by R. A. Rock
I dug around in his pack, feeling nervous, until I found it intact. What a fool, Gideon was. Why hadn’t he got rid of this thing? He had said it was his insurance but I figured it would be the death of him. I was sorely tempted to take it out and leave it down here in the ditch when we hauled him out. But I didn’t dare. He would probably come back for it anyway, when he found out and we didn’t need the delay.
I hated that I couldn’t get rid of the dangerous thing. But I supposed I had to live with it. It wasn’t my decision to make and that galled me.
Gideon woke up sooner than I expected. He regained consciousness in about an hour. And thankfully, he wasn’t badly hurt. He had lots of minor injuries and a bump on his head, but a sprained ankle seemed the worst he had sustained.
Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t feeling too hot. And walking ten kilometres a day on a sprained ankle is near next to impossible and would put a real cramp in our plans. But he was alive and it could have been a lot worse.
When he felt well enough, I tied the rope under his arms and the others pulled him from the top while I boosted him and he climbed as best he could. Somehow we got him to the top where I bound his ankle and he hobbled along with a crutch that Nessa made for him. It was a forked stick with one of his shirts wrapped around it.
We only went far enough to find a sheltered place away from the steep ditch where Gideon had fallen. After all the stress of his accident and getting him out, plus the rain, nobody felt like bothering with supper or a fire. We ate protein bars, set up the tents, and crawled into our sleeping bags.
I lay beside Nessa in the tent, thinking and thinking.
What would we do now?
Gideon getting hurt had changed all of our plans.
As I started to drift off, I wondered what the heck we would do, if we had to camp here in the forest for the length of time it would take for Gideon’s ankle to heal.
Damn, this sucked.
My eyes began to close and though I wanted to think some more and figure something out, I was unable to keep awake any longer. And the second that I let go, I was instantly asleep.
Nessa
I awoke in the early morning. For a moment I was completely confused as to where I lay. I stared up at the ceiling and after only a few seconds, all of the memories crashed in.
Gideon.
His accident.
The hydro being out.
The walk to Sipwesk.
I took a deep breath to calm myself.
Everything reeked like wet dog because all our stuff, including our clothes and sleeping bags were damp and the dim light indicated that the sun wasn’t yet up. I thought about how yesterday had changed my perception of this little adventure that we were on. It wasn’t a game anymore. People could die on this trip.
When I had left my house, I had known that it wasn’t going to be easy to do what I was trying to do. But I hadn’t thought much about personal injury and how dangerous that could be.
Gideon’s leg was hurt. Now he couldn’t run. He couldn’t hide. He was a sitting duck for any predator or hostile human to take out.
It made me nervous. I didn’t want that I wanted to be able to run if someone or something tried to attack me.
And what were we going to do now that Gideon was hurt? He couldn’t walk. He was in too much pain. And the rest of us would just have to wait around for him until he healed enough to keep going. We couldn’t abandon him.
But I didn’t want to stay here. I felt restless at the thought. I wanted to get to the relative safety of my cabin. I wanted to make sure that Matt’s mom was okay. I wanted to hole up and never see another human or animal or highway ever again.
Of course we wouldn’t leave Gideon.
But this changed everything.
Our few days of walking was going to turn into weeks on the road while we waited for him to heal. And he didn’t strike me as likely to be the most kind and grateful patient, either.
“I can hear you thinking from over here,” Matt said, turning onto his side to face me.
I turned on my side, too, pillowing my head on my arm.
“I’m worried about what we’re going to do now that Gideon’s hurt,” I said softly, aware that there was no actual sound barrier between the tents.
Matt frowned.
“We’ll have to camp here until he’s better,” he said, shaking his head, his expression resolute. “There’s nothing else to do.”
I nodded.
“I know. But it makes me worry about my mortality.” I played with some of the sharp pine needles on the floor of the tent and not meeting Matt’s eye.
“I know the feeling.” His voice was still gravelly from having only just woken up. “It happens every so often when I’m guiding. Something will happen that will remind me that today could be my last day.”
I smiled at that because it made me think of myself a little.
“I went through this period where I read a lot of spiritual books — Buddhist texts, some First Nations books about spirituality, Taoism and stuff like that,” I told Matt. “And for awhile I tried to lived with the idea in my head that today was a good day to die.”
“Why would you do that?” he said, seeming mystified by the thought of such a bizarre practise. “That sounds completely depressing.”
I shook my head and tried to explain.
“Oh no. It was one of the happiest times of my life. See, if you think that you might die today, then you don’t hold back. You’re more present. You live without regret.”
“Without regret?” Suddenly his face got a far off look on it.
“Without regret,” I repeated. “Can you imagine?”
Suddenly the air between us was charged with something I didn’t entirely understand. Our eyes locked and I couldn’t look away. If it had been me and any other guy, I would have thought he was about to kiss me.
But that couldn’t be.
Matt didn’t want to kiss me.
He wanted to be my friend.
Didn’t he?
His eyes dropped down to my lips and then back up. He studied me as if he had an algebra test and I was the textbook with all the answers.
“Does that mean you don’t have any regrets, Ness?” he said, his voice had an odd quality to it that told me something significant was going on. I just didn’t know what exactly.
“Oh no. I have lots of regrets. After that brief time, I went back to ignoring the fact that I might die. I wasn’t brave enough to keep it up.”
“Most people never think about their own deaths for their entire life,” he said, reaching out and tucking a stray hair behind my ear. It didn’t seem like a gesture that was completely in the friend camp. “I’m impressed you did it at all.”
This pleased me inordinately. But I knew I didn’t deserve that sort of praise. And the tension between us was too much. I had to break it.
“Well, I had another crash course in contemplating my own death yesterday. But it’s a lot less pleasant when it’s imminent and could happen so many horrific ways,” I said, wrinkling up my nose. “I think I like death more…”
I struggled to find the right word.
“More… abstract, I guess,” I said, and then raised my eyebrows as Matt laughed. Hard.
The tension was gone and we both got up but I thought about the moment all day, wondering what it had been about.
And I pondered his question.
“Does that mean you don’t have any regrets, Ness?”
Such a silly question. God, I had so many regrets. The list would probably go on and on. Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t been doing much to avoid regret these days. In fact, it seemed that many of my recent decisions had been calculated to provide as much regret as possible.
No wonder I was so unhappy.
But categorically, hands down, no contest my biggest regret was never telling Matt how I had felt about him all those years ago.
If I had done that then, at least I wouldn’t still be wonde
ring what would have happened if I had. He would have shot me down. I would have got over it. And he would have either ignored me forever and I wouldn’t be here right now. Or maybe we would have become friends because we had got my whole crush thing out of the way.
Either way, I wouldn’t be in an agony of wondering right now. Because, though I was still pretty damn sure he wasn’t interested in me as anything other than a friend, there were a few pieces of evidence that just didn’t add up.
The way he had held me in the car when I had been upset. The snuggling in the tent — not exactly platonic. Then again, maybe that was me reading into things. But when he tucked my hair behind my ear this morning, I had got a distinctly non-platonic vibe from him that surprised the heck out of me.
And then it was gone.
So, here I was, still confused. Still with my feelings all tangled up about him. And stuck with Matt for the next few weeks. That might be good or not. I wasn’t sure. But I guess I was going to find out because we were here until Gideon’s ankle healed. And all the while, the regret piled up and piled up.
I sighed heavily, wondering about spending this time with Matt. At one time, I would have been thrilled at the thought of being stuck somewhere with Matt. But now, I wasn’t so sure.
Would it be heaven or hell?
Matt
I had helped Gideon hobble into the bush so he could go to the bathroom and wash up first thing this morning. Then he had struggled into his tent and gone back to sleep. He would need more sleep than usual and he would try to stay off his ankle as much as possible to promote healing.
I also thought that he was maybe ashamed that he had got hurt in such a stupid way. And he was probably sorry that he was holding up our entire expedition. The minutes passed by like hours as we hung out, not sure what to do with ourselves now that we had lost our goal and had so much time on our hands.
At least there was a watery sun, soaking through the clouds, pale and subdued. The air, though, was still cool and I wondered if spring would ever come. It made me remember a couple years ago when winter had been so long that it had been the middle of May before the first truly warm day had showed its face around here. I paced in the clearing, feeling restless and wishing that I had gone on the walk with the women if only to stretch my legs and give me something to do.
That moment in the tent with Nessa, as she talked about regret had caused me to have an epiphany. When she mentioned her regret, I thought about my own.
She was my regret.
I should have asked her out.
I should have asked her to dance more than once at grad.
I should have kissed her this morning.
But I had chickened out.
Because I was too scared to tell her how I felt.
But wouldn’t she give me clues if she was into me?
Wouldn’t I be able to tell?
I didn’t know.
I had had girlfriends over the years but they had all approached me. I had never had to do the chasing. And that had suited me just fine. But what if Nessa wasn’t the type to chase me? What then? What if she did have feelings for me?
That would mean that I would have to chase her.
But how could I do that without knowing that she was interested? There had been a couple moments that I had thought… But they were too ephemeral to go on. I needed concrete proof.
My head was spinning and I decided to go talk to James. He was married. Maybe he would have some advice for me. I found him in his tent, reading an actual paper book that he must have brought with him. Wow. I admired his dedication to reading. I liked to read but would never pack an ounce of weight that was unnecessary when backpacking for sixty-five kilometres.
“James?” I peered in though the screen. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Sure. Carlynne’s gone for a walk with Oona and Nessa. I’ll come out and we can stroll. Better than being stuck in a little tent together.”
I definitely agreed. So, he crawled out and we walked towards the road.
“What is it, Matt?” he said, glancing over at me.
“I wanted to ask you,” I said, putting my hands in my pockets as we walked. “How did you know that Carlynne liked you? Before you got together?”
He gave me a knowing smile and then looked ahead of us where the highway lay like a black ribbon stretched across the forest.
“Oh, there’s signs. Yeah, lots of them.”
“What sorts of signs?” I felt like a blind man asked to identify colours.
“Oh, all kind of things. Like when your eyes meet and you can’t look away. It’s like you’ve got some kind of voodoo or jedi thing going on. You feel like you want to get lost in her eyes forever. And you haven’t even got your hands on her tits yet.”
I nodded.
“What else?”
“A zap when you touch. It might only be your hand brushing her forearm. Or your knees touching. Like an electric shock but a hundred times better. Give you a hard on, you know.”
“Okay,” I said, taking mental notes. This all sounded like stuff I had experienced with every woman I had been with. And I had had all that with Nessa but what if it was just me? What if she didn’t feel the same?
“And the conversational subtext,” he said, showing off his Master’s Degree in English. “That’s a biggy.”
“Conversational subtext? What the heck are you talking about, James?”
“You know,” he said, patiently as if he was explaining something simple to an idiot. “Where it seems like you’re talking about one thing but you’re really talking about something else?”
I squinted at him in dismay. I’m a smart guy. I got good marks in high school and university before I dropped out. But right now he was making me feel like a dating idiot. I was pretty sure I had never participated in a conversation where I wasn’t really talking about what I was talking about.
I sighed heavily.
“Conversational subtext? I don’t think I could pick up on that.”
This was stupid. It wasn’t the right time. Nessa probably didn’t have feelings for me anyway. And it was the end of the god damned world. Why was I worried about whether some chick liked me?
He patted me on the shoulder when he saw my frown.
“If it’s happening. You’ll get it,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
“But what if I don’t? What if I can’t tell?” I said. “What if I… cared about someone but I wasn’t sure if she cared about me? What then?”
He shrugged, watching the women as we approached where they were standing beside the highway.
“If you care about someone, then sometimes you just have to go out on a limb and tell her how you feel. And you might get shut down.” He winced at the thought. “But you’ll never know unless you try, eh?”
“No regrets,” I murmured to myself.
He clapped me on the back and laughed, having heard me. The women glanced at us to see what James was laughing at.
“No regrets,” he said, as we reached the girls. “Sounds like a poster, Matt.”
Then everyone’s head swivelled in unison as the five of us turned towards a noise that we hadn’t heard in a while.
It was the sound of a vehicle driving down the highway.
Everyone was silent as we stared at the car — which turned out to be a police car, though I didn’t know what that meant these days. I knew we hadn’t done anything wrong. But a flicker of uneasiness went through me, nonetheless.
The vehicle was moving towards us at a crawl, probably to save gas. Slow and steady, it rolled up to where we were all standing by the road, grinding to a halt with a crunch of gravel as it pulled on to the shoulder. Then, in what seemed to me like slow motion, the window slid down.
And the barrel of a gun poked out — aimed right at me.
Nessa
Holy crap. The grey haired cop in the car had a gun. And he was pointing it right at Matt.
We all froze, the wind whipping our hair was t
he only movement in our little group.
“Hands up where I can see them,” he said, his voice churlish. “Nice and slowly.”
In my peripheral vision, I saw Matt and James raising their hands and I raised my own, noticing that Carlynne and Oona were doing the same.
“Good, good,” he said, when we all had our hands in the air. “Now, what are you fine people doing on the side of the road?”
“We don’t want any trouble,” Matt said, keeping his voice even and his face expressionless. “We haven’t done anything wrong.”
The man shook his head.
“Uh, uh. I’m checking out anyone I see. I have orders to investigate any possible gang activity between Winnipeg and Thompson.” He pointed the gun at the four of us. “Four is enough to be a gang.”
“We’re not a gang,” Carlynne said, rolling her eyes. “Look at us.”
She gestured at her husband, who really looked the part of an intellectual with his glasses, thinning hair, and slight paunch. The cop looked James over and then clearly dismissed him, turning his attention back to me.
At that moment, I heard the unmistakeable sound of someone limping up to us using a stick for a crutch.
“Who’re you?” The man looked Gideon over as he hobbled up beside me.
“Name’s Gideon,” he said, not bothering with manners. “You going to Thompson? I need a ride.”
The rest of us looked at him, surprised.
Gideon was leaving us?
The man frowned at him.
“What happened to you?”
“I had an accident,” Gideon said, lifting his hurt leg. “Fell in a ditch and sprained my ankle. I’m quite helpless. I need to get back to town.”
The man eyed us all, clearly suspicious.
“I’ve got food I can trade for a ride,” Gideon said, his face determined.
“I could use some more food,” the man said, considering. All of a sudden his own survival seemed to take precedence over his job.
“It’s a deal then?” Gideon said, limping closer to the car. The man was about to respond when Oona spoke up.
“Take me too.”