The Empty Trap Read Free Page B

He spewed up the water weakly and waited a long time and then drank sparingly. When he knew he would retain it, he crawled into the brush that would protect him from the morning sun.

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    In mid-morning he crawled out and drank. He had expected to feel stronger, but he felt weaker. He rolled onto his back, shaded his eyes, and looked up the dizzy cliff face. He tried to pick out his ledge, but he could not.
    I got down from there, he thought. I got down alive. And it would have been a good trick for a whole man. I can tell myself I did that much. I have water and shade. Two ingredients. I need a doctor and food. What is today? It was the ninth of May when they found us. I went over the edge at dawn on the tenth. Yesterday was the eleventh. This will be the twelfth. Sunday morning then. A Sunday in May.
    He tried to guess where he was in relation to the smashed car. He closed his eyes and tried to reconstruct how it had looked from the tree. At least it had not burned. It would be wise to get near the car, but not too far from the water. A man on a mountain mightspot the car. He might climb down to investigate. There was that frail chance.
    It should be in that direction, on the far side of the stream. Two hundred yards, perhaps. Maybe more. I can try it. There’s nothing else to do.
    He thought for a moment and then his heart began to pound. The car had not burned. Sylvia had liked to keep things in the glove compartment. Cookies, crackers, candy. Her appetite had never softened the trim lines of her body. There would be something there. Enough to give him another day, perhaps. Or two. He began the laborious crawl. He knew it was the only way he could move. Even if he could find a stick and pull himself erect, the bad leg and bad arm were on the same side. If only it could have been the right leg that was bad …
    From time to time he strained up to see the terrain ahead. When the far bank looked better, he pulled himself through a shallow place in the stream, and took time out to soak himself in a pool a foot and a half deep. Water stung the hurts of his body, the knee and elbows raw with crawling.
    On the far bank he found a bush with dark berries. He plucked several and could not decide how he could eat them. His jaw hung slack, badly broken, he knew. He pulped the berries in his fingers, and stuck them into the back of his throat, worked them down with his tongue. They were violently bitter and he coughed them out. The cookies and crackers would be a problem. Perhaps they could be pulped in water, in some sort of container, possibly a hub cap, and drunk like soup.
    He moved on under the height of the sun. He stopped when he heard a curious sound, a flapping and croaking sound. He moved toward it. He saw a black ugly bird rise, croaking, tilt creaking wings and soar down again. Another bird came up and went down. He crawled and parted the brush and saw them in an open space, tearing, quarrelling, wings outspread, a tumult of hunger. He closed his eyes when a shift of the wind brought him the sour-sweet smell of what they had been fighting over. When he opened them again he saw, under the moving blackness,the soiled shreds of pistachio green and of yellow. He cawed at them, a furious sound of anger coming from the broken mouth at this ultimate indignity. He hurled small stones and crawled with painful haste. They went away and sat like deacons on the limbs of low barren trees, observing him. He could not look at what was left of Sylvia, could not bring himself to look. They seemed to recognize his weakness, and they moved closer.
    For the rest of the afternoon, he worked with the furious energy of insanity. He used the stones close to her first, straining with the heavy ones. But there were not enough. He had to go further away each time, and many times he had to go so far they returned to her, the bolder ones, and he had to drive them away when he came back, pushing the stone along in front of him. He worked through the