The River

13

Somewhere, Brian thought, somewhere he’d heard something about comas. He must have. Something more than he could remember. But it had to be in his mind, in his thinking, and if it was there he must be able to get it out.

He spent the morning trying to remember what he knew, but nothing came.

It was like being asleep, except that you didn’t wake up, he thought. Everything kept working, but you couldn’t eat or drink.

He had been moving from the lake to the shelter with a birch-bark cone full of water when it hit him.

They could wait all week, wait nine or ten days for the plane to come — or he could. He knew that people had gone that long without food. Derek would lose some weight, but he wouldn’t starve to death in that time.

But Brian was sure Derek could not go that long without water. Two, three days, maybe four, then he would be in trouble. Somewhere he’d heard or read or seen that the human body couldn’t go that long without water.

And it had already been one day, going on two days.

He could try getting Derek to drink. If he could get water in him he would last. His breathing had steadied still more and his heart rate was close to normal. Brian had finally settled enough to measure it and calculate that it was running about sixty-five beats per minute. He remembered something about the rate supposing to be seventy-two, so Derek was low, but it was still working all right.

Brian made a small spoonlike holder out of birch bark. With this he dipped water from the cone, which he had propped next to Derek’s head, and he put a small bit of water into the unconscious man’s mouth.

The effect was immediate and explosive.

“Charrsst!”

Derek choked instantly, and reflex action took over and he coughed, spraying water and spit in Brian’s face. The choking continued and Brian frantically pulled Derek’s head over to the side, held his face down and pounded on his back — all he knew to do.

It seemed to last forever and Brian was terrified that he had killed Derek. One mistake, one thing wrong, and he was choking to death.

But finally the water cleared from Derek’s throat and the coughing stopped, though his breathing was still ragged.

“So, you can’t drink.” Brian settled Derek’s head back onto the rolled-up jacket. “That doesn’t make all this any easier.”

At first he felt strange, talking to Derek when there was no indication that he could be heard. Then he remembered his mother reading a story in a paper and telling him about a girl that had been in a coma for months — please, he thought, dear God, don’t let Derek be under that long — and when she recovered she said that while she was in the coma she could hear people talking. She could hear and understand, but could not answer, and he thought Derek might be the same.

“Derek?” He leaned close to Derek’s face. “Can you hear me?”

There was no sign.

“Can you move your eyelids? If you hear me, move your eyelids.”

Nothing. The eyes were half open, filled with tears that came constantly. Apparently the body was trying to keep them from drying out, because Derek could not blink.

He sat up, then stood and looked at the sky. I can’t do this, he thought. I can’t do this alone. I just can’t….

He looked down at Derek again, shook his head. “I don’t know what to do.”

And he realized then that he was wrong — it wasn’t like last time. He wasn’t alone.

There was Derek. Maybe if he talked to him, spoke aloud to him — maybe it might help.

“Here it is,” Brian said, squatting again, moving a stick in the dirt. “There’s no way anybody will come for at least a week, and maybe longer. Maybe ten days. I don’t think you can… I don’t think it would be good to go that long without water. I can’t get you to drink because I think you’ll choke. So.”

“So.” He repeated, shrugging, drawing a big zero in the dirt. “I don’t know what to do.”

He threw the stick down in exasperation. It hit the ground harder than he meant, then bounced and skipped into Derek’s briefcase.

Brian saw it as if for the first time. He’d forgotten about it in the crisis and went to it. “What have you got in here?”

It was not locked and he opened it with the two sliding thumb releases on either end of the handle edge.

Inside, there were spiral notebooks. They weren’t anything special — the kind with ruled lines and the twisted wire holding the edge — and each of them was numbered.

He opened number one.

“Arrived,” he read aloud. “Brian demanded that we leave all the gear in the plane or it would ruin the whole experiment.”

Oh, yes, Brian thought—I did that. Oh, God, I did that, didn’t I? I stuck my little foot down and dug in and got stubborn and set all this up. What was there? Food and shelter and a gun and all the things I didn’t think we’d need that would make this easier.

“I admire his ethics.” He finished reading the first day. He put the notebook down. “You do, eh? Admire me — the guy who made us lose all that gear?”

He felt like he was prying and decided not to read any more of the notebooks. He started to close the briefcase and saw that there was a folding accordion-style section that collapsed back into the lid.

There was something in the section and he pulled out a folded paper. When he opened it he saw that it was the map.

The same map they had looked at with Brian’s mother. He saw the lake, saw where they had circled it with her, showing where they would be, how… how located it looked. How easy to see and find and locate.

Derek had had two copies of the map and he’d left one with Brian’s mother. “So you can always tell right where we are.”

Brian remembered sitting there, his mother smiling. All her questions answered, all her doubts gone.

And now look at them.

Derek had brought the other map and kept it when Brian dug his heels in and told him to send everything but the radio back and in some relief Brian had spread the map gratefully on the back of the briefcase — thinking it would help — but now he shook his head and started to fold it. What difference did it make if he knew where they were? It wouldn’t help them.

Then he looked at the lake again, saw how it lay in the wide, flat greenness — how there were many lakes around it.

And he saw the river.