An Arm and a Leg

by Olive Balla

  Frankie locked her trembling knees in place and surveyed the still unfamiliar surroundings. A few feet from where she stood lay a slab of sandstone about three feet wide and eight feet long. Overhung with sod and tree roots, the flat stone formed the floor of a shallow cave that ran parallel to the river. Well above water level, it would serve her purpose perfectly. She dragged her brother’s body down to the ledge and positioned it on the sun-warmed stone.

  Somewhere along the way Tim’s shoes had come off, uncovering dark socks, one with a hole in the toe. Something between a sob and a moan hissed through her lips at the sight of Tim’s big toe peeking through the tear. She’d teased him about those toes, told him they were big enough to merit smaller, tacked-on shoes all their own—like an add-on to a one-room house. Those two thick, wide big toes he proudly claimed made swim fins unnecessary.

  Sunlight slanting through the pines mottled the scene, and the merest whisper of a cool breeze stirred Tim’s hair. Frankie sobbed at the normalcy of the sight. At the memory of summer fishing trips, winter snowboarding, and high school basketball games during which his hair had ruffled in exactly the same way.

  After removing her windbreaker, she pulled off her blue cardigan, then put the jacket back on over her white turtleneck. Hands trembling, she wrapped her brother’s head in the soft folds of her sweater, careful to cover his ruined face.

  She caved in the soil that jutted out over the shelf. The rich, wild smell of forest earth mingled with the fragrance of the evergreens and fall wild flowers.

  Her ears tuned to pick up sounds of pursuit, Frankie found two large fallen tree branches and pulled them on top of the makeshift grave. Then she spent precious minutes collecting river rocks for a cairn at the head of the mounded earth.

  In spite of the crisp autumnal mountain air, perspiration poured down her face. It stung her eyes and pasted her hair against her forehead. The salty fluid worked its way along the crease of her lips, even as her mind registered the danger the moisture represented.

  She knelt beside Tim’s grave and patted the fragrant, muddy soil. “I’ll be back.”

  Shivering, she turned and headed upstream. She could feel her body heat evaporating in waves. Her water-repellent windbreaker protected her from the rain, but her cotton turtleneck underneath was soaked in perspiration. She had to find the cabin within the next couple of hours or be forced to find a place to hole up for the night. The prospect brought fresh panic bubbling up her throat.

  Stiff-legged and aching, her body reluctantly followed her command to keep moving. She focused on trying to ignore the knots in her leg muscles and the growing cramp in her side.

  The sight of a familiar outcropping of rock brought a prayer of gratitude to her lips. In minutes she would drink fresh water and could use the cabin landline to call for help. She would tell the police about the men in the green pickup. Then she’d go back for Tim.

  But before she could step into the clearing around the cabin, the sound of a rifle shot pulled her up short. Adrenaline again erupted, and the tiny hairs on the back of her neck moved as if alive. She pressed herself against the trunk of a large pine tree and willed her body to fuse with it. The sound of angry voices hit her like a slap.

  “I told you not to shoot, dammit.” A masculine voice crescendoed into a bellow.

  Someone mumbled a response, the words unintelligible.

  “I don’t care what you thought. Bad enough you took the first few shots. And now look what you’ve done. Thanks to you, they’ve gone to ground, and we’re well and truly screwed.”

  Frankie turned back in the direction from which she’d just come. In spite of her racing heart, she made herself walk for several yards before giving in to the urge to run. Then she ran pell-mell, heedless of direction, and long after her burning lungs told her to stop.

  After several minutes that seemed like hours, she stopped to listen for sounds of pursuit. She stooped over at the waist, put the palms of her hands on her bent knees for support, and sucked in great gulps of air. Except for her gasping breaths, no other sound broke the silence. No thumping footfalls, no voices arguing over how best to proceed. No evidence of the two murderers intent on… Intent on what? On catching her? On killing her? What in God’s name were they after?

  Frankie straightened her back and scanned the area, hoping to spot one of the hundreds of landmarks she’d memorized from the annual two-week forest survival training her uncle Mike had put her and Tim through during their growing-up years. Just one landmark to tell her where she was standing, that’s all she needed.

  She should have paid attention to where she was going—shouldn’t have allowed panic to blind her to everything but the thought of putting distance between her and Tim’s murderers.

  Her eyes strained, pulling at their muscle-moorings, as if by sheer effort they could pierce through the dense foliage and thick underbrush. Gorge rose in her throat.

  She turned around again and again as renewed panic clawed its way through her chest. Lost. Like a death knell, the words rang through her mind: lost and alone.

  A gentle rain started up again as she considered her options. The good news was that the rain would keep most mountain predators and creepy-crawlies snuggled in their warm homes for a while. Although poisonous snakes would not yet have gone into hibernation, they tended to shy away from human contact unless cornered. And she had no intention of being either the cornerer or the corneree.

  A shiver ran across her shoulders as she remembered Uncle Mike’s stories of ill-prepared hikers who got lost in these mountains. Some of them, usually the ones who ignored the hikers’ cardinal rule by not telling at least one other person where they were heading, had never been seen again. And then there were the stories of bodies so gnawed by animals they were only identifiable through their DNA. But the most horrific story of all was about the hiker who became pinned under a boulder and had to sever his own arm with a penknife to escape.

  Frankie adjusted the hood of her nylon jacket. She was grateful for its protection from the rain, but underneath it, the perspiration-absorbing fibers of her cotton shirt pressed against her body, cooling it and making her a perfect candidate for hypothermia.

  And hypothermia impaired judgment. It made thinking difficult and increased the probability of an accident. She could fall victim to it and not even realize what was happening.

  Calm yourself, Frances. Fear sucks up your energy, and you’ll need every scrap of it before this is over. Remember what I taught you and you’ll find a way. The standing-right-next-to-her sound of her dead uncle Mike’s voice pulled her back from the edge of hysteria. She clung to its echoes, assuming it was only a memory stirred up by terror.

  Snippets of her uncle’s survival speeches floated through her mind as she worked her memory for the skills he had taught her and Tim. Her first job was to get out of the drizzling rain. She scanned her surroundings and spotted two fairly large boulders propped against each other, forming a kind of lean-to.

  Watchful of any other creatures that might have had the same idea, she approached the rock shelter. She picked up a long stick, poked it as far into the recess as she could and shook it around, banging it against the stone walls. When nothing moved or scurried out of the enclosure, she dropped to all fours and crawled in.

  Hunkering down with her back toward the opening, she curled into a ball. She pressed her knees against a semi-soft mass of what she assumed to be a pile of needle-covered branches and tried to get comfortable. She had to cock her head at an angle and push it up against one of the boulders, but at least the ground beneath her was dry.

  Frankie focused on her breathing. After a few minutes, she was surprised to find herself warming up. Her body stopped shivering, and she fell into an uneasy sleep.

  Dark dreams periodically jerked her awake, and she jumped, banging her head, elbows, and knees against the boulders. She dozed off and on, while the temperature outside the stone teepee dropped.

  Sometime during the night
the rain stopped. Its cessation pricked Frankie’s subconscious, and she jerked awake.

  A coyote howled from what sounded like only a few yards away, and she held her breath. It was a useless tactic, of course, since the coyote didn’t need to hear her breathing to know she was there. He’d probably smelled her long before she heard him calling his mate to dinner. Smelled her covered in Tim’s blood.

  When the coyote inexplicably neither howled again nor showed up with a knife, fork, and bib, Frankie breathed a sigh of relief. Coyotes are generally afraid of people, but the smell of blood and her own weakened condition would have been a temptation to any carnivore trying to find a meal during New Mexico’s worst drought on record.

  She’d been lying on her right arm, and now it was numb. In an effort to get into a more comfortable position, she moved the arm as much as she could in the confines of her shelter until feeling began to return. Her body complaining like a circus contortionist with arthritis, Frankie tried to straighten her legs a bit.

  Then the mass that formed the back wall of her shelter moved.

  Had the early-hibernating bear either had cubs or been in a foul mood, Frankie could have been history. But the drowsy creature moved slowly, seemingly unconcerned about the pitiful human’s proximity. Grateful for the lethargic bear’s unwillingness to leave its cozy bed, she rolled out through the shelter’s opening. With her adrenaline-charged body again primed to break the land-speed record, she forced herself to walk slowly for several yards in the nearly complete darkness before breaking into a run.

  When it became apparent that she’d made good on her getaway, she stopped and studied the now cloudless sky. She marveled at how close the stars appeared against their black velvet background as she searched the Little Dipper’s handle for the North Star Polaris.

  As thousands of humans throughout past millennia had done, she used Polaris to get her bearings. With a returning infusion of confidence, she began to walk.

  For what seemed like hours, she forced one foot in front of the other while her vision blurred and her thigh muscles twitched. Surely she’d come across a road at some point. Or even an animal trail that she could follow to water.

  Her thickened tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. All she could think about was water. She imagined its coolness trickling down her throat. She could almost feel the warm wetness of it washing over her in the city swimming pool where she and Tim had spent hot summer days. And she could hear ice cubes clinking together in a tall glass full of it. She picked up two small stones, rubbed the mud off them, and put them into her mouth to encourage her salivary glands to do their job.

  Trees often blotted out her view of the heavens. During those times, she continued on in what she assumed to be the correct direction until she again caught sight of Polaris and adjusted her bearing accordingly.

  She stepped into a familiar-looking clearing. Hadn’t she passed that way an hour or so ago? And weren’t those the same three pine trees towering over a scrub oak bush that she’d thought looked like Shakespeare’s three witches stirring their cauldron? Her stomach fell. She was going to die here. She’d die and her body would never be found.

  Her knees gave way. She dropped to the ground and sobbed.

  ****

  Early morning sunlight, damp earth, and the pinpricks of pine needles sticking into the flesh of her arms brought Frankie awake. The fallen needles and leaves she’d used as a blanket had offered little protection from the cold, and none against the mist of the late morning rain. She brushed off the soggy mat, sat up, and leaned back against the trunk of the pine tree under which she’d collapsed the night before.

  She’d hoped it was all a bad dream. Hoped it would be somehow miraculously over upon wakening. But it was never going to end. She was going to—

  No time for histrionics. Uncle Mike’s voice again. Get a grip.

  “But I don’t know where I am,” Frankie said to what she’d decided was her subconscious mind in survival mode.

  Follow your instincts.

  “Easy for you to say. You’re already dead.” Frankie stood and dusted the remaining pine needles and mud off her jacket and pants.

  Every joint in her body ached. Her neck felt stiff from sleeping on the ground. Her knees wobbled like her old nanny’s Christmas gelatin, and her tongue felt so swollen that it filled her mouth. She needed to find clean drinking water and someplace warm and dry. And she needed to find them sooner rather than later.

  Everyone at work knew she would be away for two weeks. No one would look for her before then. Without anything that could be used as a weapon and lacking warm clothing or shelter, she could die of exposure long before two weeks passed. One misstep on the moist needle and leaf-strewn ground could end in an injury. Even a small cut could go septic and incapacitate her, making her easy prey to the carnivores that lived in the mountains.

  Nausea again played with her gut. She drew the back of her hand across her runny nose, sniffled, and forced herself to take slow, deep breaths while she scanned the terrain.

  What should she do next? Why couldn’t she think, dammit? It was like her head was stuffed full of cotton balls and her brain’s neurons had gone on strike.

  The morning sun’s position directly over her left shoulder meant she should be facing north. But wait—maybe it was south.

  God, she was tired. And her heart was pounding like a trip-hammer. If she could just lie down and sleep. Just a few minutes of rest couldn’t hurt, could it?

  Fight, Frances. Get up. Come on, get a move on.

  “Go away.” Her voice was little more than a whisper. “Just a few minutes. Please, I need to—”

  I said get up. Uncle Mike’s tone had changed into drill instructor mode. I’ll not have any niece of mine acting like a malingering S-bird. Let’s go. The voice broke into a sing-song Navy Seal cadence, what she’d since learned was a cleaned-up version their uncle had made her and Tim echo during what he called their PT Marches. I don’t know, but I’ve been told…

  She automatically responded in her raspy voice, “I don’t know, but I’ve been told.”

  A frogman’s money is good as gold.

  “A frogman’s money is good as gold.” Frankie’s voice grew louder as she answered the familiar chant.

  Sound off.

  “Sound off.”

  One, two, three, four. One, two, three-four.

  “One, two, three, four. One, two, three-four.”

  By the time she sang out the last line, warmth had begun seeping through her mid-section. With Uncle Mike’s voice calling out marching orders, she ran her trembling hands along the tree bark’s deep striations, pulled herself into a standing position and stumbled toward what she hoped was civilization.

  Chapter Three

  Frankie was relieved when none of the regulars at the Eagle Nest café glanced up from either their breakfasts or laptops when she lurched through the door. Residents of a fishing and ski resort village, the locals were most likely used to the various sorts of humans who descended upon their town, tore up and down their mountains and left, leaving their trash and money behind.

  But the older woman standing behind the counter did look up. She immediately came out from behind the bar she’d been wiping down and approached Frankie. Slender and tall, the woman moved with an athletic grace, although she appeared to be in her sixties. Her unusually black hair was cut short and spiked on top. The steel in her glance warned she could either be a good friend or an awesome enemy.

  “How can I help?”

  “Can I use your phone?” Frankie’s voice trembled along with her body. She cleared her throat. “I lost my cell, and I need to call the police.”

  “There’s one in my office. Follow me.”

  The two walked behind the counter, through a door and into the room beyond. An antique wooden desk faced the door, its hand-carved panels a deep walnut color. Atop the desk sat a black telephone reminiscent of those found in old Spencer Tracy movies. The wall behind the desk
was festooned with framed medals and awards, along with a banner bearing the United States Marine Corps insignia. In one corner sat a wood-burning stove, its cast iron legs resting on a stone hearth. The stove’s pot belly glowed orange, suffusing the otherwise dimly lit room with a yellow glow. Frankie stumbled toward the stove, holding her shaking hands toward the radiant warmth.

  “You can barely stand.” The older woman rolled a wooden chair out from behind the desk and pushed it toward Frankie. “Sit.”

  Frankie’s knees buckled, and she dropped into the chair.

  “I’ll get you something hot to drink.”

  When the woman returned, she held a steaming mug. Frankie’s icy fingers greedily reached for the warm, fragrant brew.

  “Careful, it’s hot.”

  Frankie lifted the mug to her lips and took a gulp. She winced at the bite of whiskey in the coffee, and sipped more slowly. The tension in her shoulders loosened up, and they sagged a bit.

  “Better?” the woman said.

  “Better, thanks.”

  “I’m Kate Stanger. I own this place. What’s your name?”

  “Frankie O’Neil.” A loud noise from somewhere outside startled her. Her eyes darted around the room in search of an exit.

  “Okay, Frankie, I need you to listen to me. Can you do that?”

  Frankie turned and looked into Kate Stanger’s face, barely registering the woman’s slight start at the sight of her bi-colored eyes: one ice-blue, one amber-yellow. It was the way people had reacted to them for as long as she could remember. She shook her head, struggling to pull her focus back to what the woman was saying.

  “Are you injured?”

  “No. At least…no, I don’t think so.”

  “Are you in danger?”

  “I’m not sure.” Frankie’s body swayed, as if she were about to lose her balance and topple out of the chair. She was just so damned tired. “Please, can I use your phone now?”