“Okay,” said Richard, as once again his gut tightened.
“Then,” continued Keller, “you'll have to climb back out on the ladder.”
Richard must have made a face, because Keller said, “Hey, don't worry, it won't be that bad. I'll be watching your back. All you have to do is get onto the ladder. Stay on the bottom rung, as low down as you can get. When I give you the signal,” he pointed down at the ground with his right hand, “you'll have to jump off.”
Richard closed his eyes, dreading the prospect of jumping from a moving train.
“It's not that hard,” said Keller. “The important thing is how you land. The place where you're going to jump is covered with long grass. It'll break your fall, and hide you from the guards in case they're watching. Roll and keep your head down. I'll be right behind you.”
Richard nodded resignedly.
“As soon as you’ve cleared the ladder, I'll jump myself. Keep down and out of sight. There could be bandits watching the jump points. Once the train's gone I'll come and find you.”
A few minutes later Keller leaned over and slid the door open. Richard swallowed hard. His muscles still burned with pain – he prayed they’d respond when he needed them. Keller nodded and he made his way to the door. The ladder seemed impossibly distant, but he found that he could lean out, holding the door jamb, and just reach the closest bar.
With a push and a guiding boost from Keller he swung out onto the ladder and climbed down to the lowest rung. When he glanced back, Keller twirled his finger in a circle. To his horror, Richard realized that he was going to have to turn and place his back to the train. That process turned out to be easier than he was expecting. They were passing through a huge field of tall grass, and he stared down in terror at the green stalks flying past.
“Ready?” shouted Keller. Richard was shaking with fear. “You’ve got to do it.” Keller threw his right arm earthward. “Go!”
Richard said a silent prayer, let go of the ladder, and launched himself with all his might away from the crushing steel wheels. He landed well and rolled through the tall grass. On stopping he rose to his knees. Despite Keller’s warning he poked his head above the green stalks to see what was happening. Keller had swung onto the ladder and climbed half-way down, but he'd stopped and was staring at something to his right.
Richard followed Keller’s line of sight. A guard, rifle slung over his shoulder, was picking his way along the roof of the railcar two cars down. The guard stopped and balanced himself on the roof, hefting the rifle into firing position, pointing it at Keller. Keller scrambled back up the ladder.
Richard saw the puff of smoke before he heard the shot. Keller’s body jerked as if he'd been punched in the stomach, and for a moment he let go of the ladder and hung by one hand. He finally regained his footing, dragged himself into the railcar, and disappeared in the shadows.
The guard turned his attention to Richard. He raised his rifle and fired, and Richard heard the whir of a bullet flying over his head. He dove to the ground as another shot immediately followed, the bullet tearing into the earth a few feet away. He lay hidden in the grass, shaking in terror, waiting for the next, possibly fatal, shot, but it never came.
The last rumblings of the train had faded into the distance before he finally dared to stand and stare out at the landscape around him. He was alone and helpless in the deepest wilds of Surrey.
At the River's Edge
Lacy Forrester liked to sit and listen to the sounds of the approaching dawn outside her shack by the river. The crumbling remnants of civilization still dotted the landscape in the distance, but plants and animals had long ago re-taken this spot, and it was now effectively wilderness.
Where the roar of automobile engines had once ruled, the cacophony of nature now filled the air – the bubbling of the nearby river, the croaking of a million frogs, the rasping of another million crickets, even the occasional hoot from an owl or howl from a lonely coyote. Early morning was one of her favourite times of the day. She could sit quietly immersed in the chatter of the forest, relaxing and letting her cares slip away.
But today was different. Today there was a new sound – the faint splash of something large thrashing about in the river. Lacy was frightened, thinking it might be a cougar or a bear. Auntie Becky had taught her that it was better to investigate a potential danger, albeit carefully, than to ignore it and hope it would go away, so she crawled from her doorway and listened.
The noise was coming from her right, but a hillock blocked her view. After several minutes her curiosity finally eclipsed her fear, and she made her way toward the river bank.
She stopped behind a clump of brush overlooking the river and peered into the rising light. Below her, about fifty feet away, someone was struggling to climb the bank, but failing and sliding back down into the water. Recent rains had turned that section of bank into a slick wall of mud.
It's too slippery for them,
she thought as she witnessed the struggle.
Steep overhangs bounded the river both upstream and downstream of this spot; the bank was the only point of escape. From what she could see, the victim was a male, which made him a greater potential threat. He was clearly exhausted, with barely enough strength to claw at the slimy walls of his prison. After several minutes of effort, he lost the battle, and collapsed into the shallow water by the river's edge.
Lacy could see that the current would carry him back out into the channel in minutes and he would certainly drown. She was torn – she knew her wisest choice was to do nothing – to return to her shack and leave the victim in the water to his fate. “It's everyone for themselves now.” Auntie Becky had always tried to drill into her head. “Don't concern yourself with other people. You’ve got your own problems.”
But there was something pitiable and heart-breaking about the poor wretch bravely grasping for life but beaten down by exhaustion. She crept toward him, his body rolling slightly only because of the motion of the water. When she moved closer, she saw that he was a teenage boy, probably not much older than herself. He looked dead, but she couldn't really tell. She knew that he would be dead soon if she didn't intervene.
Against Auntie Becky's wise advice and all her own instincts, she decided to act. She was crouching on a dry grass-covered plateau that quickly gave way to the muddy slope of the bank. She broke off a sapling nearby, lay down on the dry section, and jammed the butt of the sapling as deeply as she could into the mud. She cracked it near the base so that it bent down toward the motionless boy. It might not hold, but there was nothing else around, and she didn't have much time.
Gripping the bent sapling, she slid down until she was almost within reach of the boy. One of his arms stretched in her direction, still in place from his struggle. It was close, but she couldn’t reach it without letting go. She unbuttoned her shirt and took it off, twisting it into a makeshift rope. After tying one end to a fork in the sapling, she worked her way down far enough to reach his outstretched hand, to which she tied the free end.
She went hand-over-hand back up the twisted shirt and the sapling, hauling herself to its base then onto the plateau. She pulled the sapling from the mud and tugged on it, trying to drag the unconscious boy out of the water and up the bank. His body wouldn’t budge. To her shock, the movement jarred him awake and he gaped wildly up at her. Instinctively, she dropped the branch and covered her naked breasts.
The boy, comprehending that she was trying to help him, renewed his desperate attempt to climb, flailing at the mud with both hands. Forgetting her embarrassment, Lacy picked up the branch and heaved with all her strength. Together, they made progress. Her added pull was just enough for him to overcome the slickness of the slope.
After several minutes of effort, he made it to the edge of the plateau. He was shivering violently and covered with mud, and his eyes were wild with fear. He reached out a trembling hand toward her. Lacy froze.
She couldn't bring herself to take his hand. She was afraid. Her mind spun with visions of him attacking her or dragging her down after him. Her nakedness amplified her fear. She stood paralyzed. The boy stared up at her pathetically and his quivering lips mouthed, in a whisper,
"Help me."
Lacy started to cry. She was frightened to take his hand, but she couldn't let him die. The boy lost his tenuous grip and started to slide back down. He stretched out his fingers in a last desperate gesture.
Finally Lacy cast away her fear and reached out for him. Their fingertips touched. She felt a jolt of emotion, as if a charge of electricity had passed through the boy's hand into her own. She paused, frightened, but his slide was about to take him beyond her reach. She stretched out her hand, and the tips of their fingers barely hooked together.
She leaned forward as much as she dared, almost losing her balance, and locked her curled fingers solidly with his. Heartened by her support, he clawed frantically at the slippery mud with his free hand. He hauled himself up a few inches, and their hands finally clasped together.
Once again a rush of emotion passed through her at their connection. She pulled with every particle of her strength – pulled until she thought she would collapse, while the boy flailed with his free hand against the muddy slope. Slowly, inch by inch, he approached the safety of the plateau, until finally she hauled him up onto the ground at her feet.
Again fear consumed her. She had freed him from the river, but she was standing there half naked – what would he do? To her immense relief, the moment he reached safety, the boy collapsed into unconsciousness.
She rigged a crude stretcher out of some branches and a blanket, and dragged the still unconscious boy from the riverbank back to her shack. She laid him inside, took off his torn and wet clothes, dried him, and covered him with blankets and furs. He showed no sign of life, but she could detect a pulse. Though she had no idea whether he would live or die, she was glad she’d taken a chance and stepped in to rescue him. In a world dominated by hardship and cruelty, it felt good to perform a selfless act, for no other reason than to help another human being.
The boy drifted in and out of consciousness for two days and nights. He would sleep for hours on end, then suddenly open his eyes and even lift up his head. Sometimes he would cry out in his sleep, as if he were having a nightmare. Lacy often sat and watched over him where he lay. His blond hair and fine features were beautiful. Bathed in the dim candlelight, his face was like the face of an angel.
She was surprised and disturbed by the feelings his arrival had awakened in her. For as long as she could remember her life had revolved around finding food and defending herself. Now, unexpectedly, she was awash in emotions she had never experienced before – emotions that frightened her. Her world had sometimes been brutal and cruel, and sometimes beyond her control, but she had always been in control of herself.
Now she was being swept along by mysterious and overpowering urges and arousal. This time it wasn’t physical danger that she feared, it was the danger of losing herself to the new forces welling up inside her.
Finally, on the morning of the third day, the boy drifted more frequently into consciousness, occasionally mumbling to himself. That evening he finally opened his eyes. She prepared him a bowl of the stew of wild vegetables and game meat that was her regular meal.
“I'm Danny,” he whispered, smiling weakly as she spoon fed him the stew, and Lacy's unease at her loss of control took a huge jump. She tried to speak but was so nervous that nothing came out.
Finally Danny said, “Can you talk?”
Oh, God! Lacy thought. He thinks I’m retarded or something.
She fought to calm herself, and managed to say, “I…I'm Lacy.”
“Thanks for the food,” Danny said. “I'm totally starving.”
She ladled an additional portion of her precious stew into the bowl. Auntie Becky had never thought to explain to her how to deal socially with other people in general, and with boys in particular.
“Where am I?” he said.
“You’re in my house,” said Lacy, trying hard not to blush. “I found you in the river.” To her great relief, he seemed to remember nothing of their first meeting.
“You carried me all the way back here?”
“Dragged is more like it,” she laughed, a bit more relaxed. “It isn't far.”
“You live here all by yourself?”
Lacy drew back. She was all alone here with this boy who, though he was weak, might still overpower her.
He noticed her fear. “Don't worry,” he smiled again, and again her control began to slip away. “I'm not going to attack you or anything.”
Lacy smiled back at him.
“We used to live in Vancouver,” she said, “but that was a long time ago – I don’t remember much about it. I’ve been here for a long time, now – I think something like seven years.”
“Seven years – wow! And all that time by yourself?”
“I used to live with my Auntie Becky, but she's gone now.”
“What happened to her?”
Lacy turned away. “I'd rather not talk about it.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn't mean to upset you. Don’t you get lonely?”