Legionnaire

I woke to rain pattering against the tent.

For a few seconds, I just lay there and listened to it. Then I unzipped the flap enough to look outside.

It wasn’t great.

The rain wasn’t coming down too hard, but the wind had picked up, and the sky beyond the trees was dark enough to make my stomach sink.

“Fuck,” I growled. “Good job checking the weather first, fucktard.”

I zipped the tent shut and sat there for a minute.

Just when I was starting to feel better about all this.

I thought through my options, but the decision came pretty quick.

Fuck it.

I had rain gear. I came out here for a purpose, and some rain wasn’t going to stop me.

I pulled on the rain gear, packed up, and started breaking down the tent. I didn’t bother folding everything nice and neat. I wanted it in the pack fast so I could get the rain cover over it before everything got soaked.

A little while later, I was moving again.

About three hours after that, the weather turned from bad to worse.

The wind started howling through the trees, whipping the rain sideways hard enough that it felt like needles against the exposed skin of my face. The temperature had dropped too, and every gust seemed to cut straight through the rain gear.

I spotted a cluster of trees nearby and made my way toward them.

I needed to stop.

I needed the Garmin.

One, I needed to know where the hell I was going.

Two, if this kept getting worse, I might need the beacon.

God, I hoped I didn’t need the beacon.

Visibility was getting worse by the minute. I reached the trees and dropped my pack against one of the trunks. As I started digging for the Garmin, lightning struck somewhere along the cliffside. It was a fair distance away, but close enough to make me jump.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

I dug harder.

“Where the hell did I pack it?”

Panic started creeping up the back of my neck.

I was going to need help.

“Fuck!”

I stopped digging and forced myself to breathe.

“Slow down,” I told myself. “Slow the fuck down.”

Even if I hit the SOS, rescue wasn’t coming in this weather. No helicopter was flying up here in this shit. Hell, they wouldn’t fly Blackhawks or Apaches in mild dust storms. They sure as hell weren’t sending a helo into a mountain thunderstorm for my dumb ass and SAR would take over a day to get here. No, help wasn’t coming anytime soon.

Map.

I closed the pack and opened the top flap, pulling the map free. I tucked it under my poncho, then grabbed my penlight and pulled my head and arms inside, using the poncho like a tiny tent.

The paper shook in my hands while I tried to read it.

I thought I had a decent idea where I was, but I couldn’t be sure. I traced from the first checkpoint to where I should have been, then compared that to the contour lines. If I was reading it right, I was near a cliff face.

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Maybe.

It was hard to tell with the rain, the wind, and my hands shaking like I’d just mainlined coffee.

“Fuck it.”

I folded the map and shoved it away.

Right now, I needed shelter.

Lightning struck again, closer this time.

I grabbed the pack and started moving uphill, following the contour lines toward the nearest steep rise. If I could make it to the cliff wall, maybe I could find a shallow cave or an overhang. Somewhere to get out of the rain. Somewhere to sit down, think, and stop making stupid decisions in bad weather.

I moved slow.

The wind shoved at me with every step. Rain slapped cold against my face. Thunder rolled overhead, deep enough to feel in my chest. I moved from tree to tree as best I could, trying to keep my footing in the mud and wet grass.

Lightning flashed again.

For a split second, I saw something ahead through the trees.

A dark cut in the rock wall.

I froze, staring in that direction.

The world went dark again.

“Come on,” I whispered.

I waited, barely breathing, eyes locked where I thought I’d seen it.

Lightning flashed.

There.

Something was there.

A shallow overhang, maybe. A rock shelter. It didn’t matter. It was cover.

I started toward it in a straight line, pushing through the brush.

Then the ground disappeared.

And I was falling.

I slowly opened my eyes.

Everything was blurry. The wind was still driving hard, rain cutting sideways across my face. For a few seconds, I just stared, trying to remember where I was.

Then it came back.

The fall.

I fell.

I blinked hard and slowly shook my head until my vision started to come back into focus. I didn’t move right away. I forced myself to go slow.

Body parts first.

My back was the first fear. After the surgery, if my back went out here, I was dead. Simple as that.

I was almost too scared to try.

I took a slow breath and felt pain in my ribs. Not sharp. More of a deep ache. Bruised, probably. Not broken.

I gently rocked my hips from side to side.

Nothing.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

My back was fine.

Then I went down the list.

Shoulders. Arms. Elbows. Hands. Hips.

Knees.

“AHHHHH!”

The scream tore out of me and disappeared into the wind.

Pain shot up my right leg so hard my vision went white. I punched the ground again and again until it finally started to ebb.

I sat up, breathing through clenched teeth, and looked down at my knee.

I couldn’t see shit.

No light.

No pack.

Oh, shit.

The pack.

I looked around, willing it to be close. Ten feet. Five feet. Anywhere.

It wasn’t there.

“Fuck!”

I hit the ground again.

I pulled my pocketknife out and cut away the fabric around my right knee. I still couldn’t see much, but I felt around it as carefully as I could.

Swollen. Badly.

I couldn’t tell if it was twisted, torn, broken, or all three. Not in the dark. Not with the rain. Not with my hands shaking.

I had to get to shelter.

I started dragging myself backward, one slow movement at a time. Every shift of my leg sent pain screaming through my body. I gritted my teeth so hard I thought they might crack.

Then the thought showed up.

Just die.

“Fuck you!” I screamed. “Fuck you. No.”

I dragged myself back against the cliff wall. There was an overhang a few feet to my right. I pulled myself toward it, screaming at my knee, the storm, and my stupid broken brain the whole way.

By the time I got underneath it, I was shaking so hard I could barely keep myself upright.

I collapsed out of the worst of the wind and rain.

You’re gonna die.

“No,” I growled. “No, I’m not.”

The words came out through chattering teeth.

“Fucking intrusive thoughts,” I said. “You won’t beat me.”

I wasn’t sure if I was yelling at my brain, the mountain, the storm, or everything at once.

Anxiety. Depression. The thoughts. The fear.

Fuck all of them.

I was not dying on this mountain.

I was cold. Exhausted. Hurt. But I needed to stay awake as long as I could.

It felt like hours passed. Maybe it was minutes. I had no way to know.

I tried thinking through what happened.

How did I miss the edge?

Was it on the map?

Had I read it wrong?

Had I just panicked and rushed?

You fell on purpose.

The thought hit harder than the others.

“No,” I growled. “I fucking didn’t.”

My anxiety spiked. Heat crawled up my chest and arms, sharp and awful, like my body had decided to panic even though I was already too cold. I felt like I was about to sweat inside my own skin.

I started box breathing.

Four seconds in.

Hold for four.

Four seconds out.

Hold for four.

Again.

And again.

I did it until my breathing slowed and the panic backed off enough for me to think.

Just close your eyes. It’s over.

“No.”

I shut my eyes anyway, but not to sleep.

To focus.

I thought about something my therapist had said.

“Intrusive thoughts are unwanted. Involuntary. They feel disturbing because they go against who you are and what you value Wade. They are not what you want.”

I pictured the white room she had told me to imagine. Nothing in it. No noise. No images. No thoughts. Just me, the silence, and the room.

Every time I started to drift, I squeezed my injured knee.

The pain jolted me awake.

Eventually, my thoughts slowed. Not gone. Never gone. But slower.

I took stock again.

My knee was wrecked. No question there. Everything else seemed okay, somehow. Cuts, scrapes, bruises, probably a dozen things I couldn’t feel yet because the knee was screaming louder than everything else.

But I was alive.

And I still had a chance.

When the sun came up, I could look for the pack. Find the Garmin. Hit the beacon.

Get help.