Life Support

by Robert Whitlow

  Distracted by her thoughts, Rena tripped over a root and stumbled forward. When she looked up and blinked her eyes, she saw Baxter standing ten feet away in the middle of the path. He was smiling, and his eyes showed the kindness reserved for their most intimate moments. He was wearing the same khaki shorts and cream-colored shirt he’d put on when they’d left the hotel in Greenville early that morning. Rena quickly glanced down at his right leg. There was no sign of a break or the cut on his neck. How he had beaten her back to the trailhead was incomprehensible. Baxter extended his left hand toward her and opened his mouth to speak.

  Rena screamed.

  At the sound of her voice the apparition disappeared. Shaking, Rena frantically inspected the shadows cast by the surrounding trees. Her mouth was dry, and she licked her lips. She didn’t believe in ghosts. Baxter was a man of the earth and had no power to return except as a memory without influence beyond the world of her mind. She took several deep breaths, determined to reinforce the wall between fact and fiction. The thought that her husband might visit her again in a form less friendly than the kind face in the path sent a second cold shiver down her spine.

  “No!” she called out.

  Again, she inspected the shadows. Seeing nothing, she moved forward, running past the spot where Baxter had blocked her way without glancing behind her shoulder. She didn’t slow down until she reached the last small rise in the trail. Panting heavily, she climbed the hill and descended through a grove of oak and poplar trees. Coming around a large oak tree she saw the parking lot and the black SUV. Relieved, she leaned over and rested her hands on her knees.

  The sight of the vehicle had a calming effect upon her. The forest was a place where the line between the seen and unseen worlds grew blurry. The SUV was solid proof of civilized reality. Rena took the hard-earned keys from her pocket and pressed the remote button to unlock the car. The vehicle chirped once, flashed its lights, and acknowledged its new master. She opened the door and got inside. The feel of the cool leather was soothing to her aching legs. She turned on Baxter’s cell phone. It was still reading out of service. Starting the engine, she pulled out of the parking lot in a cloud of dust. Baxter had used the GPS system as a navigational aid to find the trailhead. Rena didn’t need it and flipped it off.

  Four miles down the gravel road, she glanced at the phone and saw that she could make a call. Pulling over to the side, she shut off the engine. It was a big moment—her first contact with the outside world. Once more, she practiced her lines and then punched 911. She knew the call would be recorded. An older woman’s voice answered after one ring.

  “Mitchell County 911.”

  “This is Rena Richardson,” she said rapidly. “My husband and I were hiking at Double-Barrel Falls. He slipped and fell into the gorge. I’m afraid he’s dead.”

  Her voice was much more shaky than when she practiced. Rena wasn’t sure if it made her sound sincere or unequivocally established her guilt.

  “Slow down, dear. Where are you now?”

  “I’m on the forest road 49. I ran back to the car and drove until I could get a signal to make a call.”

  There were a few seconds of silence. Rena twirled a strand of her hair.

  “I’ve located the road in the state recreational area,” the woman said. “Where is your husband now?”

  “His body is on the rocks at the base of the waterfall. I tried to revive him, but I’m—” Rena hesitated. Then in a voice that cracked with a sudden rush of emotion she said, “afraid that he’s dead.”

  “Are you injured?”

  “Nothing except for cuts and bruises.”

  There was another moment of silence. Then Rena could hear the woman talking on a radio, dispatching police and emergency crews to the area.

  “I’ve called for help. Do you need medical care?”

  Before she could say no, Rena felt nauseated and slightly dizzy.

  “I’m sick to my stomach.”

  “You may be in shock. Don’t try to drive any farther. Wait for the medical personnel to come to you. You think you’re four miles from the parking area for the trail?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me read back the phone number that is appearing on my screen.”

  Rena listened with her hand over her mouth.

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  “We’ll call you if we have trouble locating you. Do you need to stay on the line with me?” the woman asked.

  Rena was getting sicker by the minute. She didn’t want to hear another human voice. She wanted to be left alone.

  “Uh, no.”

  Rena clicked off the phone and leaned her head against the seat. She cracked open the window. By sitting completely still and taking deep breaths, she could take the edge off the nausea. She closed her eyes and saw an ambulance scream around the curve and stop. Two workers jumped out the back and rushed over to her.

  “Are you okay?” one asked anxiously.

  Rena raised her head feebly. “Don’t stay here. Go find my husband.”

  “Where is he?”

  It took all her strength to sit up enough to gesture with her hand. “He slipped and fell at Double-Barrel Falls. I’m afraid he’s dead.”

  “But what about you?”

  Rena’s head fell back against the seat.

  “Never mind me. Help him.”

  Rena was impressed by her unselfishness. It would be a good idea to send the first ambulance that arrived on up to the trailhead—a sacrificial gesture that would look good in the report filed by the EMT personnel. Something hit the roof of her vehicle with a loud thud and jarred her. She opened her eyes and saw a green walnut the size of a tennis ball rolling down the front windshield. She was still alone in the woods. It would be at least fifteen to twenty minutes before anyone arrived. She closed her eyes and returned to her selfless fantasy.

  After giving her pets fresh water, Alexia looked at the clock and decided she had time for a swim before supper. She changed into a competition-style, one-piece, red swimsuit and put her other gear in a beachbag. When Boris saw that Alexia was wearing the swimsuit, he ran immediately to the front door and started barking.

  “Is this your favorite outfit?” she asked him as she slipped on a windbreaker that was hanging on a hook by her front door.

  Boris scratched the door. When she opened it, he ran down the steps so fast that he was at the bottom waiting before she turned the key in the door.

  The temperature of the ocean had already begun to drop as fall advanced toward winter. A few hearty Canadians still splashed in the surf fifty miles north at Myrtle Beach, but almost no local residents ventured into the ocean farther than necessary to make a good cast into the surf.

  Alexia’s boat, a lightweight aluminum craft on a small trailer, was underneath her house. She kept it locked with a thick, rusty chain wrapped around one of the stucco pillars, but it would be a desperate thief who considered the ancient watercraft a worthy object. It was only 150 feet from her house to a place where she could easily slide the boat into the marsh, and it was easier to pull the trailer by hand than hitch it to her car for a ten-second drive.

  Alexia was wearing an old pair of dock shoes that had been seasoned by the salt water and marsh mud. Digging her heels in the sandy soil, she was able to get the trailer moving. Once it was rolling all she had to do was maintain a constant speed to the edge of the water. Her biggest challenge was keeping Boris away from her feet. When the boat reached the first strands of marsh grass, she expertly turned it so that the engine was pointed toward a small canal. She pushed the boat forward and then released the latch that held it on the trailer. Lifting up the tongue of the trailer, she held on to a rope tied to the bow of the boat as the stern slid into the water.

  Boris didn’t need coaxing. He bounded into the boat as soon as Alexia pulled away the trailer. His feet made loud scratching sounds as he ran back and forth from the engine to the bow. Alexia pushed the boat into the water and hopped in it at the last se
cond. Stepping over a single seat, she sat on the gunwale beside the motor. The engine could be started with a key, and in a few moments, she was guiding the boat along watery paths as familiar to her as a sidewalk in town.

  It was a zigzag route through the marsh to the barrier island. Boris took up his position as figurehead, madly barking at the mullet that jumped from the water on both sides of the boat. The silver sides of the fish flashed against the dark water. Alexia smiled at the dog’s antics and wondered what he would do if one of the slender fish jumped out of the water and landed in the boat.

  The barrier island was owned by the state of South Carolina. Only two hundred yards across at its widest point, the one-mile strip of sandy beach was too narrow for commercial development. It existed at the whim of the ocean and feared nothing except the sea. A major hurricane could cut it in two in a night, or a shift in offshore currents could erase it in one hundred years. Alexia was simply glad it existed for her. Plans were made to build a causeway from the mainland to the southern end of the island so people without boats could walk on the pristine sand. Alexia hoped the funding for the causeway went into repaving a road somewhere else.

  She steered the boat toward a spot at the northern end of the island. The last twenty yards of her journey were through open water where the ocean met the marsh. The front of the boat bumped into the muddy sand on the landward side. Boris leapt through the air onto the shore and disappeared over the top of the sand dunes. Alexia tossed out her beach-bag and pulled the boat halfway onto the dry ground. She carried a rope tied to the boat’s bow across the sand to a clump of scruffy bushes and wrapped it around the largest bush.

  Alexia trudged up a rise fringed with dune grass and stopped at the top. This was always one of her favorite moments. The human eye and mind are incapable of grasping the vastness of an ocean, but Alexia liked to try. A breeze blew from the northwest, and the water beyond the surf was decorated with narrow white caps. This was not going to be like paddling across a suburban swimming pool. Alexia walked to the edge of the water and emptied the contents of her beachbag. Rarely did she see anyone else on the island and never in the evenings. She was as alone as Robinson Crusoe. Boris splashed into the surf and then ran back to her.

  “How is the water?” she asked.

  In answer the dog shook himself and let her feel the spray.

  “Cold,” Alexia responded.

  She slipped a black wet suit over her swimsuit. From October until the beginning of May she felt more comfortable with an extra layer of insulation between herself and the cool water. She put her goggles on top of her head and walked into the water. The waves broke against her. The tide was coming in. Boris stayed close by her side and was soon plowing through the water with his head sticking up and nose pointed slightly skyward. On land, the dog was an undisciplined adolescent. In the water, he was obedient and under control. When the water reached waist level, Alexia dove through the next wave and stood up. Her hair was slick against her head. She slipped the goggles into place and swam through the next wave into the water beyond the surf.

  A small woman, Alexia swam slowly yet powerfully. She’d spent four years on swim teams as a teenager and competed in the distance races. She rarely won but always finished. Boris plowed along a few feet from her right shoulder. If he strayed too far away, Alexia could call out, “Heel!” and he would return to his place by her side.

  Alexia turned south and swam parallel to the beach about fifty yards from the shore. Timing her breaths to avoid mouthfuls of salt water wasn’t easy, and the swells caused her to swing back and forth. Progress was slow. However, Alexia knew not to flail against the water in frustration but rather to coexist with it. Once she adjusted to the rhythm of the waves, she began moving forward.

  Alexia enjoyed the risk and danger inherent in swimming alone in the ocean. The greatest threat to her safety wasn’t a shark that mistook her for a struggling fish but riptide currents. Three times in the past she had entered a riptide zone and felt the ocean reach out with irresistible strength to draw her into its deep embrace. The first time she had had to fight the urge to turn toward the shore and exhaust herself in a vain attempt to return to land. Her mind had obeyed that day, and she had not given in to her instincts. She had continued swimming parallel to the beach as the riptide carried her rapidly out to sea. Boris had kept his focus on his mistress and stayed by her side. Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the current had abated and abandoned its attempt to capture her. When Alexia had looked at the beach, she guessed that they were more than three times the usual distance from shore. She had rolled onto her back, looked up at the stormy sky, and laughed. She had fought the ocean and won.

  Today, choppy waves were her only obstacles. After thirty minutes in the water, she turned toward the beach. When the ocean was calm, she would swim the entire length of the island, but today she stopped toward the middle. She body-surfed on a few waves as she neared the shore. Boris swam ahead and rolled in the dry sand. When Alexia stood up in the shallows, the evening breeze was cool on the parts of her body not covered by the wet suit. Boris greeted her.

  “You’re the best swimming buddy in the world,” Alexia told him. “If I ever get a cramp, will you pull me to shore?”

  Boris ran splashing back into the edge of the surf. Sea rescue was not listed on his résumé.

  Alexia walked north along the edge of the water and looked for undamaged treasures. The beach offered a paltry selection of shells, most of them broken into small fragments before reaching the shore. Because she came so often, Alexia could be picky. Today, she didn’t find anything worth taking home to deposit in the large glass bowl in the center of her kitchen table.

  By the time she returned to the place where she’d left her beachbag, the sunset she’d anticipated from her deck stretched across the sky. The high clouds were a vibrant red tinged with pink. She took off the wet suit, dried herself with a yellow beach towel, and then played tug of war for a few minutes with Boris. Back in the boat, Boris lay quietly at her feet as they crossed the marsh. Alexia enjoyed the final chapters of the sunset. By the time she rolled the boat into its resting place, the clouds had lost their color and darkness was falling.

  6

  Shake off this downy sleep, death’s counterfeit.

  MACBETH, ACT 2, SCENE 3

  The first vehicle to reach Rena was not an ambulance. It was a police car. She heard the siren before the vehicle, raising a cloud of dust, came into view. Except for the flashing blue lights on top, the yellow-and-brown cruiser could have been mistaken for a city cab.

  A short, overweight, completely bald man got out of the car. He was dressed in a white shirt without a tie and wrinkled green slacks. When he came closer, Rena could see that he was disfigured by a deep scar that began above his left eye and continued up his forehead. The reddish color of the scar contrasted with the adjacent white skin and made the man look like he’d survived a scalping by hostile Indians.

  Rena opened the door to get out. When she did, her nausea returned with a vengeance. Gagging, she leaned over and got sick on the gravel roadway.

  The man waited until she stopped gagging then spoke in a deep, slow-moving voice. “Take it easy, Mrs. Richardson. I’m Detective Giles Porter with the Mitchell County Sheriff ’s Department. The deputy in the car is checking on the location of an ambulance.”

  In spite of her condition, Rena pointed up the road toward the parking lot for the trail and croaked, “Don’t stay here. My husband fell off a cliff.”

  “We know. A helicopter is on its way and should arrive in a few minutes. It will get to him long before we could. We’re here to take care of you.”

  “A helicopter?” Rena asked as her strength began to return.

  “Yes. We have an airborne rescue squad that serves this area of the state. It’s headquartered in this county.”

  Immediate validation of the detective’s words came as a helicopter roared over their heads. It was painted white with a gree
n logo on the side.

  Porter pointed upward. “They should be at the falls in a couple of minutes. There is a landing area not far from the bottom. It would take us over an hour to get there on foot.”

  Rena closed her eyes. “It’s no use. My husband is dead.”

  “Are you sure?” the detective asked with concern.

  Rena nodded. “I tried to revive him. He didn’t have a pulse and was already getting cold by the time I reached the bottom of the falls to help him.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s a dangerous place, but don’t try to talk about it now.”

  “We’d been married less than a year,” she added weakly.

  The officer in the patrol car opened the door and called out, “If she can ride in the car, the ambulance is going to meet us at the end of the road. They had to bring in a unit from the other side of the county.”

  The detective stepped closer to Rena.

  “We’ll put you in the back of the patrol car and take you to the hospital. You need to see a doctor yourself.”

  At the mention of a ride in the back of the police car, Rena shrank back. This was a trick. The grotesque looking detective wanted to put her in the back of the vehicle and take her to jail. The thought of involuntary confinement in any form prompted another wave of nausea. She put her hand over her mouth.

  “Are you going to get sick again?” Porter asked.

  Rena closed her eyes to shield them from the detective’s gaze. She knew that the wrong expression on her face could be her downfall. There was something disturbing about the detective. His eyes, especially the left one beneath the scar, seemed to be probing for something, attempting to look within her. She struggled to shake her fear.

  “Could someone drive my car?” she asked. “I can lie down in the backseat.”

  The detective paused then turned toward the deputy who was standing outside the patrol car, talking on the radio.