Unknown - Sex-crazed stallion

It was like he'd explained to Rod the night before over the campfire.

"It's not the idea of being up high in and of itself that gets me nervous, but I keep having this problem with gravity."

Right now, he felt gravity tugging persistently at his heels and it was really getting him into a state.

"I don't know how many times I have to tell you, don't look down."

"Well how the fuck am I going to see where I'm putting my feet!?"

"You don't think about it, you just do it."

Rod stood on much firmer ground, having just crossed the ten or fifteen feet of questionable ledge that now had Johnny so worried.

"Are you sure this is the way we climbed up?"

"Will you stop talking and just come on. Look, even if you do fall, you probably won't be killed. We're almost down."

"Yeah, but we're not down yet and that's a nasty fall."

"You aren't going to fall. Do you hear me? You aren't going to fall."

"All right, all right, just leave me alone. I'll make this in my own way."

He closed his eyes for a second and took a couple of deep breaths, thought about all the good things he'd done in his life, took a moment to regret some of the things he'd never gotten around to doing, then realizing that the time for fun and games was over, he stepped out onto the ledge… and felt it hold him securely.

"Very good, very good," coaxed Rod, not without a touch of sarcasm. This sort of thing always happened and even though Johnny was half bullshit, half of him was genuinely afraid of climbing like this. Nonetheless, he kept plugging away, and thus far none of his fears had come to pass.

He took a careful step, then another, found himself halfway across the distance that had separated the two of them, found his confidence growing as he got closer and closer…

Suddenly he screamed. The rock gave way, just a small portion of it, but enough to throw him off balance.

Rod stared, dumbstruck, so shocked that his friend's imagined scenario was actually coming to life that the brief moment when he might have reached out his hand to give some support passed. Johnny teetered crazily on the ledge for a second or two more, and then, hands grasping futilely at the air, he toppled over the side.

"Johnny!" Rod screamed, but it was too late. He stared in horror as his friend plummeted about ten feet through the air, then met with the side of the chimney rock as it sloped outward towards the ground. Rod could see that Johnny's leg hit the rock at a weird angle and twisted underneath him in a manner that no human bone should have been forced to endure. Johnny let out another scream and started to slide down the slope of the rock, coming to rest finally against a section jutting out about six feet from the main wall of the rock. A trail of small pebbles, dirt, larger rocks and sand followed, collecting in a small drift against his back. He didn't move.

It had taken perhaps ten seconds, if that long. It had seemed like years to Rod, watching it unfold as if in slow motion. Every minute fragment of the scene was already indelibly burned into his brain. He searched now for a foothold to climb down. He refused to consider the possibilities. All he knew was that Johnny still hadn't moved.

Half climbing, half sliding, he was at his friend's side in a matter of seconds.

"Johnny, Johnny! Are you all right?"

He was afraid to move him, even to pull his shoulder around to get a look at his face.

In his mind, he flipped back through the pages of every first aid manual he'd ever read. What was the first thing to do?

Well first, you don't move him in case there's some injury to the neck or spine. But then, what? He looked closely at the angle Johnny's neck made with the line of his shoulders. Not too acute. Well, that was good.

He touched him on his side, and called his name again.

Johnny moaned.

"Hot damn. I knew you weren't dead."

His body stirred, as if moving in quickly hardening cement and he let out a groan of pain.

"My leg," he murmured. "It feels real strange. I think it's broken."

"Ok, just hang on. How does the rest of you feel? Can you feel your body?"

"I don't know," he said, his voice scarcely audible. "Where is it?"

"Asshole," Rod muttered. "Tell me, can you feel this?"

He began to probe with his fingers, first along Johnny's arms, then down his back and legs. Each time his fingers made contact, Johnny's face contorted into a grimace of pain.

"Well, that's encouraging. I think it's safe to turn you around. Here, I'm going to roll you over. Be careful of your leg."

"You be careful of it dammit!!"

Rod slipped his hands underneath Johnny's armpits, lifted him up as easily as he could and slowly turned him over on his back, at the same time trying to pull him away from the barrier that had broken his fall, pull him backwards to let his leg stretch out straight.

That was a mistake, as Johnny's agonized shriek of pain affirmed very fast.

"No, God no, it hurts!!"

"Well look," said Rod, still supporting him by his shoulders, "I've got to get you where I can look at that leg. If it's broken bad, I'll have to set it."

Johnny's eyes got wide with panic. "You don't know what you're doing. You'll kill me you fool."

"Keep it up and I'll leave your worthless ass right up here so the buzzards can pluck your carcass clean. So don't give me any shit."

He let Johnny settle back onto the ground. He noticed the color draining from his cheeks, his lips were slowly turning the color of chalk, and he was beginning to shiver.

"Fuck, you're going into shock."

"No, I'm all right. My leg's just hurting pretty bad," he said thickly.

Rod looked at him just a moment longer, feeling more and more helpless all the time.

Finally, he knew he had to act.

"Look, I've got to do something with that leg. I have to see how bad it is. Do you think you can get out of your pants."

"Are you crazy? Look how the damn thing's twisted. Oh shit, it's really starting to hurt real bad."

"All right, just keep your cool. I'm going down further to look for something to use as splints."

Johnny said nothing. It took about fifteen minutes to locate to branches that were sufficiently straight and of suitable length, and by the time Rod got back, Johnny was looking pretty groggy.

"Johnny my boy, I hate to say it, but this is going to hurt pretty bad."

Johnny gave a resigned wave of his hand.

"Come on, at least get out of this back pack. We can use it as a pillow."

He finally had him as comfortable as possible. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, counted to ten, realized that he really didn't know too much about how to set a leg, but he had seen it done. The trick was to get the pieces in some kind of alignment. The catch was, when the two broken ends touched, Johnny would go out of his skull. Too bad he couldn't have passed out.

Best get it over with quick. Rod grabbed Johnny's ankle and started to pull back, hard. Johnny screamed again predictably, but suddenly Rod felt something sort of go pop, and the leg straightened out, almost looking normal again. Johnny lay against the backpack, shivering, unable to talk or do anything except shake in pain.

Then Rod lashed the branches to the leg as tightly as he could, managing to fashion a fairly sturdy support. The leg wouldn't bend, at least not very much, unless it was really forced.

Now, the trick would be to get Johnny off the rock, and to someplace where he might rest, without forcing that leg to bend. It didn't seem too likely a prospect.

"I don't know what we're going to do man. You can't move. That's obvious. We're fucking stuck."

"What about that house we saw?" suggested Johnny. "There was someone there. We saw smoke, right?"

"Yeah… I guess it was about three miles off. I guess. I really can't tell distance from that high up."