Perfect Strangers

by Dani Atkins

  ‘Here,’ he said, passing me the spear that he’d plucked from the ground.

  ‘Unless you reckon there’s a bear hiding in the tree, I don’t imagine I’ll be needing that,’ I replied sassily and then paled a little as I turned to face him. ‘They don’t do that, do they? They don’t live in trees?’

  ‘Not as far as I know,’ he confirmed. ‘But I thought it might come in handy for hooking the bag out of the branches.’

  I smiled wanly and took the spear. ‘I hadn’t even thought of that. How on earth would I manage here without you?’

  ‘You’d manage just fine,’ he answered confidently.

  I wasn’t anywhere near as sure.

  I walked around the base of the tree, carefully assessing a possible route up its trunk. I gulped nervously as I came back to the front, which seemed to offer the best options for someone who hadn’t done anything as foolish as this for the best part of twenty years. I took the spear and rested it on a horizontal branch about a metre above my head.

  After taking a couple of steadying breaths, I heard Logan sigh in concern behind me as I placed my hands firmly on a low-hanging branch. I’d already spotted my first foothold and was gratified to find the length of my leg made it reasonably accessible.

  ‘Do you want a bunk-up?’ Logan asked from behind me.

  I was bouncing lightly up and down on one leg, but I paused for a second and smiled into his worried face. ‘Maybe later,’ I said cheekily. ‘Let me climb the tree first.’ His rumbling chuckle was still reverberating around the snowy copse as I hoisted myself up into the dense green foliage.

  It’s strange, how the things you do without a second’s hesitation when you are eight years old can terrify you so much when you’re an adult. I had been the tomboy daughter. I was the one who climbed the tree to retrieve the lost Frisbee, who scrambled over the rocks to find the best place to look for crabs, who scaled the wall bars in the school gym without a second thought. I tried to access my inner eight-year-old as I slowly began to ascend the tree . . . but she was long gone, probably muttering things about broken bones and twisted limbs as she went. Fortunately there were several solid-looking branches for the first portion of my climb. I made the mistake of looking down – just once – as I paused to catch my breath before searching for my next handhold. A horrible sick feeling swirled in my largely empty stomach, as I saw just how far below the ground now appeared to be. Part of me wanted to work out what my chances were of surviving a tumble from the tree and walking away unscathed. A larger part of me simply didn’t want to know. Considering that Logan and I had, quite literally, fallen out of the skies without any appreciable injury, it was probably crazy to worry about falling from this height, which paled into insignificance in comparison. But even more frightening than how high I’d climbed, was that when I looked down at the snow-covered ground, I couldn’t see Logan anywhere. He had simply disappeared. Panic froze me to the branch I was on. The legs I had braced up against the thick trunk began to tremble, and it wasn’t just from the exertion of the climb. Had a bear come and silently taken him? While I’d been concentrating on the perils of what was above our heads, was the real danger back down there at ground level? When I climbed back down, would smears of blood-stained snow be all that there was left of him?

  ‘Logan! Logan!’ I called out in panic. It could only have been five seconds before he reappeared, but I swear they were the longest five seconds of my entire life.

  ‘What is it? Are you stuck?’

  I shook my head and felt my eyes begin to sting with tears of relief. Tears I didn’t have a free hand left to wipe away. ‘I couldn’t see you anywhere for a minute. I didn’t know where you’d gone. I thought I was alone.’

  ‘I’m not leaving you, and you’re certainly not alone,’ he said comfortingly. ‘I just went round the other side of the tree to see which was the safest way for you to climb up to the bag.’

  With Logan keeping a close eye on me from ground level, I managed the next section of my climb without mishap. But the higher I rose, the thinner the branches became. I could feel them bowing and flexing in a way that slowed my progress to a terrified creep rather than a confident climb.

  ‘The bag’s just above your head and over to the right,’ called Logan from the ground, his hands cupped around his mouth to ensure his words weren’t whipped away by the icy breeze. I hugged my arms around the considerably diminished girth of the tree trunk, like a fervent environmentalist in the face of an approaching bulldozer. I looked up and could just make out the dark shadowy shape of the bag above me. Conversely it looked even less accessible now that I was close to it than it had done from the ground. To reach it I would have to stand on branches barely thicker than those we had been gathering for firewood. I swallowed nervously at the thought.

  Still clinging to the tree, I tentatively placed my foot on a low protruding branch to my right. But as I gradually began to transfer my weight onto it, suddenly and without warning, a crack as loud as a rifle shot rang out through the tree and the branch snapped off, leaving my foot dangling precariously in mid-air.

  ‘Hannah! Are you all right?’ There was no disguising the panic in Logan’s voice. The shock of my near fall had robbed me momentarily of speech, that and the fact that each breath was struggling out of my throat in raw terrified gasps.

  My foot continued to waggle frantically through the air, still searching for the branch that was no longer there. I needed to reposition myself, but I was as terrified as a rabbit when a car’s headlights are bearing down on them. All thought of movement was beyond me.

  ‘Hold on, Hannah,’ called Logan from a very long way below me. Excellent advice, which I had every intention of following. ‘I’m coming up.’ Those were the words that broke me free from my petrified stupor.

  ‘No, Logan. Don’t. I’ll be all right. Just give me a moment to catch my breath. I got scared, that’s all.’

  ‘You’re not the only one,’ came his heartfelt rejoinder. ‘I knew I should never have let you climb up there. It was too dangerous.’

  Perhaps that was exactly what I needed to hear to galvanise me into moving. I shuffled my left foot sideways to make enough space on the large knot it was resting on, for its companion to join it. I felt altogether happier when all of my extremities were once again making direct contact with the tree.

  ‘Please come back down,’ Logan entreated. ‘Whatever’s in the bag, it’s not worth it.’

  I shook my head determinedly, and then realised he probably couldn’t even see that small defiant gesture from where he stood. ‘I did not get this far up the bloody tree to let it defeat me in the final few feet,’ I declared, making my ascent into something far more personal than I suspect the tree fully appreciated. ‘How far below me is the spear thing?’ As I climbed I’d been continually repositioning Logan’s DIY weapon at different levels, making sure it was always within reach.

  ‘It’s just below the height of your knees,’ he began, his voice dubious. ‘But you’re going to have to bend down to get it, and I don’t think it’s safe to—’

  ‘Okay then,’ I said, interrupting him and, like a geriatric ballet dancer, began to execute the slowest and most ungainly plié downwards to reach for the spear. When I was low enough, I tentatively took an arm from the tree trunk and groped like a blind person among the branches for the javelin-like tool.

  ‘Careful,’ cautioned Logan from below. I blew out heavily, my lips brushing against the bark of the tree. Instructions would actually be far more beneficial than concern, I thought a little testily. It was almost as if he had read my mind, because his next words were of far greater use. ‘Okay . . . left a little bit. Down a tad. Flex your hand a little bit further and you should be able to reach it now.’ I did as he instructed and felt my fingers connect with the material of Bob’s tie, which Logan had used to lash the twisted metal to the long branch.

  ‘Got it!’ I cried in triumph. A cheer whistled up through the tree branches and settled
on me, like a winner on a podium. Slowly I straightened and looked down through the foliage where I could just make out Logan’s concerned face staring up at me. ‘Hannah, I’m still not sure this is such a good idea.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ I refuted, full of probably ill-placed bravado. ‘Direct me to the bag.’

  It took ages. Probably because Logan was understandably nervous about choreographing me into a nosedive and I was terrified of tumbling and harpooning him on my way down. But eventually he directed me to a position where by carefully extending the arm holding the spear, I could just about reach the bag. The triumph I felt when the twisted end of the fuselage spearhead first poked the canvas material, was out of all proportion to my actual achievement. So far I’d done nothing that a moderately well trained chimpanzee couldn’t do, half asleep. And they reckon we’re the superior species? Not in these circumstances, we’re not.

  ‘Don’t try and hook it up, you won’t have the strength. Just see if you can dislodge it.’

  I followed his advice, but although the bag rocked with each lunge of my spear, it obstinately stayed put. If the bag was a tiger, I was poking it just enough to make it mad, but nothing more. To be this close and not achieve my objective was possibly what made me reckless. I drew back the spear, leaned further out than was sensible, and jabbed the fuselage head into the bag, like an overhyped child attacking a piñata.

  Two things happened then: one of them good, and the other definitely not. The bag toppled forward, and the weight of its contents and good old gravity did the rest of the job for me. It fell from the branch and went hurtling down through the tree, snapping off minor branches as it went, and landing with a noisy thump and a flurry of displaced snow on the ground. The second thing was also due to gravity. I slipped. The spear tumbled from my hand, so unexpectedly that I didn’t even have a chance to call out a warning to Logan, who was standing below looking upwards. I had no time to do anything, because I was rapidly sliding down the tree trunk I had so painstakingly climbed. My feet scrabbled for a hold, but I continued to slither downwards, small branches breaking and snapping as I tried to find something solid enough to grab on to. At some point I felt a bright hot pain, like a fiery torch, sear my rib cage.

  There was a lot of frantic shouting from below, but I couldn’t distinguish the sounds into actual words until I had eventually come to a halt some four metres lower than when I’d started. It was a miracle that I hadn’t fallen out of the tree, but one I was too shell-shocked to fully appreciate.

  ‘Don’t move. I’m coming to get you,’ yelled Logan.

  It seemed an eternity before I opened my eyes, lifted my forehead from where it was pressed into the tree trunk, and saw his concerned face directly in front of me. I blinked dazedly into his worried green eyes.

  ‘Are you okay? Are you hurt?’ he asked anxiously, trying to peer around and through the branches separating us to assess my injuries.

  ‘I think I’ve scraped my side,’ I said, my voice wobbling a little as I spoke.

  ‘Okay. Are you still able to move?’ As I didn’t see that I really had much option, unless I intended to take up residency in the tree until help eventually arrived, I guessed I would have to.

  Over the passage of years I had somehow managed to forget that climbing down a tree is actually a great deal harder than going up. It seemed almost negligent for my memory to have cunningly concealed that rather important fact from me. Without Logan’s assistance I simply wouldn’t have been able to get back down, with or without the injury to my side. Although the branches weren’t strong enough to hold us both, we were able to descend the tree in tandem, as he guided me, telling me exactly where I needed to place my hands and feet. Without him I would never have made it back down. I know that for an absolute fact.

  Once I felt the solid certainty of the ground beneath my feet, I collapsed into a small heaving pile onto the snow. Logan jumped the last distance down from the tree, landing on his feet just beside me. He dropped instantly to his knees and scooped me into his arms, and I cried into his shoulder for several minutes in a way that my eight-year-old self would have been horrified to observe. He rocked and soothed me gently, until the terror began to recede and the adrenaline levels coursing through me started to ebb back to somewhere less likely to ensure an imminent heart attack.

  I raised my tear-streaked face from his shoulder, as very gently he wiped the hair back from my blotchy red cheeks, which were saturated with an unpleasant mixture of tears and sweat. I am not a pretty crier, and there can have been nothing at all appealing in what Logan saw, but you’d never have guessed that from the look of tender concern in his eyes as he brushed the messy damp tendrils away from my skin. When the task was done, he paused and there was a look in his eyes which told me exactly what he was going to do next. I had more than enough time to push him back, to say something, or sound horrified. I did nothing, and when I felt the softness of his lips gently settle over mine, I could think of nothing else except how his mouth was everything I had thought and imagined it would be, and should be.

  He didn’t apologise for the kiss, and I’m really glad about that, because it would somehow have ruined the moment. I can’t say for sure if it was the kind of kiss that warranted almost killing yourself by falling out of a tree to receive. But it definitely came close.

  ‘How badly are you hurt?’ he asked, his fingers already unzipping my jacket.

  ‘I’m not sure. It stings,’ I said, wincing as he gently lifted the ripped and blood-stained sweatshirt away from my injuries. I didn’t look down. I didn’t need to. I only had to look at Logan’s face to know that whatever I’d done to the skin of my rib cage, it didn’t look pretty.

  ‘We’re going to need to clean that up,’ he said, his voice sounding a little grim. ‘But it’s going to have to wait until we get back to camp. Do you think you can walk, or should I carry you back?’

  It felt like one side of my torso was being repeatedly jabbed by a thousand red hot needles, and to be fair, I’ve never claimed to have a particularly high threshold for pain, yet the refusal sprang instinctively to my lips. ‘No. I’m fine. I can walk.’

  I got shakily to my feet, my lips tightly pursed to prevent any errant cry of pain from escaping. The horizon bobbed and swayed alarmingly for a moment, and I threw out my hand for support, and found his already there, waiting to steady me.

  ‘I might just have to lean on you as we go.’ My voice was as shaky as my balance, and Logan carefully placed one strong arm around me, supporting me on my uninjured side. ‘That’s what I’m here for,’ he said.

  We walked slowly, with Logan dragging the heavy backpack through the snow. His face was so close to mine I could feel the warmth of every exhaled breath gently fanning my cheek, like a caress. If I turned my head, even a little, our lips would be virtually touching each other. Would he kiss me again, if I did? Would I let him? Afraid to discover the answer to either of those questions, I kept my face fixed resolutely on the snowy terrain, as we carefully retraced our own footprints back the way we had come.

  It was practically dusk before we spotted the dwindling flames from our campfire lighting up the snowy expanse and welcoming us back like a beacon. My injuries had slowed us down, and for the last fifteen minutes of our journey my eyes kept darting nervously towards the shadows, certain that at any moment we were about to be joined by something who had their own idea about where plane crash survivors were placed in the food chain.

  The need to be practical overrode everything else, and after carefully lowering me to sit on one of the large flat rocks, Logan immediately set to work building up the fire. I don’t think either of us relaxed properly until the fresh tinder began to spit and crackle and finally caught alight. I pulled at the webbing straps of the backpack, dragging it over the snow towards me, but Logan’s hand came down on mine, stilling it. ‘That can wait. We need to get your side cleaned up first.’

  ‘Actually, it doesn’t feel so bad now,’ I admitted. ‘I thin
k maybe the cold has numbed it. It could probably wait a while.’

  Logan shook his head. ‘No, it can’t. We need to get it dressed, and get rid of anything with blood on it.’

  I looked at him blankly for a moment, and then closed my eyes and instantly recalled a vivid double-page spread in a book I’d once seen, which my weird photographic memory had thought worthy of storing. I saw again the dramatic colour plate, with the large grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis my memory provided), its mouth full of tattered scraps of blood-drenched clothing. My stomach flipped in a way that would have put my last meal in jeopardy – if I’d had one recently, that is. I glanced towards the darkened thicket of trees and undergrowth. Were they already there, their big black noses twitching in saliva-inducing preparation as they caught the delicate aroma of O Negative wafting their way?

  I pulled Kate’s first-aid kit from my bag and passed it to Logan before carefully beginning to shrug out of my jacket.

  ‘We’re going to have to lose the sweatshirt, I’m afraid,’ Logan said, stepping forward to assist me. I nodded, and allowed him to help me lift it over my head. I winced as it came away from my grazed side, where it had already stuck in places to the broken skin.

  ‘Sorry,’ Logan muttered, his eyes narrowing in concern as he properly examined my injuries for the first time. Very gently, as though repositioning a mannequin, he lifted my arm and held it out of the way as he crouched beside me, studying the torn skin. There was a very strange expression on his face as he looked at the damage I’d done. It was just as well he wasn’t a doctor, I thought abstractedly, because if you saw your physician biting their lip in concern like that, you’d be justified in panicking.

  I risked a quick look down at my side, and then really wished that I hadn’t. There were two fairly deep cuts, from which most of the blood must have come, as well as a sizeable patch of skin that looked so disgustingly like a bit of meat, it was little wonder the bears might be tempted.