Levi heaved himself back onto the trail, bloodied and exhausted. This was as good as it was going to get tonight. If anyone was going to be searching for him soon, this was going to be the best place to stay for awhile. Huddling up under a large pine tree to cradle his broken ribs, he closed his eyes, trying to remember the intriguing beauty he had just witnessed.
~
The morning before, Levi was up horseback riding deep in the wild mountains with his close friend, Aiden, when he realized he had to go back to the lake for his hunting knife he’d thought he’d dropped in the area. It was only about a mile and a half back- and they were literally just there. Aiden was going to keep a steady pace back to camp since he needed to be in reception for work soon.
“You sure you want to go back for it?” Aiden asked, his lean frame shivering a little from the icy swim earlier that morning. It was just the beginning of summer, so even though the air was warm, the snow was only just melting into the tiny lake they visited. “I mean, I’ll go with you if you really need, but it wasn’t that great of a blade anyway.”
Levi laughed, “Nah, man. I’ll catch up in about an hour or two.”
“Sounds good.” Aiden shivered, turned his horse, and kept going down the trail, keeping religiously to the inside, closer to the mountain. It was too steep a descent on the other side to risk anything.
Levi had no problem getting back to the lake at a much faster pace than before, but the towering, fluffy clouds were rapidly welcoming more weather in. And in the mountains, things could drastically change in a matter of minutes.
He made a fruitless search for his stupid knife once he reached the large, cold puddle again, realizing that he was going to have to haul ass back to camp before the rain came. Thunder was rumbling in the not-so-far distance as he mounted his horse and started at a faster pace than he would normally be comfortable with.
Why go back for something that really had no meaning? His thoughts drummed in his head as he tried safely navigating his horse around the winding mountain.
The trees were thicker in this part. Their branches hung low and heavy, not yet swaying in the wind that he could hear racing up the wall of the valley, coming fast and hard.
From up the mountainside, Levi also heard something else on its way.
In case it was a bear coming down, he kicked up the pace. His horse felt it too, festering more panic between them both, hooves skittering dangerously close to the edge.
Around the next bend, an elk twice the size of his horse gracefully jumped out of the dense brush right in front of them. The bull hardly paid any attention as it disappeared into the darkening trees down the steep side, where Levi suddenly felt his body begin to follow.
The gust of wind arrived in a force, knocking him off balance even more. His horse bucked in the same momentum, sending him head-long down the mountain after the enormous animal. He could only feel the harsh forest arms batting and thwacking at him as he flailed helplessly through trees and over rocks until he came to a thudding, cracking halt at the bottom.
Levi’s back. He gasped in pain. A pain like he had never felt before as he stared up at the sky.
He couldn’t move or speak or breathe for what felt like a deathly amount of time. Rain spattered on the pine needle floor around him, coming in through the branches that were partially covering him from the towering trees.
I’m dying.
Levi tried his absolute hardest to calm his thoughts. He felt like a bag of quivering flesh just putting every ounce of his life energy into breathing. After a few moments, he felt his eyelids lowering and his vision slowly getting darker and darker as the rain continued to fall around him. His body began to grow numb in just a few minutes.
Almost a peaceful way to go.
~
But Levi snapped awake at the sound of something dragging nearby. It was much darker now, and the ground around him was cold and squishy. The rain had stopped.
He must have been out all day. The sound was coming close now. He closed his eyes, not wanting to meet any more wildlife today. It stopped a few feet away and didn’t move until he opened his eyes again.
It was a young woman. She was dressed in a thin sparkling blanket or robe that shimmered in the same way her hair did as she moved in the twilight. She was stunning. And he was so confused.
There was no way there was someone like her tucked fifteen miles into the empty, open mountains. He was hallucinating.
It was a pleasant hallucination, though. There was no way he was going to be moving anytime soon unless Aiden backtracked and somehow found exactly where he went down. Unlikely.
He felt excruciating pain in his back and ribs, which was why it hurt so bad to breathe.
Taking short, shallow little breaths, Levi opened his mouth to ask for help. A weak wheeze came out instead. The woman smiled as if she were meeting him in full health.
She knelt down next to him with her long robe pooling softly next to his arm. She took his hand.
He felt it!
For it being a hallucination, he didn’t imagine feeling anything corresponding with what he was seeing. The end must’ve been near, but he grasped her hand, thankful for a little solace.
The woman smiled brighter as if she heard his thoughts, and she rested her other hand on his stomach. He flinched, not wanting anyone to poke at any of the burning pain.
But her hand was soothing. Cold, but in a good way, like it was freezing away the deeply inflamed cuts and bruises.
Then she shoved her hand into his stomach. Her hand went right through! Levi sucked in a pained scream and could feel her hand around the place where his spine hurt the worst. He felt the same cold relief start to spread through his back, pulsating from her hand like she was molding him a new clay spine.
It was only for a moment and she drew her hand back, looking at him with raised eyebrows. He still wasn’t able to breathe very well, since it didn’t spread to his ribs, but he wasn’t completely immobile.
“Thanks,” he whispered. She leaned down and kissed his forehead. The reviving coolness blossomed where her lips touched. His eyes closed.
When he opened them again, she let go of his hand and stood silently.
“Thank you.” Her whisper was like a gentle breeze. She waved as she strode over to a tall boulder with a flat side.
The woman took one more look back at him before she stepped right into the rock and disappeared.
No.
She was gone. He managed to shift himself so he was leaning back on his elbows, staring at the boulder. There was no use waiting. Levi knew deep down that he was never going to see her again. But he was healed.
It hadn’t been a hallucination. His back had been mended by… some sort of beautiful, benevolent mountain deity. Or something?
The pain in his ribs was unimaginable but he knew he would be able to slowly shimmy his way back up to the path. He at least needed to get back to the path, and it was only about twenty-five yards up. Not nearly as far as he’d thought, and it wasn’t as steep as it’d looked either. It would be gruesome, but he would be fine.
Finally getting to his feet, he hobbled over to the boulder and put his hand to it. There was no sign anything was out of the ordinary. Just a cold rock.
Levi dug in his pockets to see if there was anything he could leave for her. He only had a dumb, smiley face keychain that he found at work a while ago. He’d kept it in his pocket for luck, even though he didn’t really believe trinkets held anything like that. He was kind of embarrassed to leave something so ridiculous after such an experience, but it was all he had. He decided to bury it right in front of the boulder. The ground was very empty all around it, and he wanted his gift to stay in one place.
Now it was time to climb back up. It would probably take him all night, so he got moving.
~
Levi was found a few hours before dawn the next morning, slumped under the tree.
Aiden had scoured the area for a long time, going back to the lake and combing his way back through. Levi’s horse had wandered into camp the night before and that’s when Aiden started looking.
It didn’t take long to have him helicoptered out and into the nearest hospital. His back had actually been broken and healed, baffling his doctors and proving he hadn’t just imagined his encounter. It took a few months to fully recover, but once he did, Levi went back up by himself with his horse, slowly this time, leaving his buddies back at camp.
When he reached the place he’d been thrown, he tied the horse and slid down to the exact place he’d been laying at the beginning of summer. The air was already starting to get brisk with the hint of autumn on the way, but it was still nice enough to go for one more long camping trip.
At first he waited, like something was going to happen. Everything was very calm.
Levi took in the area, not noting anything special, except when he looked over at the boulder.
A wild mountain rose was growing where he’d buried the keychain. All by itself.
Walking over, he smiled. There was every chance this was just a coincidence, but there was also a chance she’d liked his gift. He took out a stamped penny he brought especially for her and buried it next to the small rose bush. Next year, he would come back and see what grew in its place. Levi was always going to gratefully and warmly remember his encounter with the beautiful Mountain Goddess who saved his life.
Every summer since then, he’s brought a small gift, and now the ground around that boulder is bursting with flourishing wildflowers.
The End
