Chapter 47 Evan Turns the Page
As bad as that had hurt to let go of Grace, letting go of Alexandra had hurt even more. He'd done his best to shake it off. It had only been a week. He had work to do, and he was being silly. He started to try to find the bright side in it all. It was what he did. There was a lesson in it for him. Maybe he gave his heart away too easily. Maybe he was just a fool for a pretty face. Maybe the loneliness of these mountains had simply overridden his good sense. They weren’t new thoughts. He’d struggled with them before. The problem that he faced was that he had not yet come up with any answers; just more questions.
He sat at the top of the ridge and watched another stream of cattle as they worked along the trail down off the ridge into Elk Creek below. The view of a stream of cattle picking their way down through the patch of quakies to emerge on the other side in the fresh green grass was the best salve for a wounded heart. They were moving into a new valley with fresh grass and a new start. Brush Creek had been comfortable for them, but to keep from over-grazing and damaging the growth of the feed in Brush Creek, they would spend a month or so in Elk Creek, and later they'd be moved to Clear Creek. Evan suddenly saw the lesson of his relationships. He had moved on to something better when Grace left. It hadn’t felt like it at first, but a whole other world had opened up to him, and he had found a new happiness that had made him a better man. Would the same be true years down the road when he'd moved on from Alex?
“Let’s head for home,” he said, looking down at Sam and Lucy, who looked up at him with their tongues hanging out of the sides of their mouths. He turned his horse and headed down the ridge trail, which was a shortcut back to the homestead. The trail was a little rough in places, and he hesitated a moment before he turned onto it, where the trail leading back down into Brush Creek forked to the left, and the Ridge Trail started off to the right. The four-year-old hadn’t been over that trail before, and he considered for a moment whether she was ready for it or not. “You gotta learn sometime, sweetheart,” he said. It would have been better to take her over that trail when she had been worn out from a long day of riding and didn’t have so much energy to waste in silliness, like young horses tended to exhibit from time to time, but he had grown to trust her and he figured that she could handle the few rough spots that were along the way.
The sun was sinking ever closer to the horizon as Evan followed the ridge trail, which followed along the top of the ridge or just off to one side of the top. When it followed just below the ridge line on the east side, the darkness from the shadow that was cast across the trail made Evan strain to see the hazards that were scattered about: sharp rocks, fallen trees, and places where the footing was uncertain. When they would break back over the top, the brightness of the sun flashed in his eyes and left him blind for a moment. He was forced to trust the filly with her footing, but he wondered if she had the same issue because she hesitated as the flash of sun hit them. She began to get more and more nervous as they continued along the trail. Evan realized too late that he had made the wrong choice. He shouldn’t have put so much trust in the young mare.
On one of the occasions, as they were topping the ridge, the mare’s feet hit a slide of shale at the same moment that the blindness hit them both. She felt herself slipping in the shale and began to panic. In his blindness, Evan attempted to pull her to safety, but instead made things worse. Her front feet went out from under her, and she slid into the shale on her chest. Evan kicked his feet free and slipped out of the saddle. The mare was fighting for her footing at the same moment that Evan stepped out of the saddle, and one of her flailing hind hooves grazed his chest. It was enough, however, to send him tumbling backward into the shale. He felt himself sliding and then tumbling. He turned over a dozen times or more, and then he felt a jarring pain, a flash of bright light, and then everything went dark.
He had no idea how long he had been knocked out, but it was dark when he awakened to a wet tongue on his face. His head was throbbing, and he felt sharp pains in his left leg and right arm. He knew the face, muzzle, and tongue that was looming over him, though it was blurred and unrecognizable in the dark. It was Sam. He reached up to pet his head and felt Lucy crawl up onto his chest and push her muzzle up under his chin. He needed to get up. He tried to get up and was able only to lift his head before the dizziness overtook him and he passed out again.
His two faithful companions snuggled up against his body as he lay, unmoving, on the cold ground. He awakened several times during the night and fought to raise himself from the ground, but each time he tried, the pain would overtake him and he would pass out again. When he felt the sun creeping over him and felt its warmth, he began to feel his mind clearing a little bit, and he was finally able to sit up. He discovered that the pain in his arm was a break in his forearm, and the pain in his leg was because it was pushed off at a strange angle. “Here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me into, Ollie,” he mumbled aloud.
He was going to have to figure out how to get himself out of here. He had shrugged into his heavy jacket as the sun was beginning to set last night, and the coolness was taking over. He was lucky he had it, because with it rolled up, he was able to make a splint for his ankle using his belt to hold it in place, though it wasn’t exactly perfect. The pain of splinting his leg was excruciating, and it took him several attempts to get the task accomplished with his one good hand and the slight use of his injured hand. Every time he moved the hand on his broken arm, a flame shot up through his arm. He gritted his teeth and fought through the pain. He would never get out of here if he didn’t fight. They might never find him.
They had probably started looking for him already. When he didn’t show up at the ford in Brush Creek, they would wonder where he was, and some of them would start looking for him. He would have to climb out of this hole and give them a better chance of finding him. He looked back up the shale slope and had something of an idea of where he was.