Page 72 of Happiness for Beginners

Over breakfast, Jake reported on Hugh’s condition. He was bruised black from his waist to his knee, he could not bend his leg at all, and the one-leg-looking-longer-than-the-other problem made Jake suspect that Hugh might have both fractured and dislocated his hip. But he was conscious, which was great. Jake turned his eyes to me in front of the whole group. “He said Helen is his hero.”

“You got something right, girl,” Beckett said. “Way to go.”

Beckett took over from there, detailing the plan: Half the group—six of us—would carry the litter. The other half would shuttle all the backpacks up ahead in groups. Apparently I was helping to carry the litter. So was Jake.

We were going to make our way to the closest trailhead—about three miles away—to meet the ambulance that’d take Hugh to the hospital.

“We’re just going to drop him at the trailhead and keep moving?” Mason asked.

Beckett shook his head. “A BCSC administrator will meet us at the trailhead. She’ll take it from there.”

It was nine thirty in the morning. It was time to get moving. Three miles didn’t seem so far, I thought to myself. Maybe today wouldn’t be so bad.

But that’s when Beckett turned around to say one last thing to the group. “This is going to be the longest day of your lives, people. No matter how miserable you are, remember that it’s ten times worse for Hugh. It’s a good thing we did our little exercise in inner strength last night. Now’s the time to call up those people who love you. You’re going to need ’em.”

It all seemed a little dramatic to me. Beckett always did seem a little dramatic. And yet, he had a way of being right, too. I walked over to help get Hugh onto the litter. The guys were gathered around him, ready to pick him up and position him on top. They looked menacing, even to me. Jake instructed them all to slide their hands underneath Hugh “like spatulas.”

“Is it going to hurt?” Hugh asked.

Jake nodded. “Sorry, pal. Like hell.” He looked at the guys. “Ready?”

“Wait!” Hugh shouted.

They waited.

But he was just stalling. I read the terror on his face so plainly that I moved in—cut between Jake and Mason—and grabbed his hand. “Squeeze my hand,” I instructed, just as Jake capitalized on the distraction and shouted, “One-two-three! Lift!”

I have never in my life heard anybody scream like Hugh did in that moment. If agony could speak, that’s what it would say. When he stopped, I realized that he’d passed out again.

We zipped him into his sleeping bag for warmth and protection. Then we lashed him to the litter—tight, so he wouldn’t slide around. “He’d be screaming now, too,” Jake said, “if he were conscious.”

Just like that, it was time to go. “Let’s move,” Beckett said, as we, the litter bearers, took our places around the edge of the frame. I had assumed that we’d raise Hugh up to our shoulders, kind of like pallbearers, but Beckett told us to lift him hip-height and carry him with our arms extended straight down. “Easier for you,” Beckett said, “and safer for him.”

“Safer?” I asked.

“In case we drop him.” Then, off my look: “Which we won’t.”

Beckett had tied six lashes around the edge so that we could hold on to the frame with our interior hand but pull the lash around and up over our shoulders with the other. “Wrap the end of the lash around like this,” he said, demonstrating, “and straighten your elbow.”

“That’ll help,” I thought. “But not much.”

The minute Beckett said, “Lift on three… one, two, THREE,” and I felt the real weight of what we’d be carrying for the next three miles, both uphill and down, my muscles were like, “Nope! Set it down.”

But I didn’t. Because no one else did, and because there wasn’t any other choice.

“He’s way too scrawny to be this heavy,” Mason said then.

“You have to add in the weight of the frames. And the sleeping bags.”

“He’s probably about one eighty,” Beckett said. “Add the frames, and I’d guess two hundred. Maybe more.”

“So that should only be thirty pounds each. Ish.”

“That’s not that bad.”

But it was that bad. Before we’d even made it back to the fork of the original trail, my shoulders felt seared where the lash dug into them—and my hand was throbbing and purple where I’d wrapped the end around. Beckett had predicted that it would take us most of the day to get to the trailhead, because the pack shuttlers would literally be running the distance twice—once with their own packs, and once with a pack of one of the litter carriers. We, of course, would be moving slow—both for Hugh’s sake and for ours. It was, without a doubt, the most physically grueling thing I’d ever asked my body to do.

Think about something else,I tried to command myself. Beckett had advised us to call up our person. Someone who loved you, he’d said. I tried to picture Nathan standing up ahead, cheering me on like a marathon spectator. But it was too hard, not to mention too silly. I didn’t have any energy left over for imagination, and I couldn’t believe Beckett had suggested it—if anything, trying to do two things at once just made both harder.

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