Fred couldn't really piece together what had happened. He was lying flat on his back.
Straining an aching neck, he lifted his head to look "down" at the rest of his body.
Fred was covered in dirt, rocks, leaves, rotting branches, and other assorted detritus from the forest floor.
There was a distant cry he couldn't quite place. It was nebulous but its source and meaning were steadily becoming more clear. It was a strange, silent thing.
Fred lifted his left knee and placed the flat of his foot on the forest floor. When he repeated the same action with his right leg, he realized that the cry was a signal, not a sound.
The pain was indistinct and, at the same time, more intense than he could ever have imagined. It wasn't the hot roar of a lion, warning of danger in a particular place. It was the icy, aching, omnipresent, groan of an iceberg separating from a glacier, signifying that nowhere is safe.
The pain filled him and he cried out in agony...it sounded exactly like he imagined before he'd moved his leg.
Had he really heard himself cry out from the future?
That didn't seem right.
"Okay," he growled. "Okay, Fred. What are you going to -"
The pain got the better of him and Fred succumbed to it, sinking beneath its surface and losing sight of the world.
Moments later, he regained control of his mind.
"What do I need most?" Fred asked himself aloud.
He looked around and tried to think through the fog of pain.
"Warm," he said. "Gotta stay warm."
Trying to lift himself up on his elbows triggered a quick reevaluation.
Through gritted teeth, Fred word the word, "Wrong." He flattened his body against the ground and rode out another ice storm in his leg.
"Wrong," he panted. "Immobilize, first. Warm second."
Fred began a careful survey of where he landed.
Rather than take mental notes, he spoke.
"Long branch, fifteen yards to my left," he said. "Might be too long. Can I cut it?"
He looked in the direction of his feet. "Nothing there," he added to the verbal journal.
To the right, he saw a few more branches scattered about. They looked like they were recently broken. Maybe they came down with him.
"Closer," grunted Fred. "Won't have to cut them but are they too short? Can I lash them?"
"No time to waste," said Fred. "Better go for -"
Fred paused and narrowed his eyes for a moment. He looked around again to make sure he'd seen right.
With both hands, he began blindly feeling around in his blind spot, the area near the top of his head. Eventually, he felt what he'd hoped was there.
"Gotcha!" he almost laughed as his fingers closed around a nylon strap. "Gotcha."
He tugged hard and nothing happened. Another sturdy yank and he felt something give. He pulled along the strap until he felt the butt of his rifle.
His fingers felt their way up the barrel of his Remington 700. It was a beautiful weapon, an heirloom.
"Cold," he whispered. "How long was I out?"
Turning the weapon over in his hands, Fred asked himself "How am I going to turn this into a split?"
Someone stepped into view, blocking out half the sky. The sun behind his head created a halo that obscured his face, making him look like an upside-down angel with a rifle-barrel-shaped wing.
"That's a beautiful gun, Fred," he said. "I would hate to see you ruin it. What's broken?"
"K-" Fred stuttered. "Jim?"
"Yeah. What needs a splint?"
"Right leg," answered Fred. "It's my right leg."
Kramer nodded. He looked around, spotted the big fallen branch Fred had seen earlier, and started for it. The fifteen yards looked like miles, to Fred. It only took a few seconds for Kramer to get there, though.
"Wha-" Fred took a moment to make sure he wasn't hallucinating then asked, "What are you doing out here?"
Kramer grabbed the dead wood and walked back to Fred's side. Then he patted the rifle on his shoulder, saying, "Same as you." He pulled out a long knife with a serrated back.
Kramer crouched next to Fred and began stripping away useless twigs with his hunting knife. He sniffed and added, "I think we were tracking the same buck. You were up there. So you saw it first. I was down here. So I saw what happened to you."
Fred winced as he half-laughed. "Good thing," he said.
Kramer shook his head. "You have no idea."
Kramer seemed to have it in hand. That made Fred feel safe. Safe and oddly warm.
Kramer made short work of the tree branch. In what seemed like just a few seconds, it was cut in half, lengthwise, and cleaned so as to make each piece nearly straight.
"What do you mean?" asked Fred.
"It took me a half hour to get here," replied Kramer. "Looks like you just woke up.
"Your leg hurts, so you didn't think if you got hurt another way. How's your head?"
Fred probed through the haze and realized it hurt. It hurt a lot, actually. "It hurts," he yawned.
Kramer worked his fingertips from Fred's knee down toward his ankle.
"I think you hit your head on your way down." Fred winced when Kramer touched a tender spot on his leg.
"There's blood on a rock over there," Kramer said, jerking his head in the direction Fred couldn't easily see. "...on the leaves under your head, too. This is going to hurt."
Kramer wasn't lying. Fred cried out as bone slid against bone to set things approximately in place.
Kramer placed the two cleaned boughs on either side of Fred's leg and used his knife to cut off the part of Fred's pant leg near the break. "You need to stay awake," he said, as he sliced the pant leg into strips of fabric. "At least until you see a doctor. My camp's up that ridge, about three miles. I've got coffee. There's also a signal...a nice big clearing, too."
Fred yawned, again.
"This is gonna hurt," said Kramer, again and, again, he did not lie.
As the straps of fabric tightened around the splint, Fred's legbone protested mightily. He conveyed that protest to the forest at large.
Kramer continued: "If it was just your leg, I'd leave you here with your rifle and double-time it up there. Can't risk you falling asleep, though. So we're going together."
Fred shook his head. He knew it was important to stay awake but things were so much better than they were a few minutes ago that he was having a really difficult time doing that.
"You need to do most of the talking, now, Fred."
"Okay," said Fred through another yawn.
As they began the long, three-legged hike up to Kramer's campsite, Kramer said, "Tell me what you remember happening."
The pain in Fred's leg helped keep him awake. "I was walking down the trail next to the waterfall and saw the buck in a clearing, down here. Maybe 200 yards, out. I took the shot and he went down like a bag of bricks. What happened next was...weird."
"Not a surprise," said Kramer.
Fred furrowed his brow. "The shot seemed to echo. Again and again. Strangely."
Fred winced when he accidentally put weight on his right leg. Had he imagined that?
"I think," continued Fred. "I think they seemed too far apart. They sounded different, too. Not just the usual 'hollow' thing...the second echo seemed louder and higher-pitch than the first."
"I was in a car accident, one time. The parts I remember are kinda distorted and in slow motion."
Fred chuckled but couldn't understand why that was funny to him. "Anyway," he continued. "I didn't realize the fourth echo was actually the trail crumbling until I was falling. I hit stuff on the way down but I can't piece together what happened...not exactly. How did you know it was me?"
"I didn't," said Kramer. "I heard a gunshot. I looked for it and saw a blob of orange tumbling down the cliffside." Kramer panted, "Christian thing to do was help whoever it was. I was surprised to see it was you."
They continued up the hill, making terribly slow progress and jabbering about whatever topic Kramer could imagine.
After about fifteen minutes, Fred wasn't able to do very much of the work. Kramer was basically carrying him and panting under the strain. "Let's stop here, a second," he said.
Kramer helped Fred lean against a tree, then pulled his phone out of his pocket. He smiled and nodded. "We're in luck," he said through ragged breath. "I've got a signal."
(continued here)
