5
Caleb
Shit. I won’t make it.
I pump my arms faster, and my chest heaves from the frantic pace, but I still won’t get there in time.
“Catch him!” I shout to Teo and Brady, thawing them from their frozen stares.They rush toward him, but it’s too late.
Arturo hits the ground before any of us can break his fall.
“Ahh!” he screams, and I exhale sharply.
Thank God. He’s still alive.
His piercing cry ricochets against the rocks, but despite the agony in his voice, my relief is palpable. I swallow the bile that shoots up my throat, having nearly witnessed a man plummet to his death.
Slowing down, I skid to a stop in front of Arturo’s curled-up body, pebbles flying in every direction. He’s in the fetal position on the wet floor, clutching his right arm. When I place my hand on his shoulder, I realize it’s dislocated, and perhaps even broken. The elbow seems out of place as well .
“We need to get you to a hospital. Where’s the nearest one?”
Arturo’s eyes are glossy and red, his face is wet from either the water or his own tears. I grab his cheeks and ask again, “Arturo, where is the hospital?”
On the other side of him, Brady lifts his shoulder off the floor, but Arturo screams again, in what sounds like deep agony, and his eyes roll back. He mumbles incoherently for a few seconds before falling limp in Brady’s hands.
“Oh, my God. Is he dead?” asks Nikki.
Placing two fingers at his neck, I check for a pulse. “No. He must have passed out from the pain. It’s probably best for him, but it will make it more difficult for us to get out of here.”
“Are we lost?” Nikki’s bottom lip trembles. “Are we going to die out here in the jungle?”
“We’re not going to die. None of us are dying,” says a strong female voice behind me.
Charlotte .
“That’s right,” I say, squaring my shoulders. “Brady, carefully, grab his legs and I’ll keep his arm and neck still. Slowly, let’s carry him back to the truck.”
Brady and I lift Arturo while we follow Teo’s voice back to the vehicles. My foot slips as we climb the rocks to the higher elevation where we left the Jeeps, but I easily steady it and continue. Sweat drips down my arms as I hold every muscle still to avoid jostling Arturo too much. I would have called an ambulance if I thought they could get to us faster.
Wait! That’s it.
After lowering Arturo into the backseat, I check his pockets for a cell phone and find one in his back pocket. Yes! Now I can call one of the other guides or even an ambulance to see if they could get here faster or direct me to the nearest hospital.
But when I tap the screen, I realize the phone is broken.
Shit.
“Let’s go,” says Teo.
“Do you know which is the way out?” asks Brady. Charlotte looks right and then left. There is no clear pathway, the forest is dense in all directions.
Fuck. It all looks the same, but I think back to when I drove here.
“It’s this way,” I say, pointing ahead at a small clearing.
“Are you sure?” asks Teo.
“If you’re not sure, you could get us more lost,” adds Brady.
“He’s right. It’s that way,” says Charlotte.
“How do you know?” asks Teo. “You had your eyes closed for most of the ride. ”
Charlotte’s eyes narrow. “I’m pretty good at getting my bearings.”
“Does anyone have any other ideas?” I ask. They look among themselves and Teo shakes his head. “Then, let’s go.”
Walking to the vehicles, I point to Arturo’s truck. “Teo, can you drive the other Jeep?”
Teo shakes his head. “Sorry, man. I can’t drive stick.”
“I can drive,” says Nikki, raising her hand.
“Great, follow us.”
Brady hops in the backseat with Arturo and drops his arm over his chest, holding him steady.
Teo and Tasha climb into the other Jeep, with Nikki at the wheel.
“Ready?” I shout.
“Ready,” says Nikki.
I turn to Charlotte, hands at the wheel. “Alright, we agree it’s that way?”
She looks up at the sky and then down to the clearing. “Yes,” she nods confidently. Wasting no more time, I peel out of the mud and into the canopy of trees.
I drive straight for several minutes before reaching a fork in the road. I don’t recall the fork from earlier since I blindly followed Arturo on the way up instead of paying better attention to the turns. “My instincts tell me to go right. ”
Charlotte bites her lip and leans forward, staring at the road ahead. I slow the vehicle down, but if I don’t turn soon, we’ll ram right into that tree.
“Yes, there are tire marks that way,” she points ahead. “Go right.”
I pull the steering wheel in that direction, jostling us.
Charlotte clutches her seat to steady herself. I glimpse her white knuckles against the black leather, and my heart beats faster as I speed through the bush.
A groan from the back has me looking over my shoulder, and I glimpse Arturo’s mouth moving, but his eyes are still closed. The man must be in excruciating pain.
I consider slowing down, but all I can think of is getting him to a hospital as quickly as possible.
Charlotte is staring at her phone, lifting it up above her head, looking for reception I imagine, but slams it back on her lap.
She stares ahead and up at the sky.
“Don’t worry,” I reassure her. “This is the right way.”
She bites her lip and nods. “Yes. I think so, too. I just wish I could check a map on my phone.”
“Yeah, me too.”
After nearly fifteen minutes of driving through the trees, I spot another clearance ahead.
“There,” points Charlotte .
“I see it,” I say, and when the vehicle rips past the last of the trees and we land on a paved road, my heart leaps out of my chest and I shout in excitement. “Whoo hoo! We did it, Charlotte!”
She turns her head to the right and points to a sign up ahead. “There! The town’s that way.”
She inhales, and then slowly exhales a loud, guttural breath. “I almost threw up back there when I thought I was wrong for a second.”
I chuckle at her honesty and impulsively grab her hand to reassure her that the worst is over. She stares at our joined hands, and I quickly remove mine, unsure if perhaps I’d crossed some invisible line.
We drive for another ten minutes before reaching a restaurant in the middle of an empty parcel of land. Charlotte hops out of the Jeep as soon as I pull up to the front door.
“Excuse me,” she says to a man sitting at a table, drinking a beer. “Where is the hospital?”
The man looks up at us and must have read the panic on our faces because he quickly points down the dirt road. “That way. Turn left at the vegetable stand and shops.”
“Thank you,” says Charlotte and jumps back into the truck.
I reverse out of the restaurant parking lot and onto the road, kicking up sand and dirt as I hit the gas.
Once we pass the vegetable stand, the hospital is easy to find. It’s the largest building at the end of the street and there’s an ambulance idling outside.
I park next to the ambulance, hop out of the truck and knock on the driver’s window. “We need your help,” I say.
The man doesn’t ask questions and quickly follows me to the back of the Jeep. Arturo’s eyes are still closed, but he’s moaning loudly and there’s blood on his shirt that I hadn’t seen before.
The paramedic runs back to his ambulance, throws open the back doors, and pulls out his stretcher. He shouts at his partner to help him.
They strap a brace around Arturo’s neck and carefully move him onto the stretcher.
Leaving the truck, we follow the paramedics inside, where a nurse checks on Arturo immediately upon arrival. “Take him to room two,” she tells the paramedic.
“Are you his friends?” she asks us. Her voice carries the local accent as strongly as Arturo’s did.
Charlotte shakes her head. “No. He’s our tour guide. He fell off a cliff and landed on some rocks. Will he be okay?”
“We won’t know for sure until we run some tests and check for internal damage. Was he coherent when you found him? ”
Charlotte turns to me.
“He didn’t say much.”
“Okay. Thank you for bringing him in. We’ll take it from here. You can go back to your hotel now.”
The nurse leaves us to return to her station, but none of us moves.
“It doesn’t feel right leaving without knowing if Arturo’s going to make it,” says Charlotte.
Teo, Tasha and Nikki run through the automated glass doors. “Where is he? Will he be alright?”
Brady shrugs. “Don’t know yet. They’re gonna run some tests. But they said we can go.”
Tasha exhales and closes her eyes. “Thank God. I’ll collapse if I don’t lie down soon.”
Charlotte is pacing the hallway with her arms crossed. “Are you ready to go back?” I ask her.
“I don’t think I can. But you go ahead. I’ll just call a cab as soon as the nurse updates me.”
I don’t spend a second considering that alternative. If she’s staying, then so am I. Leaving her alone in a foreign country all by herself isn’t an option. Even though my time with Teo is trickling down to just a few more hours, I’ll have to catch up with him at the airport on the way back to the States.
“Go on. Charlotte and I will catch up with you soon.”
“Are you sure?” asks Teo.
“Yeah. ”
Charlotte sits on a gray leather chair in the waiting room and drops her head into her hands. Her floral dress clings to her chest and thighs from perspiration. There are scratches on my hands and dirt underneath my fingernails. I must have scraped them along the rocks when picking Arturo up. Memories flood my mind, and I sit down next to Charlotte and rest my head back against the white wall.
Nothing about this trip is what I’d imagined. I was supposed to wine and dine Teo and bring back a signed contract. At worst, we would have had a few drinks and scheduled a meeting next week at home. But this?
“What are you thinking?”
“Me? Just thinking that this trip is like nothing I’d planned in my head.”
Charlotte scoffs, and a smile tugs at her cheeks. “Yeah, me, too.”
“You were great back there, you know,” I say. “Pretty calm under pressure.”
She leans back and stares at the ceiling. “I was terrified we’d make a mistake, or Arturo would stop breathing before we could find him help.”
She rubs her face and then drops her hand onto the armrest between us. Staring at her hand, I’m reminded of reaching for it back in the Jeep. “I’m sorry about earlier. I only meant to comfort you by holding your hand. I hope it didn’t make you uncomfortable. ”
“It didn’t,” she said, still staring at the ceiling. “It made me feel…”
I watch her lips, waiting for her to finish, but she only closes her eyes and rubs her forehead again.
I don’t press her. We’ve been through a lot. Although I want to reach over and grab her hand again, I hold back, rubbing my palms along the armrest.
About an hour later, the nurse spots us and walks over. “The doctor checked the x-rays, and he’s broken his arm in two places and dislocated his shoulder. He may have injured his hip, but another doctor is looking at those tests. Arturo is awake but sedated to help with the pain. Fortunately, he’ll be alright.”
I exhale slowly, and Charlotte runs her hands through her hair. “Thank you,” she whispers, seemingly to the nurse, but she’s still staring at the ceiling.
“You’re welcome. There’s really nothing more you can do here. You should head back to your hotel now.”
I stand and shake the nurse’s hand. It’s awkward because she isn’t expecting it, but I am grateful for their help. “We will.”
Charlotte doesn’t stand up with me, still staring at the ceiling, so I extend my arm to help her. She drops her gaze and accepts, gently placing her small hand in mine. Her skin is cold, and it sends shivers up my arm. “Let’s get out of here,” I say, rubbing her skin with my thumb .
She nods and lets me hold her hand as we walk back to the Jeep. We’re only ten minutes from the hotel, and neither of us speaks on the way back. I give the valet the keys when I pull up to the front.
Charlotte is pensive. She’s staring down and away. I walk her back to her room and stand at the door after she steps inside. She looks up at me, her eyes are red, and her face is drawn. “Do you want to come in?”
I should say no since I have an early flight in the morning. I should let her sleep and get some rest after a day like today. But she scrapes her bottom lip with her teeth, and her freckles distract me.
I should leave, but I can’t.
Do I want to come in?
“Yeah, I do.”