Smoke Signals
(7/5/15)
https://archiveofourown.org/works/16903428Her efforts were all in vain. It was stupid of her to believe she could remember those ridiculous long ago lessons in woodcraft and firemaking. Despair struck Darla hard in the chest for a moment. She might not freeze to death, if she were careful, but she needed fire for light and to scare off predators larger than the mosquitoes and black flies that had been biting and pinching her for what felt like hours and hours.
How did she get separated from the rest of the women on the rafting trip? She let her hand drift to the welt at the back of her head that the black flies had been tormenting. Quite a knot there. She recognized her own disorientation, dizziness, and difficulty with balance as likely symptoms of concussion. Thank god she still had her canteen and her âbatman utility beltâ as her lover teased her. She had a good small knife, water purification tablets, and a weekend-plus-oneâs dose of her medicines in a tiny orange waterproof matchholder, all firmly attached at her waist. If only Darla werenât so beholden to âbetter living through modern chemistry, sheâd still have MATCHES in the matchholder instead.
âYouâre going on a rafting trip with a professional guide and half a dozen other forty-something women,â she mumbled out loud to herself, âYOU wonât need matches, the guide will be prepared!â
She took a short drink from the canteen.
âNo, much better to use the waterproof container for your meds, it would make you miserable and risk your life if you got THOSE wet or worse, youâd inconvenience everyone else needing to get a helicopter lift out from the campground!â
She groaned and leaned away from the tree sheâd propped herself against to slump forward, elbows on her knees and hands supporting her head. Darla hissed as her uncautious fingers poked the large, sluggishly bleeding lump behind her right ear. It was very tender, as she already knew from allowing her giant head to thump back against the tree trunk earlier. She hoped it was just a bad bruise and a bit of a cut, actually cracking her skull seemed a bit much even for a clutz like herself.
Taking a deep breath she tenderly explored the extent of the damage with her fingertips, starting by barely grazing over the skin and progressing to gentle pressure. While the firmer pressure was very painful, it felt nothing like the pain from the broken arm sheâd had as a child, and that was reassuring.
It was, however hard to think clearly. That was disconcerting, but at least she had water. Her most pressing necessities would be staying warm enough overnight, fending off any ambitious wildlife larger than these damn (OW!) biting flies, and caring for her injury.
She injudiciously shook her head trying to clear it, and whined again as it woke up the pain behind her ear. That was enough reminder. She couldnât afford to fall asleep, she didnât remember much about concussions but sheâd certainly seen enough bad medical dramas to know that it was a bad idea to fall asleep for long without someone to check on her.
She was still feeling waterlogged a couple of hours after sheâd woken up and pulled herself out of the river, surely they would be looking for her sometime soon?
She checked the surge of panic that thought brought to her by slow, steady breathing (hooray for yoga!).
Okay, she thought, time to do a quick inventory.
Knife? Check.
Meds? Check.
Water? Check.
Decent shoes? Check. Her waterproof hiking sandals had stayed on her feet, despite whatever had happened to land her in the river. (she wishes she could remember)
Protective clothes? Check. Being allergic to the sun, it turns out, had some advantages. So did shopping at the expensive outdoor outfitter for quick-drying clothes that were SPF 50. Sadly sheâd apparently lost her hat, but her neck kerchief worked okay for now to keep the sun off part of her face.
Body? Check. She smiled wryly. Aside from a few scrapes and bruises and one viciously broken fingernail, her worst injury was the bash sheâd gotten on her head, and even that seemed to have quit bleeding finally. Her thick curly hair was catching a bit in the drying blood, but that was far from the worst of her worries.
Flotation device? Check, although perhaps it would be a good idea to hang the bright orange life vest from one of the trees near the river for rescuers to see? With the broken latch on the vest she might not want to trust herself to the river again. Though she knows that is one of her possible rescue options: to rescue herself. She smiled in a small way. It would be a great excuse for buying one of those cute âSelf-Rescuing Princessâ tee shirts she had seen on the geeky art website her friend had sent the link to.
Sense of Humor. Apparently intact. Cool.
She gave herself a grin and gave the whole forest a double thumbs up.
Okay, what else.
Thinking and planning capacity, only mildly damaged. Witness: the list above. Other possible options: try to remember how to build a fire, how to make a shelter and bedding of some kind, in case rescue doesnât happen before nightfall. Disturbing idea, okay.
Time to test the resources. She gathered her courage, braced her hands behind her, and shifted so her left knee was on the ground. GodDAMN her head hurt!
Just shifting that much was almost enough to knock her back on her keister again, between the dizziness and the pain. She breathed quick and shallow and kept her head up. Obviously hanging her head was not an option. Okay.
She shifted to hands and knees, fighting the swimming of her eyesight, the dizziness, and the pain in her head which seemed to rocket around inside her skull.
âOkay,â she said out loud, âCrawling it is, for now.â She slung her canteen crosswise over her shoulder, slowly, because her head was still throbbing minutes after even the gentle movement of shifting from sitting to go to all fours.
She looked around for deadwood that might serve for a walking stick. A straight pine forest wouldnât offer much in that regard, she remembered from her long ago camping experience, but this trip, she remembered the guide saying, was through mixed hardwood and coniferous forest. THAT is a pine tree with long needles, THAT is a California scrub oak, THAT is a ⌠bay laurel? Okay. Not much deadfall handy at the moment. More important is to experiment gently, see if standing is a up and coming attraction. She snickered at her own joke.
âWow, youâre a really friendly room tonight! Thank you so much, make sure to tip your waitstaff, they work harder than any of the rest of us!â
One hand against the sticky bark of the pine tree sheâd been sitting against, she kept her head level (Look, people, she CAN be taught!), shoulders back, spine straight, belly muscles strong. Carefully, with deliberately slow movements, she brought herself to standing, and if she was a little wobbly and even frightened, there was no one but the mosquitoes to judge her for it.
She gingerly shifted her weight back and forth between her feet, continuing her ongoing tally of resources. Feet, ankles, legs, check. Hips, ass, torso, somewhat bruised and still damp, check. Arms and shoulders, hands, pretty good shape, though that torn off fingernail was annoyingly painful and she wished she had a huge bandaid and neosporin. Neck, okayâŚ
Starting to roll her neck was probably the second worst mistake sheâd made all day, as the famous nausea that hits people with concussions finally made its appearance. She lost her breakfast and the water sheâd just drunk, in violent, painful spasms behind the tree sheâd been sitting against. When she finished being sick, she found herself sitting on her ass again, the last of the vomit still in her mouth. She spit it as far away as she could. Oh, her head. NOW her head felt like someone had been swinging a bowling ball around in there, bashing into all the walls.
Darla told herself with asperity to never mind how someone could swing a bowling ball around in there, itâs just a descriptive metaphor and she could just shut the hell up if she was going to be hypercritical just after she had thrown up.
Fumbling for the canteen, she took a cautious sip, swishing the water around a bit to clear the taste of bile from her mouth.
Nothing else was quite as important as calming the calamity raging behind her eyes. She scooched backwards gently to lean back again against her friendly friend the pine tree. Darla, honey, if you canât come up with a better phrase than âfriendly friendâ, itâs definitely time to stop thinking for a bit and rest your poor damaged skull.
She made sure to not actually allow herself to fall asleep, but she did allow her mind to drift and wander gently, without thinking and planning, for a short while. Who knew that stabbing nauseating concussiony head pain is better if you donât move suddenly? Huh, she snorted. Shocker.
When she pulled herself out of her lassitude and drifting, she spent a few moments massaging and stretching her hands and feet. One must take good care of what one has, she considered. These are valuable resources right now, these healthy body parts. She moved on to do what she could of her usual daily warm up before digging in at the gym. Thankfully she remembered not to roll her neck or tip her head before starting herself on another adventure in vomiting, but the extremely slow and gentle shoulder rolls and stretches that she could do while seated did seem to help with the tightness of neck, chest, and hips that sheâd had since climbing out of the river.
So, she thought, if sudden movement of the head made her nauseous and/or throw up, she was going to have to be very slow and deliberate with her movements for the next while. Task one: top up the water supply.
Darla fished out the water purification tablet, dropping it in her canteen and closing the top. Keeping her head as still and upright as she could, only wincing occasionally when her head shifted painfully, she crawled back to the riverbank with the orange life vest. Filling the canteen at the riverside and hanging the vest up in view of the river were slow and ponderous tasks, carefully and deliberately undertaken. Since Darla couldnât trust her head enough yet to keep herself afloat in the changing rapids, she figured giving up the padding that the vest provide for her tuchis was worth the chance of being noticed and hopefully rescued by a boater.
She rested her head again while perched on the bank, swirling the water in her canteen, and drinking enough to let her take her meds. After a bit, she started gathering up a bit of deadwood on all fours, carefully, tossing it ahead of her in the direction of her chosen resting spot further up the slope. Clearing a campfire circle, and working at building a fire, took up close to an hour, and she found herself halfway sincerely thinking, âthank god itâs summer, and this isnât a Jack London story.â
Fire was achieved, slowly and painfully, at the cost of splinters and sore muscles. She revisited old bittersweet nostalgic memories of her Scout leader, Robin, whoâd passed away at 60 from multiple sclerosis, and whoâd taught her to sing and camp and recognize edible plants as a teenager. She kept the fire fed as the sun slowly slid down the afternoon of its slope toward the tops of the mountains. She meditated on old friends sheâd lost touch with, as she maintained her smoky smoky fire, feeding it pine needles and leaves gathered from the neighborhood as she cleared the fire circle. Sheâd found one sturdy stick long enough if needed one for a cane or for whacking.
She was hugely relieved to realize, eventually, that it was a Good Enough Fire. Shortly before dusk filled the river valley, Darla started to hear the outboard motor of a boat that had come to investigate the fire, and then heard the rescue team, calling from the river with a megaphone.
She hadnât been that glad to see another personâs face in maybe YEARS. (But then, she admitted to being a slightly crotchety introvert, given her druthers.) The big smiles and hearty âHello!âs they exchanged as two strong State Park Rangers hopped out of the boat and started towards her were joyful and relieved. Darla made some very horrible jokes including âweâve GOT to stop meeting like thisâ while the one checked her for injuries and pupil dilation and the other extinguished her smoky fire.
Then she put herself in their competent hands as they helped her walk gingerly down the slope back to the water, the boat, and the way home. She had only been lost for six hours or so, maybe seven.
Her head hurt, bandaged as it was, and she was in the ambulance to the hospital for a final check up and probably an overnight stay due to the concussion.
But the pleased expression on her face stayed constant, because she did it. She rescued herself.
Damn STRAIGHT she was going to buy that geeky t-shirt and wear it with ridiculous pride. Sheâd earned that title.
NOTE: this tee shirt:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/b3e7/![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
