Richard Matheson - Hunted Past Reason

No good! The bush pulled loose, raining dirt on his hat. It bounced off his head, making him gasp with pain. He pulled it off himself and tossed it away. So much for the aid of bushes, he thought in angry submission. He reached up carefully with his left hand and took off his hat, shaking off the dirt collected on its crown. At least, he hadn’t lost his balance.

Looking up, he saw a small growth of rock jutting out just above eye level. He took hold of it with a tight, clinging grip, then lifted his right leg to the next foothold and forced himself upward, groaning at the ache in his leg. Am I really going to make this? he wondered.

He elected not to think about an answer to the question.

Just above him, he saw the ledge he’d picked out when he’d mapped his climbing route before starting out. Thank God, he thought. A chance to rest. He reached up eagerly to pull himself onto the ledge.

Moving too fast, he started losing his balance. “ No!” he cried out, panicked, pressing himself against the rock face as tightly as he could, wavering between balance and loss of it. Gasping for breath, he clutched as hard as he could at a rocky outcrop on the ledge. Don’t fall, don’t fall, he told himself, jamming both feet in their holds as rigidly as he could. Don’t fall!

Balance returned at long last and slowly, carefully, using his legs more than his arms, he worked his way onto the ledge and eased himself over onto his back. He shifted the sleeping bag upward to form a pillow and groaned in relief, eyes shut, mouth open as he sucked in air. It seemed harder to breathe now. Was it because he was up higher or was it just his exhaustion? No answer to that, he realized.

After several minutes, he unzipped his jacket and felt around in his shirt pockets until he located the small bottle of Bactine. My God, they’re shaking, he thought in dismay, looking at his hands. He’d never make it to the top if he couldn’t control that.

He put down the bottle on the ledge and stretched out his arms, shaking them to restore circulation. Then he opened the bottle of Bactine and rubbed some on both palms, wincing at the sting. Putting away the bottle, he wondered what else he could do for his palms since rubbing salve on them would be stupidly impractical.

Tape , he thought, wondering where the notion came from. He reached around inside his jacket again until he’d located the roll of bandage tape. Removing it, he tried to find the end of it; it seemed impossible with his shaking hands. “Come on, come on,” he muttered. “Where the hell are you?”

It took him more than a minute to find the end of the tape. Pulling it loose, he began to turn the roll tightly around his right hand, grimacing as the tape was pressed across the palm. Okay, that’s enough, he thought, do the left hand now.

The tape ran out when he had only wrapped a few turns around his left hand. “Damn,” he said. Why didn’t he bring a new tape instead of taking the used one from the bathroom cabinet? “Shouldn’t you be buying yourself a new first-aid kit?” he remembered Marian saying. “Honey, I’m only going to be hiking for a few days, I’m not going to need major medical attention,” he’d replied.

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “Idiot.” He tossed the used tape roll off the ledge, heard it bounce once off a rock below then heard no more. Messing the environment, Dougie boy, he thought. So sorry.

He drew in a long, shuddering breath of air and stared up at the sky. It was brilliantly blue with puffy white clouds drifting slowly. Beautiful, the thought came, unbidden. Immediately, he reacted against it. What the hell does natural beauty matter when a crazy man is tracking me to kill me?

He sighed wearily. Should he try a ten-minute nap? the thought occurred. Sure, that’s a good idea, he told himself. Turn on your left side to get comfortable and plummet to your death.

Bracing himself, he forced his gaze downward. “Jesus,” he muttered. He must be more than a hundred feet up by now. Quickly, he averted his eyes, feeling his heartbeat jolt, his stomach roil again. Don’t-look-down-for-chrissake , he ordered himself. Yessir, he answered.

He considered, for a few moments, getting one of his water packets out, vetoing the idea almost immediately. He might need that water desperately later on. And he couldn’t assume that he was going to run across some water later—a lake, a river, a stream, a creek, a pond even. No, he’d wait, be sensible.

He caught his breath as he looked up at the sky again. A butterfly was fluttering a few yards above the ledge. It was multicolored, its wings looking as though they had been painted by some artist with a stunning taste in color and design. He saw green and brown and yellow, even tiny spots of red.

Well, hell, he thought. It’s beautiful, no other word for it. It was ironic that at this perilous moment in his life, this exquisite life form should be fluttering above him like this. It’s a sign, he imagined. Something is telling me that there’s still beauty in the world so I won’t give up, so I’ll keep trying.

His smile was sad but accepting. No sign, he thought. No message from the cosmos. Nonetheless, it did provide a brief, pleasurable moment for him. It was true.

In spite of everything, there was still beauty in the world.

Standing carefully, he ran his gaze across the rock face just above him, then placed his right foot in an opening in the rock just above his knee. The opening was deep and gratefully he pushed his entire foot inside it, wedging it there.

The handhold above was a wide vertical crack in the granite. Tentatively, he put his hand inside it, trying to locate a grip. But the opening was too wide. After several moments, he fisted his hand, his palm facing the left side of the crack. He did the same with his left hand, then started to lift his right foot.

It wouldn’t move, it was stuck.

“Oh, God,” he murmured. What now? He realized that he shouldn’t have put his entire foot into the opening. He wiggled his boot, trying to free it, realizing that his left leg was now forced outward, that he was losing balance. No, he thought. After all this? To fall now? It was too much.

“No, goddamn it, no,” he said, enraged and terrified at once. “I am not going to fall. I’m not!”

He moved his right boot more strenuously, trying to release it from its trap. His fisted hands began to ache. He ignored them. Get the goddamn foot out first, he told himself.

The right boot jerked out from its hold and suddenly he was hanging in space, held up only by the two fisted hands inside the vertical crack. The pain in them was agonizing, the pull on his arms excruciating. All right, this is it, he thought abruptly. Give it up. Forget it. Just let go. Fall. Die. There’ll be pain but then it will all be over. You’ll survive, move on. Time to test your beliefs, boy. Let go, maybe this won’t qualify as suicide.

But the entire time he thought it, to his astonishment, his legs were straining upward, right foot feeling for the hold it had been in before.

He found it and instantly the pain in his fisted hands and hanging arms was eased and he was standing against the wall again, still alive. Son of a bitch, he thought. Son of a bitch . I really don’t want to die. To die would be too easy actually. He had responsibilities.

He found himself chuckling at the notion, amused at himself, amused at life. One clung to it as hard as possible. Funny. Crazy. But funny.

He gritted his teeth. All right, he thought. Pain and all, he was going to keep on climbing. He was going to reach the top. He was going to protect his wife. He was going to kill Doug Crowley. Many responsibilities, he thought. Too many to let yourself die. Forge on. You’re a total mess but forge on.