The River

12

The rest of that day and through the night, he kneeled next to Derek.

Waiting.

He only moved to get a drink and eat some berries and go to the bathroom, the rest of the time he kneeled next to Derek, putting a piece of wood on the fire now and then to keep it going, waiting. Waiting.

And he knew.

He knew that Derek was not just unconscious, was more seriously hurt than that, and still he did not know what to do.

Or if he could do anything.

The radio was gone. They had made a schedule that said they would check in once a week or so — it was very loose — and that they would call if there was an emergency. Derek had just done the weekly check-in the afternoon before, so they wouldn’t think it odd that there were no calls. The bush-plane headquarters said they would keep their radio on around the clock, but not necessarily manned all the time, so even if he had a radio, Brian might not be able to get them right away. Of course, he could call any other airplane and report the emergency.

If he had a radio.

So he could not call for help, and they would not worry for another week or so, when Derek did not call in. There they were, where they sat.

Derek was down, unconscious.

In a coma.

There. That word came. He had been afraid of the word death before and now this word, coma. He’d have to stop that, have to face things better than he was facing them. He knew almost nothing of medical terms or what happened to people with severe shock, and knew less than nothing about comas.

He’d seen movies about people in comas for months and months or years and years and then they would suddenly snap out of it and wonder how long they’d been asleep.

In the night, next to Derek, he tried to will him awake. Snap awake now and ask how long you’ve been sleeping. Now. And we’ll laugh and talk about how close the lightning came.

But it did not work.

Derek did not awaken, made no change of any kind. Somewhere just before dawn, when the first light of false dawn was making the western side of the lake come into view, Brian finally accepted it.

Derek was in a coma and was apparently not going to snap out of it. At least not soon.

That left everything, everything on Brian, and for a moment he felt a touch of anger and resentment.

The woods.

The damn woods.

Last time he’d almost died, would have died, except for luck, and now this — this again. All this dumped on him just because he tried to do the right thing, and he didn’t even want to do it. Anyway, Derek was so dumb that he raised up and reached out when he should have stayed low and… and… and…

Listen to me, he thought. If I were talking out loud, I’d be whining.

Derek gets hit and I act like I’m the one getting messed up.

It was this way, he thought. Derek was unconscious and it seemed to be a coma — or something like a coma.

He did not seem to be coming out of it.

The radio did not work and Brian could not call for help.

So, then what?

They might come looking in a week or ten days. Could he stay here with Derek for a week or ten days and wait for them?

Could he not stay? What choices did he have?

If he stayed and Derek didn’t regain consciousness, how long would he… last? If he didn’t get food and water, could he stay alive?

They never talked about that in movies or on television. They never said what they did with people in a coma. Fed them through tubes, probably.

But he couldn’t do that.

He had to try to put food and water down Derek’s throat, and if he did that he might choke him and kill him.

So he couldn’t really do that, either.

“So, then,” he said aloud, speaking to and not to Derek at the same time. “What can I do?”

He had kneeled next to Derek almost all night, and when he tried to stand, his knees almost buckled. He rolled sideways and flexed his legs, and while he was rolled to the side he smelled it.

Oh, yes — I’d forgotten that kind of thing — the bathroom. Derek would, of course, have to go to the bathroom — his body functions would keep going. Or would they? Yes, apparently they would.

There was that too. To take care of Derek, truly take care of him — he’d never had to do anything like it before, take care of someone.

Himself, sure, but he’d never been really responsible for some other person, and he wondered what to do — what a person did.

The anger had passed, but he felt immense frustration at his helplessness.

It had to be done. He had to clean Derek, take care of him, take care of another human being. Look at it that way, he thought — not Derek, but another person. He had to clean this helpless person — if he kept it detached, maybe he could do it.

Why would it be so hard anyway?

He unfastened Derek’s pants and the smell grew stronger.

“Oh, God.”

He fought the nausea down, controlled it, turned Derek over and held his breath and used grass to clean him. Then he pulled the pants up and put him on his side again.

Parents — how did parents do it? It was horrible — how could they do it? He used sticks to carry it and the grass to the hole they had dug for a bathroom and covered it with dirt, then went down to the lake and washed his hands again and again until he could hold them to his face and not smell anything. When they were clean and he could breathe normally without choking, he went back to Derek.

Comfort — he could do what he could to make Derek more comfortable. Brian moved him and rearranged the pine boughs to make a softer bed.

Then he pulled Derek onto his back on the new boughs, but was alarmed when Derek seemed to begin to choke or breathe strangely, and he put him back on his side.

So, nothing.

Nothing he could do, not really.

It was full light now, warm, with the sun drying the rain off the grass. A warm summer morning with birds singing, Brian thought, looking across the mirrored surface of the lake — a beautiful summer morning with birds singing and fish jumping on the lake and everything perfect, except for this one thing. This one little thing.

Derek was in a coma.