Releasing his father, he eased backward against Julie. She lowered him deeper. Dad let go of his legs, then moved around to where Julie was. Together, they guided him closer to the shore. They found a flat rock for him to sit on.
Both legs were still submerged below the knees, but the agony was gone. Rick felt as if his balls had been released from a vice. He took a deep breath.
Dad and Julie both stood in front of him, thigh deep in the lake. Didn’t the water hurt them?
Julie had Rick’s jeans with the crotch at the nape of her neck and the legs draping her front.
“You should probably soak that leg a few times a day,” Dad said. He looked at Julie. “You make sure he does.”
“You’re going for help?” she asked.
“Don’t see any way out of it.”
“You’re going to leave us alone?” Rick was stunned.
“There’s no reason to worry. You’ve got plenty of food. Shouldn’t take me more than about two days to reach the ranger station. They’ll probably bring in a chopper.”
“God almighty,” Rick muttered.
“It won’t be so bad,” Julie said, and showed him a smile.
“Let him have some bourbon,” Dad told her. “That’ll help if the pain gets too bad. I’d better get a move on.”
Rick and Julie both tried to talk him into staying the night, but he argued that there were still several hours of daylight and he’d better get to the ranger station as fast as possible.
They left Rick.
Turning sideways on his tiny island of rock, he watched his father pack a few things in his rucksack, kiss Julie goodbye, wave, and start striding briskly up the trail toward Windover Pass.
That night, the wind woke Rick. It howled and shrieked through the canyon. It shook the tent in spite of the protective stone walls on either side. He was glad that Julie had moved his sleeping bag into her tent, but she seemed to be sleeping through the uproar. His leg throbbed. He began to weep. The pain was bad, but the fierce noises were worse. He felt as if their presence had somehow offended a monstrous thing that dwelt in the canyon; it hated intruders in its domain and wanted to crush them. Finally, unable to bear the terror, Rick shook Julie awake.
“Huh? What ... Jesus, what’s going on out there?”
“Just the wind,” Rick said, trying to keep his voice steady so she wouldn’t know he was crying.
“Sounds like the end of the world.”
“My leg hurts awfully bad,” he said.
“Maybe we should break out the booze. Do you think that’d be a good idea?”
“I guess so.”
“I could use some myself. What’s going on out there?”
Rick rubbed his eyes. He saw Julie sit up in the darkness. A moment later, light stung his eyes. She had turned on the dry-cell lantern hanging from a joint of the aluminum tent poles near her head.
She crawled out of her mummy bag. She was wearing a T-shirt, baggy gray sweatpants and wool socks. She put on her down parka. “Right back,” she said. On hands and knees, she made her way toward the front of the tent.
“Where are you going?”
“The bourbon’s in my pack.”
“Don’t go out there,” Rick said. There was a whine in his voice.
“I’d send you, but you’re gimped.” She opened the tent front and crawled away.
Braced up on his elbows, Rick stared at the shuddering flaps. He thought he heard a scream. Maybe it was only the wind.
Julie didn’t come back. The packs were only a few feet from the tent. Even if she had trouble finding the bottle, it shouldn’t take this long.
Suppose she never comes back!
He called out to her, but she didn’t answer.
It got her! Whatever it was out there shrieking like a demon, it got Julie and ripped her apart and next it would come after Rick!
The tent flaps whipped inward and a scream stuck in his throat as Julie crawled in, her hair a tangle and the bottle in her hand.
“Where were you!” he raged through his sobs.
“Hey, calm down. What’s the matter?”
“You didn’t come back! I yelled and ...”
“I was out there anyway so I took a pee. Calm down, for godsake.” She sat cross-legged beside him and combed fingers through his hair.
Slowly, he regained control. He sat up, keeping his splinted leg straight inside his mummy bag, bending his other at the knee and turning so he could face her.
“Better?” she asked.
Rick nodded.
She unscrewed the cap of the bottle, took a sip, and handed it to him. He had tried wine and beer a few times before, but never whiskey. He drank some and winced. It tasted like medicine and scorched his throat, but then it felt warm and nice in his stomach.
“Like it?” Julie asked.
He wrinkled his nose. He took another swallow. “It’s okay.”
He gave the bottle to Julie and she drank. “Nasty out there,” she said.
“I knew this was a bad place to stay.”
“I wasn’t too happy about it myself, but we didn’t have much choice. We would’ve had to go over another pass to get out of here.”
“I wish we had’ve.” Rick accepted the bottle, took another swallow, and handed it back. His cheeks felt a little numb and there was a mild, pleasant fogginess inside his head.
Though the wind still howled and shook the tent, it soon stopped bothering Rick. It was outside and couldn’t get in, couldn’t hurt them. In here, talking with Julie and sharing the bottle, his worries slid away. He even found himself feeling glad that he’d broken his leg; otherwise, he wouldn’t be here with her. Dad would be here instead, and Rick would be off alone in the other tent.
“When I get older,” he said, “I hope I get to marry someone like you.”
She smiled. “The booze must be getting to you.”
“No, I mean it. Honest. You’re really neat. For a mother,” he added, just so she wouldn’t get the wrong idea.
“You’re pretty neat yourself. Even if you don’t clean up your room.” After capping the bottle, she placed it near the head of the tent and said, “We don’t want hangovers in the morning. You think you’ll be able to sleep now?”
“Maybe.”
She took her parka and rolled it up. “Any more problems, just wake me up.” She leaned forward and kissed him gently on the mouth. “Sleep tight,” she said.
Rick settled down into his bag. He watched Julie reach up to turn off the lantern. A side of her T-shirt rose, showing a wedge of bare skin. He saw the way her nipples made the fabric jut. He felt a warm, heavy stirring in his groin.
The light went out. He closed his eyes. His mind held the picture of Julie reaching up toward the lantern. He knew he should feel guilty, but he didn’t. He felt only languid and peaceful and pleasantly aroused. Soon, he fell asleep.
The next day, the men came.
There were two of them.
Rick was in his swimming trunks and wearing no shirt. He had just finished soaking his leg in the frigid lake. Julie, crouched in front of him, was using belts to strap the splints to his shin. She had made the splints yesterday, soon after Dad’s departure, by chopping a length of dead branch into a pair of thin slats and padding each of them with one of Rick’s undershirts.
Rick didn’t hear the men coming. Suddenly, they just appeared among the trees behind the tent. He flinched. Julie looked up at him. “Someone’s here,” he said.
Julie made a final adjustment to the bindings, then stood and turned around.
“Morning,” one of the men said in a cheerful voice. He and his friend came forward. He had a thick, shoulder-high walking stick. He wore a faded Dodger cap with sweaty blond hair sticking out like spikes around its edges. He wore sunglasses with silver lenses that hid his eyes. He looked as if he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days. The sleeves of his filthy, plaid shirt had been cut off at the shoulders. A big sheath knife hung from the belt of his jeans.