Fix My Feet When They're Stumblin'

Chapter 15

    Sitting morosely and gazing anxiously off the cliff at the view of the forest below, Ronnie didn't notice the slight twitches of Brandon's eyelids until his fingers moved in Ronnie's hand, catching his attention immediately.

    "Oh - oh! Oh my God," Ronnie whispered, eyes fixed on Brandon's face. Perhaps twenty seconds of motionlessness passed, and then his fingers curled lightly around Ronnie's hand.

    "Brandon?" Ronnie hardly dared to blink, he was staring so intently at his friend. The frown that had been etched into Brandon's bruised features for hours, as though his face was carved of stone, suddenly turned into a tiny smile, and his eyelids fluttered, then closed again.

    "Hey, buddy," Ronnie said softly, squeezing Brandon's hand. Again, his own hand was squeezed in response, slightly more forcefully this time.

    "Too...too bright." Brandon's voice was hoarse and cracked, but it was the most wonderful thing Ronnie had ever heard in his life, and a massive grin spread across his tired face. From a rock across the mountainside where he sat next to his mule, Officer Rawlins looked up sharply, watching them.

       "Sorry, Bran, I can't control the sun. You can just keep your eyes closed if you want."

    "Mm."

    "Hey, we're gonna get out of here soon, we've got a cop and everything! It's gonna be okay."

    "Mmm...how?"

    "The police wanted to send a helicopter, b-"

    That got more of a response than Ronnie had bargained for in his apparently half-awake state. Brandon's eyes shot open, revealing uneven pupils in familiar hazel irises that were now wide with unmistakable fear, and he struggled to sit up, groaning and hugging his injured arm to his chest.

    "No - no no nononono - "

    Ronnie tried to gently push him back down into his lap, but he stopped immediately as a pained gasp interrupted the panicked babble of objections. "I'm sorry - I'm sorry - we're not flying, Brandon, it's okay! It's okay! I told them no, it's okay!"

    Brandon's wild eyes met his own, his chest heaving as he tried to breathe. "N-not...?"

    "No, Bran. No. I told them to find another way. It's okay. We're not flying, I promise. I wouldn't do that to you. We're not flying. It's okay."

    "...Oh...oh...okay..." Brandon swallowed thickly, then unexpectedly his eyes filled with tears and he looked down at his battered knees as he stuttered, "Ron....sorry, I'm - I broke your phone...I th-think...I'm sorry."

    This was so astounding that Ronnie nearly laughed. "God, B, you think I care about the phone? I care about you. You broke yourself, that's way more important than the phone. I'm the one who should be apologizing, Bran...I was an asshole and I snapped at you when I should have been falling on my knees thanking you for risking your life to help me, and I'm so, so, so sorry. I appreciate what you did more - more than I could ever say. You could've died, Bran, and I... you're the best friend I've ever had and I couldn't live with myself if...I just freaked out on you, and I'm so sorry. Really, really, really fucking sorry, Brandon."

    "S'okay, Ron..." His voice was slurred, his eyelids had begun to droop during Ronnie's speech, and he swayed where he sat. Ronnie carefully laid a hand on his good shoulder and guided him back down to lay his head on his lap once more.

    "Tired..." Brandon murmured, and Ronnie shivered at the reprise of their emotional breakdown just a few hours before.

    "It's okay, Brandon, go to sleep." He slipped his hand around Brandon's again and squeezed gently, then sat watching silently as his breath evened out and his face slackened, at rest.

     Officer Rawlins watched, too, and spoke up quietly after a minute. "Damn, you really weren't kidding about the flying thing."

    Ronnie glanced up at him, shaking his head. "Nah. It's nasty. If he's in his right mind and on his meds and the weather's alright he handles it fine, but...he's definitely not in his right mind at the moment."

    "Mind if I let the chief know he woke up? That's a good sign, you know, I'm sure all your people will be happy."

    "Oh, please do, yes!" Ronnie settled back against the cliff, peeling open the wrapper of a protein bar and taking small bites while he studied Brandon's face ponderously.

    Officer Rawlins relayed the message to the sheriff, then twisted suddenly to peer behind him down the mountain. Ronnie heard the crunching of several pairs of boots on the rocky ground, and perked up, straining to see. "Who's that?"

    "The paramedics have arrived," Rawlins announced, waving a hand down the cliff in the direction of the approaching boots. "They don't get hooves," he said, slapping his mule's rump affectionately.

    "Hello, Mr. Vannucci - my name is Erin, and this is Steve and Mary - is it alright if we take a look at your friend? A tall, dark-haired woman in an EMT uniform introduced herself and her colleagues as they crossed the cliff, huffing slightly from the exertion of climbing the mountain. Over three hours had passed since Officer Rawlins' initial call about finding Brandon's backpack, and they must have hiked the whole way up.

    "Please - he actually just woke up for the first time in hours a few minutes ago, for maybe two minutes."

     "Ah! Excellent. Did he seem to know who he was, who you were, what happened?"

     "Yeah, I think so, he was using my name and everything. When he came back last night, a little while before he lost consciousness, he forgot that he had hit his head, but when he first came back he was able to tell me that he fell - just he couldn't find the right word, he said he 'dropped.'"

    Ronnie watched anxiously as the trio of paramedics gathered around him and Brandon, kneeling in the dirt. The tallest one gently touched Brandon's arm, then smiled up at Ronnie as he moved the arm and wrinkled his forehead in response. She spoke quietly: "Good news - he's actually just asleep this time, not unconscious. Can you tell us what happened? We know a little but sometimes things get lost in the shuffle. I want to hear it from you."

    "Yeah, I broke my ankle yesterday and I guess he just fell down the cliff a little ways, trying to get my phone to get help."

    "Officer, you said he fell off that cliff back there with the backpack on the ground?" The paramedic introduced as Steve called back to Rawlins as he examined Brandon's head carefully.  The third paramedic was rifling through their medical kit and preparing an IV line.

    "Yes, sir, about twenty feet, and then somehow he got back up the cliff and hiked back up here to find Mr. Vannucci."

    "Wow, alright - and you don't know when he made it back here, exactly, but sometime last night?"

    Ronnie nodded. "Yeah, we didn't have a way to tell time because my phone got busted when he fell, and I think maybe his did too...but I tried to keep him awake, I'd heard he wasn't supposed to sleep with a head injury if he hadn't been checked out yet, but I gave up around dawn, he got really...emotional."

    Mary, the paramedic with the IV port, glanced up as she wiped the dirt from Brandon's arm with an iodine wipe. "Okay, so maybe six hours of unconsciousness. You did good. It looks like he might have a skull fracture - they'll need a CT scan to confirm, but yeah, it would be ideal if he hadn't...but sleep at this stage, rather than being unconscious, is a good thing." She stuck the needle into Brandon's arm and taped it into place, smiling as Brandon jerked in response to the needle. "And he's definitely just asleep right now, and that's good for his brain."

    Ronnie sighed in relief and watched quietly as they continued their treatment, readying him for transport. Soon, they would finally be able to leave this godforsaken mountain.