Chapter 11: BAD JUDGMENT

Another fine day was in the offing. Except for that annoying little eponymous law that meddles with all human endeavor—anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

Jess woke up first, generously allowing his partner to sleep in while he attended to his morning constitutional, got the fire blazing, and put on the pots for coffee and shaving water. While waiting for the water to boil, he spotted the telescope tucked neatly in its sheath attached to Andy's saddle. Yesterday he'd mocked the boy for his repeated surveillance of that alien camp on the north shore. Loftily declaring himself above such petty voyeurism, Jess had refused offers to take his turn at the instrument. Not that he wasn't curious... he was. But it was the principle of the matter... he was trying to teach the boy that there were equally worthwhile pursuits in life besides ogling women. Like fishing. Still... it wouldn't hurt to have a look, would it? Just this once. Especially as Andy was sawing logs and would never know.

The results were uninteresting, aside from the fact that no menfolk had yet surfaced. Who were these females and what the heck were they doing out here? It had occurred to him earlier that perhaps these weren't girls at all but a passel of 'marys' with long hair. But no... here came several of them out of their tents, clad in nightdresses and exhibiting rather nice curves in the appropriate places. Definitely female. His questions remained unanswered.

Jess returned the telescope to its sheath just as Andy stumbled out from their bowered bedroom and made a beeline for the latrine.

"Gosh! You're up early!" Andy commented upon his return, reaching for the cup of coffee Jess extended to him. "Anything going on up at the ladies' camp?"

"How the heck should I know?" was the gruff reply.

"Just asking. No need to bite my head off. How's your arm this morning?"

"Fine. Just fine. Ain't worryin' me none."

"Hand?"

"Fine."

"Knee?"

"Fine!"

"Foot?"

Jess exploded. "Just shut up already! I was doin' good until you brung all that up!"

"Sorry. Just concerned about your well-being, Jess."

"My well-bein' ain't none a your bizness!"

"Maybe you should take it easy today. You're not as young as you used to be, you know."

Jess took a swipe at his companion, not entirely in jest, which Andy easily sidestepped as his companion lost his balance and hit the ground with a whoof.

"You tripped me!"

"Didn't. But at the rate you're going there won't be enough left to haul home in a flour sack. Better let me take over cooking breakfast before you kill yourself."

Jess glared up from the ground, breathing heavily. "If anyone's gonna get hurt, it's gonna be you, you little pissant!" Getting to his feet, he made another sortie towards Andy, who grinned and skipped out of reach. It suddenly came to him that the youngster was just funnin' him. He threw up his hands, grinning back. "Truce!

"Accepted!" They shook hands and turned to the more important business of getting on the outside of a restorative breakfast of bacon, beans and biscuits. Time to get on with some serious fishing.

Jess decided they should turn their attention to the outflow creek, flowing over a gravel bed for a hundred feet before spilling over a tier of rocks to a pool bordered by a creeping ground cover. The terrain declined at that point, with the relatively wide, shallow pool feeding a narrower stream that in turn cascaded over the next tier to a deeper pool. And so it continued, the alternating stream cutting a narrower, deeper channel to each pool in succession. The ground cover gave way to low-growing mountain huckleberries as Jess followed a game trail parallelling the stream from one pool to the next.

Andy trudged behind reluctantly, fully aware that every foot of elevation lost on this downward trek would have to be painfully reclaimed on the way back up. Personally, he couldn't tell any difference in any of the pools Jess investigated and rejected. Were there even any fish in them? Why would a self-respecting fish want to live in a restricted body of water when there was that nice, huge lake above?

Frankly, Andy was beginning to have serious misgivings about this expedition. His fishing experience thus far had been pretty much limited to placid summer-warmed lakes with foot-friendly grassy banks or stands of reeds, and flowing streams with moderate currents, shallow enough to wade across. He hadn't given any forethought to the possibility of freezing his ass off... whether under tent canvas or in a rocky cairn, washing in icy water, or toting a ton of equipment up and down slippery slopes in the wake of a determined flyfisherman. Definitely, this wasn't near the fun-filled adventure he'd been anticipating.

Eventually they arrived at a pool both deeper, judging from its emerald color, and wider than its predecessors. Small trees surrounded it, providing a sparse canopy for some other variety of short dense shrubbery and shady nooks for a wary fish to hide in. As Jess paused to reconnoiter, an immense silvery form leaped from the water and reentered with a determined splash... probably the only one in the pool, grown fat and sleek and humungous from uncontested noshing on all the bugs and smaller fishies swept downstream.

Jess immediately went on point... frozen and quivering like a bird dog that had just scented its quarry. This was it—Harper's nirvana. Slowly, stealthily, he played out his line, judging the best place to lay that fly. With a few preparatory whips back and forth before letting it soar majestically to dead center of the jewel-like pool, he simultaneously took one step forward...

A ruffed grouse exploded from her camouflaged nest underfoot with agitated flapping and squawks of outrage. Instinct and reaction kicked in two clicks before logic and knowledge... Jess reached for the gun that wasn't there, dropped and rolled... at same time realizing he'd just consigned his birthday present to the depths...

"Nooooooooooooo!"

He scrambled to his feet just in time to see the strong current sweep his brand new rod and reel over the rapids before it had time to sink, brass fittings notwithstanding. The only thought on his mind was rescuing it before it was carried too far downstream or broken up on the rocks. He started running down the game trail, heedless of obstacles...

Serving as gillie and loaded down with creel, net and extra tackle, Andy lumbered along as best he could although Jess soon disappeared from sight. The height of the path relative to the streambed itself was increasing at an alarming rate as the narrowing of the channel compressed the flow of water into a more forceful and noisy torrent. The thrashing and cursing attending Jess' downhill progress was growing fainter and Andy despaired of catching up with him. Was the man determined to gallop all the way back to Centennial?

Then Andy heard—or thought he heard—a muffled shout, more of a scream of anguish... then nothing. Just the splashing of water and wind in the trees high above. He stopped and listened and called out.

"Jess? JESS?! Where are you?"

Quickly dumping everything he was carrying, Andy double-timed down the path, calling out every few seconds...

"JESS! Where are you? JESS!"

A widening in the stream came into view... not a pool but a pocket of rocks and boulders over which the stream was tumbling to a deeper pool far below where Andy stood. And then he heard it... a low, distinctly human moan... and his heart caught in his throat. His best friend was in trouble.

Taking a deep breath, Andy closed his eyes and tried to summon up a condensed version of everything his Jess had taught him about tracking. One did not run hither and yon willy-nilly... one stopped in place and looked around, carefully. Searching for signs easily overlooked, hidden right out in the open. Listening for sounds, however faint, that were out of place. Even sniffing... the reek of tobacco, for instance, could linger a very long time.

So he stood very still—on point as Jess had been—and focused on his immediate surroundings... here a disturbance in the leaf litter... there a twig broken for no good reason... a hanging vine pulled down so that its leaves were pale, veiny side up instead of the glossy side...

His ears registered the moan again. Coming from below his vantage point. Down there. Near the pool but out of sight. He steeled himself to sidle up to the precipice and look over the edge. Sure enough, there sprawled his buddy—the injury magnet—sunny side up on a narrow ledge some fifteen feet below... with the runaway fishing tackle caught up in a ball of exposed roots on the other side of the channel and just out of arm's reach.

An errant shaft of sunlight reflecting off brass was what had caught Jess' eye just as he'd tripped over a wait-a-minute vine and fallen, belly-down, half over the edge of the drop-off. Despite the distance it had traveled, his precious rod and reel seemed miraculously intact and undamaged. As the line had uncoiled itself it had eventually caught on vegetation clinging to the sides of the rock wall, bringing the assemblage to a halt. Jess hadn't thought twice about going down there to get it... not by dropping down from his current location, but by backing up a few feet and sliding from boulder to boulder in the streambed itself. He'd worry about how to get back up once his objective was in his possession.

Almost at the bottom, he'd reached out with his right foot toward the flat ledge barely above the water line, thinking to steady and balance himself with a handful of thick roots depending from the game trail above. His intent was to swing the other foot over to the ledge from which, if he lay on his belly and stretched his arm out, he might be able to snag a loop of line and wiggle the rod free. But the ledge—as were all the other rocks in this mini-crevasse where only a finger of sunbeam penetrated—was slick with aquatic moss. As soon as he'd put his full weight on it, his right foot had slipped and he'd turned his ankle and fallen heavily.

He must have blanked out for a moment... at first he couldn't think where he was or how he'd got there... or even why he was there. Only that he was in excruciating pain. Had he made a noise when he'd gone down? He thought so but couldn't be sure... he thought he was screaming for help, not realizing that all he was managing was a whimper. All the breath had been slammed out of him as his right elbow and hip bore the brunt of his fall. He wanted to reach down and grab that tortured ankle and rub, rub, rub the pain from it... if only he could move. He was flat on his back on slimy rock, with icy water spraying in his face and a ringing in his ears. His hip and elbow were numb. His left leg was trailing off the ledge in the stream and his moccasin boot was full of water, too heavy to lift. He closed his eyes and yielded himself up to the inevitable...

Harper, you idot... you really done it this time! That ankle's gotta be broke... nothin' can hurt that bad and not be... probably arm, too, and maybe hip. Maybe other things. A horrible thought crept in... What if your dadgum back's broke... or your neck? But wait a minute... then you wouldn't be feelin' nothin'... His thoughts whirled around and around like a mouse in a grain barrel...

You're gonna get the lung fever from bein' soaked if you don't freeze to death first. There's no way Andy can get you out, you big lunkhead. Even if he does you're gonna die up here in the high country an' Andy'll have to bury your sorry ass. Did we bring a shovel? Can't remember... he'll just have to pile rocks on top a you.

Shame he wasted all that money on that fishin' pole... fishin' pole... hey... maybe you can still get aholt of it an' he can give it to Slim... Slim... how're you gonna explain this to Slim? 'Course... you won't hafta 'cause you'll be dead... who was it said you'd be dead afore you was thirty? Can't remember... who's that yellin'? Shut up... go away... let me die in peace... my head hurts... STOP YELLIN'... I ain't deaf, just dyin'...

Jess opened his eyes and his disjointed, rambling pity party was interrupted by a frightened white disembodied face looking down at him from an impossible height.

"Jess... what are you doin' down there?"

"What you doin' up there? Where's the rest a ya?"

"Huh? Are you... are you all right?"

"Does it look like I'm all right?" Jess snarled, then turned his head and upchucked every speck of breakfast.