In Self Defense

In Self Defense

Susan R. Sloan

The day was nothing short of perfect for a hike into the Olympic Mountains -- blue skies, lofty clouds, and temperatures hovering in the low seventies.  It was rare for the Pacific Northwest to be enjoying such weather in the middle of June, which was normally a rainy month around the region, but no one was complaining.

Clare Durant breathed in the fresh mountain air and smiled at the unspoiled beauty of the trail she and her family were very carefully descending -- so unspoiled, in fact, that she guessed not many had followed it recently.  The sun was shining, her latest tests had come back negative, and all was right with the world.

“Taking this trail turned out to be a good idea after all,” she said happily.

She was just about to add that the whole day had been a good idea when, suddenly, her feet lost contact with the ground.  One minute she was picking her way down the narrow path, with her children in front of her, her husband behind her, and not a care in the world, and the next minute she was tumbling head over heels off the side of the mountain, straight toward a ravine some twenty-five hundred feet below, gaining speed with every millisecond, trying to catch her breath, and screaming at the top of her lungs -- a scream of such terror that the birds flying lazy patterns overhead veered off sharply and disappeared.

There was no doubt in Clare’s mind that she was going to die, right then, right there, in the middle of nowhere, her body smashed beyond all recognition, maybe not even recoverable, and considering everything that she had been through over the past few months, the irony did not escape her.  She closed her eyes and began to pray that it would be quick and not too painful, and that Richard would have the good sense not to let the children watch.

And then, just as she was coming to terms with her imminent demise, a sharp jerk pulled her up short, halting her momentum.  She opened her eyes.  By some miracle, her windbreaker had caught on a jagged outcropping of rock and broken her fall.  She gasped in relief, but then realized that it was only a temporary reprieve, because the thin nylon was already beginning to tear under her weight.

There was no time to think, only to act.  Clare threw her right arm up over the rock, digging her fingers deep into the ragged foliage surrounding it, and hung there, battered and bleeding, and clinging to that rock with every ounce of her will because it was all that was keeping her from plummeting down the rest of the mountain to certain death.  And the only thought in her head was -- why?  Why now, when life was finally good again, and her tests showed that the awful toxin was no longer eating its way through her system?

***

A hike in the Olympics was not the kind of outing that Richard Durant would typically opt for on Father’s Day, or on any Sunday, for that matter -- a round of golf or a lazy afternoon out on Lake Washington with a friend in a boat being far more to his liking.  But to his wife’s surprise, he had suggested it.

“Why not?” he said, giving her one of his dazzling smiles.  “Father’s Day is just the excuse.  We have something far more important to celebrate, haven’t we?”

The children were delighted, of course, but their joy didn’t have much to do with test results.  They knew their mom had been sick for a while, but then the doctor made her well again, and that was all there was to that.  No, it was the idea of actually spending a whole day with their father that excited them.

So, on Sunday morning, they were up, almost before dawn, dressing in jeans and T-shirts, putting on sturdy shoes and windbreakers, and stowing their lunches in rugged backpacks.  They took an early ferry from Seattle across Puget Sound, marveling at the white-capped mountains that were behind them and the white-capped mountains that were in front of them.  They drove over the Hood Canal Bridge, which swung open to let boats pass through, curious as to why the water would be choppy on the one side while smooth on the other.  They sang songs and played word games to pass the time, and pulled into the Olympic National Park shortly after ten o’clock.

To anyone bothering to notice, the parents were an interesting contrast physically, Clare being somewhat shorter than average, with that rare combination of naturally blonde hair and brown eyes, while Richard was somewhat taller than average, with dark curly hair and piercing blue eyes.

The two children, on the other hand, twelve-year-old Julie and ten-year-old Peter, had both inherited the same attributes of each -- their mother’s hair and creamy complexion, and their father’s eyes and height.

“Are you twins?” was the question they usually heard when they were out among people who didn’t know them.

“No way,” they would both reply, wrinkling up their noses in mock distaste, because, for the most part, they liked each other.

The Durants hiked up to Hurricane Ridge, on a road that was paved for part of the way to make it easier for tourists, and reached their destination just in time for lunch.  They gasped appreciatively with the rest of the gathering crowd at the breathtaking vista of snowcapped Canadian Rockies poking out of British Columbia, and the crown jewel -- the city of Victoria, glimmering across the Strait of Juan de Fuca.  They munched on their ham and cheese sandwiches, their potato salad, their corn chips, their seedless red grapes, and their chocolate cupcakes, and drank their sodas at one of the picnic tables scattered around the area.  And they chatted with other families who had also chosen to spend Father’s Day in the mountains.

They looked, in fact, very much like any other happy family out enjoying a holiday.  Or rather, at that moment in time, life was pretty much exactly the way Clare always pictured it would be -- simple, straightforward, husband, children, going places and doing things together, meeting other people who went places and did things with their families.  She wondered if anyone could tell that this was the first time in a very long time that the Durants were actually doing something as a family.

It was funny, really, the ideas that people grew up with, about love and marriage and happily ever after, Clare thought.  She had, quite naturally, based her own expectations on the actions of her parents, who always found time to spend together, even when there wasn’t any.  An only child, she treasured those moments when her father would come home from work, often with little gifts for her and her mother, and always with a big smile on his face.

“Because you wait so patiently for me,” he would say in his heavy Greek accent.

They would eat dinner at the kitchen table, make quick work of the dishes when they were done, and then, if it were warm enough, the three of them would go out and sit on the porch, or if it were too chilly, they would sit in the living room, in front of a crackling fire, and talk about how their day had gone.  And of course, weekends were all about being together.

When she was little, her father was building his business.  When she was older, he was running the business.  By the time she was grown and ready to go out on her own, the business was running him.  But he always made time to tell a joke, discuss a problem, explain an issue, kiss a bruise, or hear her prayers.  It was what she had always thought her husband would give to their children.

But Richard wasn’t her father.  And although she knew that he loved his son and daughter dearly, he couldn’t seem to balance his business life and his family life with quite the same ease as his father-in-law had.  He was often preoccupied and restless and distant, with little time for either of them.  Which was what made today’s excursion so special.

And it appeared as though he was actually enjoying the picnic, although Clare knew he wasn’t exactly crazy about ham and cheese sandwiches.  He engaged his children in a dialogue about how the mountains were formed, and he even struck up a conversation with a couple of men who were also picnicking with their families.  Then, when lunch was over, he suggested they might like to try something a little different.

“Instead of the main path, why don’t we take one of the trails down?” he said, pulling out the map they had gotten at the main gate and pointing to an alternate path.  “One of the fellows I was talking to comes here a lot and he says there are a lot of black tail deer on this trail.”

“Deer?” Peter cried.  “Can we feed them?”

For some unknown reason, it was the boy’s favorite animal.  At home, he and his sister often put out food for the deer, although he had no way of knowing that his mother’s generosity was mostly to keep the animals from eating her roses.  Then he would do whatever he had to do to make himself stay awake in order to watch when they came, quietly, timidly, in the night.  But this would be altogether different.  Among other things, this would be in the daylight.

“I don't know if we’re allowed to feed them,” Richard told him.  “But we can at least say hello.”

“I’ve got some of my corn chips left,” Julie whispered to her brother.  “I was keeping them for the trip home, but we can just sort of drop them along the way, and maybe no one will notice.”

“We don’t know anything about this trail,” Clare said uncertainly, because she and the children were far from being experienced hikers.  “Are you sure it won’t be too difficult for us?”

Richard shrugged.  “As long as we’re careful, I don’t see why we shouldn’t at least try it,” he said.  “It may be a bit off the beaten path, but that should make it fun, and I don’t think the park people would put it on the map if it was considered dangerous.”

In his youth, Richard had successfully climbed Mount Rainier, Clare knew, and the Olympics couldn’t compare to that.  Besides, they were having such a wonderful day that she decided not to argue.

They said their goodbyes and left the other families behind them, venturing off down a narrow rocky path that had been cut right into the very edge of the mountain.

“Walk slowly, and whatever you do, don’t look down,” she told the children, after glancing over the edge herself into the treacherous ravine below.  “It’ll make you dizzy.”

Which of course was the wrong thing to say, because then they all had to look, holding onto each other, just in case.

No one had chosen to follow them, so they had the trail all to themselves.  The only sounds they heard were the rustle of the dense foliage they were clomping through as they cautiously made their way down, the scrape of their shoes against slippery rock, and the occasional squawk from a flock of birds circling high above them.

After perhaps fifteen minutes, Peter looked back at his father.  “Where are the deer?” he called.  “You said there were deer.”

“I don’t know,” his father said.  “The fellow told me they were plenty around here.”

“Maybe they’re shy with people, like they are at home,” Julie said, turning to her brother behind her.

It was then that it happened, just as Julie was turning, just as her mother was saying what a good idea this had been after all, that Clare abruptly tripped and fell over the side of the mountain, and now found herself clinging to a rock for dear life.

She could hear the children screaming. And when she twisted herself around just enough so that she could look up, she could see Richard peering cautiously over the edge, perhaps a hundred and fifty feet above her, his eyes wide, his face white.

“Oh my God, are you all right?” he yelled down to her.

“I don’t know,” she whimpered.

“Can you hold on?”

“For a little while, I think.”

“Just do it, for God’s sake -- just hold on,” he shouted.  “I’m going to get help!”

And then he was gone, taking the children with him, of course, and there was nothing -- no contact, no comfort, no sounds, only the cold, hard reality of being alone and wanting, more desperately than she could ever have believed, to survive.

***

Clare had no idea what time it was or whether she had been dangling from the jutting piece of rock for a minute or for an hour.  All she knew was that her arm was getting tired, so tired she didn’t think she could hold on much longer.  And she was cold, so cold she couldn’t feel her legs.  And, too, her mind was starting to get fuzzy.  She couldn’t remember whether she packed the first-aid kit.

It hurt to move, it hurt to breathe, and she began to shiver.  She knew she had to do something before her arm gave out, she thought she could already feel it beginning to slip, and she knew it was only a matter of time before her whole body would go numb, before she would lose consciousness, before she would fall.

With one great heave she raised her left arm up and threw it around the rock.  A shot of pain hit her with such force that she screamed, but she didn’t let go.  Instead, she held on even tighter, because the pain cleared the fuzziness from her mind and kept her alert.  After that, each time she felt herself beginning to slip away, she jerked her left shoulder so that the pain would bring her back.

“A, B, C, D . . .” she said defiantly to the mountain above, to the ravine below.  “E, F, G . . .”

Although she had no way of knowing, it was almost an hour and a half before she heard noises above her -- almost an hour and a half that she had been clinging to the rock, reciting the alphabet out loud, first forwards and then backwards, through chattering teeth, and then counting to a hundred and then to a thousand, doing whatever she could think of to do to force herself to stay awake.

She twisted her head to see Richard staring down at her again, but now there were several other men, wearing park ranger uniforms, standing beside him.