“Can you walk?” Miguel asks.
“Not well.”
“Me either. My knee. My chest.”
I can hear it now, when he breathes. An ominous hiss.
I don’t want to know, but now is not the time to be squeamish. I fumble with my pencil flashlight, finally pointing it at him.
“Oh,” I say at last. I turn off the light. I was right the first time. I didn’t want to know.
“That . . . bad?”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“Well . . . if it helps, you look pretty awful yourself.”
We share exhausted smiles, the kind seen in foxholes and on front lines.
“That was Marty, wasn’t it?” Miggy says at last.
“Apparently, he was still alive.”
“Who . . . knew?”
“Stubborn has its advantages.”
“Don’t have to . . . convince me. You think . . . other guy. Dead?”
“God I hope so.”
“We should get going. Put some distance.”
Neither of us moves.
“Scott and Neil,” he murmurs finally.
He might be crying. I’m about to. We tried. We tried very hard. But now, this injured, in the middle of nowhere, no cell signal for help. I’m out of ideas. I’m out of strength. I’m out of will.
We’re both shivering.
I open up Miguel’s backpack, fumble around for some dry shirts, and set them on his lap. Then do the same for myself. In the end, I can’t lift my right arm. I don’t know how to get the wet clothes off, let alone put the dry clothes on.
Beside me, Miguel hasn’t even tried to move.
“I could help . . .” I venture. My words come out thick. The rule of threes. Only three hours without shelter in adverse conditions. We are wet and rapidly losing body heat and the temperatures are only going to plummet further. We need to move; we can’t even manage a change of clothes.
“A fire,” he sighs at last. “Maybe . . . maybe some heat would help.”
“I have cotton balls dipped in Vaseline.”
His smile is a flash of white in the gathering dark. “Party on.”
I keep my efforts simple. Dead twigs and pine cones I can scrounge in the immediate vicinity. I find my knife where I dropped it in the tussle, and use it to hack out a small section of clean dirt. The ground is dry and fairly easy to clear.
Miguel oversees my efforts with his ragged breathing. Finally, I touch a greasy fire starter with my butane lighter, and puff, we end up with a very modest burst of flames. My first ever campfire.
I think of my father, and that night, and the scent of Jack Daniel’s. Everything I love and hate so tightly woven together as a single bittersweet memory.
Miggy manages to pull himself closer, moaning slightly. He looks even worse by the light of the fire. He has a savage slash across his face, but the true damage is to his chest. Tree man turned Miggy’s torso into something out of a zombie flick.
My issues are my arm, shoulder, and ankle. Interestingly enough, neither of them would normally be life-threatening. Except, of course, when you’re stranded in the middle of the wilderness with no access to the civilized world.
We’re both still shaking with the cold. I lean over the fire better to warm my hands. Miguel’s movements are more feeble. He’s fading fast and knows it.
“Tell me a story,” he says at last.
“About a princess and a frog?”
“Maybe about a band of brothers. Who set out in the woods.”
I play along. “A wild beast emerges. He roars and attacks.”
“One brother is separated from the others.”
“But he doesn’t give up. He journeys the forest looking for a way out. He’s determined to survive.”
“The other four search for him. But the beast comes back. They fight. One by one. They fall.”
“But the first brother is still watching over them,” I counter. “He wants his brothers to live.”
“They were lousy brothers. They never should’ve separated in the first place.”
“He understands. He still wants them to live.”
“But the forest is the forest.” Miggy sighs. “It wants the brothers to be together again. For all of eternity.”
“The first brother fights the forest.”
Miguel looks at me. “The first brother is already dead.”
“You are not very good at stories, Miggy.”
“What did you expect? I’m an engineer.”
“More water?” I offer. Because Miggy’s not wrong. In terms of happily ever afters, we’re shit out of luck.