept plodding forward. He trembled with anxiety, brain on hyperactive worry mode. He clung to Jamie, sometimes holding on to the back of his shirt, or even the pack.
The mournful cry grew closer and closer. Until they finally stood close enough that they both stopped to listen. Where was it coming from?
It was movement that caught his eye first, faint as it was. A brown lump on the ground moved. Nate’s brain leapt to fears of snakes and other creepy-crawlies, only this was bigger, and opened large black eyes to look despondently in their direction. A dog, pit bull, from what Nate could see, sat beside a long burned-out campfire.
He raced to the dog’s side, despite Jamie’s warning shout, and knelt down next to the animal. A female, covered in dirt and bruised. She made a pitiful whine when he ran his hands down her sides. He could feel beneath her skin, something was wrong. Broken ribs maybe? She lay on her side, barely breathing. Huge eyes examined Nate with both fear and hope.
Jamie joined Nate and began looking the dog over. He knew more about dogs than Nate ever could. “She could have hurt you,” Jamie said.
“She can barely breathe,” Nate defended himself.
“But still has teeth. An injured dog is dangerous.” He sighed and ran his hands over her.
“What’s wrong with her?” Nate asked. “Her ribs feel wrong. Broken?”
“Yeah. Looks like she’s been kicked several times.” Jamie looked mad. He yanked his pack off and began pulling things out: a first aid kit, a small box that read ‘Survival Pack’ on the top, some water, and some jerky. Inside the survival box there were a couple of flares, a small flashlight, and a couple of big pieces of what looked like foil. It took Nate a minute to realize it was a thermal blanket. “Her temperature is dropping. Help me get her wrapped in the blanket. I’ll have to rig up something to help carry her back.”
Jamie spread the blanket out and with Nate’s help, they lifted the dog very carefully onto the blanket and wrapped her up, just leaving her head out. Jamie also had an expandable bowl that he filled with water and helped her drink from.
Nate stroked the dog’s
head and whispered, “Who’s a good girl? What a beautiful princess you are. Such a good girl.”
Jamie fed her a few pieces of jerky, tearing them into tiny pieces before letting her have them and then watching her carefully. “She’s been here a few days at least. No food or water. She’s already gulped down an entire bottle of water.” Jamie looked around. “I need to find some sticks big enough to build a cot. Something we can both carry to keep her stable. I hate having to move her at all. Those broken ribs might be dangerous. Puncture a lung or something.”
There was nothing around them, though the trees were dense. The canopy draped like an umbrella above them a good thirty or forty feet off the ground. All Nate could see was dirt and a thick layer of molding leaves and evergreen needles.
“Go. I’ll stay here with her.” He continued to pet her and whisper softly. She no longer whined and her breathing seemed even. There was no sign of mange or fleas on her. And despite going several days without food or water, she wasn’t emaciated. Someone had been taking good care of her. Nate hoped she wasn’t some little kid’s dog who’d been stolen for something awful like a fight ring.
Jamie got up and scanned the distance before heading into the trees to look for sticks. Nate scratched her ears and curled up on the ground beside her, keeping in her sight. He noticed something a few feet away, a glint of something not quite brown in the dirt and got up to look at it. The dog made a little whine.
“I’ll be right back, little girl,” Nate promised. He reached the item and dusted at the ground for a moment before finding a collar. “Luna?” Nate said. “Your name is Luna?” He brought the collar back; it was a purple thing caked with dirt, and a little silver dog bone had her name on the front and a phone number on the back. Nate washed the collar with a little of the water from his bottle. The clip wasn’t broken. More like someone had just taken it off of her and discarded it. Had she been abandoned? Nate put the collar back on her, clipping it into place and straightening the charm to hang under her chin.
He heard her tail begin thumping under the blanket. “You happy to be found, little girl? Did someone take you from your mommy or daddy?”
Jamie had been gone a while and Nate began to worry. The sky was growing dark. He checked his phone. No reception, and it was after five. In less than two hours it would be full dark. He hoped Jamie got back soon. How hard could it be to find sticks? Time ticked by slowly and Nate sang “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall” to himself, not really paying attention to numbers. It was just something to keep himself distracted and calm.
Jamie returned a few minutes later just a few large sticks in hand, face ashen.
“What’s wrong?” Nate asked. Were there more dogs? Maybe dogs who had passed. Nate didn’t think he could handle that. Jamie loved to watch those shows on TV that were about animal rescue or veterinarian places. Nate couldn’t watch any of them. His heart couldn’t take the pain or worry.
“I found my tent and our sleeping bags.”
Nate frowned. “Okay.” It sort of made sense. Maybe he stole their stuff had also stolen this dog. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” It didn’t look like a good thing from the expression on Jamie’s face and the tension in his shoulders.
Jamie knelt and began putting together a small square of branches, tying them together with medical tape. “I need you to do something for me, Nate, and I know this is going to be hard for you. Terrifying maybe, but I need you to be calm. This is a pretty serious situation.”
Nate’s gut clenched. There was something Jamie wasn’t telling him. “Okay.”
Jamie saw the collar and picked up the tag to look at it. “Luna, eh?”
Nate nodded.
“Well, we’re going to load up Luna and take her about forty yards back there.” Jamie nodded his head in the direction he’d come from.
“Why?” They weren’t leaving her out here to die, were they? Nate couldn’t imagine Jamie ever doing something like that. Even if he hadn’t been a ranger, his love for animals surpassed most people’s affection for their family.
Jamie seemed to think for a minute, like he was framing what to say, which only made Nate’s anxiety worse.
“Just tell me. You know there’s a million horrible scenarios going through my head right now.”
Finally Jamie said, “The tent is tore up. But there’s someone back there. Alive, and hurt. I’ll need backup to get him and Luna out.”
“I can help,” Nate said. He could carry Luna by himself if he had to.
“You will be helping. I need you to stay with them, keep them warm. Try to get the injured man to drink something, while I get help.”
The panic attack came almost instantly at the thought of being left alone in the woods with a stranger with night coming. Jamie wrapped his arms around Nate and rubbed his back. His words were soft, arms strong, an almost brutal grip around him, but Nate couldn’t make out what Jamie said. Scenarios of anything that could ever go wrong played in his head. His brain conjured ideas worse than any horror movie.
Nate struggled to breathe under the weight of it all. He gasped and trembled, letting Jamie support his weight and trying to focus on Jamie’s soothing voice, even if he couldn’t make out the words.
Luna whined, ripping Nate out of the fog. He reached for her again. This sweet girl did not deserve what had been done to her. He worked on his breathing, focusing on Luna, cradling her head in his lap, bowing over the top of her. Tears ran down his cheeks and his lungs burned from the effort to breathe. Jamie hugged him tightly from behind. He counted quietly, adding “Sweet little doggy,” in after every few numbers. Nate timed deep breaths with petting Luna, letting the need to help her battle through the legions of negative thoughts to pull him in the right direction. The cloud of terror cleared, though the stain of it still clung to him. He could function. He could push through if he had to. He wouldn’t let Jamie or Luna down.
“Sorry,” Nate whispered.
“No need,” Jamie said. “My fault for bringing it on.” The panic attack. It wasn’t Jamie’s fault. They’d always been situational. And at this moment they had a situation.
“How bad is he hurt?” Nate whispered once his breathing finally settled. Would he freak just by seeing the stranger? Would there be blood and exposed bones? He thought of their camping site and how it had been strewn with used condoms and beer bottles. What if the man had been violated? Nate thought that was probably the most horrible of the scenarios in his head. But it made his resolve to help even stronger.
“Broken leg for sure. Looks like he tried to set it, but pain gets the better of us in those situations. It’s not like in the movies. Most people can’t reset their own bones. They pass out from pain. He’s also malnourished, dehydrated. Very weak. Possibly septic. I can’t carry him in his condition and Luna is too heavy for you. There’s no cell reception out here. So the only option is for me to go get a team to bring them out. There’s not even a place nearby to land a helicopter, if we could even get one from the mainland.” Jamie took Nate’s hand and squeezed it. “I’ll be as fast as I can. I’d take Luna with me, but she’ll slow me down a lot. It’s better if I can get a group of people out here. Medics. Maybe one of the veterinarians. I hate moving either of them in the condition they’re in. I’ve got a lot of skills, but single-handed rescue is not one of them.”
They couldn’t leave them either. Nate nodded. It made sense that Jamie would go. He could move fast, knew his way around, and whom to contact for help. Nate would slow him down, and with night coming, the temperatures would drop. Would Luna or this stranger survive another night in the cold? Nate was already chilled to the bone from the cold wind blowing through him and the weight of fear icing his blood.
“Let’s get Luna moved.” They carefully lifted her, trying not to move her torso at all. She whined at them, but didn’t otherwise protest. The cot was sturdy enough to hold her weight as the two of them carried her, Jamie in the lead. He’d been right, Luna was too heavy
for Nate to carry. She was probably close to fifty pounds. Which would have been fine for a few minutes, but Nate could never manage the several hours of the hike back with her weight in his arms or on his back.
The tent came into view and Nate had to fight back another panic attack. It was shredded on one side, only part of it still standing. It must have been enough to shield the stranger since Nate couldn’t see anyone or the sleeping bags.
Jamie led Nate to the tent and into what used to be the common room area. A giant hole in the ceiling area let water and cool air in. The little side room they’d slept in before was where their bags were. Nate could barely make out the prone form lying within. Luna made a happy little cry.
“Lu?” a weak voice called. It quavered with uncertainty. “Is that you, angel girl?”
“She’s here,” Jamie said. It was a squeeze getting all of them into the little area of the tent. They set Luna down beside the man. Jamie took the flashlight Nate had put in his pocket and turned it on, illuminating the small room. A homeless man from what Nate could tell. His clothes and hair were so dirty and bedraggled, his beard overgrown so much, Nate was hard pressed to find where his eyes were. The smell was also pretty distinct. He’d been here a while. The stench of urine and feces was almost overpowering.
Luna hadn’t been emaciated, but the man was. The bones in his fingers visible, with clear lines of his veins running through them. Nate was suddenly glad for the overgrown hair and many layers of clothing. He had no idea how bad off the man was, and didn’t really want to know. He hadn’t gone into a medical field for a reason.
Jamie went to work, moving the old soiled sleeping bags, spreading out another thermal blanket, and binding up the leg that was twisted in the wrong direction. The man barely made a sound. He just stared into Luna’s eyes and reached a weak hand toward her. Nate sat beside them and stroked Luna’s head as he tried to ignore what Jamie was doing. The leg was bad and Nate felt his gorge rise by just looking at it. Infected maybe, as well as horribly broken. Swollen to at least twice the size of the other one. None of them talked.