A Man with a Past by Mary Connealy
EIGHT
Could a body be on fire and freeze to death at the same time? Falcon was proving it could, right here and now.
He woke up drowning in icy water, every joint burning with fiery pain.
Only not quite drowning. Not enough to go ahead and do it, and end the fire and the ice.
His head cleared enough that he could breathe before he’d be doused again. At last, he was able to look around and realized his body was hanging in water to his neck. Clawing around, he found a branch hooked into his coat. The water was a blasting stream, and this branch was the only thing keeping him from hurtling along it.
His fingers and feet were dead from the cold. Twisting to figure out where he was, he saw he’d been slammed up against a whole tree that included this branch.
A tree that would let him crawl out of the water if he could just break free without plunging on downstream.
He reached overhead and slung an arm around the trunk of the tree. He lifted his whole body up, fighting water that seemed angry about his escape.
With a grunt of pain, he managed to throw a leg over the trunk, drag himself far enough out that his weight was on the tree and not depending only on his battered, freezing arms.
He hung there, upside down, his arms and legs wrapped around that trunk, as useless and heavy as a sack of drowned possum hides, gasping for breath, trying to find another burst of strength. With a huge effort, he yanked his coat free of the branch, then dragged himself up and over the trunk and belly-flopped on top of it.
He lay there, choking some water out of his chest, and slowly getting the worst of the brutal cold out of his fingers, till he could rub them together and feel them.
As the worst of the pain from the drowning and cold eased, he could focus on the fiery part of his misery. His head was ablaze.
He reached up and back until he touched a raw spot. A long tender stripe along the base of his skull.
Where had that come from? He looked around, studied the water racing below him. Had he scratched his head somehow?
Been clobbered by a rock?
Most likely something of the sort.
He lifted his head, aware of something bothering him more than the cut on his head. More than drowning. More than the terrible chill and the terrible pain.
He couldn’t touch on it for some reason, but it was there, and it’d come to him. For now, one step at a time, he’d get himself out of this mess and track down the why of it later.
Edging along the trunk, he reached the muddy bank and kept right on crawling until he was on dry land.
As he stood, he looked around and saw woods and mountains. That hollered home and safety for some reason. And he felt sure it was important for him to find safety. He just wasn’t sure why.
He staggered toward the dense woods, realizing that his vision was blurry and sometimes he saw two of a thing. He gained the trees and leaned against the first one he got close to. He walked along the edge of them, leaning when he could, staggering when he couldn’t, listening for anyone coming.
Before he could be caught in the open, he found a game trail so thin he had to think it was made by rabbits. He turned into the woods, following it, heaving a sigh of relief to be out of view.
Then he plowed into a low-hanging branch and knocked himself over backward.
Lying there, breathing hard, he had a flash of reason that told him why he was in such an all-fired hurry to find a safe haven.
He didn’t remember anything that had brought him to this moment.
Why was he in that stream? Why did he feel hunted?
And then as he chased those thoughts around, a real big one hit him hard.
He realized he didn’t know his own name.
His thoughts echoed. His head was empty and in agonizing pain. Who was he? How did a man go on if he had no idea who he was?
Looking up through the dappled leaves, he wondered if he knew a thing about how to go on. Touching his holster, he knew his gun was gone. In fact, just knowing he’d had one—or for that matter, what a gun was—was a lot of remembering.
But he couldn’t remember his own name. Putting two hands flat on his face, he knew nothing of his own looks. He felt the scratch of a few whiskers on his cheeks but no beard.
He looked at his hands and felt no recognition. The impact of realizing it almost knocked him sideways, and it might’ve if he weren’t already lying flat on his back. He stayed right where he was to think.
The tender head.
He had no idea what it meant, but he felt danger. Even that was all instinct with no reason to it.
Time helped steady his pounding heart.
With no idea whether to hide or hunt someone up to help him figure out what was going on, it settled into his brain . . . or maybe his gut, that he needed to lay low until his thoughts cleared.
And he needed food. His belly was mighty empty, and food was strength. Did he go back to that stream? Maybe walk upstream figuring he’d been swept down. Find a shallow spot, see if there were backwaters where the fish weren’t being swept along at a dangerous pace.
And he needed to get warm. Dry clothes. For that he needed a fire.
All of that would give him time to heal his sore noggin.
There was too much to do, so he decided he’d just do what came next. Food first. How did a man find food? He saw himself spearing a fish. Fumbling in his pockets, he found a knife. He’d sharpen a stick. Catch a fish, build a fire.
But should he build a fire?
He realized he knew how. But should he oughta do it?
He’d be mindful, and if no one was about, he’d build a fire, the thought of being warm and dry was too much to resist.
But first, the sharp stick and the fish.
He rolled onto his side and saw a tree full of berries. Of a sudden, his worries for food were set aside. That gave his rickety brain time to worry about everything else.