The Art of Saying Goodbye - Ellyn Bache [101]
“Thanks for noticing.”
“It happens sometimes. From the altitude. Thins the blood.”
“Thanks for warning me.”
“Are you all right?”
“Fine.”
“I can see you’re not all right.”
Well, no shit. “I’m all right,” I said, hands tingling, stomach doing somersaults, head in a fog.
Mason eyed the wreckage in front of us. “We should call it a day.”
Together, we stared at the trees. It was clear that the downed trunks provided hundreds of footholds along the slope. We didn’t need a trail. It seemed a shame to get this far, only to turn back. The snow was right there.
“We could go across the trees,” I suggested.
“You sure you’re all right?” he asked.
“Fine,” I lied.
The thin air made my lungs burn. I swallowed to keep my lunch down. We stood up.
Mason began to make his way across the tree trunks, graceful, as if the long day and the altitude had affected him not a whit. I followed, slow as a slug, boots heavy, stomach sour. Drizzle misted my face and hair. Not a lot of rain, but cold.
The tree trunks were wet and slippery. Sometimes they were so close together we had to step on top of them, one after another, flapping our arms like balance-beam walkers. Other places the trunks were farther apart and we found footholds on the ground, torn and furrowed by the violence of the avalanche. Every step was a challenge.
Then Mason looked up. He was drawn by the sight of the snow, the siren song of white in the middle of July. It could have happened to anyone. He lost his balance. First he pitched forward slightly, then back. He seemed to sit rather than fall. His stupid, flimsy shoe had gotten caught between two tree trunks. “Shit,” Mason said. Sitting on the wet ground, knee bent, he wrapped his arms around the hurt leg, resting his head on his knee. “Shit,” he said again. Gingerly, he dislodged his foot from where it was trapped.
“How bad?” I asked when I reached him.
“Not sure.” Mason pulled down his sock. The ankle looked the way it always looked. “I think it’s just twisted.”
If it was broken, I would get the Boy Scouts we’d seen by the stream. I would bring them up before dark. I would will away any thunderstorms that were thinking about developing above the tree line. I helped him up.
“I’m all right,” Mason said. He leaned on me and tried to walk. “Hurts a little, but not terrible.” He tried to smile.
“Are you okay, really?”
“Sure.” He sat down again. “Give me a minute.”
We sat together on the cold, wet tree trunks. He massaged his leg. I fought the nausea that had retreated, briefly, during the excitement. I took a drink so there would be some moisture in my mouth. I swallowed two or three times.
From our position, the landscape beyond the fallen trunks looked steep but unthreateningly bare, and not so terribly far to the first patches of snow. “I wouldn’t mind sitting here for a while,” Mason said. “We have plenty of time. You should go ahead.”
I might have said I was sick, but already this decision, this insane, altitude-sickness decision, seemed irrevocable. I said, stupidly, illogically, “I’ll be right back.”
He said, equally stupidly, “I’ll wait.”
The air stabbed at my lungs as I ascended slowly across the remaining tree trunks. My lunch and my heartbeat were in my throat. If I didn’t do this and get back, who would take Mason down the mountain?
The trees gave way to bare ground. I moved across patches of thin grass and over outcroppings of rock. A steady rain had replaced the drizzle. I slipped a few