Far Country (2 page)

           
Angela glanced involuntarily toward the wreckage in the ditch, and her heart
stumbled.  From what little she could see, it was a miracle that the boy
had ever crawled out alive. Could there be two miracles this night?

           
 She steadied her voice. “Did Steve tell you that? Truthfully, David, I
don’t know yet. The firemen are working to get her out of the car, and the rain
is making it very difficult.”

           
“Why would he say it if it wasn’t true?” The young man’s voice demanded.

           
“David, Steve  has some pretty serious injuries and he’s badly shaken.
It’s completely dark out here. She may just be unconscious. We just don’t know
yet.”

           
“I’m coming out there!”

           
“No!” Angela spoke firmly.  The last thing they needed was hysterical
family members hampering their efforts. Regardless of whether it was rescue or
recovery, no one should have to see a family member lifted from a wreck like
this. The image was too devastating.

           
“David, I need you to be strong right now. I need your help. I need you to call
your parents, yours and Steve’s. Do you have both those numbers? Tell them we’re
coming in to Onslow Memorial Hospital. Tell them to meet us there. You should
meet us there, too, David.”

           
“Yeah...okay.” The voice was reluctant, but calmer now.  He knew that she
was right. The family needed to be called.

           
Angela sighed in relief. “Meet us at the hospital, David,” she repeated. ”Don’t
tell the families any more than necessary. And please, don’t tell them what
Steve said just yet. He could be wrong. Let’s pray that he is. Prayer is the
only thing you can do for Sarah right now.”

           
“Do what?” The young man’s voice asked incredulously.

           
“Pray, David. God hears all prayers.”

           
“Yeah,” came his uncertain reply. “Sure.”  Then the phone went dead.

           
Angela stared at the phone sadly, wishing the young man had been a believer.
From what she could see, those two families would need all the comfort they
could get.

           
It was almost midnight, but Angela made one call on Steve’s phone before she
returned it to him.  She called her own pastor and asked him to pray.

Steve
stepped out of the Hanging Rock Visitor’s Center and watched pensively as the
afternoon sun went to its rest in yet another show stopping display of pinks purple,
indigo and gold. He closed his eyes as the red disk dropped behind the mountain
ridge and sighed.  Sunset and sunrise were good times for him.  For
those brief minutes of glory, he seemed to lose himself, memories faded,
bitterness and self-loathing took a back seat to Nature’s grandest display.

As
the twilight deepened, he reluctantly left the deck and climbed into the white
truck to make a last tour of the campsites. A routine tour of course.  On
a Friday in June, all the sites were generally filled before noon.  The
last registration today had been completed by 1:00, yet the hourly circuit was
necessary. It did not take a ranger long to learn what to look for in the
constantly changing population of the campground.  Most were families out
to enjoy the beauty of the State Park.  A few were serious rock climbers,
intent on conquering the many challenging rock formations Hanging Rock offered.
But there were always a few that came to the campsites looking to party with a
group of friends.  Weeding out these potential hotspots early, before the
party could get out of control or even cranked up, was necessary for everyone’s
safety – his included.  In the past year, he had had a concussion from a
well-aimed beer bottle, barely ducked a camper’s axe during a family brawl, and
had a tooth loosened by an amazingly accurate right hook. No doubt about it. A
ranger’s life was seldom dull.

But
he hadn’t become a ranger just to police campsites.  It was just a
necessary part of the job. What he loved was trail duty.  Maintaining the
trails was a constant concern, and traveling the various trails, checking for
tree falls and other impediments, meant regularly hiking the park’s 18 miles of
trails. For Steve, it never got old. He had come to know every curve of each trail
from the easy walk to the Lower Cascades to the strenuous hike to the
observation deck on Moore’s Knob. Only out on the trails did he find some level
of peace and forgetfulness.

But
there was guilt even in those brief moments on the trail. He could never forget
the high school graduation party five years before - or that Sarah lay in a
coma, wasted and pale, but breathing still. Sarah, the girl of his
dreams.  She would never go to college, or marry, or raise a family of her
own. Of
their
own!
Steve still believed that they would have
married after college.  He still carried the diamond promise ring he had
planned to give her at the beach party the night of the accident.

It
had been returned to him by the hospital desk clerk, along with his wallet and
cell phone, in a plain manila envelope.  He had stared at the blue velvet
bag as it tumbled into his hand, wanting to throw it across the room, yet still
wanting to believe that Sarah might wake up and smile at him, and his life
would be as it should be.  He had heard the doctor’s gloomy predictions,
but it still didn’t seem possible to him that a girl as healthy and alive as
Sarah would not somehow beat the odds and wake up one day soon.  Steve
wanted to believe that –
needed
to believe that!  Almost defiantly,
he had stuffed the pouch and its contents into his pocket.  When the day
came, he would be ready.

But
the day had never come.  He supposed he carried it now as his last link
with her. He had not seen her in all the years since the accident. 
Sarah’s family had refused his every request to visit her at the nursing
facility in Wilmington. He knew from experience that there was a standing order
to have him physically removed should he try to enter the building. He had
tried on more than one occasion.

Even
his parents, so supportive when it had first happened, now thought he was a bit
crazy. As the months passed, and Sarah’s family had continued to block his
every attempt to speak to them or see Sarah, they had urged him to let go of
the whole situation and move on.  The trouble was, how could he move on
when he couldn’t even say good-bye?  Sarah’s life had ended but her body
continued. Steve couldn’t seem to get beyond that fact any more than Sarah’s
family.  They all seemed frozen in time, focused on that one foolish
moment in June.

Steve
sighed and shook his head to clear it of the endless circle of futile memories,
and concentrated instead on the circle and extension that made up the 73
campsites at Hanging Rock. For once, everything seemed quiet and well-ordered. 
The familiar aromas of grilled steak, barbecued chicken, hamburgers, and
roasted marshmallows wafted
though
the open window of
the truck as he drove slowly, checking each site and making eye contact where
possible. 

At
site 42, however, he slowed and frowned with concern. It still appeared
deserted.  Steve pulled over and walked the site.  He checked the
registration card in his truck – one man, Shane Davis, age twenty-two. Steve
noted that the ranger who had taken his registration information this morning
had checked “climber”.  Mr. Davis' truck was still parked on the site, but
the tent had never been set up. A cooler of hotdogs and soda still sat unpacked
in the truck bed.  Apparently the young man had left the site immediately
to take advantage of the quiet morning.  He did not appear to have
returned.

Steve
quickly completed the circuit and headed back to the Visitor’s Center. 
Chuck was just returning from checking the rock climber’s registration boxes at
the trailhead. People attempting the more dangerous section of the rock face
had to sign in and out when they returned. Steve flashed his lights and pulled
up next to Chuck’s truck. “Any
questionables
?” He
asked.

Chuck
nodded.  “I’m hoping he just forgot to sign in.”

           
“I can save you the trip, I think.  Campsite 42?”

           
Chuck nodded in confirmation. Steve swore softly as he reached for the mike to
call in the rest of the staff. “This could be a long night,” he sighed.

           
It was.  After thoroughly checking each campsite to make certain the man
hadn’t merely made a friend and returned to a different camp (it had happened
before) they called for the dog rescue team, which got to the park after 11:00.
The dogs swiftly picked up the scent and the handlers were hard put to keep up
with them on the dark trails.

“I
don’t get it,” Chuck huffed to Steve, pausing for breath as they jogged up the
trail after the dogs. “Why was he climbing alone? That’s stupid.”

           
“Maybe… you can ask him… when we find him,” Steve replied, between gulps of
air.

           
Chuck snorted in derision. “Fat chance of that – most likely he’s a pancake at
the bottom of some cliff he didn’t even registered to be on,” he answered
heatedly. “No one else on Indian Face recalls seeing him.  I’m
bettin
’ he took off to one of the side trails instead of
stickin
’ to what he put on the form. He’s
gotta
be stupid to not respect the sport like that!”

           
Steve stretched and spoke to Chuck hesitantly. "Do you think he might be a
suicide?" He asked uneasily.

           
Again, Chuck made a derisive laugh. “I can think of a lot better ways to kill
myself!” He said. “Some pills in a nice warm motel room for one..”  He
paused and seemed to think for a moment. “Of course, if he had to watch that
chick flick Jill made me sit through last week, he could have saved money on
the pills and just died of boredom!” He told Steve in an aggrieved tone of
voice.

           
Steve almost smiled for a moment, despite the seriousness of their mission. The
female ranger’s attempts to domesticate Chuck were an ongoing source of
amusement for his co-workers. Chuck was handsome – his blonde curly hair,
piercing blue eyes and a surfer’s tan that made him look like he had just spent
the day at the beach, always caused a flurry among the feminine employees. He’d
made it a point not to date any of them, but Jill, an equally handsome girl
from southern Georgia, had managed to get the head ranger to break his own
rule.  The result had been several months of an on again/off again
relationship, and everyone at Hanging Rock had their own thoughts on who would
win the war.

           
Still, the thought of the young man possibly committing suicide was too close
to Steve’s own past. He couldn’t let it go.  “You know, not everyone
thinks they deserve to die safely in a bed…” he said softly.

           
Chuck, usually oblivious to other’s emotions, paused and studied Steve in the
bright moonlight. “Suicide’s for cowards,” he said quietly. No matter what’s
happened in his life, he should think a bit about those who’ve got to come
clean up after him, and the family who’ve still got to live with the memory of
the mess he left. Besides,” he said, turning away from Steve and starting back
up the trail. “Seems to me there’s more punishment in living with whatever he’d
wanted to kill himself over, than in skipping out on life.”

           
Steve winced at Chuck’s words. He took a deep breath and said nothing, silently
following the head ranger along the trail. He’d teetered on that brink for a
long time after the accident. As far as he was concerned, the only reason that
he still lived was because Sarah was not yet dead; but Chuck couldn’t know that
– no one at Hanging Rock knew about that.

           
They were jogging up Moore’s Wall Loop. The trail followed a gully wash and was
uneven with many loose rocks.  Not to mention tree roots. 
We'll
be lucky not to twist an ankle and need rescuing ourselves,
Steve thought
grimly.

           
They climbed silently for a time, listening for the steady barks and yips of
the dogs, as they followed the scent up the trail toward the summit. They were
nearing the wall that climbers at the park were supposed to use, but there was
no guarantee that the man was there, or had even stuck to the trail.  He
could be sitting three feet off the trail and they would pass him by in the
dark. If he
had
wandered off the trail, the rangers were counting on the
dogs to find him.

           
Suddenly both men stopped, listening intently. Something had changed. The dogs
sounded more excited. Chuck’s radio crackled to life. “I think we found your
guy.”

           
Chuck gasped in a lungful of air and asked, “Can you see him? Is he alive?”

           
There was a pause, then the handler came back on. “I doubt it. He doesn’t
appear to be moving...he’s at the bottom of this rock face. We turned off the
main trail after marker 43."

           
“Yeah,” Chuck replied glumly, giving Steve an ‘I told you so’ look.  “I
know where you are. We’re coming up on it.” They reached the side trail in
another minute and skittered down the foot path. The dogs were milling in
circles at the top of the wall.  One of the handlers directed his
flashlight beam almost straight down.  “No ropes.  Either the guy was
free climbing, or it was suicide.”