We untied the frame and set the pack against a rock. I took the last length of rope and lashed the frame to the first crossbar. I held it up while Buzzy brought his shoulders into the straps. I lifted the back and we started up the incline. He pulled from the front, hands free to grab roots and rock holds, and I pushed from the rear, on the last twenty feet to the summit. We came up to the edge of the top, which took Pops completely vertical. Buzzy grabbed a rock hold, put his leg over the ledge, and gripped the base of a young tree. I pushed with all my strength to help him achieve the summit. Once over, he sloughed the shoulder straps and turned to pull the litter over the rock ledge. He dragged Pops back off the face and collapsed. I climbed up and over and crawled to them.
Pops smiled at me weakly. “I haven’t had this much fun since the Mingo County goat rope.”
“I want to make sure you’re not bleeding,” I said and pulled back his shirt and gently unpeeled the bandages. The entry wound was still packed tightly and pus was beginning to ring the exit wound. I stood and looked down the mountain to see if the shooter was following us, but I saw no movement under the moonlight. Buzzy was still prostrate next to Pops. “It’ll be easier on the way down,” I said.
“Another hundert feet an I was a mind to ask the shooter to jus go ahead an shoot me!”
“Don’t even joke about that—but I don’t think he’s following us. Maybe it was the pot guy, after all.”
Buzzy didn’t reply. I let him rest for another few minutes while I tended to Pops and went over the side to retrieve the pack. “It’s time,” I said on my return.
“That’s what I know.” He sat up, then stood. I reattached the frame and shoulder pads to the pack.
“I’ll take the front this time,” I said.
We picked up the stretcher and walked to the east side of the summit. I hopped down to the trail and Buzzy passed Pops down feet first. I steadied the spar on my chest and walked backwards slowly. Buzzy jumped off the rock, then eased the carrier off the summit, and we started slowly down the steep. I braced the stretcher against my lower back while Buzzy helped it down from above. I slipped on the gravel and hit my tailbone on a rock, screaming on the pain that shot up my spine. Two steps later Buzzy slipped.
“Do I need to escape this contraption to supervise you striplings?”
“I think my butt bone split in two,” I said.
“You’ll be the first in the family to fart in stereo,” Pops retorted. His confidence and humor gave me comfort. After a few more slips and slides, the trail evened to switchbacks and we hurried down the face of Old Blue.
We came off the shoulder of the mountain to the flat valley that ran between Old Blue and Bother Mountain. After several hundred yards through the trees, we pulled up short at the flooded river. The downpour from the previous nights had swelled the water and pushed it even farther over the banks.
In the hard dark, with the moon hours taken by Old Blue, we stood staring at the unbridled movement of the water and the long, flat valley beyond; staring at the far bank and its broken bridge with rope tatters tailing in the river; staring at the near bank and its undercut earth and overspilled sides; staring at everything in between.
Chapter 32
IN THE WEAVE OF TIME AND BEING
We placed Pops and the pack behind a large fallen tree, which shielded him in case the shooter came. Buzzy and I stood near the edge staring at the quickened current. “We best wait til first light. I can barely see the other side.”
I started pacing in a circle. “We gotta try now. If he’s following us, the more space we put between him and Pops, the better.”
“So how we gonna get across? We used all our rope, the river is higher than last time, an we can’t see shit.”
“We gotta at least try. We can’t just sit here.”
“Buzzy’s right, Kevin,” Pops said from the tree. “River’s gotten more dangerous, not less.”
“We gotta get you to a hospital. Gotta get away from this guy.”
“No doubt. But it’s not gonna happen tonight. Let’s camp well off the trail and rest up.” He coughed. “We can try first light.”
We moved two hundred yards downstream and set up the tent in a thicket of holly bushes. I untied Pops and we helped him into the tent onto a bed of the three sleeping bags. It began to rain and I sat in the open tent door watching it splash in pools on the saturated ground. Pops and Buzzy soon drifted off, but I couldn’t sleep for the roiling worry. Every twig crack became the shooter creeping in to finish; every hooting owl became an approaching assassin, a hissing raccoon, an impending ambush.
As dawn neared, I lay next to Pops and put my hand across his chest, felt the rhythmic beating of his heart as it joined with mine in reassuring meter.
I woke to saw sounds and the thwack of a hatchet on limb. I exited the tent and followed the noise. The rain had slacked to a steady drizzle as dawn added detail to our surroundings. Our frieze of holly was ringed by large ash and pine trees, which gave us protection from the sniper.
“We gotta make this thing float,” Buzzy said when he noticed me standing. “Take the hatchet an chop these limbs off.”
He went to another sapling, felled it, then brought it to me for pruning. We lashed the trees to the underside of the carrier with the rope we had used to tie in Pops. The five logs protruded three feet from either side of the litter, giving Buzzy and me an elevated perch from which to guide the raft. I tied the pack across the top to give Pops a cushion on which to prop himself. He was still asleep in the tent when I climbed in to ready him—soaked with sweat, mouth moving but no words. I took off my shirt, wiped his brow and neck. He woke to the touch, his face hot, his voice a weak whisper. “What’s the plan for the river?” He shuddered as he spoke.
“Were making a raft to paddle across.”
“The current…” He coughed. “… is deceptive.”
“I know, Pops. How are you feeling?”
“Not great. I’m getting infected.”
“What should I do? Should I clean the wound? Put on more poultice?”
“It’s got to work through me.”
“Do you want some water?”
“I want some mash… Did you bring my mash?”
“We did. We’re going to move you to the raft now. You can have some then.”
He nodded and tried to sit up, then coughed and lay back down. Buzzy came into the tent and we slid Pops to the door and lifted him up and carried him to the river’s edge. I went back to break down the tent. I zipped the doors and windows, removed the poles, and started to fold it. The air stayed inside it like a balloon. “You gotta open the door and windows so the air gets out it,” Buzzy said as he checked the buoyancy of the raft. It barely stayed on the surface. “We may have to add more logs,” he said.
“Let’s use the tent to float it.” I picked it up and showed him its balloon qualities.
“What if the air leaks out?”
“We’ll be across before that happens.”
He nodded.
I opened the tent door to capture more air, then zipped it up. I placed it on the water and we laid the raft on top of it; the air in the tent lifted the litter off the water. We put one of the bedrolls on the crosspieces for padding and stowed the others in the pack to keep them dry. “Don’t be tying me in, boys.” Cough. “That’s asking for… trouble on this boat.”
“We used all the rope on the extra logs.”
“That’s a mercy. If this craft tips… I’ll take my chances with the snakes.”