We were setting a bear hang. Darkness was beginning to fall, and our rations were heaped directly below the oak tree that was our target. I noosed them together with one end of the bear-proof rope. Nikki handed me the other end – knotted around a fist-sized quartz rock – but the instructor shook her head and said Let someone else do it this time. We looked at each other, and I walked back to the edges of the canyon to stand with my fellow campers, all of them younger and frailer than me. Go, Javelin Princess, we encouraged Nikki. She smiled and let the rope slide through her fingers so that it swung at her ankles like a pendulum, gaining momentum until she let it fly, aiming to loop it around the overhanging branch.
I saw it happen before it did – I saw her take a step forward, saw her foot settle on the coiled rope – and I leapt forward to push her out of the way but I was seconds late. The rope reached the end of its slack and rocketed backwards, and the rock struck Nikki in the face with a vicious thwack; she stumbled back with her hands clutching her face, and then she crumpled to the ground just as I dove to catch her. Blood squeezed through her fingers – I pried her hands away from her face and saw that the quartz had shattered. Shards pierced the flesh around her eyebrows and one eye was already swollen shut; blood pooled beneath her lashes. There were yells from the campers and instructions from our leaders, but they faded under Nikki’s quiet whimpers.
Days went by, and we set bear hangs every night. The instructors and I were like hawks, hovering at the edges and keeping the girls safe. They did not chastise me for my assumed authority. I hiked at the head of the line, my hands empty so that I could catch the girls who fell or stumbled. Every night I struck the fire and they told stories of home, and I kept them quiet and happy better than the instructors could, because I was one of them. Nikki became my second-in-command, the white of her eye blood red, her brow bone stitched together, her lids stained purple. She struck an impressive figure: a symbol of stamina and courage, and we survived.
Very nice piece. Evocative and treacherous. There are some interesting elements developing in the final paragraph: a maturing, but also all of this playing against some unknown need. Perhaps the piece could do a bit more to suggest what it is that the campers need to survive.
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