The Great Alone: A Novel (31 page)

She fell hard, lay there stunned, breathing hard, staring up at him. “Okay. Try again.”

With every attempt, she memorized a new bump in the wall of the crevice. On her sixth try, she made it all the way up, high enough to grab his backpack to steady herself. His left leg was terrible to look at—bone sticking out, torn flesh, his foot almost backward.

He hung limply, his head lolling to the side, blood smearing his face into something completely unrecognizable.

She couldn’t tell if he was breathing.

“I’m here, Matthew, hang on,” she said. “I’m going to cut you loose.” She drew in a deep breath.

Using the pocketknife blade, she sawed through the pack’s straps, shoulder and waist. It took forever to do with one hand, but finally she was done.

Nothing happened.

She cut all the straps and he didn’t move. Nothing changed.

She yanked on his good leg as hard as she could.

Nothing.

She pulled again, lost her balance, and fell into the mud and rocks.

“What?” she screamed at the opening. “
What?
”

Metal snapped; something clanged against the rock.

Matthew plummeted, banged into the wall, thudded hard into the mud beside Leni. The pack landed beside her, splashing mud.

Leni scrambled over to him, pulled his head onto her lap, wiped his bloody face with her muddy hand. “Matthew? Matthew?”

He wheezed, coughed. Leni almost burst into tears.

She dragged him through the mud to the saucer-shaped rock. There, she struggled and fought to get his body up onto the indented stone surface.

“I’m here,” she said, climbing up beside him. She didn’t even realize she was crying until she saw her tears splash on his muddy face. “I love you, Matthew,” Leni said. “We’re going to be okay. You and me. You’ll see.
We’ll…” She tried to keep talking, wanted to,
needed
to, but all she could think was that it was her fault he was here. Her fault. He’d fallen trying to save her.

*   *   *

S
HE SCREAMED UNTIL
her throat hurt, but there was no one up there to hear. No help coming. No one even knew they were on the trail, let alone that they’d fallen into a crevice.

She’d
fallen.

He’d tried to save her.

And here they were. Battered. Bleeding. Huddled together on this cold, flat rock.

Think.

Matthew lay beside her, his face bloodied and swollen and unrecognizable. A huge flap of skin had split away from his face and lay like a bloody dog’s ear, exposing the white-red bone beneath.

It was raining again. Water sluiced down the rock walls, turned the mud into a viscous pool. There was water all around them, swirling in the indentation in the rock, splashing, dripping, pooling. In the wan daylight that drifted down with the rain, she saw that Matthew’s blood had turned it pink.

Help him. Help us.

She crawled over him, slipped down off the rock, and dug through his pack for a tarp. It took a long time to tie it in place with only one good hand, but she finally did it, created a gulley to catch rainwater into two big thermoses. When one was full, she positioned the other thermos to collect water and then climbed back up onto the rock.

She tilted his chin, made him drink. He swallowed convulsively, gagged, coughed. Setting the thermos aside, she stared at his left leg. It looked like a pile of hamburger with a shard of bone sticking out.

She went to the packs, salvaged what she could. The first-aid kit was well stocked. She found Bactine, gauze, aspirin, and sanitary pads. She removed her belt. “This is not going to feel good. How about a poem? We used to
love Robert Service, remember? When we were kids, we could recite the good ones by heart.”

She put her belt around his thigh and yanked it so tight he screamed and thrashed. Crying, knowing how much it had to hurt, she tightened it again and he lost consciousness.

She packed his wound with gauze and sanitary pads and bound it all in place with duct tape.

Then she held him as best she could with her broken arm and cracked rib.

Please don’t die.

Maybe he couldn’t feel her. Maybe he was as cold as she was. They were both soaking wet.

She had to let him know she was there.

The poems. She leaned close, whispered in his ear with her hoarse, failing voice, over the sound of her chattering teeth. “
Were you ever out in the Great Alone when the moon was awful clear…”

*   *   *

H
E HEARS SOMETHING
. Jumbled sounds that mean nothing, letters flung in a pool, floating apart.

He tries to move. Can’t.

Numb. Pins and needles in his skin.

Pain. Excruciating. Head exploding, leg on fire.

He tries again to move, groans. Can’t think.

Where is this?

Pain is the biggest part of him. All there is. All that’s left. Pain. Blind. Alone.

No.

Her.

What does that mean?

*   *   *

“M
ATTHEW
M
ATTHEW
M
ATTHEW
.”

He hears that sound. It means something to him, but what?

Pain obliterates everything else. A headache so bad he can’t think. The smell of vomit and mold and decay. His lungs and nostrils ache. He can’t breathe without gasping.

He is beginning to study his pain, see nuances. His head is pressure building, pounding, squeezing; leg is sharp, stabbing, fire and ice.

“Matthew.”

A voice. (Hers.) Like sunshine on his face.

“I’mhere. I’mhere.”

Meaningless.

“Ssshitsokay. I’mhere. I’lltellyouanotherstory. MaybeSamMcGee.”

A touch.

Agony. He thinks he screams.

But maybe it’s all a lie …

*   *   *

D
YING
. He can feel the life draining out of him. Even the pain is gone.

He is nothing, just a lump in the wet and cold, pissing himself, vomiting, screaming. Sometimes his breathing just stops and he coughs when it starts again.

The smell is terrible. Mold, muck, decay, piss, vomit. Bugs are crawling all over him, buzzing in his ears.

The only thing keeping him alive is Her.

She talks and talks. Familiar rhyming words that almost make sense. He can hear her breathing. He knows when she is awake and when she’s asleep. She gives him water, makes him drink.

He is bleeding now, through his nose. He can taste it, feel its viscous slime.

She is blearying.

No. That’s a wrong word.

Crying.

He tries to hold on to that, but it goes like everything else, at a blur, too fast to grasp. He is floating again.

Her.

IloveyouMatthewdon’tleaveme
.

Consciousness pulls away from him. He fights for it, loses, and sinks back into the smelly darkness.

TWENTY-TWO

After two terrible, freezing nights, Matthew moved for the first time. He didn’t wake up, didn’t open his eyes, but he moaned and made this terrible clicking sound, like he was suffocating.

A trapezoid of blue sky hung above them. It had finally stopped raining. Leni saw the rock face clearly, all the ridges and indentations and footholds.

He was burning up with fever. Leni made him swallow more aspirin and poured the last of the Bactine on his wound and rewrapped it in new gauze and duct tape.

Still, she could feel the life ebbing out of him. There was no
him
in the broken body beside her. “Don’t leave me, Matthew…”

A distant whirring sound reached down into the darkness, the
thwop-thwop-thwop
of a helicopter.

She unwound from Matthew and scrambled into the mud. “We’re here!” she shouted, sloshing to the break in the rocks where the sky showed.

She flattened herself to the sheer rock wall, waved her good arm, screaming, “We’re here! Down here!”

She heard dogs barking, the buzz of human voices.

A flashlight shone down on her.

“Lenora Allbright,” yelled a man in a brown uniform. “Is that you?”

*   *   *

“W
E’RE TAKING YOU
UP FIRST
, Lenora,” someone said. She couldn’t see his face in the mix of sunlight and shadow.

“No! Matthew first. He’s … worse.”

The next thing she knew, she was being strapped into a cage and hauled up the sheer wall. The cage banged into rock, clanged. Pain ricocheted in her chest, down her arm.

The cage landed on solid ground with a clatter. Sunlight blinded her. There were men in uniforms all around, dogs barking wildly. Whistles being blown.

She closed her eyes again, felt herself being transported to the grassy patch up the trail, heard the
thwop-thwop-thwop
of a helicopter. “I want to wait for Matthew,” she yelled.

“You’ll be fine, miss,” someone in a uniform said, his face too close, his nose spread like a mushroom in the middle of his face. “We’re airlifting you to the hospital in Anchorage.”

“Matthew,” she said, clutching his collar with her one good hand, yanking him close.

She saw his face change. “The boy? He’s behind you. We’ve got him.”

He didn’t say Matthew would be fine.

*   *   *

L
ENI OPENED HER EYES SLOWLY
, saw a strip of overhead lighting above her, a line of glowing white against an acoustical tile ceiling. The room smelled cloyingly sweet, full of flower arrangements and balloons. Her ribs were wrapped so tightly it hurt to breathe and her broken arm was in a cast. The window beside her revealed a pale purple sky.

“There’s my baby girl,” Mama said. The left side of her face was swollen
and her forehead was black and blue. Wrinkled, dirty clothes told the tale of a mother’s worry. She kissed Leni’s forehead, pushed the hair gently away from her eyes.

“You’re okay,” Leni said, relieved.

“I’m okay, Leni. You’re the one we’ve been worried about.”

“How did they find us?”

“We looked everywhere. I was beside myself with worry. Everyone was. Tom finally remembered a place his wife had loved to camp. He went looking and found the truck. Search and Rescue saw some broken branches on Bear Claw Ridge where you fell. Thank God.”

“Matthew tried to save me.”

“I know. You told the paramedics about a dozen times.”

“How is he?”

Mama touched Leni’s bruised cheek. “He’s in bad shape. They don’t know if he’ll make it through the night.”

Leni struggled to sit up. Every breath and movement hurt. There was a needle stuck in the back of her hand, and around it a strip of flesh-colored tape over a purple bruise. She eased the needle out, threw it aside.

“What are you doing?” Mama asked. “You have two broken ribs.”

“I need to see Matthew.”

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“I don’t care.” She swung her bare, bruised, scratched legs over the side of the bed and stood. Mama moved in close, became a stanchion of support. Together, they shuffled away from the bed.

At the door, Mama lifted the curtain and looked through the window, then nodded. They slipped out; Mama closed the door quietly behind them. Leni inched painfully forward on stockinged feet, following her mother down one corridor to the next until they came to the brilliantly lit, coldly efficient-looking area called the intensive care unit.

“Wait here,” Mama said. She went on ahead, checking rooms. At the last one on the right, she turned back, motioned for Leni to follow.

On the door behind her mother, Leni saw
WALKER, MATTHEW
written on a clipboard in a clear plastic sleeve.

“This may be hard,” Mama said. “He looks bad.”

Leni opened the door, went inside.

There were machines everywhere, thunking and humming and whirring, making a sound like human breathing.

The boy in the bed couldn’t be Matthew.

His head was shaved and covered in bandages; gauze crisscrossed his face, the white fabric tinged pink by blood seepage. One eye was covered by a protective cup; the other was swollen shut. His leg was elevated, suspended about eighteen inches above the bed by a leather sling, and so swollen it looked more like a tree trunk than a boy’s leg. All she could see of it were his big, purple toes peeking out from the bandages. A tube in his slack mouth connected him to a machine that lifted and fell in breaths, inflated and deflated his chest. Breathing for him.

Leni took hold of his hot, dry hand.

He was here, fighting for his life because of her, because he loved her.

She leaned down, whispered, “Don’t leave me, Matthew. Please. I love you.”

After that, she didn’t know what to say.

She stood there as long as she could, hoping he could feel her touch, hear her breathing, understand her words. It felt like hours had passed when Mama finally pulled her away from the bed, said, “No arguments,” firmly, and led her back to her own room and helped her back into bed.

“Where’s Dad?” Leni said at last.

“He’s in jail, thanks to Marge and Tom.” She tried to smile.

“Good,” Leni said, and saw her mother flinch.

*   *   *

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, Leni woke slowly. She had a split second of blessed amnesia, then the truth tackled her. She saw Mama slumped in a chair by the door.

“Is he alive?” Leni asked.

“He made it through the night.”

Before Leni could process this, there was a knock at the door.

Mama turned as Mr. Walker entered. He looked exhausted, as haggard and unmoored as Leni felt.

“Hey, Leni.” He pulled the trucker’s cap off his head, crushed it nervously in his big hands. His gaze moved to Mama, barely landing before it returned to Leni. A wordless conversation took place between them, excluded Leni. “Large Marge and Thelma and Tica are here. Clyde is taking care of your animals.”

“Thank you,” Mama said.

“How is Matthew?” Leni asked, struggling to sit up, wheezing at the pain in her chest.

“He’s in a medically induced coma. There’s a problem with his brain, something called shearing, and he might be paralyzed. They are going to try to wake him. See if he can breathe on his own. They don’t think he’ll be able to.”

“They think he’ll die when they unplug him?”

Mr. Walker nodded. “He’d want you there, I think.”

“Oh, Tom,” Mama said. “I don’t know. She’s hurt, and it will be too much for her to see.”

“No looking away, Mama,” Leni said, and climbed out of bed.

Mr. Walker took her arm, steadied her.

Leni looked at him. “I’m the reason he’s hurt. He tried to save me. It’s my fault.”

“He couldn’t do anything else, Leni. Not after what happened to his mom. I know my son. Even if he’d known the price, he would have tried to rescue you.”

Leni wished that made her feel better, but it didn’t.

“He loves you, Leni. I’m glad he found that.”

He was already talking as if Matthew were gone.

She let Mr. Walker lead her out of the room and down the hall. She felt her mother behind her; every now and then she would reach out, brush her fingertips against the small of Leni’s back.

They entered Matthew’s room. Alyeska was already there, with her back to the wall. “Hey, Len,” Alyeska said.

Len.

Just like her brother.

Alyeska hugged Leni. They didn’t know each other well, but tragedy created a kind of family relationship between them. “He would have tried to save you no matter what. It’s who he is.”

Leni couldn’t answer.

The door opened and three people came into the room, dragging equipment with them. In the lead was a man in a white coat; behind him were two nurses in orange scrubs.

“You’ll need to stand over there,” the doctor said to Leni and Mama. “Except for you, Dad. You come stand by the bed.”

Leni moved to the wall, stood with her back pressed to it. There was barely any distance between her and Alyeska, but it seemed like an ocean; on one shore, the sister who loved him, on the other, the girl who’d been the cause of his fall. Alyeska reached over and held Leni’s hand.

The medical team moved efficiently around Matthew’s bed, nodding and talking to one another, taking notes, checking machines, recording vital signs.

Then the doctor said, “Okay?”

Mr. Walker leaned down and whispered something to Matthew and kissed his bandaged forehead, murmured words Leni couldn’t hear. When he drew back, he was crying. He turned to the doctor and nodded.

Slowly, the tube was pulled out of Matthew’s mouth.

An alarm sounded.

Leni heard Alyeska say, “Come on, Mattie. You can do it.” She pulled away from the wall, stepped forward, brought Leni with her.

And Mr. Walker: “You’re a tough kid.
Fight.
”

An alarm sounded.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The nurses exchanged a knowing look.

Leni knew she shouldn’t speak, but there was no way to hold back. “Don’t leave us, Matthew … please…”

Mr. Walker gave Leni a terrible, agonized look.

Matthew took a great, gulping, gasping breath.

The alarm silenced itself.

“He’s breathing on his own,” the doctor said.

He’s back
, Leni thought with a staggering relief.
He’ll be fine.

“Thank God,” Mr. Walker said on a sigh.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” the doctor said, and the room went quiet. “Matthew may breathe on his own but never wake up. He may remain in a persistent vegetative state. If he does wake, he may have substantial cognitive impairment. Breathing is one thing. Life is another.”

“Don’t say that,” Leni said too softly for anyone to hear. “He might hear you.”

“He
will
be okay,” Aly murmured. “He’ll wake up and smile and say he’s hungry. He’s always hungry. He’ll want one of his books.”

“He’s a fighter,” Mr. Walker added.

Leni couldn’t say anything. The high she’d felt when he took that first breath had gone. Like getting to the top of a roller coaster: there was a nanosecond of pure exhilaration before the headlong plunge into fear.

*   *   *

“T
HEY’RE DISCHARGING YOU TODAY
,” Mama said while Leni stared up at the television suspended on the wall in her hospital room. Radar was babbling some story to Hawkeye on
M*A*S*H
. Leni hit the off button. She’d spent years wishing she could watch TV. Now she couldn’t care less.

Really, she had trouble caring about anything except Matthew. Her emotions were impossible to access. “I don’t want to go.”

“I know,” Mama said, stroking her hair. “But we have to leave.”

“Where will we go?”

“Home. But don’t worry. Your dad’s in jail.”

Home.

Four days ago, when she’d been in that crevice with Matthew, hoping against hope that they’d be rescued before he died in her arms, she’d told herself they’d be okay. Matthew would be fine, they’d go to college together, and Mama would come to Anchorage with them, get an apartment, maybe serve drinks at Chilkoot Charlie’s and collect big tips. Two days ago, when she’d watched them pull the tube from Matthew’s mouth and seen him breathe on his own, she’d had a split second of hope, and then it had crashed on the rocks of
may never wake up.

Now she saw the truth.

There would be no college for her and Matthew, no do-over as a pair of ordinary kids in love.

There was no way to lie to herself anymore, to dream of happy endings. All she could do was be there for Matthew and keep on loving him.

I think you stand by the people you love.
That was what he’d said, and it was what she would do.

“Can I see Matthew before I go?”

“No. He’s got an infection in his leg. They won’t even let Tom get near him. But we’ll come back as soon as we can.”

“Okay.”

Leni felt nothing as she dressed to go home.

Nothing.

She shuffled through the hallway beside her mother, the casted arm held in close to her body, nodding at the nurses who told her goodbye.

Did she smile in acknowledgment? She didn’t think so. Even that small a thing was beyond her. This grief was unlike any emotion she’d experienced before, suffocating, weighty. It pulled the color from everything.

They found Mr. Walker in the main waiting area, pacing, drinking black coffee from a Styrofoam cup. Alyeska was seated in a chair beside him, reading a magazine. At their entrance, both tried to smile.

“I’m sorry,” Leni said to them.

Mr. Walker came closer. He touched her chin, forced her to look up. “No more of that,” he said. “We Alaskans are tough, right? Our boy will pull through. He’ll survive. You’ll see.”

But wasn’t it Alaska that had nearly killed him? How could a place be as alive as Alaska, as beautiful and cruel?

No. It wasn’t Alaska’s fault. It was hers. Leni was Matthew’s second mistake.

Alyeska moved in beside her father. “Don’t you give up on him, Leni. He’s a tough kid. He made it through Mom’s death. He’ll get through this, too.”