Episode Ten: A Lucky Stone

    A drop of sweat rolled down Jim's clenched jaw.  His fingers strained to maintain their grip on the quarter inch ledge above him as he tried to support himself with only one hand.  His feet occupied a slightly better spot on the rock face, but the rock ahead looked smooth and impassable.
    It had been a slow and exhausting climb up the end of the box canyon.  That morning when he saw the fifty foot wall of rock he had almost turned back, but the canyon had been long with cliffs on both sides.  At first he hadn't noticed them.  The mouth of the canyon was wide and the sides sloped up toward the ridges on either side.  He had stayed at the bottom of the canyon mostly for the water.  In his haste to leave he had taken a singe water pouch that he easily emptied each day.  When he noticed the cliffs he recognized that he was in the worst place possible, and the computer was generating very little land, but he rationalized that he would eventually reach the peak that the canyon seemed to be heading toward and see the entire landscape from there anyway.  The canyon proved much longer than he expected.  Turning back now would mean days of wasted effort.
    Now clinging to the edge of the cliff he doubted his initial judgment.  He had examined the wall carefully before making the attempt and knew there were no handholds near the top.  Draped around his neck he carried a twenty foot length of rope.  On the end he had tied a stick with two knives forming a crude hook.
    Using his free hand he pulled the coiled rope over his head and let most of it fall.  The jerk of the rope on his belt, where he had tied the other end, surprised him and almost made him fall.  Slowly he swung the hook in circles letting out a few feet of rope.
    A few days earlier he had gashed his hand on sharp rock.  He had stopped the bleeding with a  spare shirt, but he worried about infection.  He started a fire to heat some water and sterilize the wound. By the time he had gathered dry wood, made some kindling, and lit the fire—all with only one hand—the pain suddenly vanished.   Amazed he had removed the bandage, brushed the dried blood of his skin, and flexed his hand.  It was as though he had never been cut.  After that he no longer feared injury.
    This, however, was different.  If he fell from this height and landed wrong he would die.  William had been clear about that.  With a great thrust he threw the rope toward the top of the cliff.   As soon as his hand let go of the rope it snapped back to the wall stabilize his hold, but it was too late.  One foot had slipped on the rock in the throwing motion.  For a few tantalizing seconds he clung to the wall before his fell backward away from the wall.   Instinctively he pushed of the wall with one foot turning himself to face his fall.
    He flailed his arms wildly searching for anything to grasp.  Skin slid and tore against rough rock and bones creaked and cracked from seemingly random impact points as he tumbled.  Finally he landed on the canyon floor chest first blasting all air from his lungs.  The struggle to breath helped him ignore the pain enough to turn and lay on his back, his left arm was obviously broken, jutting out in the wrong direction.  He couldn't feel either of his legs and didn't bother looking.    When a breath finally came it came with pain.  Broken ribs seemed to burst into flame with every heaving of his chest.
    He felt himself blacking out and feared that if he did he might never wake up.  In his mind he focused on images of Troy Lombardi and William Kilgore laying in the portal and this time included himself on one of the beds that had been empty.  His eyes were wide open, but his vision was narrowing and becoming fuzzy around the edges.  He brought Dean's face to mind and tried use anger to hold back the darkness, but all he felt was an overwhelming sadness.  As his eyesight vanished he thought of Susan and the kids.  I must live, he thought, they need me.
    Hours later he awoke from his slightly uncomfortable position on the ground.  His clothes were in tatters, but his body retained no mark from the fall.  He hadn't noticed at the time, but in his pain he had tore at the ground with his good hand.  There in his hand was a small stone about the size of a large marble.  It was ordinary gray with a thin stripe of white around the middle.
    Lucky, he thought. That's what Michael would say.  Michael had a bucket full of rocks he had collected from the neighborhood.  Each for some reason had caught his eye and become the object of his awe.  Michael would have loved this one.  Jim pocketed the rock and looked back up the cliff.  There hanging from the top was the rope were it had successfully snagged.
    That evening he watched the sunset from the mountain peak.