Then I spot the blood. So much blood, splattered across the rocks.
For a split second, my restless mind hopscotches across too many memories at once. Paul, on the ground, staring up at me with an apologetic smile as he bleeds out. A shot-up gangster I barely know, resting his head on my lap while gasping out his last words. A young boy, a teenage girl, a new mom. The progression of their images from official missing photos to unofficial death masks dances across my vision.
I am more than a finder of lost people. I am a repository of final moments, with too many of them having been seared into me.
“Water,” Scott’s babbling. “Do you have water? He needs water.”
I blink my eyes, focus on the matter at hand.
Scott is standing over Neil’s body. The young man’s face is covered in blood, his spiky brown hair matted at one side, his eyes closed. He moans. First sign that he’s still alive.
I scamper onto the rock beside Scott, dropping my pack and grabbing my thermos. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. I found him like this. I’d been with Miggy, but he, um, he suggested I might want to talk to Neil.”
I yank my bandana off my face, soaking it with water. My hands are shaking so badly I splash it all over the boulder. I start dabbing at Neil’s face, looking for signs of the core wound.
“Keep blowing the whistle,” I instruct Scott. “We need more help.”
Just then, Neil’s eyes fly open. He stares right at me as I recoil sharply.
“Shhh,” I murmur. “You’re okay now.”
He’s lying at an awkward angle, having fallen with his pack still on. Maybe he stumbled and whacked his head. I want the explanation to be that innocent, even as I already doubt it. I already noticed smears of red on the stones around us. As if Neil staggered around, shaking his bleeding head—fighting off an attacker—before collapsing.
Neil blinks at me several times, clearly trying to get his bearings.
“What . . . what happened?” he asks. He licks at his chapped lips. I grab my water bottle and pour some liquid straight into his mouth. He swallows gratefully.
“We were going to ask you that.”
“？‘We’？” For the first time, he notices Scott. Something tightens in Neil’s face, then disappears before I have a chance to grasp it.
“Scott found you. He called for help.”
On cue, Scott sounds the whistle again. I can hear more sounds bouncing around the canyon. Rocks sliding, footsteps pounding. The cavalry arriving. I hope.
Neil winces at the sharp noise, raising a hand to his head. I grab it before he can touch the sticky mess.
“Not yet. I’m still trying to inventory the damage. What hurts worse?”
“My head. The . . . back of my skull.” Neil shudders slightly. “Jesus.”
“Can you move your limbs?”
He lifts his arms and legs. Then, before I can warn him not to, he twists his neck from side to side.
I can see the back of his cranium now. Definitely the source of the carnage. I give up on the bandana and pour the last of my water straight onto his hair. As a bloody river flows away, I can make out an ugly gash up high. Probably a couple of inches long. Probably in need of stitches, or at least superglue. Though how you crazy-glue someone’s head, I have no idea.
A rush of heat and gasping breath, then Martin bursts upon us. I don’t look up, intent on delicately probing the wound. Neil grimaces but holds steady as I examine the damage.
“What the hell . . .” Martin draws up short as he spies Neil, blood and more blood.
“Head versus rock,” I announce. “The rock won.”
Beneath my fingers, Neil laughs faintly. Or maybe hysterically?
“What happened, son? You trip and fall?” Martin squats down in front of Neil, peering at the young man’s face.
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so?”
“I was staring at an opening. Trying to decide if I should investigate. Then I heard something. A noise. I turned . . . I don’t know. Here I am.”
Martin thins his lips, frowning. “Rocks rain down from these cliffs all the time. How do you think we got so many at our feet? You shouldn’t have been standing so close. It’s dangerous.”
I stop examining Neil’s wound long enough give Martin a pointed stare. “Now is not the time.”
“Asshole,” Scott mutters, much less diplomatically
“I wasn’t standing that close to the cliff,” Neil bites off, batting at my hands and struggling to sit up. “I know what I’m doing. Five years of chasing you through these goddamn mountains, you think I don’t know what I’m doing?”