Far Country (5 page)

Pete
glared down at Steve, still shaking the water from his thick brown hair and
beard. He’d stepped into a hole and gone all the way under. “You’re crazy, you
know that? This water is freezing! Whatever possessed you to swim…”  Pete
stopped in mid-diatribe and stared in confusion at Steve’s inert body. “Your
clothes are dry!” He sputtered accusingly. “What…?”

He
strode past Steve and to where the rock dropped off sharply toward the falls.
Pete jumped down out of sight, but returned a moment later. With arms on hips
and legs spread, he glared furiously at Steve, who finally opened one eye.

“You
might have told us the water was only a couple of feet deep on the back side of
the rock,” Pete spoke in a deceptively mild tone.

Deborah,
who had collapsed a few feet from Steve and was intent on absorbing the heat
back into her shivering body, lifted her head at Pete’s words.

“What
did you say?” She asked, uncertain she had heard his statement correctly.

Pete
jerked his head in the direction from which he had just come. “There’s a trail
around the pool. This rock levels off just under the water and goes all the way
to the bank. It’s barely even knee deep.”

Deborah
glared at Steve. “You tricked us!”

Steve
did not open his eyes, but a tiny smile lurked in the corner of his lips.

“Yep.”

Deborah
flopped onto her back and gave a small shriek of exasperation.

“That’s
just plain evil!”

“Yep”

Pete
had stomped off again beyond their line of sight. Deborah could hear him
grumbling about false friends as he upended the daypack of snacks that Steve
had been carrying. She could hear him grumbling all the way to the water’s
edge, as he washed his hands in the icy pool. Still, it was all she could do
not to shriek a warning to Steve as Pete re-appeared over the edge of the rock
with the day pack bulging ominously.

His
eyes still closed against the bright sunlight, Steve never suspected Pete’s
revenge until it was too late. The ice water connected with his bare midriff,
and Steve’s body shot off the rock as if he’d been stung by hornets. 
Deborah doubled over with laughter at the expressions on Pete’s and Steve’s
faces. The two men glared at each other for a full minute before Steve’s face
finally split into a grin.

“You
have to admit, it was a pretty good trick.” He held out his hands, palm up.
"Friends?”

Pete
grinned back at last.  “I’ll never trust you again, though,” he grouched,
shaking his head.

“What?”
Steve shot back, feigning hurt feelings. “I never said I swam over, and you
never asked if there was a better way!”

Pete
froze. He raised a finger at Steve, paused, and spluttered in frustration.”
Right,” he replied wryly. He turned his back and sprawled on the rock beside
Deborah with a final sigh of defeat.

An
hour later, after lazing in the late afternoon sun and devouring Deborah’s
chocolate chip cookies, which
were
delicious, Steve had to admit
grudgingly, they waded through the knee deep water to the shore, retrieved
their shoes and struggled back down the overgrown path.

The
rock wall was already in shadows as the sun sank low in the sky.  It made
the ascent trickier, but all three managed to complete the climb safely. 
They repacked their gear at the top of the precipice and made their way back
down the trail, laughing and talking in a comfortable way that made Steve
almost forget how worried and uncomfortable he had been he had first realized
who Deborah was, only a few hours before. Steve felt unusually light-hearted
with these two friends. Surprised, he realized that that was how he was
actually thinking of them.  It had been a long time since he had allowed
himself the dangerous luxury of real friendship. Maybe having Deborah at
Hanging Rock would be okay after all…
It was a good day!
he thought,
smiling to himself.

Eventually
they reached the rivulet that cut across the trail only a few hundred yards
below the amphitheatre. Recent rains had swollen it from its customary trickle
into a muddy banked stream. A few make-shift rocks and tree limbs had been
tossed down by other hikers to form a somewhat dry path across the mud. That
is, if you didn’t mind playing hopscotch from one precarious perch to another.
Steve led the way, hopping from a fat limb to a large rock slab. Just as he
shifted his weight to leap onto the last stepping stone, the slab twisted and
tilted under him.  Arms flailing uselessly against gravity, Steve crashed
forward. He heard Pete and Deborah cry out, and then his brain exploded into a
thousand shards of light as his head crashed down onto stone.

           
It was the nightmare again. It had to
be.
 
But it felt so real!
 

           
He was back in the hospital, surrounded by IV poles and monitors, all beeping
away in a steady rhythm. Beyond the curtain that surrounded his bed, he could
hear voices. Most with that low professional tone of doctors and nurses, but
occasionally interspersed with anxious queries, and moans of pain or fear.

           
Groggily, Steve tried to make sense of what seemed to be happening. His head
was pounding!
The accident
, he recalled. 
We had an accident.
He strained to remember. It had been raining.  He had been driving too
fast.  Sarah was screaming still.  She had screamed as the black
corvette had skidded sideways and smashed headlong into the ditch. 
She
had been so quiet then. He couldn’t wake her up.
But she was screaming now.
He had to go to her.  He needed to be with her and make sure that she was
all right.

           
As Steve sat up, the room spun around sickeningly.  He felt incredibly
weak. He managed a couple of steps, clinging to the IV pole for support, and
pushed past the curtain.

A
nurse spotted him. “Oh
lordy
, the head injury in Bed
#3’s trying to take a walk.”

Steve
could see a dark haired girl in the bed by the door.
Sarah?
He took a
couple more steps.  A male orderly caught his arm and steadied him as he
swayed precariously, almost pitching forward onto the sleeping occupant of Bed
#2. A wave of nausea flooded through him. 

“Hey
man, you aren’t ready to be out of bed, let me help you back,” the orderly said
soothingly.

Steve
tried to focus on the orderly but he saw only a blurry figure now.  He
tried to refocus on Sarah’s bed, only six feet or so away.  The effort
only increased his nausea. Desperate to reach her, Steve shut his eyes, and
tried to walk forward again.

“Hey
pal, wrong way, the bed’s back here,” the orderly spoke again more forcefully.
Strong arms turned him inexorably away from Sarah’s bed.

“Please,”
he choked out. “Let me see her first. I need to know she’s all right.”

The
orderly deftly maneuvered Steve back to the edge of the third bed.  “Just
take it easy, then. That girl’s going to be fine.  The doctor just had to
set her shoulder -dislocated it skateboarding, second time this year!” She
screamed when the doctor set it, but he just gave her a sedative. She’s
sleeping now.” The orderly chatted in an easygoing cheerful manner.

Steve
frowned.
Skateboarding? He had it wrong
. “Not skateboarding,” he
corrected the man.  “We were in a wreck.”

The
orderly gave him a strange look, but he appeared to decide to humor him. “A
wreck, huh? Well, if that’s true, you know you both need to rest. You smacked
your head pretty hard, and trying to go visiting just now is not helping you
any. You lie back down and let us take care of your friend.”

Steve’s
wobbling knees collapsed under the orderly’s determined pressure on his
shoulders. The man guided his head gently back to the mattress. “Now just stay
here and let us do the worrying, okay?” He checked the IV needle and the
beeping machine, to make sure the needle was still in place and the monitor was
on the proper settings.

Steve
tried to lift his head to peer back toward Sarah’s bed, but the pain once again
blurred his vision. He took a deep breath and licked his dry lips. “You sure
she’s okay?” Steve queried fretfully. “I couldn’t get her to wake up. I tried,
but she wouldn’t. She wouldn't answer me.”

“She’s
sleeping. That’s all I know.”

“But
she will get better; she will wake up?” Steve insisted, trying to hold onto the
orderly.

The
orderly sighed.  “Not that it’s any of your business, but yes, when the
sedative wears off, she will wake up.”

“I
was going to marry her,” Steve tried to explain. “I was going to propose
tonight.” One more time he tried to peer across the room to Sarah’s bed. He
blinked. It was moving! They were moving Sarah! Steve felt panic welling up
inside of him.

“Wait!”
He called at the receding figures. “Where are you taking her?”

The
orderly had reached the end of his patience. “Mr. Williams, lay back down or I
will have to put you in restraints.” All pretense of cheerfulness had
disappeared.

But
Steve became even more agitated, certain that if he let her out of his sight he
would never see her again. “Sarah! Sarah!” He struggled uselessly against the
orderly’s arms. “Make her wake up!” He pleaded.

A
girl appeared at the door, and hurried to where Steve struggled with the
orderly.

“Steve?
Steve, it’s me, Deborah.  Calm down, Steve.” She placed a calming hand on
his shoulder. “What’s wrong? Talk to me! I’m sure we can fix it, just lie still
before you do more damage!”

The
voice was familiar and soothing, but the face was as strange as it was familiar,
older in some way. He frowned. How could that be? Yet she was the only familiar
face in this room of strangers, so he seized upon the tenuous thread of
reality.

“Deborah?
Help me! They’re taking Sarah away and they won’t let me see her! Please stop
them. I have to see her, please help me! Please!” The last plea was a moan of
despair.

Deborah
sucked in her breath as she listened to Steve and looked around the room in
confusion.
Sarah? What was going on?
  But she squeezed his arm, and
attempted a reassuring smile.
            "It’s
okay, Steve. You’re too hurt to move. I’ll go check on her and take you to her
room. Just don’t move
any more
!” 

Steve
tensed for a moment, as if to make another attempt to rise from the bed, but he
was nearly exhausted from struggling with the orderly.  At last, he nodded
wearily and lay still on the bed.

“I’ll
be back in a moment,” she reassured him again.  She pulled the curtain
around the bed, and followed the orderly into the hall.  “What brought
that on?” She asked him in consternation.

The
orderly was only too pleased to fill her in. He told about the girl with the
dislocated shoulder, and how she had cried out when the doctor had set it. “The
next thing we know, your friend is out of bed and trying to reach her. Started
calling her ‘Sarah’, and even said he was going to ask her to marry him,” the
orderly recounted with an amused shake of his head.

Deborah’s
eyes widened. She hadn’t’ known that part of the story. “Marry? Who was the
girl, and where is she now?” She asked, looking around the room.

The
orderly laughed.  “Her name is Brittney and they just took her to her
room.  I don’t think she’s out of junior high yet.”

Deborah
smiled sadly. “He was in a wreck a few years ago,” she explained.  “He
lost his girlfriend. He must be reliving that night.”

“Rotten
luck,” the orderly acknowledged, a little more sympathetically. “But someone
needs to set him straight and quick. I was about to put restraints on him when
you walked in.”

“I’m
glad you didn’t have to,” she said sincerely.  Then she looked down the
hall to the bank of elevators, and waved at a man just getting out of a car.

“Here’s
Steve’s friend.  He’s calmed down enough now that I think he will listen
to Pete.” 

The
orderly looked at the approaching man dubiously. “Well, I will leave you two to
sit with him, then.  Just hit the button if he gets agitated or tries to
walk again.  The nurses will let you know when they have a bed ready
upstairs.”

“Oh.
They want to keep him overnight, then?” Deborah asked, as Pete joined them.

“Yeah.
The doc will be around soon, and you can talk to her about it, but it’s a nasty
concussion. They’ll watch his vitals and make sure he gets plenty of rest
tonight, then probably send him home tomorrow, assuming the swelling goes down
and he quits hallucinating.”

Pete
did a double take.  “Hallucinating? What’s this all about?”

Deborah
took Pete by the arm and led him back toward Steve’s bed. “Come on, I’ll
explain it to you,” she said firmly.  She waved her thanks at the orderly,
and then quickly filled Pete in on Steve’s behavior when she had first arrived.