Carter and the others had already left her behind, of course. There was only so much of her the cousins could take in one day; being the baby of the family she knew this intuitively. But whenever her brother and the boys ran off, she was still likely to follow.
“Just keep an eye out for poison oak!” Their mother shouted the warning at their backs as they took off from the campsite. Lydia knew she saw the boys sneaking away, but did any of the aunts and uncles, fathers and mothers, grandmas and grandpas catch sight of her? She should probably go back and make sure—she had a tendency to slip by unnoticed in a crowd—but her feet continued to carry her down the thin dirt path between campsites as if of their own accord. As the last glimpse of Carter’s bright red tee shirt became obscured by the green of the surrounding brush, she broke into a run. If she turned back now, she would lose them. Besides, being both “the baby” and “the girl,” the adults would probably make her stay by the fire pit, getting choked by smoke and listening to Aunt Arlene talking in great detail about glazing pots. They would probably forbid her from chasing after the boys. Especially at the age of ten, it was…unseemly. More than once she overheard Uncle Chuck tell her father she “should be playing with dolls, or something.” Not running after the boys into the brush. Didn’t matter it was what she’d rather do.
The smell of dirt and campfire smoke blended with the sweet tang of the overwatching pines. Each campsite she passed was full of bustle: all the families in the world, it seemed, came out here to the Pacific Northwest for one last frolic before the school year started.
Eventually the dirt path connected to the rough, black asphalt of the main circuit, and the bustle became even more apparent: families going by slowly on their bikes; kids scribbling on the asphalt with colorful chalk; a young couple coming back from a walk with ice cream cones melting slowly over their fingers in the last of the lingering summer heat.
A flash of red, just at the end of the main access road: Carter ducking back into the forest.
Lydia’s short legs pumped hard as she swung around the chalk artists and barreled up the road. One of the kids drawing shouted something incoherent behind her. Any other time she might have been tempted to stop, see if they were calling after her, if they were asking a fellow camper if she wanted to partake in the art. But the boys were getting away again.
She broke through the bushes and hit another path, this one even thinner and less defined. Probably an animal trail. Ahead, the low, steady roar of the river began to build, reaching a thunderous crescendo as Lydia broke through the last barrier of interlocking brush and approached the ravine. It was about a thirty-foot drop to the raging waters below. No gradual descent to the water on either side: only a brief plunge of dark, moist earth before the wide, slippery boulders began. The river itself rose in high, sweeping currents of water around more rocks, hiding them beneath the late rush of snowmelt and rainfall.
Lydia stepped to the edge, and the toes of her blue sneakers sank into a bed of moss and soil. Over the angry rumble of the water she could just catch the tail-end of Carter’s shout to the cousins as his red shirt once again disappeared into the trees on the other side of the ravine.
A fallen pine lay across the ledges, connecting them to each other through years of growth and erosion. Dry, dead branches twisted outward from the trunk, writhing in empty air over the river. The trunk itself was nearly bare of its bark, smooth and grey along the top and crumbling with time along the sides.
Lydia placed one foot on the trunk and pushed at it: the wood held steady. Still, mom would kill Carter if she knew what he was up to out here. Her gaze dropped along the rocks lining the opposite wall and landed on the current below. Foam swirled tirelessly over panels of brown water and grey rock, like a grim stained-glass window cutting a line through the earth.
She should go back. Sturdy or not, she had more sense in her head than to treat an old log like a bridge across raging waters.
She pressed her foot against the tree again. It was so solid. And turning back would mean passing through all the bikers and chalk-drawers again. They would see she went chasing after the older kids and returned quickly, defeated. They would see her shame. Her weakness. Her inability to keep up. Just a baby. Just a girl.
She grabbed the nearest grey twist of branch and put some of her weight into it. Like any old, dependable walking stick, it held. Slowly, she placed her other foot on the tree. The traction on her sneakers gripped the wood; using the branch for support, she crept forward. As she eased herself over the ravine, the air temperature dropped. Goosebumps rose on her bare arms, and her skin shivered beneath the tingle of the overhanging moisture. She reached for the next branch, just beyond the tips of her fingers. Each foot inched forward one at a time, holding steady on the trunk. Taking a grounding breath, she released the first branch, keeping herself suspended in empty air for only a second before another step forward allowed her to latch onto the next one. It was sturdier than the first, and she took a moment to grasp it tight and breathe. Maybe Mom would be proud of her for how safe she was being. Lydia still would never risk telling.
Past the toes of her sneakers and the grey-brown curve of trunk where the bark along the underside had yet to be worn away, the water rushed. It was louder now, caught in the echo chamber of the ravine, and once again Lydia seemed unable to make her feet do what she wanted them to. Only this time, they stayed rooted to the spot. She shivered, blinking down into the tossing, tumbling foam. A patch of it swirled in a deadly maelstrom of current between the boulders. If she fell, she would first hit rock and then be swept away to vanish somewhere far downstream.
Her fingers gripped the branch, and she took in a low, steadying breath. It was just a log over a river; it was just a stupid piece of wood over some water.
But no one knows I’m out here, the thought slipped through her mind as she reached for the next branch. But if she waited, and the boys came back and saw her trembling in the middle of the log, she would only prove everyone right: she was just a baby.
She was barely one third of the way over the ravine. At this rate, she would never catch up to the boys. But now there was something more important at stake than a trip through the woods. She started this venture, and she would finish it. Turning back now would be a waste of how far she had already come. And she would know, for the rest of her life, that when she was presented with a challenge, she chose to give up. And she could never let that happen.
Setting her jaw, she crept forward again, her feet searching along the log with greater confidence and ease. The next possible support branch was a thin and flimsy stick of dried wood, but her feet were so sure of their next hold that it didn’t matter. She breezed past it, eyeing the next branch. She was about halfway over now, and the roar of the river had faded beyond the sweet surge of victory singing through her veins. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to keep running after the boys, to catch up with them and let them realize she’d crossed the ravine all by herself.
She placed her next step, pressing the sole of her sneaker down into the wood. The rubber caught. Then it gave.
Her foot dropped from under her and with a sharp cry the rest of her body followed. Bark slashed at the inside of her calf as her other leg buckled, crunching beneath her own weight and sending the heel of her shoe sharply into her crotch. Stars flashed along the edges of her vision and she reached out, half blind, searching for the closest branch as her body tipped and spilled over the side of the log.
Her fingers scraped bark; her palm engulfed the next branch and she jolted to a stop, hanging over the screaming waters of the river by one hand and the last desperate cling of the leg still on the log. No sound could pierce the thunder of the crashing waters below, but the harsh pounding in her chest and along her skull was enough to grasp the thunder of her own racing heartbeat. She released a gasp, hauling at the branch and throwing the top of her body back over the log. Bark trickled from the underside of the trunk and spiraled down into the foam to be quickly suctioned beneath the waves. The river was a hungry beast, waiting to swallow her up and sweep her away. Its wild roar gripped her, turning her body to stone as she lay with her feet dangling. Gasping, she pressed the side of her face to the smooth, wet wood and shut her eyes.
“C-Carter!” she screamed. Her voice blended with the rapids. Tears filled her eyes, spilling from beneath the lids. “Help me!”
Nothing but the rushing waters. Even the birdsong from earlier, so sweetly tucked into the background of forest sounds that it nearly went unnoticed, was silenced. Only the river existed now, pulsing through the rocks, grabbing at all it could take with it. Waiting for her.
Lydia released a sob. Her arms and legs stung from the bite of the trunk’s bark, and her crotch still flared from the collision with her heel. For a second, she almost found it in herself to laugh: balls or no balls, that feeling sucked the air right from your lungs, didn’t it?
Slowly, she lifted her torso. The branch that saved her was only as thick as her own arm, but it was strong. She grasped it again, dragging herself along the slippery wood until she could get a firmer hold. Pulling clumsily into a more upright position, leaning into the branch as much as she dared, she tucked one leg beneath her and moved to regain her footing.
Pain shot through her ankle, and the foot slipped back out from beneath her. She crumpled against the log with a low cry, gripping the branch so hard she could feel every notch in the wood claw into her flesh.
Her ankle. She must have twisted it in the fall. Maybe it was even broken.
She couldn’t walk.
Another sob wrenched its way from her throat. “Carter!” She barely recognized the sound of her own voice: her screech was so high and shrill, like the call of a wild bird of prey, but constricted with fright. Where were they? Were they even going to come back this way? If she slipped again and fell into the river, she would be gone. They would never know what happened to her.
Time lapsed in a strange fit of images and feelings: it might have been an hour, or it might have been a few seconds that she lay there, choking on gasps while the ravine blurred before her in a spiral of greys and greens. Her heavy body seemed to rise like some magician’s levitation trick, turning her slowly in midair even as she felt the solidity of the log beneath her. Nausea rolled in her stomach, and she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, shaking, silently pleading with it to settle. Pleading for the rush of wooziness to fade before she could lose her grip.
In another few breaths it did, and soon afterward the world ceased its spinning. A bird chirped as it swooped overhead, and suddenly the thunder of the river fell back to a dull white noise. Lydia opened her eyes. The sun was just beginning to set over the trees, casting rays of light through the trunks. The smell of barbecued meats hung in the air. They were having hot dogs tonight. Lydia loved barbecued hot dogs. It was the only time she ever really enjoyed them, when they puffed up with the heat of the coals and had a couple nice, blackened edges to them. And Dad would always joke that she must have wanted some hot dog with her yellow mustard.
She raised her head, casting her glance along the rest of the log. She couldn’t have been more than a few feet from the opposite shore. Slowly, so calmly and so peacefully slowly, she crawled her way down the log, legs and palms gripping the bark, taking it one limb at a time as she maneuvered past the last few branches. By the time her palm next pressed into the soil, her relief and excitement had gotten the better of her again, and she was scooching with much more speed. Moss and dirt smudged cool trails along her legs and arms as she hauled herself to the nearest rock and sat, breathing in the smells of forest and campgrounds and marveling at the feeling of solid earth beneath her.
Her left calf was scraped up from her fall, and when she experimented with putting weight on her ankle it still complained fiercely. But after some timid, then firm massaging of the limb, she was confident she would make it back to camp. When she was ready.
Eventually the chirping birds and rushing water became obscured by the clumsy galumphing of boys making their way back through the forest. Jared and Mike emerged first from the brush, followed closely by Carter. They eyed her as they passed, all at once agitated by her obvious shadowing of them and confused as to why she seemed to stop halfway. Not one of them even noticed the blood on her leg or the exhaustion in her gaze as they filed one by one onto the log, prancing thoughtlessly along the wet wood and holding their arms out to the sides like a troupe of tightrope walkers. At one point Jared slipped with a curse and nearly went down; he laughed, righting himself quickly. “Dude, I almost died!”
The boys guffawed, their voices trailing off as they stepped back into the brush. Carter, still at the back of the line, stopped and fixed her with that I’m-slightly-older-than-you-and-should-therefore-take-some-amount-of-responsibility-for-you look. “You coming?” he shouted.
Lydia raised herself to her feet, grateful when she found she could indeed still stand. “I’m going to find a bridge.”
He scoffed. “What a baby!”
He disappeared into the brush. Lydia snorted, pointing her feet toward the campground’s main entrance, where she remembered them driving across a bridge at the beginning of the week. If she had her directions right, it was simply around the next bend in the river.
“Idiots,” she muttered.
Taking in a deep breath of fresh forest air, she began to limp her way back to her family’s campsite, cheery with the thought of hot dogs and a lot of yellow mustard.
