Page 81 of Love Spell

That ankle might or might not be broken, but he certainly couldn’t walk on it.Even if he could walk, he had nowhere to walk to.Not when his eyes were swollen shut, one bashed back into its socket with the broken bone.He was gagging and suffocating, every movement a new scream that he couldn’t scream, a new death that he couldn’t die, while he longed to die, prayed to die, begged for the cold to numb him so he didn’t have to feel this kind of pain that he’d not known could be real.He thought people blacked out on pain like this.

What if they found Caleb?

No, they were too drunk and happy by the time they stumbled away.

They’d go for him tomorrow, though.Noah had to find him, to tell him.

Caleb had to go home to Austin.He had to go now.

How would Noah tell him that if Noah died in the snow in the night and no one found him for days because it was snowing and it would cover him by morning and the ravens and foxes would scavenge him before he’d finally be spotted days later?

He might have wept or screamed or vomited, but he couldn’t move or breathe through the pain and he only lay there, colder and colder, until the numbness did start to take him and he began to feel that hint of winter’s relief.He’d always thought freezing to death would be a good way to go.

It was when he stopped shivering that he knew he’d gone too far.Stop shivering and you needed emergency help.Stop shivering and you’d moved from cold to critical.

But he had to get back because of Caleb.If he didn’t get back, Caleb would be next.

Which way had they brought him?It didn’t matter since he no longer had a sense of direction and was totally blind.

Follow the trail.But they’d all run off.He could follow the wrong trail.

No, they’d been dragging him for half the time.There’d be a massive drag trail in the snow like a dog sled.It was snowing, but if he moved now he would still easily be able to feel the trail his own body had made until it returned to the shack’s trenched path.

His legs, arms, and face were completely numb.He couldn’t feel his broken hand anymore, although his cheekbone or eye socket or whatever was broken in his face kept throbbing from the inside like a furnace.

He had on two thick wool socks and glove liners.His snow pants were still on over fleece ones and long underwear, plus a base layer and second wool layer.Not enough to survive in this, but it was enough to keep from freezing and get to his shack if he went about it the right way.

He had to feel around with his arms and elbows, blundering for enough sensation to tell if he was at a drag-path while sharp gasps of pain, tiny screams, escaped his lips from pain of his flexing ribs.

Incredibly, he found the trail, then reached his parka.He couldn’t get it around himself, but got it under him, his hands in the sleeves, his good hand supporting him as he crawled along, broken hand reaching ahead in its sleeve to feel where there was no snow resistance.That parka saved him from losing his fingers that night.

Noah never knew how long it took him to crawl home, crawl until he started calling out for his father, calling for help, crawl more, call out, gasping and shuddering against the pain, certain all the time that he’d gone in the wrong direction, that he’d imagined the trail.

Then he heard the banging of the door and his father’s voice and he tried to wave, still blind, and heard the running boots crunch new snow.He would be able to warn Caleb.

“Noah?Noah!What happened?”Warm hands, worry and panic, but strong, solid help from a man who often seemed to forget he had a son.Not right then.Right then he was all care and comfort, all worry and love.

Noah said, “Moose.”

“Oh Christ — out at night?You should have had the Winchester with you.Christ — come on.I’ve got you, Noah.I’ll get the doctor here.”

The next day, Caleb came to find him since Noah didn’t show up for his pancakes.

Noah had told the doctor and told the police and told the neighbour bringing chicken soup that it had been a moose, all tracks having been wiped out to smudges and trails that could have been anything by overnight’s snowfall.Only with Caleb did he cry while saying it had been a moose.Caleb bent over him, sitting on the edge of Noah’s bed, clutching Noah’s good hand to his face, also crying.

“You have to go home to Austin.Go home and finish high school and get into a good college that you actually care about.”

“You can’t stay here either.Come with me.”

“To live off your mom?I’m going to Fairbanks.I’ll stay with my mom and Sarah until I’m ready for school in Seattle or New York or somewhere.Maybe I’ll take a gap year or two.It doesn’t matter.You will leave?”

“Not when you’re like this.You’ll take months to recover.”

“I can’t recover if I have you to worry about,” Noah gasped against the pain, clutching Caleb’s hand, able to see only through a slit in his relatively good eye.“The doctor wants me in the hospital in Fairbanks anyway.They’re flying me out.I’ll be fine if I know you’re leaving.I promise.But I’m not going anywhere until I know you’re on a plane for the lower forty-eight.You promise me that.”

Caleb didn’t ask.He didn’t make Noah insist that it was a moose, didn’t make him keep lying or challenge him.He only gripped Noah’s hand and said, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry,” over and over until Noah extracted a promise from him that he would call his mom today and leave on the first available bush flight out.

They both flew to Fairbanks, Noah for days of hospitalisation before going home to the care of his mom and Sarah, who loved having him there, and Caleb to catch a flight to Anchorage, then Dallas.

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