“Oh my God. Oh my God, oh my God.” Moving as fast as I dared, I picked and crawled my way over the rocks, trying to stay low, so I didn’t end up just like him. Finally, I crested the rock he fell from.
“Toren! Are you okay?” He lay between two large boulders on his left side. “Don’t move. I’m coming down.”
He groaned again and tried to push himself up but quickly dropped down again. “Fuck. Oh, this isn’t good,” he said, his voice tight and his face pinched.
Sliding down the rock face, I reached him, my heart pounding so hard I thought it might burst from my chest. “Where? Where are you hurt?”
“Ankle,” he ground out. “Left side. And my left side ribs. I think those might be broken. Not sure about the ankle. It hurts like a motherfucker, but not like my chest.”
Well, hell. “Okay. I can’t do much about your ribs, but let me look at your ankle.”
“Have at it.”
Carefully, I shifted, scooting between him and the rocks to reach his left foot. Gently, I eased his pant leg up, trying my best not to cause him pain. His hiking boot covered the joint and the lower part of his calf. With the rain, I didn’t want to take it off and soak his sock, so I prodded the area above the boot and over the leather near his ankle.
He hissed when I touched the inside of the joint. “There.”
I moved up slightly, toward the ends of his lower leg bones. “How about here?”
“It’s not as bad.”
“Can you move it?”
He tried, and even from here I could see the flash of pain that crossed his face. “Yeah, but it’s not fun.”
“I can’t tell if it’s crunchy or swollen with your boot on. We need to get you back to camp and out of the rain, so we can assess it better.” But how, was the question. Once I got him out of this hollow and off the rocks, we could hike inland where the terrain was a little more even. It was just getting him up with injured ribs and a buggered-up ankle that would be the problem.
Chewing on the corner of my bottom lip, I assessed our surroundings. He’d fallen between two larger rocks, but there was a natural, gentle slope out of them. If I could get him on his feet, we could use the boulders to steady us, and he could hobble out with my help.
I looked at him, still lying on his side. “Do you think we can sit you up?”
“Yeah. We don’t really have a choice.”
“No, we don’t. Unhook your backpack and try to get on your back.” He was turned about a quarter of the way to his left, resting partially on the bag, with his left leg and hip under him. We needed to get him on his butt, so he could get his right foot under himself to stand.
He unfastened the waist buckle, then I helped him slide his right arm through the strap. The bag had saved him from hitting his head in the fall, thank goodness, but he’d unfortunately hit a small piece of rock that jutted out when he landed, which is what caused his rib injury. Though I supposed that was a blessing too. If he’d fallen deeper, I wasn’t sure I would be able to get him out. He’d be too firmly wedged into the crack.
That thought gave me a quick shiver. He would truly have been in dire straits if that happened.
Scooting back up toward his torso, I reached out. “Give me your hand.”
His big hand wrapped around mine, and I braced myself as he pulled against it to sit up.
He didn’t get very far before a quick grunt of pain escaped and his muscles went slack, however. “Damn, that fricking hurts,” he said through clenched teeth.
I wished there was a way for me to help him with the pain, but there wasn’t, so I went with a harsh truth. “Suck it up. You can’t stay between these rocks.” Reassessing the situation, I realized I needed a new plan. One that took some of the muscle power needed to get him up off his body and onto mine. Letting go of his hand, I pushed to my feet, then put one boot on either side of his hips.
He looked up at me through the rain and raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to make this a little easier on you. I can’t deadlift you from the side.”
“Deadlift—what? Lana, I weigh two hundred and fifty pounds.”
“All of you weighs that. I’m only lifting your torso.” Reaching down, I grasped handfuls of his coat. “Hold onto my shoulder with your right arm and put the other one over your chest.”
The brow lift he gave me screamed out his skepticism better than words ever could.
I rolled my eyes. “Just do it.”
