by Gabe Sluis
Chapter 21- Landings
The three heard the faint sound of a shot as they soared above the river in the silver night. The roar of the wind and the flapping of taut wing fabric almost drowned out the sound of Chris’s voice.
“You guys ok? I think they are shooting at us!”
“I’m good!” Donny yelled back.
“We have got to be way out of their range anyway,” Jake said.
Below, the river looked like a silver highway running through a thick band of trees. Jake did a slight pull-up, readjusting his hanging self between the horizontal Chris and Donny.
“How you doing over there Jake? You hanging on okay?” Donny asked.
“Once, in basic training, I had to hang from a bar for five minutes before they let me in the chow hall. That was no problem,” he shouted back.
“Feels like we are dropping quick!” Chris observed. “Push forward on the bar with me, Donny!”
“Look to our two o’clock! There is an open space we should shoot for!”
“I don’t know if we will make it! We are loosing altitude fast!”
“I thought this thing could hold three people,” Donny said.
“Well, I lied. We were right at the maximum weight range. I just figured I’d drop off into the river if you guys really needed it.”
“What! Are you crazy! We are too close to the bank now!”
“It was the best option, Dude!” Jake shouted back to Donny.
“Forget it!” Chris cried. “Keep angling left!”
The gliders shadow passed over the bank of the river and began to flutter over the dark trees. Jake’s feet were the first thing to hit the treetops and they were pulled up reflexively. The very tops of the trees, thin branches and twigs, started in on smacking the boys as they fell deeper into the canopy. No one said a word, but all were tensed for some sort of terrible impact when they were unexpectedly clear. The brief brush with the trees led to open air once again and landing was now imminent. The ground rose up to meet the boys and Jake let out a yell.
“Geronimo!!” and Jake was gone.
Struggling to free their feet from their harness bags, Chris and Donny got vertical just in time to attempt to run off the landing. On the left, Chris tripped, pulling Donny and his own side of the wing down with him. The hang glider reached the weed-covered field in a sideways crash, but the frame remained in shape.
Jake ran over to the downed delta wing and flipped it off of his friends. Donny was thrashing about trying to unclip his harness from the frame. Jake freed Donny from his carabineer as he checked on the state of his friends.
“That was awesome! Are you guys okay?!”
“Never again, dude! I am never going hang gliding with you two again!” Donny said, back on the ground, face to the sky. “I can’t believe we just did that. Off a building and across a river… Now that was an escape.”
“Yep, it sure was. Told-yuh it would work. We had a minor brush with some trees, but what did I say? We came up with a perfect plan!”
“Almost,” Chris said, unbuckling himself from his harness. He reached down and felt his ankle. Realizing they had been chatting while their friend was hurt, Donny and Jake went to his side.
“Shit, buddy. What happened?”
“It’s the topside of my ankle. I must have rolled it when we landed. It is throbbing and hurts really bad… Damn!”
“Oh yeah,” Donny said looking at Chris’s leg when they had the shoe off. “It’s already starting to swell. This is exactly what happened to me one time when I was skateboarding. I landed funny and the front, here, was all messed up. I could barely drive home. Turned out I stretched the ligaments really bad. I could barely walk for a week.”
“Shit. If it’s swelling, we need to wrap it up now,” Jake said. “We can use the fabric from this thing. I doubt anyone will use this thing again anyway.”
“What are we going to do?” Chris said. “We still have a ways to go up north. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to walk…”
Donny and Jake were ripping strips of the glider’s material, leaving an uncertain silence hanging in the air. “Well, we don’t have any ice, and we have a hike ahead, no way around that, so we won’t be able to elevate it. But, I guess at least one of the three is better than nothing,” Donny said, very serious now, bending down to Chris’s side. “We are just going to have to do this. It’s not going to be easy. I didn’t think it was going to be easy as soon as Renault told us what we had to do. We have come to far to give up now. I’ll wrap this the best I can. I remember the way I had to do this when I hurt my ankle…”
Donny went to work and Chris and Jake looked, surprised, at each other. That type of speech was very un-Donny like; full of hope and resolution. Chris looked down at his old friend and had a flashback from them both being very young. “Thanks, D.B.”
“And, if we are going to be hiking on it, we should splint it too. My leg always felt so much better when it was solid and not able to flop around. Will you go get some sticks for a splint?” Donny said to Jake, in a tone that suggested that Jake should have anticipated the need already. “And keep your eye out for something we can make into a crutch.”
“Yeah, man,” Jake said, impressed by the leadership rather than offended. “How long do you want ‘em?”
“At least forearm length. And, about as thick as your thumb.”
“Cool, I’m off. Be right back.”
When Jake had gone Chris was still looking at his friend in slight amazement. “So what happened with you after we lost you at the waterfall?”
“It was nuts. The serpent-thing disappeared and I surfaced in this cave that was full of silver. It was like, the perfect place to set up a mine. If you were after silver… Anyway, I found this awesome flute,” Donny said, showing it to Chris. “It’s like something Peter Pan would use. So, I was playing it and trying to get out of the cave and I must have stumbled into the towns’ waterworks and this guy arrested me. Then you guys found me and now we are here.”
“You found a flute, huh? Jake and I each found something special too. He has those gloves you saw. They seem to totally protect the hands from anything. And you saw the key that I got. So, its like we each got something to help us.”
“Mine is just plays notes really loud. See…” Donny blew an encompassing single tone. “Where did Jake get the gloves from?”
As Chris began to answer this question, clouds drifted out of nowhere and began to darken the night. “We had to go through this crazy haunted house at the top of the mountain where the waterfall dropped from. There was this attic room full of water that Jake had to swim through. It was weird, but we had to get the gloves to get out the exit. There were ghosts inside and everything.”
“Looks like it might start to rain,” Jake said, coming back to the other two holding a bundle of sticks. “I brought a few, just in case. And… look at this. What do you think of this as a crutch?”
Donny inspected the thick, long branch that Jake had brought back as well. It was nearly four feet long and made of dead driftwood, presumably from the river’s edge. “I don’t think that will work. It’s too short and he is going to need something perpendicular to lean on.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so either. We will have to help you walk I guess.”
“No, you won’t,” Renault said, appearing next to the boys. “Here, use this.” He tossed a cut branch, an elongated ‘Y’, over next to Chris.
“Damn, man. You really startled me. Where have you been?” Jake said, taking the extended stick from the ground. He put it under his arm and it felt just a tad too long for him to use as a crutch, which was good for Chris. “I thought you were supposed to be helping us, instead you have been nowhere to be found when we could have used you the most.”
“I’m sorry it has seemed that way, but I have been around. You just haven’t seen me. In fact, I have recently overstepped my role as guide, and now this will be the last time I will be able to meet with
you.”
“What? Why? How?” Chris said.
“I was on the roof just after your escape. It was a trivial matter, but my punishment is that you must now go on from here without my guidance. I was permitted however, one final moment with you and to bring you that item. The rest of the journey is up to you.”
“So this is it? We don’t get any more help?”
“Yes. It is as distressing to me as it is to you, for my success in my own quest now rests with the success of yours.”
“I don’t get it… Who is behind this all? Who is making the rules?” Chris said.
“Christopher McCourtney. I once accused you of being too curious for your own good. But it is your thirst for the way things and people work that makes you so well liked.”
Chris looked up at the crimson haired man they had only know a short time, and felt a strong familiarity between them that he doubted he would ever forget. It was as if the man really had watched their lives and had come to know them, the way one knows their favorite characters on a TV show. He nodded to Renault, who moved on to the next of the trio.
“Jacob Gates. Your strong tongue is indicative of the harnessed emotion you have inside. And it is obvious you care deeply for your friends that you would march blindly off on a quest to help them.”
“Donny Bryte. You have progressed far beyond the point at which I first became aware of you. You have a pure heart and I urge you to continue staying true to yourself and your friends, as they depend on this in you.”
Everyone paused in reflection of what the man from another land said. It had cut to the core of who they were and it was something they all needed to hear. For Jake and Chris, the words were more affirmation of how they subconsciously viewed themselves. But, for Donny it was another beam of light added to the one now brightening the dark corners of his mind. Donny was beginning to feel invigorated in a way he never had before.
“So north into the redwoods?” Jake said. “Anything else you can tell us before you go?”
“It is not far,” Renault said, the first drops of rain from the dark clouds began to fall. The field that had been well lit on their landing now became a dark moonscape. “Follow the trails into the redwoods. You will assuredly find the true Sheriff by sunrise. From there, you will know what to do when the time comes.”
A wisp of cloud covered the final sliver of the exposed moon, shutting out the light to the darkest it would be. Renault winked out of existence, startling the boys who had a constant gaze on him before he disappeared. They each blinked as if their equipment was malfunctioning, and internally accepted the things that should have been impossible.
“The laws of nature really don’t exist in this place, do they?” Jake said rhetorically and went back to helping prepare his friend for the hike ahead.