The remains

Chapter 56

The whirling current took hold of my body, drawing me into its center. I felt myself being pulled under, body spiraling, going down. I had no choice but to let myself go, be drawn under the surface of the drowning pool, be dragged along the rocky bottom of a rushing stream, spit out over the waterfall.

But something happened then. I didn’t free fall to the rocky stream-bed below. I found myself reaching out, clawing for something to grab onto, my nails bending back and tearing. Until I found a handhold in the form of a thick tree root that protruded from out of the cliff side.

The wide open valley lie a half mile away. Beyond it, my parents’ homestead. The farmhouse and the barn roofs were flash-lit by long spider-veined lightening strikes. To my left, the rushing stream water spewed out over the cliff edge. It shot off into mid-air before arcing downward, falling through the black night to the invisible rocks below.

To my right, the rock face. Positioning the toes on my boots, I searched for a foothold against the loose shale until I managed to locate some solid footing. Grip tight, I pulled and chinned myself up and over the tree root. When my head was above the rock-face’s edge, I raised my right leg, located a secure toe-hold.

Pressing my full weight down on the right foot, I let go of the tree root and thrust my right hand over the cliff edge. I then pushed the palm down flat onto the wet, gravelly floor. With my left hand still secured to the root, all I needed was to lift my body up and over the side.

It’s precisely what I started on when my right hand exploded in pain.