I’d been on the job for 5 weeks – 3 weeks past my orientation. And I was loving it! This suited me to a ’T’ and I was grateful. Nature always filled me with peace and contentment. The beauty. The quiet sounds of small animals, birds, water and wind. And sometimes larger animals. The smells of rich earth, slightly musty brackish or slow-moving streams, the scent of flowers and who can miss the fresh, fresh air?
This was an entry level job, but it still took me out on a trail or two a week, keeping watch over tourists, hikers, campers and occasional trouble makers and idiots doing crazy, dangerous things ‘just for kicks.’ Ok. I shouldn’t call them idiots … but, really! I couldn’t find another suitably descriptive adjective.
Today was a trail day. The last three days had been filled with heavy rain so the sunshine was welcome. I was to check the higher hillside trails. In spite of the rain we still had hikers climbing or trying to climb as high as they could. Most wore appropriate shoes and carried appropriate gear. It was the outliers who didn’t that we had to check on.
As I climbed, so did the sun, drying out the trails it could reach. But that still left the parts through thick forest or brush gummy and slippery. By late morning I’d passed a pair of hikers enjoying their tramp and cleared a couple fallen branches off the trails.
I paused for a break on a rock that overlooked a deep valley carved by a stream, full now after the rains. Tough life, I thought to myself with a private grin. I glanced over my shoulder as a shadow flowed over me. I hope those clouds don’t get any darker.
I checked in with Base on the walkie talkie as I rose to continue onto the highest part of the trail which ran through thick brush and hugged the edge of a ravine.
An hour later the rain started up. Shoot! I picked up my pace as I needed to check the last of the trail before heading back. I rounded a corner and paused. I felt a vibration through my boots. Uh-oh! I listened carefully for what I was afraid of – mud or landslide!
A rumble started not far ahead of me and I thought I heard a cry. I moved forward as quickly as I could while still being careful. Then I heard a yowl! Cougar? Lynx? Too low for a Bobcat.
I rounded a corner and saw the source of the rumble. A rock that normally stuck out over the ravine was no longer there. Holding a tree bole I looked over the edge and just saw the last of its tumble far below. Mud and soil and the occasional small bush moved down the slope and flowed around the rock’s landing place like a stream around a boulder.
I looked across where the trail had been. Two people crouched there, hanging onto a large tree.
“Stay there,” I called. “Move back from the edge and wait until it all settles.”
They slowly moved backwards until they were several meters from the edge of the slide.
I looked left to assess the extent of the slide, wondering how I could get them around this dangerous area. If the rain continued it would stay treacherous.
I called back to Base and reported my location and the presence of the hikers.
“Stay,” the boss said. “The rain is supposed to pass in about ten minutes. You’ll need to wait it out. How is the ground on the edges?”
“Slippery.”
“Once the rain stops, toss them the rope and tie it off to the strongest tree in range.”
“Roger that.”
I shouted the plan across to the hikers. They gave me the thumbs up and moved back to shelter under a thicker tree. I did the same.
As I waited I heard a whimper from nearby. Frowning to myself I moved carefully into the woods near the the slide.
A young cougar lay near the edge, a deep gash on his hip and his front left leg trapped beneath a large boulder. He hissed when he saw me and thrashed his back legs, trying to get purchase in the mud. But then the pain of the gash stopped him. And loss of blood was weakening him.
I squatted down, lowering my profile, making myself less threatening, and looked around for something to lever the boulder off his leg. No branch solid enough was within sight or reach.
I needed to stop the bleeding first, I thought. But how? But if his leg was broken beneath the boulder, what kind of life would he have without it also being healed?
I wished I could just take him into that other dimension, or whatever it was, where my leg had been healed. But I didn’t know how to enter it. I’d been there twice… I thought back to what had sparked my ‘entrance.’ The only thing I could come up with was a kind of desperation … a strong desire for help. Well, I really wanted to help this cougar. He was a handsome chap even not looking his best at the moment.
I looked at him and thought, “He really needs help!” putting as much desire as I could into the thought.
Suddenly the air, though still damp, was crystal clear and every strand of grass, every pebble, every leaf or branch or bit of dirt was limned in light. I took a deep breath of gratitude and grinned. It worked! But then I realized that the cougar was not really with me. He was not clear but cloudy, misty, as if not fully there. He was outside my ‘bubble’ … which didn’t help him.
I reached for the boulder on his leg not even sure if I could touch anything outside my ‘bubble.’
But I was able to grab it. It felt rough and abrasive and not quite solid. I wrapped my arms around it and, using my legs, heaved on it. And landed on my rear, the boulder rolling off into the mud. It had not been heavy at all. Strange.
The cougar flinched away and tried to rise but his leg was definitely broken, the fur and skin ragged, peeled back from where he had tried to extricate it. And his rear leg, still bleeding, had no strength.
I wondered if I could bring him into my bubble somehow where he could heal. I tried to wrap my arms around him (he didn’t seem to see me clearly) so I could maybe lift him in … ?? I had no idea how this dimension bubble thing worked. But the boulder had remained ‘outside’ though I had been able to affect it. I could lift this guy (he was also a lot lighter than anticipated – or I was stronger) but he stayed ‘outside.’
I released him and crouched back on my haunches watching him, thinking.
I noticed that his wound was bleeding less where my arm had touched it. Huh!
So I lay my hand over the wound as if I was holding a compress or bandage on it. After a couple seconds I lifted my hand. The bleeding had almost stopped! I did it again. When I looked again the bleeding had stopped and the edges of the wound started to close. So I kept holding his wound until it was fully closed and only a small scar was left.
I sat back and grinned to myself.
The cougar started licking his wound … and then looked at me as if surprised.
Now for his foreleg. Watching him carefully, I reached ‘outside,’ thinking of wrapping some of whatever made up this dimension around his leg, trying to line up the bones properly. I wasn’t sure how I knew when they were re-aligned. I just knew.
I blinked and was back ‘home’ in the rainy, muddy forest beside a wild cougar, my hands on his leg but a couple centimetres out from his fur. Yet I felt something between my hands and his leg, something like a firm cushion that, when I ran my hands up and down his leg, extended from just below his shoulder to below his knee. Like an invisible cast from another dimension.
I grinned. The cougar seemed as surprised as I was, watching me with curiosity rather than fear or anger. This was so cool! I had no idea how I’d done it. But clearly I could bring something from there into here – somehow I could act as a kind of conduit between the two.
I found myself looking into the cougar’s eyes. He was staring at me … and purring! Greatly daring, I patted his shoulder. He licked my hand!
“You’re a good lad,” I told him. “You’ll be okay now, though you’ll be weak for a bit. You lost a lot of blood. You need to take it easy and drink a lot.”
I grinned, As if he can understand you! I thought. Yet, he seemed to, rising and moving carefully to a small puddle the rain had made next to another boulder, and drinking. He looked back at me as if to say, “See? Drinking like you said.”
“That’s right,” I told him. “Good boy. I think I’ll call you Lazarus, though you’re not quite back from the dead. Close enough.”
I rose and backed away from where Lazarus had been lying.
He flicked his tail, nodded at me, and moved away, disappearing into the forest within a few steps, only limping slightly.
The rain had stopped and the sun had come out while I was working on Lazarus.
Now to help those two hikers get back to this side of the slide. I wondered if there was any way I could use the other dimension to stabilize the slide…??
What did this new thing I’d done mean?
How else could this thing that was happening to me affect the ‘normal’ dimension?
I stretched and looked up at the now blue sky. “Thank You. Lead me.”
