Page 93 of The Boy Who Cried Bear
Except inwardly yelling at himself does no good at all. His ankle still hurts. It hurts so much that each step is excruciating pain.
Excruciating?
Max swears he hears Carson’s mocking voice.
You don’t know excruciating. That’s when you see your husband die and you get shot and the pain never goes away. It hurts Mom to walk every day, and you’re whining because you twisted your ankle? Help is a few hundred feet away, and you’re going to collapse and say you can’t do it? Figures.
Max grits his teeth and keeps going, but it doesn’t fix anything. He hurts and he’s tired and he’s hungry, so hungry that as soon as he thinks about it, his stomach feels like it’s ripping itself apart from the inside.
Then don’t think about it. Duh.
Maybe Carson could, but Max can’t just not think about it and make it go away. Not the pain in his foot or in his stomach. He’s so tired and sore and—
Are those tears? Are you crying? Such a baby.
Max swipes a hand over his eyes and snuffles, and he decides he doesn’t care what Carson would do. He’s not Carson. He also doesn’t care what Carson would think of him. Carson doesn’t matter. Not now.
In the end, the voice he pulls up isn’t his brother’s mockery or his dad’s jokey drill sergeant. It’s his mom.
Max? I know this is hard, and you just want to give up, but you’re so close. Just a little further, okay? You can do this. You just need to get a little—
His ankle twists, and he falls with a yelp. He starts to clap a hand over his mouth.
Be quiet.
Or should he?
If Sheriff Eric and Deputy Will are close enough for him to hear them, why is he forcing himself to walk on a twisted ankle? Why not just shout for them?
Because he doesn’t want the ending where the grown-ups come running at a little boy’s cries and save him. He wants the one where he saves himself. If he can’t stumble into town on his own, then he wants to find his rescuers on his own.
Maybe it’s time to let that go. Time to say it doesn’t matter how this ends. It matters how he survived. That he survived.
The birdcall and the whistle come again. The whistle is so close and—
Someone is crashing through the undergrowth. At least one person, maybe two, coming fast.
Not coming in his direction, though. They’re heading toward Sheriff Eric. Which means, in a few moments, they’ll be heading away from him.
Don’t care about how this ends. Care about how it went.
He is still alive, and now he’s going to get his rescue, even if it means they find him on the ground with tears in his eyes.
Max draws in a deep breath—
The crack of a twig stops him. He follows the sound. Sheriff Eric is to his left—the east. Deputy Will was to his south and heading southeast. This sound comes from his right.
Don’t let yourself get spooked by an animal.
He’s not spooked. He’s being cautious. Get up, see what it is, and call to Sheriff Eric.
Max braces on a tree and pushes halfway up. Then he freezes.
That is not an animal.
He sees the distinct figure of a person creeping up on him. A human shape coming his way. Someone who heard him yelp. Someone who is not Sheriff Eric or Deputy Will.
His whole body tenses, ready to leap up and run. Except he can’t run, can he?
