Time to time in my life I’d come up against trouble, but this here seemed about the worst. And my strength was drained by the poor food I’d had, and the beating I’d taken from both the Indians and the wilderness. I’d been bad off before, but at least I’d been out on solid ground where I could travel and maybe rustle a bite to eat. I’d gotten away from the Indians but I’d jumped right into a trap.
Thunder growled deep in the faroff canyons, and I turned my head and began a slow, inch-by-inch check of this place in which I was trapped.
I was on that small bit of sandy beach against the back wall of an overhang that seemed to be of solid rock. From where I sat I could see no break in the wall of the bowl into which I’d jumped, although as water poured into the basin, there must be a way for it to get out.
Finally, I slipped off into the water. Once in the water I was warmer than on the beach, and slowly I swam out into the open air. The rocky edge above me was only a rough six feet above the water, but the wall was sheer, polished by water and worn smooth. Here and there were cracks in the walls, but they were vertical, and there was no way I could see that I could hang on until I could catch hold with the other hand.
The largest one started a good four feet up the wall, and although I jumped a couple of times from the water my fingers wouldn’t hold in the slippery crack, so I swam back and stretched out on the sand, just about all in.
Twice more I swam around that pool, trying to find a way out, but my only chance was that crack. Each time I went back to the beach I rested a little longer, for the days of scant food and struggling to cross the country and stay alive had about worn me put. Still, I always told myself, there was nothing a man couldn’t get out of if he was sober and didn’t panic, so I settled down to think.
The water I’d heard falling wasn’t much of a fall, but the rock over which it fell was higher than the place from which I’d jumped, and the rocks were worn smooth.
It began to rain.
First there were scattered big drops, then a steady downpour that freckled the water about me. For awhile I just lay still, trying to get up energy to try again, and the falling water kind of lulled me to sleep. When I opened my eyes I was shaking with a chill and the water in that basin had raised by at least an inch.
Cold and shivering, I studied the walls again, but always I came back to that crack.
The bottom was a good four feet above the water, and the wall below it was smooth as silk. That crack was maybe four inches wide at the top, but it tapered down to nothing. If a man could have gotten up high enough to get both hands into it with his fingers pulling against opposite edges he might have worked himself to the top … he might have.
Toward the bottom there wasn’t room to even get one finger into that crack, and I couldn’t pull myself up with one finger, anyway.
There didn’t seem to be any way out of this fix I’d gotten myself into, and I went back and stretched on the sand again. Seemed to me there was less of it, and the rain was falling steadily.
If I could just find something to wedge into that crevice to give myself a handhold … but there was nothing. Of a sudden, I thought of finding a stick, only there were no sticks, and my spear wasn’t strong enough to hold my weight even if the crack was deep enough to thrust it in, which it wasn’t.
If only there was something…. There was!
My fist.
If I could jump high enough out of the water to wedge my doubled-up fist in that crack I could hang by it. If I opened my hand I’d slide right back in the water, but if I could keep my fist closed I could muscle myself up high enough to wedge the other fist crossways in the crack, and then I could grab for the rim.
Something warned me that I had better try. The water running off the mountain in this rain had not yet reached the pool, but it would soon start pouring in from branch streams and runoff gullies, and I’d be forced to swim until I could swim no longer. My little beach would be covered within minutes.
Also, my strength was slipping away. I’d had nothing to eat, and much of my strength had been used up in running, climbing, struggling for life and for food. If this failed there was no other way, so it had to work.
Swimming across the basin I looked up at the crack, so close above me. Now when I was a youngster I’d managed to lunge pretty high out of the water many times in batting a gourd around the old swimming hole. This time I not only had to get about half my body out of the water but I had to wedge my fist in that narrow crack.
First I carried my spear close to the side and threw it atop the wall. Next I threw up my bow and the quiver of arrows. On my first attempt I succeeded in hitting the wall and bruising myself. On the second my arm went high and my closed fist caught in the crack.
Slowly, flexing my muscles, I lifted my body. It was like chinning myself with one hand, something I’d rarely tried, but my body did come up out of the water and I got my other fist into the crack, but crossways as the crack was wider there. Another lift and I got my other hand on the edge. Pulling myself up, I flopped over on the rocky edge and lay still, the rain pounding on my back.
After a while, shaking with cold and exhaustion, I got my feet under me, recovered my weapons and started into the woods. That night, cowering among the pine needles, without even the elk hide to cover me, I shivered alone and cold.
How much can a man endure? How long could a man continue? These things I asked myself, for I am a questioning man, yet even as I asked the answers were there before me. If he be a man indeed, he must always go on, he must always endure. Death is an end to torture, to struggle, to suffering, but it is also an end to warmth, light, the beauty of a running horse, the smell of damp leaves, of gunpowder, the walk of a woman when she knows someone watches … these things, too, are gone.
In the morning I would have a fire. In the morning I would find food.
The rain fell steadily, and in my huddle under the bushes the big drops came through and rolled coldly down my spine and down my chest. Stiff and cold, I crept out in the gray dawn. The rain had stopped but the ground was soggy under my feet. Wearing only moccasins and a breech clout I hunted for roots. Starting across a clearing I suddenly heard a rush of movement and looked up in time to be struck by a horse’s shoulder and knocked rolling.
Desperately, I tried to get up, to call out, but the wind had been knocked out from me.
A voice said, “That’s no Indian! Curly, that’s a white man!”
“Aw, what difference does it make? Leave him lay!”
It taken me a minute to get up and I called after him. “Help me. Get me to a ranch or somewhere. I’ll—”
The rider called Curly spun his horse and came back at a run. He had a coil of rope in his hand and he was swinging it for a blow. Trying to step aside my feet skidded on the wet leaves and the horse hit me again, knocking me into the brush. Curly rode away laughing.
After a long while I got my knees under me and crawled to where my arrows were. The bowstring was wet and useless, but the spear might get me something. First I needed a fire. In a hollow near the river, I broke the dried-out twigs that were lowest on the tree trunks, gathered some inner bark from a deadfall and rigged a small shelter to keep the raindrops from my fire.
With my stone knife I cut out a little hollow in a slab of wood broken loose when a tree fell, then a notch from the hollow to the edge. Powdering bark in my hands I fed the dust into the hollow, then used my bow and a blunt arrow-shaft to start the fire. It took several minutes of hard work to get a smoke and then a spark, but I worked on a bit, then managed to blow the spark into life. At last I had a fire.