As he lurched out from behind the tree Tom realized something. The idea of going back and slapping the old codger was the first he'd been excited by in a long while.
— «» — «» — «»—
The snow wasn't thick, but it was easy to retrace his progress down the hill. At the bottom he was confronted with tangled and frosty bushes. He turned, favouring his swollen ankle, and looked up the rise. He dimly remembered swerving right to bank up it. So he now needed to turn left. This would take him through the thickest section of the undergrowth. No thanks. Instead he took a detour up around higher ground, stepping over rocks and clambering unsteadily over nursery logs, until he could rejoin the right direction.
He didn't have any clear idea of how far he'd run. In the cold, beautiful light of A Good Day To Die + 1, he wasn't even sure why he was going back. Walking was warmer than standing, and if he was going to walk, it felt better to have a destination: a real one for the moment, not the dark, vague place he'd been stumbling towards the day before. That place was still out there, and there was probably enough left in his backpack to bring it closer still. He was no longer sure what he felt about the prospect, but finding the pack was something to do.
He walked for twenty minutes. The cold helped meld his myriad aches into one giant super-pain, a humanoid discomfort trudging between the trees. He spent some of the time muttering to himself about how cold it was, which was pointless but oddly comforting. He stopped frequently, turning his head in hope of recognizing something and to reassure himself that his environment remained BEAR-free. He'd just about given up when he heard something that sounded like running water.
He abandoned the path of least resistance and pushed his way through the undergrowth, very carefully. One more fall and he would not be walking anywhere any more.
On the other side of the bushes was a clearer area, and then a gully. The gully, he hoped, though it didn't look at all as he remembered it. He'd only been there in darkness, of course, and had no time to observe its appearance before finding himself at the bottom. His glimpses with the flashlight had shown it to be fairly wide, however, and about fifteen feet deep at the point where he'd holed up. What was in front of him could only be about twelve feet across, but was a lot deeper. The sides were extremely steep — far too steep and rocky for him to consider climbing down.
He must have overshot his position of the night before.
He glanced right, the direction he'd have to go. Tough-looking trees and bushes grew right up to the side of the drop. He could go back around the long way, but it was a long way. Hence the name. Left looked more clear, but was going in the wrong direction. And it was steep.
Christ, he thought, wearily. His stomach was full of razor blades. His head felt like an avalanche of glass. Did he even need the bag? Maybe it was the smell of alcohol which attracted the bear. Maybe it was still there, waiting. And drunk. He stood irresolute.
Get the fucking bag, he thought. What else are you going to do?
He trudged up along the edge of the gully. It began to narrow, but not enough that jumping it was a possibility. Then he hit a bank of trees and had to dodge left for a little while before skirting back around to the gully.
He stopped. A tree lay across the gap. It had fallen there from the other side, chance bringing it down neatly so there was plenty of trunk either side of the void it spanned.
Tom limped up to it. The trunk was fairly large, perhaps two feet in diameter. The wood looked to be in good shape. He gave an experimental tug on a branch, and it rebounded crisply back, suggesting the tree hadn't been down for long. So it wouldn't be rotten. Maybe. It went from the side where he was to the side where he wanted to be. He could walk nine, ten feet, instead of many hundred.
Right — but nine feet during which there'd be nothing underneath him but empty space, and beneath that a lot of sharp rocks. Nine feet across a trunk that wasn't superwide, might be slippery, and which certainly had snow on it: nine feet which would be hard even if he didn't have a bad ankle.
Tom looked away, knowing he'd be taking the long way around.
Don't be a wanker all your life.
The voice which popped into Tom's head surprised him. Partly because it deployed a term (WANKER: orig. 'one who masturbates'; now vernacular for 'a weak and useless individual' [vulg.]) which he had only ever heard in the grim British indie movies Sarah liked to rent and which he thought should come with subtitles and a Valium and something to read while they were on. But mainly it surprised him because the voice sounded so impatient, as if he was making a big deal out of something very simple.
'My ankle's hurt,' he said, petulantly.
The response was instantaneous. It's hurt whichever way you go. This is shorter.
'It's dangerous.'
Five paces? Six? You can't take five steps in a straight line?
'If I fall on level ground, I won't break my back or pelvis or skull.'
So don't fall.
Tom's head swirled for a moment, as if some hidden deposit of alcohol had tardily arrived in his brain. When the world stopped moving, he stepped up to the log and put his good foot on it. The trunk didn't seem to move. It was big and solid. It would take his weight. His mind was the only thing which would make it harder to cross than a stretch of icy pavement.
He slid his foot a little further along, accidentally brushing some snow off in the process. Interesting, he thought, immediately seeing the possibilities: don't walk it — slide it. That way you don't have to lift your feet (less scary), and clearing the snow will make the next step less slippery too. He poised his weight and lifted the other foot up onto the trunk, so that he was standing sideways on it.
He stood there a moment, testing his balance, looking like the world's loneliest and coldest surfer.
Then he started out along the trunk.
He slid his left foot out, tested, put his weight on it. Then the right. Left foot right on the edge now. He slid it out about nine inches.
The more steps it takes, the more likely you'll fall.
Aloud, Tom said, 'Who made you the boss of me?' Nonetheless, he pushed his left foot out six inches, pulled the right along to match. He was now officially standing in mid-air, though a dive would take him back to solid ground. He wasn't sure where to look. Not down, obviously. Not up. So straight ahead, presumably. Out over the gully. Yi — no, not out there. Shit no.
To the left. To where you're going.
He turned his head. Good move — the other side really wasn't that far away. He slid his left foot again. Then his right. Left, then right. He was now nearly in the middle of the trunk.
He slid out again. His foot hit a knot in the trunk, jarring up his leg. He thought he was okay but then realized he wasn't. His left leg was fine, but the rest of him was suddenly unsure. His torso felt three feet deep and heavily weighted towards the back. He sensed the mass of the planet beneath, willing him to join it.
Left. Look left. He felt weightless for a moment, but he wasn't falling. He found himself again, and was still. He stared at the end of the trunk, half hidden in the white-topped bushes, and made it the centre of everything that was flat. He kept going.
Slid and pulled once more. He was over halfway. He slid again, feeling a strange kind of exhilaration. A lot of the time he felt like a character in a video game controlled by someone's mother, allowed a turn for comedy value on Christmas Day. But just for once…