The Long, Cold Winter: I Was Always Right Behind You

This is part two of a three-part sto­ry. If you haven’t read part one, you’ll want to do that now. The con­clu­sion will appear next week. 

When the old man’s eyes had regained focus, he returned his gaze through the tree to the sky search­ing for the branch she had cho­sen.  He spot­ted it, only ten feet high­er than he last saw.  He hadn’t fall­en far. He climbed, less like a spi­der, and more like a blind squir­rel afraid of heights until he made his way to the top of the tree in reach of the limb he need­ed.  The view from the top of the tree was as dis­mal as that from the ground.  He was no clos­er to the sky and only gained a vis­age of the tops of taller trees pre­clud­ing it. He brought his hatch­et out and in three swings sep­a­rat­ed the wispy thin fin­gers of twigs from the place where the knot made the hump of a wrist.  He then moved up from the elbow and began chop­ping at the thick­est part before the trunk.

Freezing sweat slid down his fore­head form­ing crys­tal on his eye­lash­es.  It had tak­en him most of the day to find the tree and reach the branch.  The sky had turned from pale to vary­ing shades on the grey scale as it approached black.  The clouds that obscured the day­light had become milky patch­es of dark­ness punc­tu­at­ed by low­lights of pure mid­night.  There were no stars here just pale moon­light, when she rose, fight­ing for a win­dow through the per­ma­nent rain­less shroud.

It was that last swing that was too much.  The force of the blow that made the branch his was too much and flung him for­ward into the next limb.  Then down, like a rag­doll bounc­ing back and forth between obsta­cles until forty feet lat­er he uncon­scious­ly found the plat­form that was the frozen ground.

“Are you alright?!” The girl’s voice squealed at the motion­less figure.

The sun­light was blind­ing as the trees blurred past. Green leaves formed a canopy over tree trunks in vary­ing shades of brown, piles of red nee­dles sat at the foot of ancient pines.  There was no clear delin­eation between the places where the bed of nee­dles stopped and the blood col­or of the bare clay beneath began. He could hear her voice behind him as they approached the open field speck­led with a rain­bow of spring blooms beneath an azure sky.  Cotton balls of marsh­mal­low clouds puffed imag­i­nary fig­ures in a parade above them, and the lit­tle girl called out the scenes they drew in the heav­ens. He could hear the smile in her tiny, excit­ed voice and he turned, try­ing to see her as the for­est streamed by.

There was some noise, rhyth­mic, low, thump­ing… it was music.  He remem­bered now, there was music in the sun­ny place.  This was some whin­ing, grind­ing, bass lined melan­choly, Alabama Shakes or some­thing… that’s right, there was lots of music in this place, lots of groups that made music and those sounds had some­thing to do with why the trees went by so fast, and they made the lit­tle girl clap and gig­gle from behind him.  She point­ed and squealed, and he turned his head to see her…

He was lay­ing in the field of mul­ti-col­ored daisies they had watched approach­ing.  He was look­ing up at the clouds, but the lit­tle girl wasn’t talk­ing about them any­more.  She was mak­ing sounds, but they weren’t the right sounds any­more, and he didn’t know why.  There was some­thing sharp here, some­thing heavy, some­thing wrong.  She was in this field with him, he could hear her, but they weren’t words, they were strange wet nois­es, and he couldn’t turn his head.  He couldn’t move.  There was some­thing wrong here.  Something was sharp.  Something hurt and he couldn’t hear her any­more. Something was wrong.

She was sob­bing, whim­per­ing through breathy beg­ging. Wet snot drowned her sup­pli­ca­tions implor­ing, “Please be ok! Are you ok? Please! I’m alone! Please! Wake Up! Don’t leave me here! Please!  Please don’t leave me! Pleeeaaasee! Wake Up! Please! I’m all alone here! Pleeeease! Pleeeease!  Please don’t leave me! Please… please don’t leave me…. Please don’t leave me…  please don’t leave me… don’t leave me… don’t leave… please… don’t…leave…” She trailed off, weep­ing thick sobs of despair into descend­ing whispers.

“I’m alright,” the man groaned through clenched teeth.

Her sobs came faster now; bro­ken stac­ca­to gasps of relief. She sucked air past the mucus of sor­row try­ing to say thank you on each spit­ty exhale.

The man rolled over and pulled him­self onto all fours.  He got his left leg in front of him and tried to stand.

“Aiyaghhh!” He screamed when his oth­er foot took his weight and col­lapsed back in a heap below the old oak.

“What’s wrong?” the lit­tle girl cried, qui­et­ly afraid.

“My leg’s bro­ken, and my ankle, maybe a cou­ple ribs. I’m pret­ty sure.”

“How are we gonna get home?” Her ter­ror was pal­pa­ble on the edges of her voice.

“We’ll make it.”

“You can use the limb I picked as a prop.” She explored the option hopefully.

“Can’t”

“Why?” She had a des­per­ate edge now, fear jagged around the edges of her words.

“That’s not what it’s for.”

She was cry­ing again. “Then how are we going to get home?”

He pulled him­self back to all fours, unsnapped the brass but­ton in the breast pock­et of his over­alls and extract­ed a leather strap. Laying his face and chest back into the mud­dy for­est floor he extend­ed his arm as far as he could reach. He used the tips of his fin­gers to roll the branch back into his grasp then heaved him­self to his knees.  Steady now he used the leather to bind the branch to the strap of his over­alls across his back.

It was hard to see the path from this close to the ground.  The pale moon­light illu­mi­nat­ing hazy columns through the trees pro­vid­ed scarce­ly any help in dis­cern­ing the ran­dom mud­dy div­ots from yesterday’s foot­prints.  He dragged him­self for­ward being care­ful to keep the weight off the knee of his bro­ken leg.  Every few min­utes he would stop, recen­ter the limb across his back and tight­en the leather strap around it so that it didn’t get dragged through the detri­tus of the for­est floor.

“Do you remem­ber music?” He asked.

“What is it?” She responded.

“It’s nois­es, sounds, kind of… arranged in just such a way… they come togeth­er fast, all over the top of each oth­er, and when they’re right, when you hear it, if feels like mem­o­ries of laugh­ter or tears, of yes­ter­days and tomor­rows… yours or some­one else’s… I think there used to be a lot of it before win­ter came.  When I was asleep, I remem­bered it used to make you clap. I can’t remem­ber why I can’t see you, though.  I couldn’t ever see you.  Why can’t I see you?”

“I don’t know,” came her voice, “I was always right behind you.”