I Ran

          I ran.
          If someone had seen me running they probably would have thought I was running away from something or someone. Running out of fear. It’s true that I was scared—I don’t remember ever being more terrified. But it was just the opposite—I was running out of courage. I was running for help, through the woods; running like hell not for my life, but for someone else’s.

          He was attacked, though he didn’t know it until it was too late to react. The snake was a shadow beneath the leaves. He stepped in the wrong place, invaded its space and it defended itself. It grabbed his leg and he fell forward into me, causing me to stumble as well. The thing slithered off and escaped, but it left behind a painful memory of the encounter.
          I picked myself up and looked behind me to see what happened. He suggested we go for help and then stood up only to fall back to his knees. He took off his backpack and tossed it aside before trying a second time, but still he fell to the ground. I started to help him but he refused my aid. He pushed himself against a tree. “Call for help,” he calmly suggested instead.
          I started to yell, “Help! HELP!”
          “No. I mean call nine-one-one.”
          “Oh. …Wait, we’re in the middle of nowhere! There aren’t any ph—”
          “Your cell phone!!” he screamed at me, losing his cool for an instant. “You stupid f…” he mumbled the end of his sentence, regaining control of himself.
          “…right,” I said weakly.
          He leaned his head back against the tree and shut his eyes; he continued to mumble to himself as I searched my pack for the Motorola: “…stupid little… …phones in the woods…” and then his voice grew louder and more clear: “ ‘Help, help!’ Hell, I coulda done that!” and then he grumbled some more.
          Due to the situation I easily forgave him for the comment and continued my search. “Where are you,” I called to the phone. Growing frustrated I finally just dumped the contents of my pack onto the forest floor. “It’s not here!”
          Jerod looked up at the crash of my fallen stuff. “No! What are you doing?” I looked at him, puzzled. “It’s not there! The phone…is…” he trailed off, and there was a slight look of pain in his face. The snake's poison was spreading quickly.
          “Then where is it?” I asked, trying to keep my composure.
          “It’s in—ugh!” His pain was obvious now and I was starting to panic. Words failing him, he pointed ahead of him, past me and through the woods.
          “Wh-where?” I looked behind me and then back to him, confused. I thought for a moment—but not for too long—about where we were and how we got there. “…The cabin! I left it in the ca—”
          “Noooo!” he cried, but it sounded more like an exclamation of pain than an answer. He continued to point ahead only he leaned into it as if to emphasize its meaning and make it more clear to me, and he stabbed the air repeatedly with his index finger.
          My rising panic only added to my confusion. I tried to think again but my thoughts stumbled over themselves in an effort to be understood quickly. I looked around again—not really looking at or for anything in particular, just trying to get my thoughts straight in my head. And then it hit me. “The car! It’s in the car! Oh crap, that’s a ways off. I gotta hurry!”
          A huge groan escaped Jerod’s mouth as I finished my sentence and I saw that his face had turned red. “Oh my God, look at your face!” He opened his eyes and gave me a hard, mean glare. “The venom must be spreading fast. Just wait here and don’t move. I’ll be right back!” I turned to run, but I barely got one foot in front of the other before I tripped and fell over Jerod’s backpack; everything spilled out of it and onto the ground beside me. A shrill cry came from him and, as if he were trying to save the backpack’s life, leaped toward his things in a surprising fit of strength from his good leg; but he landed a little short and grunted loudly as he hit the ground.
          I got to my feet and checked to see if he was okay. “What are you doing? You shouldn’t be moving so much!” He looked up and glared at me again. “Sorry about the pack,” I said as I turned to go. Then I took off and called back to him, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll clean it up when I get back!”
 
          And so I ran, through the trees and over bushes and rocks in the diminishing light of the evening. I’ve never run so fast in my life. I’ve never tripped so many times in my life, either. It seemed like every time I thought to step over a fallen branch or log that I had to trip over it in order to be content with the path I chose; like I had to fall in order to keep going. My consistent state of panic kept my mind away from frustration though, and I just kept on running. That is until I tripped over the remnants of an old barbed-wire fence. As I fell the wire wrapped itself around my leg tightly, and the jerk from me hitting the ground caused the barbs to tear my skin where they had already pierced it. I quickly sat up to untangle myself, cursing whoever had put the fence there in the first place, but the faster I moved the deeper the cuts in my leg got. So I tried to calm myself down enough in order to unwrap the barbed wire without further injury. After several more cuts and scrapes (as I had failed to calm down) I was free. I got up and was ready to go limping on my way, but then the fog of panic in my head suddenly cleared, dissipated by the pain in my right leg. I looked around me and realized that I had absolutely no idea where I was. I hadn’t a clue from which direction I had come. Nor did I know where I was going. I had left without a map or compass—or anything at all, really.
          I was lost.
          My panic started to come back on new grounds, but then I remembered why I was running in the first place. I fought off my panic and tried to focus on which way to go. The sun was directly behind me, so I was heading east, …and… that was it. That was all I knew. I didn’t know which direction we had come from in relation to the motel because Jerod drove the whole time while I slept. We parked the car at a small souvenir shop and headed down a trail behind it that eventually disappeared. I didn’t pay much attention because Jerod has always been the navigator while I’ve always been the photographer. He always led the way and I always followed. That’s just the way things worked between us, ever since the second grade. But he wasn’t here now and it was he that was depending on me.
          Frustration started to set in and I realized how tired I was. I sat down on the cold ground, not wanting to give up, but feeling too lost in every way to keep going. I pulled my knees into my chest and rested my head on them, but as my head fell I heard the sound of a car horn and screeching tires in the distance. I quickly got to my feet and listened carefully, hoping to God that the horn would sound again.
          After the longest minute ever I finally heard the sound of… …two men ferociously yelling at each other. It wasn’t a car horn, but I assumed that it came from the same direction, so it would do. The noise came from my left, about ten o’clock. I ran as fast as I could with a gimpy leg, never being so thankful for the raucous voices of angry men. I guessed from the racket ahead that there had been some sort of a car accident, probably just a fender-bender. The voices grew louder as I drew closer, and soon I saw the road through the trees. My pace quickened, the pain in my leg vanishing and my stride regulating. I forgot my fatigue and ran faster than I thought possible, now able to get help to my ailing friend. To my right but still ahead I saw the rustic souvenir shop and the red Chevy in the four-car lot. I was almost there.
          Nothing can stop me now.
          Just before the thought passed I saw a stone about the size of a thumbnail on the side of the road and aimed to step around it. Just after I completed the thought my foot came back down on top of the stone and I lost my footing. I slipped and flew like Charlie Brown missing a football. I came back down on top of the concrete road with a smack. I hit my head pretty hard and was knocked unconscious, I’m told.
 

*          *          *

          I awoke without opening my eyes, in a bed; I was relieved thinking it was all a dream. I had a terrible headache, and I felt my forehead and found a bloodied bandage and gauze.
          It wasn’t a dream.
          I opened my eyes and found myself in a bright, white room. I sat-up quickly in surprise, got dizzy and laid back down.
          “Careful,” came a voice from across the room, “You’ve got a pretty bad concussion. You ought to stay down for awhile.” I heard a nurse open the curtain next to me. “That was quite a fall you—”
          “How ya feelin’ you miserable shit?” Jerod asked from the bed behind the curtain.
          “Uhh…” The frail doctor looked a little nervous. “We’ll leave you two alone for a minute,” and he scurried out the door; the nurse followed more slowly.
          “Jerod…” I said slowly, then I remembered about the snake bite in the woods. “Jerod! You’re all right!” I started to get up again but my pounding head refused and I fell painfully back onto my pillow. “Oww!”
          “He said to stay down! Don’t you ever listen!”
          “How did you get here?”
          “I called frickin’ nine-one-one, that’s how!”
          “What?” I found the bed controls and boosted myself up slowly.
          “Yeah. How? With your cell phone. Where was it? In my backpack! You know, the one I kept pointing to the whole time but you didn’t understand? The one you tripped over when you ran off to save me?” The last part of this sentence was said with sarcasm that was easily understood, even with a concussion.
          “In your…” My headache got worse as everything came screaming together.
          “That’s right. It even fell outta the pack after you knocked it over! And you didn’t see it!”
          “But you couldn’t talk. How’d you call nine-one-one?”
          “Oh, I could talk after you left. I was turning red I was so frustrated with you! When you’re in that much pain and frustration it’s hard to get a word out. The poison didn’t help, of course, but I calmed myself down enough to save my ass.”
          “I…” I was so embarrassed I didn’t know how to respond. “Wait a minute, how did I get here?”
          He answered without hesitation, as if he were proud to tell the tale: “Well, the nine-one-one people sent the park rangers to come get me since there wasn’t a hospital or any ambulances nearby. They found me about fifteen minutes after I called—at least, that’s what they told me. I’d passed out long before I was found.” He never really looked at or toward me as he spoke.
          I started to remember the fear pulsing through me, the adrenaline that fueled my speed through the forest. Then I turned red with embarrassment when I realized that I had been running from help rather than toward it like I thought. And to such a humiliating end. I touched my bandaged forehead, and after a moment I realized that he hadn’t answered my question. “But, how did I—”
          “I’m getting to it,” he retorted, still not looking at me. And then he continued. “I remember…” He thought for a few seconds. “I was in there truck on the way here. I woke up to the ranger slamming on the brakes and swerving to miss something in the road ahead. It was you.
          “They picked you up and put you in the seat next to me.” Then he finally faced me and shot me the glare that I saw in the woods; his voice suddenly changed tone: “Though I don’t see why they bothered. You’re more trouble than you’re worth keeping around.” And he fell silent and laid back down. The nurse came in and shut the curtain again; she put something through his IV, wished him good night, and left.
          I started to say something after a few moments of silence, but I heard him turn over in his bed when he heard my mouth open. I snapped it shut quickly and a throb of pain rose from my jaw to my head. “Owww…”
          “…heh heh,” came a snicker from behind the curtain.