Having never been on a small plane she was apprehensive, but accepted anyway, now she decided I would have to be found alive because she really, really wanted to kick my butt! She tried to sleep.
After a night of restless sleep, morning came, along with a phone call. The voice on the phone said a car would be arriving within an hour to bring my wife to the airport; they would provide breakfast on the way. She showered, dressed, brushed her teeth, and set off to meet the car. Her stomach was churning, but she forced herself to eat a small breakfast provided by the police chief so he could apprise her of the planned day’s events. She would accompany the chief on the plane to look for my truck, and the ground crew would take over from there once we located it. Once the truck was located, and the ground search was initiated she would be required to stay in Kingman to await any further word; the chief would keep her informed as he found things out. With the plan of the day decided they finished their coffee, and went to the airport to meet the pilot to get under way.
The small plane was kind of cramped, and she was visibly shaking when she boarded. The pilot, seeing her nervousness assured her that the plane was very safe, and he had been flying this area for years. It didn’t help calm her fears, but she sucked it up and did what she had to do. After taking off she decided it really wasn’t too bad of a ride, and she concentrated on looking for my truck. They looked along the highway going north out of town for about ninety miles, and started an east west pattern slowly moving further south with each pass. The ground crew was sitting tight in Kingman awaiting any word, when the radio crackled to life, “We got a truck matching our guy’s” they gave the coordinates, and the ground crew set out to check on it.
My wife was taken back to the hotel to await any word. The plane ride was incredibly stressful for her, and finding my truck was encouraging, but there was no evidence from the sky that I was anywhere in the area, so the conflict in her brain was starting to really get to her. Stuck once again in the room, she broke down, and got out a good cry. Soon she fell into a peaceful sleep.
I thought I heard a plane in the distance, and I ran outside, but the sound faded away before I could spot anything. I got to thinking a signal fire might be a good idea, so I looked around for something to make a huge smoky fire with. There were a few old tires half buried by the outhouse so I started digging them out. I dug most of the first tire out and I reached down and grabbed it to pull it the rest of the way out when I felt a sharp sting on the back of my hand, and I saw the scorpion running across the dirt toward the outhouse, I stomped the little bastard. My hand almost immediately started to burn and I was not sure if these things could kill you or what. I suppose this is just another item I should have looked into before coming out here. I already knew I was a dumb ass so I just chalked this up to one more lesson that I would hopefully live through. I went back into the shack to see if there was any info in the first aid kit, I was having trouble moving my fingers because the back of my hand felt like I had stuck it in a fire. I hoped this wouldn’t last too long. Looking through the first aid kit, I didn’t find any info on scorpion stings; I could feel my heart starting to race a bit, and I was starting to have a little shortness of breath. I was getting really nervous; I thought I might die right here and now. I lay down on the cot and tried my best to calm down, but it wasn’t happening. My hand was hurting worse by the minute; it was all I could do to keep myself from panicking. I couldn’t think straight, I curled up in a fetal position and tried to keep my mind off the pain.
Day turned to night, my hand still hurt a lot, but my heart stopped racing and my breathing was back to normal. I decided I would not be dying tonight, at least not from this sting. I lay in the darkness thinking about my wife, my children, my dog, and my friends. I thought about my stupidity, and arrogance, thinking I knew what I was doing without really having a clue. All these things kept rolling around in my head and before I knew it the first rays of sunlight beamed into the shack. I decided I needed to get on with it; I was leaving this place today.
My hand hurt quite a bit, but I gritted my teeth and got to it, getting together anything I figured I needed to continue on my way back to my home. I took the last six bottles of water, and two cans of beans. I needed a can opener so I packed that and a spoon as well.
I had driven about sixty miles north out of town then took some back roads into the desert to get where I parked my truck, so I realized I would probably be out here for at least one more night, and maybe two. I packed a blanket, and some matches. I hoped I could maybe find some things to burn on my way south in search of the interstate.
Next I made sure everything I had used or taken with me was written on the list I left for the owner of the shack along with my name and phone number. The last thing to do was make an arrow pointing in the direction I was going. I fashioned an arrow next to the word help that I had spelled out earlier, and said a short prayer for salvation, still trying to hedge my bets.
I looked at the sun, turned to my right, and started walking south, determined to find the interstate. My hand was throbbing with each step, but I did my best to put it out of my mind. I also made it a point to scan the horizon now and again so I didn’t miss anything like before when I almost missed the shack. Keeping the sun on my left I walked as quickly as I felt comfortable doing, thinking of my family and home to pass the time. Occasionally I would stop to fashion another arrow pointing in the direction I was walking. The morning passed very quickly, and the sun was soon above me so I needed to pay special attention to my direction I certainly didn’t want to start circling back to the shack again. It was not as hot as the previous days so I was able to conserve the water, I had decided it should take two or two and a half days to make it to the interstate so I rationed myself to two bottles a day. I decided to only eat a can of beans at the end of the day when I made my “camp”. I was starting to feel good, like I was going to make it, so I kicked my pace up a little bit. There was a slight breeze that felt great, my hand was feeling better, I was moving along at a good pace, and I thought maybe my prayers were going to be answered. I was reaching the crest of another hill, and I thought I heard an airplane. I got excited and ran to the top of the hill, looking all around to see if I could spot the plane when I stepped right off a short cliff. The fall was about ten feet, I heard my leg snap when I hit the ground, and of course I felt it as well. The pain was intense, and immediate, I looked down at my leg and to my horror I saw the bone sticking out of my shin, and my leg was bent in a direction it was never meant to be bent. Dammit! Now what the hell am I going to do?
Although my leg hurt terribly I knew it would get worse later so I needed to straighten it and stop the bleeding now. I took the blanket out of my backpack, and cut a few strips from it to make a bandage. Now came the hard part; I grabbed my leg and bent it back as straight as I could, it didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would, but just the thought was creeping me out and making my brain hurt. I looked around a little but could not find anything close by to use as a splint so I wrapped my leg with the strips from the blanket being careful not to wrap them too tight. Next I held pressure on the break as long as I could stand it to try to slow or stop the bleeding. After all that, the only thing I had left to do was fall back and deal with the pain.
I decided that since my back was against this small cliff at least I would have a little shelter for the night, and if coyotes could smell blood and came for me I figured I would stand a little bit better chance of defending myself from here. Besides I wasn’t going anywhere fast, or at all, at least not for a while. My mind was racing, I couldn’t think clearly, the pain was increasing, I could feel my leg swelling, and throbbing, I wasn’t sure how long it would take for gangrene to set in. I started thinking about all the civil war movies and documentaries I have seen; “now” I thought “I know how those soldiers felt”, and I also know most of them died from their injuries. I needed to get some kind of plan together; I did not want to join those men in death, besides their deaths were honorabl
e, and this was stupidity, so it wasn’t quite the same.
After trying to calm myself a bit I started trying to come up with a plan to get out of here. I did have the handle from my metal detector so I thought maybe I could tie it to my leg and use it as a sort of splint or crutch so I could walk without putting pressure on my leg because I knew I would not be able to do that. First things first though, I needed to make it through another night in this nightmare which I found myself. I had a couple hours of light left so I decided I should try to put together some kind of camp. I could see some scrub brush about sixty or so feet from were I was sitting and decided to try to crawl over and get some for a fire later. Every move was excruciating but I kept going, inch by inch, foot by foot, I crawled, and dragged myself to each different brush pile and tinder I could find, and back to my “Cliffside camp site”. By the time the sun started to set I had gathered quite a pile of brush and other assorted burnable items to keep a fire going
Golden Dreams Page 5