Redwood Bend

loud “Ahhh!” coming out of him despite his intention to be silent. He heard lots of rustling, but no additional clawing—thank God! That once was about all he could take. He heard the bear talking, cubs mewling. Their sounds didn’t seem to be getting closer; he prayed she felt invaded and was moving away.
Andy was trembling beneath him; he must be frightened to death.
“Don’t move,” Dylan whispered. “Play dead.”
Andy stilled. There was not the slightest movement beneath him. The poor kid, only five and faced with life or death.
Dylan held positively still despite the pain that blasted across his back. The bitch had gotten one good swipe and it hurt like bloody hell, but his heart was still beating. He had not posed a threat; she probably just slapped him to see if he was alive, then hustled away, but until he waited her out he couldn’t be sure. He tried to slow his pulse so he could be sure of what he was hearing. She could have gone back to her cubs and settled in to sleep, in which case she was far too close and getting Andy out of here might wake her.
“Andy,” he whispered. “I have to move a little. I have to see if she’s near us. Don’t you move, no matter what.”
“My foot’s stuck,” Andy whispered back.
“Shhh,” he said. Then he listened. Nothing.
He lifted his head slowly, looking over the thick trunk of the felled tree carcass under which they hid. He glanced into the surrounding forest in her direction, but he didn’t see her. She could have moved a little and still been near, but he couldn’t smell her. He lifted his head further and looked in other directions, but there was no sign of her. That didn’t mean she was gone. In fact he could run into her on his way back to the cabin. But he was hurt and so was Andy; they couldn’t stay here any longer.
“I’m going to move,” he said softly. “Don’t you move a muscle.”
He gingerly pulled himself off Andy and knelt beside him. He wiggled the little tennis shoe, stuck in a slit in the tree trunk, and as he moved Andy’s foot, Andy tried to stifle a cry. Then with a quick motion, he just pulled the boy’s foot out and left the shoe wedged there. He moved the boy’s ankle. “Hurt?” he asked. And Andy nodded, not even turning to look at Dylan.
He leaned down and whispered, “I’m going to try to carry you out of here—no talking. At. All.”
Andy nodded, his head still facedown. Dylan slowly and cautiously rolled Andy over onto his back, then lifted him into his arms. With great effort, he rose to his feet, wincing with pain. He just had to stay upright long enough to get Andy home and fortunately it was mostly downhill and not steep. He gripped the flashlight in the hand that was under Andy’s knees, but he didn’t turn it on until he’d made his way down the path for a few minutes, each step slow and careful so he wouldn’t trip, then he lit the way. “Andy,” he said softly. “If anything happens, if we run into trouble, take the flashlight, stay on this path down the hill—it winds around, but leads back to the cabin.”
“’Kay,” he said softly.
As Dylan walked a little farther, his breath came harder and he grunted a little with the effort.
“I can walk,” Andy said.
“Not with one shoe and a sore ankle,” Dylan pointed out. “You’ll cut up your foot and make your ankle worse.”
“I can go piggyback,” he suggested.
“Not gonna work, buddy,” Dylan whispered. “I have a scratch on my back.”
“From the bear?” Andy asked.
“She must’ve been scared that I’d hurt her cubs or something,” Dylan said. “We have to rest a second, Andy,” he said, setting the boy down briefly. He was dizzy and hoped it was from anything but blood loss. His watch told him it was eight o’clock. He’d dropped the backpack back by the dead tree and thus the water, so he’d have to keep going without it. He could feel the wet and cold on his back. The best thing, he thought, was to get where he was going as quickly as possible; get Andy to his mother, get some medical attention. “Okay, bud, let’s go,” Dylan said.
“I want to walk,” he said.
“The sticks and stones on the path will tear up your foot,” Dylan said, attempting to lift him again.
“I can walk until it starts to hurt my foot,” Andy said.
Dylan thought about this briefly. “All right, walk in front of me.” They proceeded that way, but it didn’t take Andy two minutes before he started limping, trying very hard to