Gary Paulsen - The River

“What—”

He knew that he opened his mouth, that he made sound, but he could hear nothing except the whack-crack of the thunder, see nothing but images frozen in the split-instants of brilliance from the lightning.

Like a camera taking pictures by a strobe light, things would seem frozen in time, caught and frozen, and then there would be another flash and things would be different.

Derek was moving.

In one flash he was still on his bed, but raised his jacket falling away from where he’d had it as a blanket, as he rose.

Darkness.

Then the next flash of light and he was on his knees.

Darkness.

Then he was leaning forward and his hand was out, reaching for his briefcase and radio next to the bed, one finger out, his face concentrating; and Brian thought, no, don’t reach, stay low; and he might have yelled it, screamed it, but it didn’t matter. No sound could be loud enough to get over the thunder.

There was a slashing, new, impossibly loud crack as lightning seemed to hit the shelter itself and Brian saw the top of the pine next to the opening suddenly explode and felt/saw the bolt come roaring down the tree, burning and splitting and splintering the wood and bark, and he saw it hit Derek.

Camera image.

Some thing , some blueness of heat and light and raw power seemed to jump from the tree to the briefcase and radio and enter Derek’s hand. All in the same part of a second it hit him and his back arched, snapped him erect, and then it seemed to fill the whole shelter and slammed into Brian as well.

He saw the blueness, almost a ball of energy, the crack/flash of color that came from inside his mind, inside his life, and then he was back and down and saw nothing more.

Before his eyes opened there was light through the eyelids, bright light, but they didn’t want to open and focus. He tasted things, smelled things. Something was burned, there was the stink of something burned. Hair. Burned hair.

It smelled awful.

He opened his eyes wide, blinked, forced them to work and saw that he was on his back, looking at the stone-layered ceiling of the overhang.

It was daylight, broad daylight, and he wondered why it was that he would be lying on his back on the dirt, looking at the ceiling in the middle of the day.

Then he remembered.

Parts of it: the sound, the light, the thunder, and the slamming and cracking of it; and he was afraid. He did not know what he was afraid of at first, he was just afraid, and then, finally, he remembered Derek.

It had hit him.

He had seen it hit Derek.

He rolled on his side. His body felt stiff, mashed into the ground, and the sudden movement made his vision blur.

There.

He saw Derek — or the form of Derek. He was facedown on his bed, his right hand out, his left arm back and down his side. Blurred, he was all blurred and asleep — how could he be all blurred? Brian shook his head, tried to focus.

Derek was still asleep. How strange, Brian thought — how strange that Derek should still be asleep in the bright daylight, and he knew then that Derek was not sleeping, but did not want to think of the other thing.

Let’s reason it out , he thought, his mind as blurred as his vision. Reason it all out. Derek was reaching for the radio and briefcase and the lightning hit the tree next to the shelter and came down the tree and across the air and into Derek and he fell….

No.

He was still asleep.

He wasn’t that other thing. Not that other word.

But Brian’s eyes began to clear then and saw that Derek was lying with his head to the side and that it was facing Brian and the eyes weren’t closed.

They were open.

He was on his side not moving and his eyes were open and Brian thought how strange it was that he would sleep that way — mashed on his stomach.

He knew Derek wasn’t sleeping.

He knew.

“No….”

He couldn’t be. Couldn’t be… dead. Not Derek.

Finally, he accepted it.

Brian rose to his hands and knees, stiff and with great slowness, and crawled across the floor of the shelter to where Derek lay.

The large man lay on his stomach as he’d dropped, his head turned to the left. The eyes were not fully open, but partially lidded, and the pupils stared blankly, unfocused toward the back of the shelter.

Brian touched his cheek. He remembered how when the pilot had his heart attack he had felt cool — the dead skin had felt cool.

Derek’s skin did not have the coolness, it felt warm; and Brian kneeled next to him and saw that he was breathing.

Tiny little breaths, his chest barely rising and falling, but he was breathing, the air going in and out, and he was not the other word — not dead — and Brian leaned over him.

“Derek?”

There was no answer, no indication that Derek had heard him.

“Derek. Can you hear anything I’m saying?”

Still no sign, no movement.

So, Brian thought — so he’s what? He’s knocked out. He got hit and he’s knocked out and if I wait and make him comfortable he’ll come out of it.

That was it. Just knocked out.

Derek’s head looked twisted at an uncomfortable angle and Brian moved Derek’s body onto its side and set his head — the neck felt rubbery and loose — on his rolled-up jacket for a pillow. As he did he saw the briefcase and radio.

The radio.

There it was, right there on the briefcase; and if there was ever a need for it, it was now.

He picked it up, turned the switch on.

“Katie One, this is Katie Two, over.”

His mother’s name. It was a small thing, a way to include his mother. They used her name as the call sign and Derek had shown Brian how to use the radio, the correct procedure in case of an emergency.

Like now.

“Katie One, this is Katie Two, over.”

Nothing. He turned the squelch control down and listened for the hiss of static, but there was nothing. Not even noise.

Again.

“Katie One, this is Katie Two, over.”

Dead air. He saw, then, that next to where the antenna came out of the case, there was a small discolored spot on the plastic. It was a burn mark. The radio was made to be used outdoors, tough, with a weatherproof case around it, and when he opened the outside case he saw that the lightning had hit the radio as well as Derek and him.

There was a jagged line burned in the plastic on the back and even without opening the case and seeing the inside he knew the radio was blown.

What to do? Think. He couldn’t think right.

He put the radio down and turned back to Derek. There was no change at all — no movement except for the short rise and fall of his chest with his breathing. The eyes were still partially opened, as they had been.

Think.

What did he know that could help?

Lightning had hit the tree next to the overhang, come down the side — he saw where the pine bark was burned and literally blown from the tree — and then must have come out on a root or jumped away from the tree somehow.

No, that wasn’t right. He’d read somewhere that lightning struck up , not down — moved from the ground up.

Somehow it had come from the ground, through Derek and the radio and him to the tree, and then up, except that it seemed to come down and Derek shouldn’t have reached out, shouldn’t have risen….

He shook his head. Stupid. None of that mattered.

Electrical shock. What did you do when there was electrical shock?

C.P.R.

To get them breathing again, you had to give them C.P.R. — except that Derek was breathing already.

Heart. He should check the heart.

He put his fingers on Derek’s wrist, but couldn’t find the pulse — but when he checked his own he couldn’t find that either. He put his ear to Derek’s chest and heard the heart thumping. He tried to time it, but couldn’t transpose the number of beats per minute measured on his digital watch into a pulse rate because he couldn’t think.