by Jerry Cole
He should collect them and bring them back to the lean-to, but his eyes were drawn to the river instead. He was wary of getting back in, afraid of the cold, of getting swept away. But the current seemed gentle here and he was dying to feel clean. He debated with himself for a few minutes before giving in. He took off his clean clothes and set them aside, not wanting them to get wet. After a moment of hesitation, he even removed his underwear. Asher was incapacitated and there didn't seem to be anyone else around to see him, so he might as well have dry underwear when he was done.
He stepped into the cold water and shuddered, rethinking his plan at once. But he was already naked and in the river now—there was no point in going back. He began splashing water onto his skin, washing off the blood and dirt. He bent to wash the blood out of his hair, cursing as the cold water hit his scalp. At least it seemed to be a warm day. He wouldn't freeze while waiting to dry off. He sighed with relief when he could run his hands through his hair without hitting any clumps, though now he could feel the outline of the split in his head where he'd hit the rock. It curved up the right side of his scalp like a false part, and continued past his hairline, ending just above his eyebrow. He'd probably end up with a scar there, knowing his luck. One more thing to keep people away.
"Looking good there, Carter!"
Daniel turned abruptly as he heard Asher's voice, seeing the other man leaning against a tree and watching him openly, still wrapped in the sleeping bag. Daniel scowled through his blush.
"What are you doing up?" he asked, harsh with annoyance as he hurried to get out and fetch his clothing. "You're not supposed to be moving. If that wound starts bleeding again—"
"I'm fine," Asher seemed equal parts exasperated and pleased by Daniel's concern. "Couldn't just lie there all day. Thought I would come and get dressed. Plus, you’ve been gone for a bit. I got worried."
Daniel, grabbing his clothes and moving behind a waist high rock for a little privacy, noticed Asher had collected his own clothes from the branch and removed Daniel's sweater.
"You might as well clean off first," Daniel said, indicating the water. "No sense getting all that grime on your dry clothes."
"Good point," Asher nodded. "But let's be honest. You're just trying to get me naked again, aren't you?"
"Whatever satisfies your grossly overinflated ego," Daniel rolled his eyes in disgust. So they were back to these jokes again. He made a point of not looking as Asher set the sleeping bag aside and crouched in the shallows to splash water on himself, trying to avoid getting his bandages wet.
Daniel lingered behind the rock, letting the sun dry him a bit more before he put on his clothes, feeling much more refreshed now that he was clean. While Asher finished washing and dressed, Daniel rolled up the sleeping bag and returned it to its waterproof canvas, tucking the foil space blanket in with it. He was just tightening the straps on it when he heard a twig snap. He looked up, expecting to see Asher, and instead saw a huge, shaggy face.
The bear stared back at Daniel placidly, blinking its huge brown eyes, motives inscrutable. It was so much bigger than Daniel had ever imagined bears to be, or maybe it just felt that way because he was standing in front of it. The sunlight shone on its glossy fur, and it looked fat and healthy, ready for the coming cold season. Daniel backed away slowly, not taking his eyes off the animal. He was sure it didn’t consider him food. As long as he wasn’t a threat, he would be fine. These were justifications he would mostly make later. In truth, his mind was blank, reciting a litany of swear words as he moved on instinct. He heard the bray of a cub a second before it ambled past its mother towards the water's edge. Daniel could feel his heart in his throat. His mouth was dry as cotton. Just keep backing away, he thought. Don't give it any reason to consider you a threat. Everything is fine.
"HOLY SHIT," Asher shouted behind him. Daniel's heart stopped cold as he glanced back at the other man, standing by the river bank behind him, pale with fear as he saw the bear. Daniel's attention was quickly drawn back to the animal as he heard it give a low warning bellow, rising up on its hind legs threateningly, six feet tall and looking down at Daniel with an animal's cool, unreadable gaze as it decided whether it was going to kill him or not.
"Shit, run!" Asher shouted, and Daniel didn't need any further encouragement. He turned and bolted, loping awkwardly on his injured ankle. Asher waited to catch him and the two men supported each other as they fled, looking back at the bear as it ambled after them with a furious bellow.
Daniel clung to Asher like a life line, terror coursing like ice water in his veins and his ankle screaming. He didn't dare stop or even look back at this point though, too afraid a moment's hesitation would mean an angry mother bear shredding him into a series of terrified ribbons. Asher seemed equally scared witless, half holding Daniel up, half using him as a crutch, neither of them in good running condition. Regardless, they kept running blind, sprinting into the forest while the bear's bellows echoed behind them. The sleeping bag, slung over Daniel's shoulder, bounced against his back like a warning.
And then, so suddenly Daniel had no time to do anything but gasp, the earth vanished beneath their feet and they were sliding down, tumbling, rolling head over heels through scrub and rocky scree, sliding down the mountainside. Every impact jarred Daniel all the way through to his bones, making every injury he already had even worse. Daniel waited for the crash, the coming dark, but the slide just seemed to go on forever, and then just as suddenly, it slowed. Daniel rolled to a gradual, conscious stop, and wished he had passed out. He had never hurt so much in his life. His hand was still clutching Asher's shirt. He hadn't let go of the other man even as they'd fallen. Daniel looked up at the sky through the gap in the trees that swayed above them, and regretted everything.
"Is the bear still coming?" Asher asked, weak and muffled by gravel. He was face down, but clearly in too much pain to move. Daniel struggled to move enough to look up at the sloping ravine they'd just rolled down. He saw no sign of the bear.
"I don't think so," he said, letting his head drop back onto the ground.
"Good," Asher said through his mouthful of rocks. "In that case, I'm just gonna lay here and bleed for a little bit."
"Good plan." Daniel agreed.
They laid there, catching their breath and feeling their new injuries for a while. Daniel was covered in new cuts and bruises. He didn't think there was an inch of un-lacerated skin on his body. Honestly, fuck nature, he thought.
"Your side," he turned his head towards Asher, ignoring the stringent complaints of his neck. "Is it bleeding again?"
"Probably," Asher shrugged, then groaned in regret.
"We should change the bandages," Daniel sighed. "I can't let you survive all of this just to bleed out."
"The first aid kit is in the bag," Asher replied. "Back up the cliff. With the bear."
Daniel swore, long and colorful, hissed vehemently into a tussock of scratchy mountain grass near his face. By the end of his tirade, Asher was wheezing with pained laughter.
Slowly, leaning on each other heavily, the two men recovered enough to stand and stumble towards the cover of the trees, squinting at the wilderness around them in bewilderment. Daniel kept a careful grip on the sleeping bag, the only gear they had anymore, glad he'd had the presence of mind to hold on to it, and that he’d packed the foil blanket into it earlier. The canvas had been torn by rocks on the way down the mountain, but the bag seemed mostly intact. A few rips were better than no protection from the cold at all.
Asher had saved one of the water bottles, and they passed it back and forth as they walked, somewhat aimlessly, trying to find a way back up the cliff towards the river. Neither of them wanted to discuss what they would do if they somehow managed to find the camp again and the bear was still there. Eventually, as the sun got higher in the sky, they had to accept that following the cliff was not leading them back to the river, only further up the mountain.
"If we keep going, we're bound to hit a trail e
ventually," Asher, looking pale and uncomfortable, tried to reassure Daniel. "There isn't an inch of this place that hasn't been landscaped for the tourists."
"What about those big swathes on the map just marked 'wilderness?'"
Asher pressed his lips together and breathed out heavily through his nose.
"We'll be fine," Asher said through gritted teeth. "We'll find a trail and we'll be fine."
"Right." Daniel agreed and didn't say anything else for a while as they continued their stumbling progress into the forest, making their way up the hill.
"We'll get to a high point," Asher suggested after a time, still looking for a plan to deal with this. "From above the tree line, we'll be able to see the landmarks and figure out where we are."
Daniel didn't have a better plan, so he went along with it, until he realized blood had soaked through Asher's bandages and was beginning to stain through his clothing.
"Okay, time for a break," Daniel said, leaving no room for argument as he let go of Asher and sat down. Asher tried to protest, but it was obvious he could barely stand without Daniel's help right now. He sank down at the base of a tree, closing his eyes. Daniel took a moment to stretch out his sprained ankle, glad to have his weight off of it. The walking had become almost unbearable. When the flaring pain had settled to a dull throb again, he shifted closer to Asher, lifting up the other man's shirt to check on his bandages.
"You really don't get tired of seeing me shirtless, do you?" Asher joked. Daniel ignored it, scowling.
"This is bad," he muttered. "We really need to get you proper medical treatment."
"I'll make it till we get rescued," Asher said, looking pale and tired. "We just have to get back to the river. It looks worse than it is, I promise. I can walk, right?"
"You probably shouldn't be walking, though," Daniel frowned, concerned. "When we find the river again, or any big body of water, we're stopping and you're not moving again until we get help."
"Okay, Mom," Asher teased, chuckling. "Whatever you say."
"How about you stop making dumb jokes and focus on figuring out where we are?" Daniel shifted away from Asher again, leaning against his own tree to rest. "You must have some idea. There's only so many places the river could have dumped us."
"Yeah, you're right," Asher took a deep breath, closing his eyes again as, Daniel assumed, he tried to remember all the rivers in the park. "But there really aren't any branches off the Roaring River. And we can't have been swept down to Fall River, or we'd have drifted right through one of the main camping areas. So the only thing I can think is... Maybe we weren't on the Roaring River to begin with?"
"How would that make sense?" Daniel asked, wrinkling his nose. "We followed it up to Lawn Lake. We saw the river mouth."
"But are you sure that's the river we got in?" Asher asked. "I remember seeing there was a glacier up on Rowe's peak. That means there has to be a ton of rivers and streams coming down from it. What if we went down one of those? We might be on the other side of the Mummy Range by now."
"Is that even possible?" Daniel asked, baffled. How could they end up on the other side of a mountain range without noticing?
"I don't know," Asher griped. "I'm just trying to think of an explanation that makes more sense than 'someone picked us up out of the Roaring River and dropped us in some totally different river miles away.'"
"This is insane." Daniel put his head in his hands, wanting nothing more than to be at home in his own bed. He didn't even care if he was alone anymore. He just didn't want to be out here a second longer.
"We should keep going," Asher said after a long, silent moment. "The sooner we get above the trees, the sooner we can figure out where we are."
Daniel resisted the urge, though it was a powerful one, to say something nasty about what an effective trail guide Asher had proven to be so far. Instead he just went on sitting a while longer, until he had his breath back and thought he could stand it again. Then he stood, helped Asher to his feet, and together they continued to limp on, further up the mountain.
Chapter Ten
They made frequent stops, on Daniel's insistence, his ankle in too much pain and his concern about how increasingly pale Asher was becoming too great to ignore. Thus it was past noon and edging towards evening as they reached an elevation high enough to get a better look around them. In thin-lipped silence, Asher stared at the wilderness that stretched around them. Daniel could see him desperately looking for something he recognized, and if the growing furrow between his brows was anything to go by, he wasn't finding it.
Daniel scanned for any sign of something man-made. A tower or a building—anything that would indicate the presence of people. There were only more mountains and forest in every direction. Daniel thought he saw water glittering somewhere in the distance, but he couldn't identify the river, and there were entirely too many mountains to tell them apart. The corners of Asher's mouth pulled down into something like a grimace.
"You don't know where we are, do you?" Daniel said, more tired than upset. "Why am I not surprised? You are the worst trail guide ever."
"I know where we are," Asher hissed through clenched teeth. "We must be near...Desolation Peak. And that means. Um. That's Spruce Canyon. And if we keep going that way, we'll find Bridal Veil Falls."
Daniel eyed Asher critically, trying to remember if he had seen all those names on the map. He supposed he didn't have any option but just to believe the trail guide. After all, Daniel didn't have any better idea of where they should go. At least Asher was giving them a direction. Still, Daniel wished he could spot just one man-made structure. Just one building or trail or road to head towards. But everything just looked like wilderness in all directions.
"Okay," Daniel sighed. "So we head down that way? And we'll find Bridal Veil Falls?"
"Yeah," Asher sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as Daniel. "Yeah definitely. And the falls are a huge attraction, so there will definitely be people there."
"That's all I needed to hear," Daniel laughed, only a little bitter, and secured his arm around Asher's shoulders again as the two men continued limping onwards, praying they were making the right decision.
"If we live through this," Daniel said as they picked their way carefully down a slope, "I'm quitting my job. It's not worth seeing Donahue's smug face every day. I work hard. I have a great resume. I could get a way better job. Probably better pay too. And a normal boss wouldn't force me to come on stupid camping trips or deal with accounting paperwork I am clearly not qualified for or—"
"He had you doing his accounting?" Asher asked, suddenly curious. "I totally support you ditching his ass, by the way."
"'Doing his accounting' implies he wanted me to actually look at the papers," Daniel said, rolling his eyes, "rather than just signing off and sending them to records. I told him the numbers were a mess and we needed a professional CPA, but he wouldn't listen to me. He never listens to me or anyone but his own utterly inane whims—"
"Yeah, he's a real piece of work," Asher interrupted again. "What was wrong with the accounting paperwork?"
"More like what wasn't wrong with it," Daniel griped, happy to vent and pleased Asher was letting him. "Unreported and unlabeled expenditures, money just appearing and disappearing willy-nilly or else going around in circles. He runs the business like his personal playground and expects all of us to just make it work somehow, when he won't even do his paperwork correctly. Working with him is a nightmare."
"Sounds like it," Asher sounded thoughtful, his eyes on the tree line ahead of them. "I've had a few bad bosses. But Donahue is in a class of his own."
"It's been worse since his father died," Daniel went on. "Even after he retired, Donahue Senior kept an eye on things and made sure they didn't get too out of hand. Donahue Junior has been running rampant since the day of his father's funeral."
They were beginning to be surrounded by trees again, and Daniel worried, observing their lopsided, limping gait, how they woul
d manage to continue going in the right direction to find the falls. Not to mention, he was getting hungry. It had been almost a full day since the granola bar.
"So, Mr. Trail Guide," Daniel said after a moment. "Do you know if there's anything edible on this mountain?"
Asher breathed heavily through his nose again, something Daniel noticed he did every time Daniel asked him something he didn't want to answer. "Sure," he said. "There's, uh. Raspberries. And currants. Gooseberries."
"Its fall, though," Daniel interrupted. "I don't think there's going to be a lot of berries."
"Cacti, then," Asher tried. "Prickly pear."
"I think we're too high up for those?"
"Shit. Mushrooms, probably?"
Daniel stared at the other man in bewildered irritation.
"Don't they make you get some kind of certification before you can be a trail guide?" Daniel asked, beginning to run out of patience. "You had to take a class or something at least, right?"
"Well maybe I'm just not that great at studying, okay?" Asher snapped, uncomfortable.
"Then why did Donahue hire you?" Daniel pushed. “He’s a lazy ass, but he always insists on the best. Why would he take you when you obviously don't know anything?"
"Because I'm not a trail guide, damn it!" Asher shouted, then winced in regret, holding his side. Daniel stared at him in bewildered anger, then abruptly dropped him, letting him fall against a nearby pine tree.
"I knew it!" Daniel shouted, as vindicated as he was offended. "I knew there was something not right about you! What are you then? Some drinking buddy of his? Are you his drug dealer? What? Tell me!"
"I'm his loan shark!" Asher answered, shoulders hunched defensively as he slid down the tree. "Fuck, I'm not even his loan shark. I work for his loan shark. Donahue owes big money to one of the local families. I came as their representative. He was supposed to pay me yesterday before the rafting trip, but he put me off, told me the money wasn't ready yet. He insisted he had to talk to the boss about some bullshit business venture. I was gonna break his kneecaps before the end of the trip, before this happened. I'm a thug, Daniel. Just a nothing thug. They just sent me because I look 'outdoorsy.'"