The Great Wide Sea (23 page)

“Steady,” I told myself. “Steady.”

I rolled back over and forced myself to look right and left along the cliffs. And then I saw his shirttail fluttering in the breeze. He was lying on a wide ledge about thirty feet to my left and ten feet down. Above him was another small ledge about two feet down. On that ledge was a hawk's nest. Suddenly I understood. He had been looking for eggs and he fell. He had crawled up against the cliff face—in fear or cold—and lay there, curled into a knot with only his shirttail flapping in the wind.

I stood. “Steady,” I said. “We can do this.” I walked toward him and lay down again. When I looked over the edge, I could see his face. His eyes were open. He was blinking and staring at the rock. “Dylan,” I called, and he looked up.

“I knew you'd come,” he said.

“I'll have to go back and get a rope,” I said. “Then I can help you climb back.”

“I can't climb,” he said. “My leg.”

Only then did I notice—the sickening bend in his leg halfway between knee and ankle and the terrifying sliver of white bone breaking through the skin and surrounded by torn flesh and dried blood.

“My God,” I said.

“I broke it,” he said. “It hurts.” His voice choked and he sucked in air suddenly.

“Steady,” I told him. “We'll get you. Be calm. I've got to go back for supplies.”

He nodded.

“I'll be back soon. I mean, as soon as I can.”

He nodded again.

“You'll be okay? I mean—”

He nodded again. “Go,” he said.

So I did, flying and jumping and crashing and sometimes even rolling down the hill. At camp I gathered lines and Gerry. “Bring your spear,” I told him. “And Blankie.”

When we got back, Dylan was still staring at the rock, and the sun was a lot higher and hotter. I tied Blankie and the spear together in a tight package with the smallest line. “When I ask for them,” I said to Gerry, “let them over the edge.”

“You're going over?” Gerry asked.

“Somebody has to go.”

Little stubby, dwarf trees grew near the cliff edge, but they were all we had. I grabbed one and pulled as hard as I could. It came up, roots and all, and I fell over backwards. I stood up, threw it away, and tried another. That one held. I was praying for a taproot that went all the way to China while I tied the line into a saddle around my thighs and waist. I wound the rope twice around the tree and held the loose end. I'd never done any rock climbing, but I'd seen it on TV. And we'd had to climb the rope in gym. My arms were strong, I knew. I looked over my shoulder at the empty space behind me.

You have to,
I told myself.
It's all up to you.

“Steady. Steady. Steady,” I whispered over and over as I inched over the edge of the island and bumped my way down to where Dylan lay.

“Okay, Gerry,” I said. “Send them down.” I couldn't look up. It would have been too scary. But I knew Gerry's eyes were showing just over the edge, watching us.

“Dylan,” I said. “I'm going to hurt you.”

“I know,” he said. “Is it okay if I cry?”

“Fine by me,” I said.

One thing I will never be is a doctor. I felt dizzier than ever looking at the sharp white point of Dylan's bone and the gash in his skin. The blood was dark and dried up all over his leg and on the ledge too. His hands were bloody where he had felt his wound. There was blood on his face and in his hair where his wet, bloody hands had touched.

“Okay,” I said to myself. “Okay. Let's go. Let's do this thing.” And I reached out and scooped up Dylan just enough to turn him over on his back so I could straighten out his knee. Tears were pouring out from under his closed eyelids and his lips were quivering. “Cry,” I said. “Cry out loud.”

Then I lifted the broken leg and Dylan groaned. The bone moved and new blood came out. “Please. Oh, please,” I said. “Oh, God.” I wrapped his leg in Blankie, pulling the thin worn fabric as tight as I could. Then I tied the spear alongside the broken bone and then up above his knee, too, so even that joint couldn't move. I tied the lines tight, trying to cut off the blood supply because I knew the worst was still to come.

Dylan's face was white and he was staring at the rock. “You can't faint yet, Dylan,” I said.

He nodded.

“We've got to get you back up.”

He nodded again.

So then I started tying a saddle on him. “Can you hold on?” I asked.

He nodded again, but this time I didn't believe him. I took the line off his thighs and started tying him around his chest and under his arms. “We're going to drag you up,” I said. “I'm going back up now. You'll feel us pulling soon.”

I don't remember pulling myself back over the edge of the cliff. It must not have been hard. Gerry was waiting there for me, and I handed him the end of the rope that was now tied around Dylan. He wrapped it around the same tree. Then we walked to the edge of the cliff and began to pull. Instantly we felt Dylan's weight and heard him groan.

I was praying Dad had taught me right about knots. I was praying the tree held. I was praying Dylan didn't bleed to death before we got him up. We dragged him to the edge and saw his hands grabbing at the grass. We pulled him a little farther and there was the top of his head and then his face and his arms stretched out across the dirt and then finally his chest was up and he was lying hanging halfway over still and I grabbed him under his arms and pulled him completely to safety and then he fainted.

I carried Dylan back to camp. Gerry walked beside me, carrying the ropes. His face was white, but he kept going. Dylan stayed out the whole way down and it was just as well because it was a pretty rough ride. I laid him flat on the beach and built up the fire and got all our clean water and started it boiling. Then I unwrapped him and cleaned him up as best I could and looked at the bone, trying to decide what to do.

Or I should say trying to decide if I really had to do what I thought I had to do. From somewhere back in some TV-WESTERN memory I thought that what I had to do was to pull on his leg really hard so that the bone would slide back into place. I couldn't do that. It would hurt him too much.

I looked at his face and he was watching me. “You have to jerk it,” he said. “You have to grab my foot and jerk really hard.”

“You're kidding,” I said.

“No. In fact, you probably ought to tie me up to a tree or something and then jerk or else I'll just go dragging through the sand and it won't work.”

“Dylan, I can't hurt you like that.”

“I'll try to pass out again if that will make it easier.”

So I did what he said. I sat him up next to a tree and tied him at the hips as tight as I could. I had to tie him at the chest, too, though, because fortunately he did pass out again—and without trying. Gerry wanted to help, but it was too much for him. All he could do was cry. I finally told him to go in the tent and leave me alone.

When I had Dylan tied as tight as I could get him, I lifted up his foot. I knew it wouldn't do any good to pull gently and slowly. The pain would kill him. The only way to do it was to pull suddenly and hard. I felt myself sweating. I felt his round heel in my hand. His face was streaked with blood and dirt and sweat and tears. His hands were limp in the sand. And there was this bone still staring at me.

“Now!” I shouted, and pulled with all the strength I had left in my body, and the bone slid down into the gash and disappeared.

And Dylan screamed. The pain brought him to and he screamed.

And it started bleeding again. Oh God, how much blood could he lose?

I pushed Blankie against the wound and Dylan screamed again. I washed him and started jabbering. I don't know what I was saying. I took long sticks and tied them to either side of his leg. I talked and talked and talked. But Dylan didn't hear a word because he was out again.

Thank God.

Then I was done. The bone was inside, the wound was clean, and the straight sticks were tied to hold it secure.

Now all Dylan had to do was heal. It would take time, but that was one thing we had plenty of.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

EXCEPT DYLAN DIDN'T heal. We didn't know it at first. At first he did a lot of sleeping. For about a day, he would rouse up for just a minute and we'd drip a little water into him and maybe squeeze a little prickly pear pulp between his teeth. He'd get the stuff down and look around and smile like a goofball. Then he'd turn his head sideways and go back to sleep. I figured his body knew what was best, and if I'd been camping on an exposed rock ledge for almost twenty-four hours with a compound fracture bleeding all over the place—well, I figured I would want to sleep too.

Then he was awake. He was feeling so much better, he told us. Gerry became Mr. Entertainment for him and brought him shells to admire or plants to identify. Gerry took over the water-making thing and brought the water to Dylan every day. I fished harder than ever and caught plenty. I wished we had milk—milk for strong bones. Dylan said he would eat the fish bones if I would quit talking about milk.

After a few days, Dylan said he felt good enough for me to carry him down to the water. He said he needed to soak his leg. He thought that would be good for it. So I picked him up and set him back down very gently in the edge. It must have hurt. His face was white again. He said he felt fine. So I started taking him down every day. We fixed up a place where he could lean back against a rock and let his leg rest in the water. We even made him a little shade with palm fronds.

His wound looked good. It was red, of course, and it would have looked a whole lot better if somebody could have stitched it. But it wasn't all horrible and swollen. It wasn't oozing pus. I felt good being the nurse. I felt we had the routine down. I knew what to do every day. Breakfast. Boil water. Clean wound. Feed Dylan. Set him in the water. Go fish. At night, build fire. Cook fish. Lie on beach. Tell stories. I could do this. Dylan seemed better every day. We were going to get past even this.

But something changed. I couldn't tell what it was at first. It just seemed as if the color of the air had shifted somehow. Then I realized that Dylan had stopped smiling. His mouth was set in a straight line, and when he thought we weren't looking at him, his eyes were vague and worried. I realized he was hurting, not just when I moved him, but all the time.

So when Gerry was off hunting up some shells to show Dylan, I sat down beside him instead of heading for the reef.

“What's up?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“I mean, what's wrong?”

“My leg is broken.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” I looked him straight in the eye, and he looked away. I took his chin in my hand and turned it back to me. “Seriously, Dylan. Something new is wrong. What is it?”

Tears stood suddenly along the bottom curve of his eyes. A finger of ice pierced me.

He took in a deep breath and let it go quickly. Then again. I knew it was a way to keep his voice level when he talked.

“I think, Ben, that something inside is infected. It hurts in a different way. And now, when I touch it with my fingertips, just the touching hurts.”

“Infected?”

He nodded.

“But there's no pus. It's not all red. We've kept it clean.”

“I know.”

“It can't be.”

“Touch here, Ben. Gently. With the flat of your hand.”

I did. “It's hot.”

He nodded. “That's infection.”

“Bodies get over infection all the time,” I said. “That's what white blood cells are for.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It's just that it hurts.”

I nodded. I patted his shoulder. “Don't worry. We'll take care of you.” And then I left to swim the reef.

Dylan didn't eat as well that night. I was fussing at Gerry about wasting food when I noticed Dylan hadn't eaten his. “What's the matter? You're not hungry?” He barely shook his head. “It's okay,” I said. “You need more rest.”

In the tent that night, I could hear Dylan twisting and occasionally sniffing. I felt fear again. What do you do without medicine? When just cleaning it isn't enough? Was there a plant we didn't know about? Some tree bark? A special seaweed? I would dive for it. All the way down. I would push away the fire coral to reach it. I would rip it out from under a starving shark.
Whatever it takes,
I said to myself.
Whatever it takes
. Then I waited through a long night and a silent breakfast and a flat good-bye to Gerry as he headed for his beach before I went to ask Dylan what it would take to make him well.

He was lying still in the tent, his hands resting on his chest, his eyes looking up. The tent smelled bad and I thought I ought to clean it.

“Hey, Dylan.”

He shifted slightly.

“You're not better.”

He shook his head.

“You need to get your white blood cells busy, man.”

He didn't smile.

I picked up a little stick and snapped it in two. “You're even worse, aren't you.”

“Yes.”

“How?” I asked.

“Touch me,” he said.

I touched his arm. It was too warm. “You have fever,” I said.

“Look at my leg—under the sticks.”

I looked. The sticks had been disguising it, but now it was clear. An ugly blotch of red discolored his calf. His ankle was swollen. The delicate edges of his kneecap were disappearing into the swelling at his knee.

I looked away.