Roger stepped around us and knelt down. In the dusty blaze of the fallen torch, I could make out what Willie had tripped over.
A body! I thought I could make out a beard.
It was Dad! It had to be! It was my dad!
I couldn’t breathe. If I could breathe I would have yelled, DAD! Are you alive?
Willie climbed to his knees, picked up the torch with one hand, and set his other hand, on my dad’s chest. A groan seemed to rise from deep inside him. Or was that me?
“Aaron?” A croak.
Dad was alive. Alive! I could breathe again.
“Aaron?” he moaned again.
“I’m here, Dad!” I scuttled beside him.
He coughed and croaked, “Water,” just like a cartoon of a man dying in the desert.
But this was no cartoon. This was real life.
Roger tipped some water between Dad’s lips. He gagged and most of it dribbled out. It mingled with the dried blood staining the side of his face. A bandanna was tied around the top of his head. It was blood-soaked too.
“Are you hurt, Dad?” I asked stupidly. Of course he was hurt. He was bleeding. He looked half-dead.
Suddenly, he looked dead. His head had lolled over. His eyes were half-open.
Roger gripped Dad’s arm. “You still with us, buddy?”
Willie knelt down and put his ear to Dad’s mouth. I held my breath.
“I can’t hear anything … ” Willie said.
I started to panic all over again.
“But I think I can feel some breath,” Willie added.
He pressed two fingers to Dad’s throat.
“Yep. There’s a pulse. Not strong, but it’s there.” He turned toward us. “We’ve got to get him down from here. Quick. We’ve got to get help.”
“We could be days from help, Willie,” Roger said. Then he glanced at me. “But he’ll live, Aaron. Your dad’s tough. Tougher than he looks.”
“Dad!” I felt like crying, but I didn’t. My mind was racing. If I could just think fast enough, I could think of something that would save my dad.
“Cassidy!” Lisa said, out of the blue. “Where’s Cassidy?”
Willie stared at her, his mouth grim. His eyes reflected the torchlight still flickering in his left hand.
“He’s got to be nearby,” Roger said. “He must have been carrying him.”
That made sense. There was only one set of prints on the beach. And Dad was in no condition to walk. Why would Cassidy have gone on without my dad?
I didn’t say it, but everyone must have been thinking it: unless Cassidy fell over the side. Instinctively, I looked down over the cliff edge. We all did.
“CASSIDY!” Willie yelled.
We all joined in. “CAASSIIIIIDDDYYY!”
Cassidy’s name came echoing back, diminishing each time, like he was drifting further and further away.
“We’ve got to look for him,” said Willie, waving his dying torch around, as if he could light up every corner of the universe with it.
“But what about my dad?” I yelled. “You said we had to get him help. That he could die here if we didn’t.”
As soon as those words left my mouth, I felt bad. If Cassidy was out there somewhere, alone in the dark, he needed our help too. We couldn’t just leave him.
But what about my dad? Could we somehow help them both?
Willie just stared at me. He bit his lip and rubbed his grizzled face.
Roger closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
Lisa looked down. But not at my dad.
My dad wasn’t going anywhere.
And for the moment, neither were we.
Not without Cassidy.
“We’ll have to split up,” Roger said, after a long silence. “Me, Aaron, and Lisa will carry him down.’’ He nodded toward my dad. “And Willie, you go find your son. We’ll take one raft and—”
“We don’t divide up, pard,” Willie cut in. “We stick together. Just let me think!”
I knelt back down beside my dad. His eyes were closed now. I put my hand on his chest and I could feel it rise and fall. Barely. Barely.
“Just wait here,” Willie said at last. “Just for a few minutes. This torch is dying. I need to make a new one. And I need to find Cassidy. My gut tells me he’s not far. He’s near and I’ve got to find him. I will find him.”
But there’s no time, I wanted to say. But I didn’t. I loved my dad and Willie loved his son. You don’t leave one for the other.
But what do you do?
It was what my dad would call a dilemma.
I felt like I had to grow up real fast. Like right now. And make a difference about my dad’s fate. All our fates.
Even Cassidy’s.
But how?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
OVER THE EDGE
Here,” Willie said, handing me the dying torch. He pulled out his knife and slashed through another thick branch on a creosote bush. He lit it with a few flicks of his lighter and marched off.
Our eyes followed the glow of his torch, but soon it vanished into darkness. We could still hear him, but his footfalls dwindled, then disappeared.
Except for the sound of the river, the night was as silent as a dead man’s heart.
Which reminded me. We hadn’t done any first aid on Dad! It might not save him, but it should give him a better chance.
“Roger!” I said. “Your first aid kit! Anything in there that might help Dad?”
Roger seemed to snap out of a fog. I guess we were all pretty wasted. “Good thinking, mate! Let’s take a look.” He opened the first aid kit and I held the torch close while he fished around inside.
Then, with incredible speed, he had Dad’s bandanna pulled off and his cut swabbed. It was an awful gash across his forehead, like a second mouth up there. Roger doused it in antiseptic and wrapped a bandage around his head.
“Got to make it tight,” Roger said. “Helps staunch the blood.”
Dad was out cold. Good thing, too, because he couldn’t feel the pain, and we didn’t have to hold his head to keep him from moving it. It’s not an easy thing to see your dad unconscious and battered, with a bandage around his head.
Lisa scooted over and leaned her back against mine. We leaned against each other. We held each other up.
Roger paced back and forth, up and down the trail. He squatted and peered down over the edge into the darkness below.
“Aaron,” he said. “Hand me that torch. Okay, mate?”
I gave it to him and he held what was left of it out before him, slowly sweeping it back and forth. “I think if he fell,” Roger said, “he probably fell right here, where your dad fell when he dropped him.”
If Cassidy fell, I thought, he’s long gone. The drop-off just goes and goes. Clear down to the river. Without a brighter light, we couldn’t see very far. But I lay flat anyway, with my head over the edge, and peered down. I willed my eyes to see in the dark. Willed them to gather all the invisible beams of starlight into one powerful beam and show me what I was looking for.
But I couldn’t see him.
I sat back up and soon Lisa and I were leaning together again, keeping each other warm. I rubbed her arms and she rubbed mine. Roger disappeared up the trail. He couldn’t sit still.
Time ticked by.
I heard a rustling sound in the scrub and then nothing. Maybe a deer.
My dad was wheezing softly now. Lisa and I slid down on either side of him and tried to keep him warm. We pressed against his sides and flung our arms over him. It felt weird hugging my dad like that, but the ground was so cold and we couldn’t think of anything else to do. Time flowed by like the river below.
Suddenly, we heard a shout. I think it was Roger. It was coming from higher up the trail. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but whatever it was, I couldn’t just leave my dad here.
As if hearing my thoughts, Lisa said, “You go, Aaron. I’ll stay with your dad. They might need your help carrying
Cassidy. If they found him I mean.”
“Are you sure? What if he wakes up and asks for me?”
“Go! You won’t be gone more than a couple minutes. And you’re wasting time. I got your dad covered. He’s in good hands here. Trust me.”
I did trust her.
I climbed to my feet and said, “Okay. Thanks, Lisa. But yell if he—”
“Go!” she said, with more urgency.
It was slow going in the dark, but my eyes had gotten used to it. Plus there was a hint of moon tipping the ridge and millions of stars sharing their brightness. I came upon them sooner than I expected, maybe four hundred yards up the trail. Roger and Willie were hunched over in the torchlight. Willie had wedged the flaming creosote between two rocks.
At their feet, the flickering light played over Cassidy’s face. It was chalk white, like a wax mask.
“Is he …”
“He’s alive,” Roger said. “Hurt bad, but he’ll live.”
I knelt down beside them in the dirt path. Cassidy was unconscious, like my dad. Willie lifted the torch and in its wavering light I could see a jagged bone, sharp and white, poking out near the collar of his blood-stained shirt. I gagged, but managed not to lose my lunch.
But seeing Cassidy here, alive but badly hurt, threw my emotions into turmoil. I’d been holding so much anger toward him, always believing the worst. That he’d hurt my dad. Abandoned him. Maybe even killed him.
But now it didn’t look like that could possibly be the true story of what happened. Someone had tied that bandana around my dad’s head. Someone had carried him up this trail. And it made me wonder: maybe I’m the troubled one, not Cassidy.
“Thanks for coming, Aaron,” Roger said. “We need your help to carry him. He’s in pretty bad shape and if we’re not careful we could make it worse.”
Willie handed me the torch. It had burned down to a stub, but it was brighter than nothing. “He broke his collarbone. I think he fell under your dad’s weight and snapped it. We’re gonna try and cradle him, then stand him upright. You hold the torch with one hand, and hold his head up level with the other hand. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Okay,” said Willie. “On three. One. Two. Three!” They lifted Cassidy upright and I held his head with one hand and the torch with the other. It was awkward. A head is way heavier than you’d imagine. I had to walk with my elbow jammed into my ribs to support the weight.
I felt like I was serving his head on a platter. An hour ago I would have been happy with the image, but now all that had changed.
With me in front, we slowly made our way back down the three or four switchbacks to where Lisa was waiting with my dad.
Dad. He hadn’t moved, but his chest was rising and falling, so he was still alive.
“Oh my God!” Lisa cried. “You found him!” She jumped up, overjoyed. A thought popped into my head—would she have been that excited if it had been me—which I banished as quickly as I could. What is wrong with me?
“Okay now,” Willie said, “we’re going to lower him to the ground. Careful now. Careful.”
Cassidy lay on his back, silent and still. Just like Dad.
Then his head rolled back and forth.
“Look!” Lisa yelped. “He’s waking up!” She sat down beside him and put a hand on his forehead.
Cassidy started moaning and mumbling. His eyelids fluttered. Willie knelt beside him and spilled some water into his open mouth. Then he probed Cassidy’s neck with his fingers.
“Aaagh!” Cassidy’s eyes shot open. “Dude! Feels like. There’s a spear stuck in me!” As he stutter-talked he reached up and touched the sharp protruding bone.
Lisa turned away and whispered to me, “Please tell me I didn’t just see that.” I guess in the dark, she hadn’t seen the white bone till now.
Willie took Cassidy’s hand and rubbed it. “We’re gonna fix you up, son. Don’t worry. Just lie still now. Tough it out.”
Then he said to the rest of us, “We need to keep him warm. Your dad, too. They’re both in shock. Anybody have any ideas?” He looked at each of us. Nobody was wearing any extra clothing. Actually, I had on a thin hoody but no way would it fit Cassidy or my dad.
“We’ve got to get them down from here, back to our camp,” Roger said. “What do you think? Can they both be moved?”
“Got to,” Willie said. He turned to me. “Your dad probably has a nasty concussion to go with that cut. And he’s lost a lot of blood. They’re both suffering from exposure.”
Now Willie turned to Cassidy and started rubbing his arms to bring back the circulation and warm him up. Cassidy tried to lift his head again, his eyes wild, and let out another groan.
“Whoa, hold it there, son,” Willie said. “We’re going to get you out of here. Soon. I promise. But first we’ve got to stabilize that collarbone a little. Roger? Hand me the first aid kit, will ya?”
With Roger’s help, he wrapped a bandage in a figure eight, firmly crisscrossing Cassidy’s shoulders and upper back.
“There, now try not to move anything. Play mummy. Can you do that, son?”
Cassidy started to nod, but stopped himself. It looked like he almost grinned.
Or was it a grimace? Hard to tell in the dying torchlight.
“How are we going to get them down?” I asked. I thought of fashioning one of those contraptions the Indians made with branches and blankets, like a stretcher you drag along the ground. … A travois!
I was about to say it aloud when Willie answered my question.
“Same way Cassidy got your dad up here,” Willie said. “We’ll carry ’em.”
Then it really finally hit me—the truth of it. Cassidy had carried my dad all the way up these cliffs. Like a mule! And me suspecting he’d killed him when I saw the lone set of prints on the beach.
But why had Cassidy carried my dad in the first place? Where was he going? Why didn’t he just wait for us on the beach? And why did he leave Dad here on the path and go ahead, solo?
Even when I thought about it, it didn’t make any sense.
But now was time to do, not think.
“Let’s get your dad up first, pard,” said Willie. He knelt and gently scooped his hands under my dad’s shoulders. “Give me a hand.”
Roger helped me hoist Dad onto Willie’s broad shoulders, and Willie slowly stood up like a weightlifter. Dad’s body drooped toward earth, like the earth was calling it back. Water, or blood, dripped to the ground.
Roger tried to scoop Cassidy up the same way, but Cassidy swatted him away. Lisa and I helped get him to his feet where he swayed like a drunk as Roger got under one arm and I got under the other. Lisa lifted the sputtering torch and walked ahead of us, lighting the way.
Cassidy strained and twisted, trying to pull away. He must be hallucinating or something.
“Lemme go!” he croaked.
Suddenly he wrenched free of us with a strength we didn’t know he had. He took two steps, staggered …
… and toppled over the edge!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE SPIRIT TRAIL
Lisa screamed. We both reacted instantly, lunging toward Cassidy, and we both almost flew over the cliff after him. I scrambled back, lay flat on my stomach, and peered down into the drop-off.
Lisa snatched the torch she’d dropped when she lunged. There was Cassidy. A branch of some scrubby pine tree growing out of a ledge had caught him by his flannel shirt. He hung there swinging over the void, just out of reach. The branch was bent like a fishing pole with a marlin on the hook. It looked like it could snap at any moment.
Willie said something but I wasn’t listening. I scooted forward as much as I could and snatched a handful of Cassidy’s shirt. He twisted and his shirt pulled up over his head. I heard a tearing sound. His shirt was ripping free.
I was going to lose him!
Willie must’ve lowered my dad back down to the ground, because suddenly he wrapped his arms around my legs and I was able to reach f
urther down and grab Cassidy under his arms. He screamed and I think he fainted. Then Roger flopped to his belly and I think he gripped Willie by his belt. Lisa must have grabbed his ankles, because the torchlight was gone.
Suddenly I could picture us: a human chain dangling over the cliff’s edge.
“Lisa!” I called. “I need the light to see what I’m doing.”
Lisa scurried to the edge, holding the dim torch over the side again. The torchlight trembled, then she held it firm. “Please don’t drop him,” she whispered.
I didn’t say anything, I just held on. I wasn’t going to let go. “We’ll pull on three,” I said. “One … two …”
On three, we heaved all together and yanked Cassidy back up over the edge.
We lay Cassidy flat on his back. Then we rolled onto our backs as well, panting from the effort. Cassidy and Dad were out cold. Lisa dropped the torch and I could hear it clattering down the cliff. She swore. Then she lay down beside us. We looked up at the stars. The Milky Way crossed the sky, thick as milk. I remembered Dad telling me once that some Native Americans called it the Spirit Trail—the trail the spirits took to the afterlife.
The river rushed through the night, like the sound of a storm coming. After a while, my blood finally slowed to a steady flow. I wondered how we’d all make it home.
While we were catching our breath, Cassidy woke up swearing. He tried to sit up and Willie caught hold of him and said, “Just lay still, son.” But he couldn’t lay still. He twisted and strained and swore.
Roger crawled away and came back with the first aid kit. He rummaged around in it, opened a jar, and tried to feed ibuprofen pills into Cassidy’s mouth. To kill the pain. But Cassidy bit him and spit the pills out. Growled like a mad dog.
“Take it easy, mate,” Roger said.
“Morphine?” Cassidy said. At least that’s what I think he said. It was just a drunken jumble.
“No,” Roger said. “But this will help. It’s all we’ve got for painkillers.” He got three or four pills pushed between Cassidy’s lips and poured some water to wash them down. Cassidy twisted his head back and forth and spluttered, but I think some of the ibuprofen must’ve dissolved down between his teeth.
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