No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.
Heraclitus
I secretly understood: the primative appeal of the hearth.
John Updike
Waylon J. Smithers Jr paced the length and breadth of the stately executive office at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. The office might've been imposing, but it paled in comparison to Waylon's formidable mood.
It wasn't uncommon for Charles Montgomery Burns to disappear for a day or two at a time. The man was capricious, known for following his whims. Waylon had come to accept that as part and parcel of their arrangement. But Ryan? That was a different matter.
Yesterday, Waylon had been on the phone, leaving multiple calls to both Ryan and Burns respectively.
Monty, I know you're probably fine, but please call me when you get the chance. I'm worried about you, and I want to know you're okay.
His messages to Ryan took on a rather different tone.
Ryan Hall Smithers, you need to call me at once young man! If I find out you've been gallivanting around with Monty and casually ignoring me, you are grounded when you get home. Do you hear me? Grounded!
On sheer desperation, he'd even skyped his friends in New York. Monty and my son haven't come to visit you, by any chance have they?
The blue-haired man and his lean housemate shook their head. Honestly, I didn't even know he was out east, the former replied. Tell you what though, if he shows up, I'll make sure he calls ya. We both will, right Prep?
Absolutely, the second man agreed.
Disheartened, Waylon thanked them both, and disconnected.
He'd gone to bed that night angrily clenching his jaw, unable to relax. By morning, his last thread of patience was all but gone. He drove to work, handling his car hard, aggressively. He slammed into his parking spot and stormed up to the office, the tempest of his mood brewing on the horizon.
By mid-day he was ready to throw at least three employees to the wolves, and threaten a dozen more. Word spread quickly. Avoid Smithers at all costs. He'll release hounds if you're lucky, wolverines if you're not.
Waylon heard the rumors, and didn't care. As long as it kept people out of his way, that was fine by him.
What he couldn't express to anyone was the truth of the matter: he was worried sick about both his men. Ryan rarely went more than twelve hours without checking in either by text or social media. He'd always returned Waylon's calls within a day if not sooner, even during finals season. Waylon had a sinking feeling in his guts that something terrible had happened.
He pulled up the projected flight plan Burns had registered, and printed it out, overlaying it with the rolled maps Burns kept by the globe.
If what Burns had listed was correct, his path would be a slow-and-low course up over the great boreal forests of Canada. The plane he was taking was not rated for high altitude, and would have to avoid urban areas. Too much commercial just congestion, no fly-zones, minimum altitude restrictions. Waylon grabbed a protractor from the desk and started marking off circles where he knew they couldn't have gone.
Within half an hour, Waylon had narrowed it down to a rough area of where they could've conceivably flown. He stared at the marked map, then put his head in his hands. It was still a wide swatch of unknown, hundreds square miles across Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Waylon took a deep breath, fought back the urge to light a cigarette. He'd never hear the end of it if Monty came back to the office smelling of cheap tobacco smoke.
After a moment he raised his head and folded his hands under his chin.
The next step was simple, albeit one he hated to make. It could turn into an international incident if the press heard of it. He'd have to be sure to keep everything hushed, play it as if Burns and his son were merely on sabbatical if anyone outside of the need-to-know circle asked.
Waylon Smithers was loathed to call the Canadian Armed Forces. He knew though, without the aid of the Royal Canadian Air Force, there was no way he'd be able to find Monty and Ryan on his own.
If his estimations were correct, they'd be under the jurisdiction of the Trenton Search and Rescue Region.
He picked up the phone, dialed the international number, and waited while connections were made.
One thing Ryan Smithers had not planned on was how to get Burns out of the airplane. He stood on the pontoon, huffing with exertion under the morning sun, sweat cooling on his skin. Ryan had given up worrying about a neck on the old man. During one of his attempts to carefully move Burns, he'd struck the side of Burns' knee against the doorframe. Involuntarily, Burns' leg had twitched.
If he was paralyzed, that wouldn't happen, Ryan assumed.
At least it meant he didn't have to worry as much. Now, it was only a matter of not dropping the unconscious man into the water.
"Why… couldn't we have landed… further on the beach," Ryan grunted, trying to pull Burns over the raised frame as gently as possible. It was hardly an agreeable position. The hatch was several feet above the pontoon, a modest challenge for Ryan at the best of times. He had to stand on the pontoon and haul himself in or out. It wasn't awful, he was in good shape and reasonably athletic, but Burns changed everything. Throw in over one hundred pounds of saggy dead-weight, and the task became next to impossible.
After several failed attempts, and more than enough profanities, Ryan was finally able to pull Burns across his back in a rough fireman's carry. Balancing precariously on the pontoon he stepped carefully down into the sand.
"I swear, if you make me roll an ankle, we're both stuck, old man. I'm not sure I could get you back in that plane now even if I wanted to."
Burns, as expected, said nothing. Not even when Ryan dumped him unceremoniously on the stretcher in the sand. Ryan knelt down, tying the straps around Burns, under his arms, around his legs, making sling loops similar to a climber's harness to distribute the man's weight, and keep him from sliding down.
Getting Burns out of the plane had been last on Ryan's to-do list.
That morning, slightly after sunrise he sorted out their provisions, leaving all the non-essential gear and things too bulky to carry in the plane. It left him with the bare minimum that he could fit in his pack. He hoped it would be enough.
His final act was to open one of the ration tins, to see if there was anything remotely edible after more than fifty years.
The canned food, whatever it had once been, had congealed into something that looked and smelled like old house-paint. Ryan tossed it out the hatch of the plane in disgust. A second packet was crushed coffee-beans, surprisingly aromatic. The smell made his mouth water. He didn't have a coffee pot or percolator, so those unfortunately were tossed as well. The chocolate was mummified. The only thing that managed to survive was some hard tack bread. Though stale, the crackers didn't taste strange, and they softened in his mouth as he chewed.
It was hardly enough to satisfy him. He ate slowly, trying to trick his stomach into thinking there was a full meal. Afterwards, he drank from the lake, trying to fill the remaining spaces in his belly. He made one last circuit through the plane and beach, checking for anything he might've forgotten.
I should leave a note, he thought, looking at the empty cockpit. He pulled the old trip log out and set it on the seat, flipped it to a blank page, and pulled a pen out of his bag. Quickly he jotted the date, and their names.
Ryan Smithers – C. Montgomery Burns. Monty is injured and unconscious. Plan to follow the outlet to civilization and seek medical care. Wish us luck. RHS.
He wasn't sure what else to say. There wasn't much. He set the broken compass on the page, climbed out of the plane, and shut the hatch behind him. At least it would keep animals out. Sooner or later, he reasoned, someone would see the plane on a satellite if nothing else. Though when that might be, he had no idea.
There was no reason to wait further. He lashed the legs of the stretcher to his waist-band with the rope he'd made, and started off.
...
It must've been a dry spring, and for that Ryan was most grateful. He could see the waterlines on the rocks, indicating times when the little stream must've been a raging creek. The sledge behind him slowed him down, but not as much as he was expecting. He whacked his way through the underbrush, always keeping the outlet on his right, never straying too far from it.
Once again, the pangs of hunger gnawed at his stomach. It was strange, he thought as he smacked another branch out of the way; it was as if he were getting used to them. Ghandi went without food for three weeks, he reminded himself, head down. I plan to be out of here long before then.
"Right, Burnsie?" he asked aloud. "We'll be in champagne wishes and caviar dreams long before three weeks is up!"
There was something about chatting to the unconscious man that made Ryan feel less alone. He wondered who he was truly talking to: Burns or himself. Regardless, it helped, and it kept his spirits up.
He hadn't gone more than a mile or two before he heard the sounds of rushing water to his left.
Ryan paused, closing his eyes as he had the first night, and listened.
There was a second stream, maybe even a small creek that was angling towards them from the hills to the north. It sounded larger than the mellow tan water he currently followed. To his right, the outlet burbled softly. This water to his left was in a hurry, chasing itself in a rush to get into the lower lands. Somewhere, less than a quarter mile ahead, they merged.
Seeing by sound, Ryan could hear the wider combined stream continue on south and east, tumbling against the rocks. It sounded as if it continued to pick up speed as it ran off towards the edge of his audible horizon.
Ryan opened his eyes, and the world snapped back to its original, narrow scope. His line of sight was limited by the shrubs and undergrowth. Thirty feet, maybe? Beyond that, it was too dense to see. Strange that, how different listening to the world was, and how small everything seemed to his hazel eyes.
"We should cross here," he noted, looking at the rocks that intercepted the stream like stepping stones.
Had he not been carrying Burns and full pack, Ryan could've easily bounded across in one, maybe two long strides. Loaded down by his supplies and Burns' stretcher, he'd have to look for a narrow spot. He hadn't seen any upstream. Truthfully, the further they followed the outflow, the narrower and deeper it became, the banks rising higher on each side.
They were heading downhill and an increasing slope. The lake they'd crashed on to must've been on some sort of plateau between the hills around them. Ryan untied the straps that held the stretcher, and set his bag down. It made no sense to burn extra energy dragging Burns and his pack back and forth while he scouted for a suitable crossing. He wasn't sure how far he'd have to go, or if he'd be forced to result to backtracking.
And really, what's going to happen to them anyhow? he reasoned, as he looked at the pale man, wrapped in blankets and strapping save for his head. With a sigh of resolution, Ryan pushed himself up, wiped his palms on his increasingly dusty jeans. The sun was still not even halfway across the sky. He had plenty of time.
Ryan hiked downstream.
The banks of the brook continued to narrow, forcing the water into a deeper channel. By the time he reached the point where the waters merged, he was standing on a jutting granite slab that was easily twenty feet above the rushing waters below. There'd be no crossing there, nor had he seen anything that looked better on his way to the merge.
Disheartened, and more than a little annoyed, he trekked back.
He passed Burns and his supplies, then continued upstream, retracing his steps, following the clear furrow the 'V' of the stretcher had made in the pebbly earth.
It wasn't long before he came to a wide spot, broad but shallow, the water moving slowly over a gravel bottom. Not quite a slough, but close enough. A spot where the water seemed to take a break and regroup before plunging onward into the channel. The banks on either side were sandy, rather than rock and mud.
Ryan picked up a pinecone off the side of the bank and hurled it into the water at the leading edge of the pool. He watched as it lazily drifted downstream, picking up speed towards the edge where the water funneled into the narrow gap.
He tossed a second pinecone, watching the currents.
They seemed gentle enough.
There was no way he was going to be able to avoid wet feet.
Ryan dipped his fingers into the water and winced. It was like bitter cold. Moreso even than the lake. That made sense, he reasoned. The water by the beach beside the plane had been sitting still in the sun. This ran briskly under the shade of the conifers. It didn't have time to sit and warm. It made his memories of the lake seem positively tepid by comparison.
With a mutter of annoyance he returned to the spot he'd left Burns and his gear.
"We've got to go back," he explained as he donned his pack and the stretcher. "It's unavoidable. I'm going to have to carry you too. So don't make this weird for me."
...
It took Ryan three trips in total to bring everything across the knee-deep ford. After weighing the pros and cons, he decided the bottom looked smooth enough, and his wet sneakers would chafe his feet. They were relatively new, the leather not well broken in yet.
He sat on the bank, untied his shoes, removed his socks, and wedged them into the top of his pack. Supplies and footwear made the first trip. He rolled up the cuffs of his jeans as far as they would go, and stepped in.
For the second trip, he untied Burns from the stretcher, and carried that over, held high above his head to keep it dry.
The third and final trip was Burns himself, and Ryan soon discovered, light or not, it wasn't easy to gather Burns from the ground onto his shoulders. After several staggering attempts, he finally managed to drape Burns across his back, fireman's carry once again, and made his final trip through the stream.
By the time he was done, his feet were bright red with cold. He rubbed them vigorously to warm them, and bring some feeling back into the numb flesh. He dried them on a corner of a wool blanket, taking great care to wipe all the sand off lest it cause blisters at his heels and toes, then pulled his sneakers on.
He tied Burns back into the loops on the stretcher, and secured blankets around the old man to keep him warm. That done he shouldered his pack, and hauled the ends of the stretcher back into his strap harness. Ryan gave one last look at the sky. "No way," he said, looking at the sun. It was already slipping behind him. The entire crossing must've taken well over an hour. Maybe closer to two.
It hadn't seemed that long.
"We've got to get moving," he announced. Knife in hand, he resumed his journey downstream, opposite the westward sun.
He took the high road, keeping above the water. The banks of the river were steep granite cliffs. There was no sense in treading too close. The river continued to cut deeper, forcing Ryan further from the edge of the gorge.
From his vantage point he could see the pinkish-grey rock, solid and angular; not smooth like sandstone, or layered like sedimentary slab. Lichens of green and white clung to the cliff walls in defiance of gravity. Here and there, a small tree would jut out from the side, its roots anchoring it precariously to the vertical face, trunk ancient, narrow and stunted.
Plumes of mist rose from the waterfalls that cascaded down, tumbling through rocks like water through a dragon's maw, then slamming into deep pools below.
The sun was appreciably behind him now.
Ryan guessed it must've been close to late afternoon.
Still he continued downstream, following the river. There was no shelter on the high granitic walls, the ground was slanting and treacherous. It would do him no good to make camp for the evening. The woods beyond weren't much better; a tilted forest of evergreens and dislodged rocks. The spray from the river left everything damp, smelling of cedar and wet moss.
No chance of a fire.
No reason to stop and try.
Doggedly, ignoring hunger and fatigue, Ryan pressed on.
...
The sun was drawing close to the horizon by the time Ryan finally made his way out of the foothills, and the ground levelled out.
Ryan's feet, were heavy, his back aching from the combined weight of his pack and Burns' sledge. He paused, leaning his chest against a young tree to catch his breath.
The river had widened and slowed, maturing into broad expanse that rippled lazily under the reddening sky. "We can camp here… somewhere," Ryan told Burns, panning his head for a dry spot. Everything around him seemed level, but soggy. The sand and granite giving way to earth and mud. Ryan's shoes made soft squishing sounds with each step.
The survival book had shown pictures of how to build elevated sleeping platforms, but Ryan had no idea how long one of those would take. He also doubted his skill to even make such a structure that could hold both him and Burns off the wet ground.
Despite that, he was reluctant to stray too far from the river. In the slanting sunset rays, his eyes fell upon something unusual near the river's edge several hundred yards ahead.
It was a bright flash of light, shining into his eyes.
Ryan raised a hand and waved it above his head.
"Hello! Over here!"
He gave a bit of a jump, both arms up.
The light appeared to follow the movement of his head.
Ryan paused, curious.
The light held still. It didn't move until he shifted his stance.
Raising a hand to shield his eyes, Ryan peered into the light. His stomach dropped with realization. It wasn't a search beam. It was the same colour as the setting sun. "Just a reflection," he sighed to Burns.
Reflection? his mind barked. On what? Then the metaphorical light dawned on him. Nothing in nature could produce that perfect a square of mirrored light. It was clearly man-made, whatever it was. Squinting, Ryan could just make out the square form of a log wall, blending into the treeline. At the edge, a rock chimney protruded out.
A cabin! He hadn't seen it before because old wood was covered with lichens, blending in thoroughly with the plant life surrounding it. If he hadn't caught the reflection of the setting sun, he could've passed right by it.
Maybe someone is looking out for me, he thought. Forgetting his sore muscles, the dull throb in his feet, he broke into as much of a run as he could manage, loaded down as he was, indifferent to the bouncing of the sledge behind him.
He galloped up to the cabin, sledge knocking carelessly against an oblong shape under a half-rotten brown tarp. There was a metallic thunk as the two collided.
"Have a care, Smithers," a dry voice rasped from behind him. "I'm not made of wood, you know."
Ryan twisted his neck around, unable to suppress the grin that split his face. "Monty! You're awake!"
Burns' opened one eye, looking up at him, slightly dazed. "Oh, you, Smithers. Or at least one of them. Very well, Ryan. Carry on." He closed his eyes, head dropping back to his chest. In a minute, he was snoring softly.
Elated, Ryan quickly untied the stretcher, setting it down as gently as possible, cabin almost forgotten in his excitement. "You're alive!" he crowed, gently patting Burns' cheek. "Come on, Monty! Say something else!"
"How about 'Stop this damn fool discomposure, and let an old man rest a moment.'"
Ryan clapped his hands together in excitement. "Strangely, that's enough! Hang on, I'm going to find us a way in."
The cabin was small, a one room structure with a chimney at one end, and a padlocked door at the other. The bolt holding the lock was rusted and aged almost behind recognition. Ryan remembered the scenes from police movies. He leaned back, and kicked the door solidly with all his strength. The metal broke away, and the door swung inward.
The room was dark, not that he'd expected otherwise, and devoid of furniture, but at least it was dry. A fireplace, more an indoor pit than an actual fire place was set along the back wall. A pile of wood, ancient and dry sat in the corner.
"Well, I suppose we can call this home for tonight," Ryan said proudly. "Must be some old trapper's cabin, or something. Looks like it was built a hundred years ago," he added, noting the whole log construction, the thick glass panes. "At least it'll keep us warm, right Monty?"
He bounded outside and grabbed the ends of the stretcher. "In we go!"
Burns said nothing, but he opened his eyes and gave Ryan a rather annoyed look.
"Don't worry," Ryan said as he made a bed roll and shifted Burns on to it. "I'll let you sleep. But first, you need to drink a little water for me." He pulled out his metal canteen, and rested it against the old man's lips.
Burns rolled his eyes, but drank.
Ryan let him have a few mouthfuls, then pulled it back. "Too much might make you sick. You've been out for a while."
Burns rocked his head left then right, taking stock of their situation. "Where the devil are we, boy?"
"Damned if I know," Ryan replied, sitting back on his haunches. "Canada, I guess?"
"You 'guess'?" Burns asked, shaking his head. "Young Smithers, you truly must perfect your orienteering skills. To not even know what country you've gotten us into now? I find that unacceptable…" Burns' voice trailed off again.
This time, Ryan didn't bother to rouse him. He went outside, and in the last light of the evening sun gathered as much kindling as his eyes could find: dry grass, small twigs, larger dry branches easily broken. He bundled them up, and laid them on the hearth, a small pyramid with small leading to large.
At least I have matches, he thought as he fumbled with his pack in the dark; a small pack from a bar near college. It would be easier than the flint and steel from Burns' plane.
He tore one of the flimsy cardboard pieces off and struck it against the strip on the cover.
With a sulfurous poof, a small flame jumped to life. He quickly touched it to the kindling in the hearth before it could go out. The dry grass caught immediately. Ryan blew on the flame gently, encouraging it to eat the twigs, and begin gnawing on the branches.
When the flames were strong, he added a log from the pile, and leaned back, feeling quite satisfied with himself.
If this hadn't been a life or death matter, it could almost feel cozy.
He looked over at the thin man sleeping in a nest of blankets, then back to the fire.
Ryan had never truly studied flames before. As he sat there, by the river, listening to the forest noises beyond, he felt a sort of kinship with the dancing orange beast on the hearth. It was as if the flames were whispering a story.
Fire was not our first invention. It was our first pet. The first wild thing mankind brought into their homes. We caught it, tamed it, learned how to feed and care for it. In time, we even learned how to make it reproduce. But we always have to be careful. Fire is not a tame pet, not a tame lion. It is, at its heart a wild animal. If this is forgotten, or we become careless, fire will quickly remind us of its feral soul.
Ryan stretched out on his side, watching the embers ripple and glow.
You're a good fire, he thought to the small flame rolling in its nest. We'll keep you small, and you'll keep us warm. With you, this place feels like home. Goodnight, fire. Goodnight, Monty.
The flames continued their graceful dance from behind his closed eyelids. Exhausted, but oddly content, Ryan let their crackling lullaby sing him to sleep.