Walk on the Wild Side (Part 2)

Week #4
(D is for destiny and dolmen)

Gingerly, Chris used his weight to push against the rock that held his foot but stopped with a yelp of pain. The left ankle seemed sprained. He was in a double bind: a trapped right foot and a bum left one. Is this my destiny? That I die on this lonely scrap of earth? He shook his head and laughed out loud. “Get a grip, Chris.” He pulled his cell phone from his pants pocket and called the B&B.
“Pam, it’s Chris, your guest.” He described the rocky ridge, the boulders, hoping the details would help her – or her husband – find him. “I’m almost out of water, too. I just didn’t think it’d be this dry.”
But Pam, despite her earlier concern, was tied up with other guests, and Roger, the husband, was out on an errand.
“Don’t you understand?” Chris held up his water bottle, eyeing the dwindling contents. His voice bounced and echoed against the granite that penned him in. “I can’t get out of here. I’m stuck. I need help.” He hung up and called 911. Once again, he tried to describe his surroundings, which seemed more remote and forbidding with each added detail. Panicky that rescuers might be hours away, he repeatedly jerked his right foot to free it, but the boot would not give. If the boot wouldn’t fit back through the crevice, perhaps the foot without the boot would. He worked to loosen the laces. Now able wiggle his ankle slightly, he took a breath, said a silent prayer, and pulled. “Yes!” His foot was free.
Satisfaction turned to dismay when he saw his feet side by side. The right ankle was swollen, and the left, still in the hiking boot, felt as fat as a loaf of bologna. He could not walk out of there. He pulled himself upright and yelled for help. He cupped his hands and shouted for several minutes, then listened to the silence that settled back down around him. He slumped against the boulder that still held his boot and drank the last of his water. He remembered the sense of unease he’d felt just before he slipped. Absurdly, what he now felt was peace. The rocks would form his tomb, a dolmen of sorts for the buzzards to discover.
He was dozing, with his pack behind his head, when he heard the helicopter. It was distant but coming closer.

Walk on the Wild Side

Week #3
(C is for continental, chiaroscuro, and captive)

Chris tightened the laces on his hiking boots and mentally reviewed his checklist: pack, lunch, binoculars, camera. He smiled. I am so ready. He had planned this outing for more than seven months, as a deserved break after three long days of conference sessions and networking and talking up his company. He would end his business trip to Colorado with a walk along the Continental Divide – and if he could, he would straddle the line, with one foot in the east and the other in the west. He had rented a car and driven more than two hours southwest from his Colorado Springs hotel to this spot.
“Do you want Dan to come along?” Last night, the B&B owner had offered her husband as a hiking partner. She worried that Chris would get lost, fall into a culvert, get eaten by a bear – Chris wasn’t sure exactly what she feared.
He had no second thoughts. “I’ve been hiking for years. Every trail has its adventures. I’ll be careful.”
He set out as the sun was cresting the Sangre de Cristos to the east. The B&B, really a camp, was set high up the valley. The bright horizon cast the valley in deep shadow, and the nearside was a study in chiaroscuro.
Chris walked quickly, following a path he guessed was used by goats or deer. The trees were stubby, and the brush was dry. He stopped often for water breaks, surprised at how thirsty he was. The altitude and the low humidity seemed to suck moisture from him.
A little after noon, he reached the top of a rise that looked out over a stretch of boulders. He unfolded a small map the B&B owner had given him. By his guess, he was at nine thousand feet, give or take a couple of hundred. The real trail, the one that ran along the Divide, was still several miles ahead. He took some snapshots of the view. It was quiet and serene. He saw nothing moving except for a few buzzards coasting on the thermals. He was utterly alone.
Shrugging off a slight unease, he started into the rocky area, careful to watch his step. Within a few minutes, his mouth felt parched again. He glanced down to reach for his water bottle, and his ankle twisted sharply, sending him off balance. He was tumbling and sliding then. When he stopped, his right foot, the one that hadn’t turned, was stuck. He was a captive with no one but the wind to demand ransom.
(to be continued)