Up a Tree

As Gavin slowly wakened from his nap he wondered why the cabin temperature was so low. Beyond low. It was freezing. When his eyes opened groggily he saw pine branches partly obstructing his view of a cloudless starry night sky. His first thought was, “Oh, that is why it’s cold.” His second was that this answer raised a host of new questions. He sometimes woke up disoriented when he traveled; in the morning when waking in a motel room somewhere, he might struggle for a few moments to remember where he was and why. But he never had awakened to sky before. He didn’t remember ever having debarked from the commuter aircraft on which he had booked a flight from Nashville to Roanoke. His face stung as though scratched. He grew conscious of what felt like bruises on his torso. He felt beneath himself with his hands. He was still strapped to his passenger seat… and he was in a tree.
 
Gavin patted his body for his cell phone. He then remembered it was in the inside pocket of his jacket. His jacket was missing. He had removed it earlier because the cabin temperature was too warm. He realized his shoes were missing, too. He had not removed those. They must have flown off in the aftermath of whatever happened to the plane. He recalled a story years ago of a woman whose seat landed in an Amazon forest canopy after her airliner broke up in midair. She survived. He was probably in the hills of North Carolina or Virginia. His odds should be at least as good.
 
Gavin took stock of his surroundings. His seat was lodged in branches with his face to the sky. He leaned to his left and looked down. His eyes took a minute to adjust to the darkness below. When his pupils dilated enough to at least see the ground, he realized he was some 40 feet in the air. The chair shifted suddenly from the change in the center of gravity. Gavin held his breath expecting to be in free fall, but the branches held. He exhaled and gently undid his seat belt. He reached carefully to a branch above his head. The tall pine had climbable branches at this height, but from what he could see the lowest 20 feet of the trunk had mere stubs where it wasn’t bare. He pulled himself out of the seat and cautiously worked his way down the tree. As he reached the bare section of the trunk his hands and shirt already were sticky from sap. He smelled like one of those evergreen car fresheners. The lower part of the tree contained enough branch stubs for useful hand and foot holds but they also stabbed into him as he climbed down past them. He scraped and scratched his body repeatedly through his clothes on the way down, but he was sure the wounds were superficial. By the time he reached the ground he was physically exhausted.
 
Gavin’s shoeless feet were cold. At least there was no snow on this winter day, but there was frost on the ground that turned damp from his own body heat. His socks already were moist to his ankles. He wondered if he should stay put and wait for rescuers. He quickly rejected the idea. The rest of the plane apparently was someplace else – or someplaces else. How would anyone know to look for him here? And when? He might die of exposure by morning if he didn’t move. Downhill was not only easier than uphill, but seemed more likely to lead to civilization. He chose the direction that seemed to be descending and began walking. A survival tip he remembered from childhood – though he couldn’t say when and where he heard it – said to follow water downstream. That will take you to people. If he encountered a stream he would follow that.
 
There was no clear path among the trees. Repeatedly he was forced to push through tangles of vines, brush, and small branches. Thorns did minor violence to his hands and branches smacked him in the face. His wet, cold, shoeless feet seemed to find every possible loose rock on which to step. He was sure his feet were bleeding. At least the cold numbed them. His early determination waned as he plodded on for seemed like hours, though occasional peeks at the sky through the trees revealed that the stars and moon hadn’t changed nearly enough for so much time to have passed. Exhaustion and melancholy overtook him. The desire to sit down, rest, and perhaps sleep, grew nearly overwhelming. His rational mind told him it would be a permanent sleep. He would die of exposure. The non-rational side of him didn’t care. At each stumble it became harder to motivate himself to get back up and resume walking. He pushed onward one foot in front of the other. He no longer could feel his feet. His lungs hurt. He found he had to stop frequently or else grow lightheaded. He took to counting 25 steps, halting to catch his breath, and then pacing another 25.
 
Gavin swore he could hear something in the woods in back of him. Was it just deer or was something tracking him? Coyotes had spread into the area in recent decades but this sounded bigger. A bear? Black bears were fairly common in these woods but he always had been told they are not naturally aggressive with humans. Yet they were predators after all. And he did reek of blood. The idea of sitting down was suddenly less enticing.
 
One foot stepped in water. He had found a stream. He followed the stream to a larger stream. He no longer could feel anything below his knees. He wasn’t sure how he was managing to stand. The stream eventually debouched into a small grassy area, and in front of him was a culvert. He climbed up the embankment next to it on all fours and found himself by a country lane. Headlights appeared. He stood up and waved to the oncoming sedan. The driver honked at him and swerved around him.
 
At least the commotion on the road had scared away the bear if that is what it was. He was too tired to walk any further. He stood until a new set of headlights approached. This time he walked into the middle of the road and waved with both arms. The SUV slowed and came to a stop several feet in front of him. He could not make out the driver but she shouted out the driver’s side window, “Stay there! Don’t come any closer! I’ve called the police!”
 
“Good,” he called back. “That is what I want!” The plane crashed,” he added. His words were oddly slurred. His chattering teeth were interfering with his pronunciation. He sat down in the road.
 
In the back of a police car a half hour later he repeatedly refused to be taken to a hospital. The officers complied with his request to turn up the heat. The warmth felt wonderful.
 
 “We’d really should take you to the hospital.”
 
“If you do I’ll simply call a cab and leave. I just want to go home. I need some dry clothes,” said Gavin.
 
“Your lawyer is at the police station. Ask him.”
 
“My lawyer? Bob Miller is there?”
 
“No, an Anders Something. The lieutenant called in just before we picked you up. She said he was there. He claims to represent all victims in the county of the air crash, though I’m guessing that might be just you. Most of the plane came down over in Rockbridge. I don’t know who tipped him off about you.”
 
At the police station Anders Grunwald, Esq., stopped police from taking Gavin’s statement until he had a chance to consult with his client.
 
“Hi Gavin,” Anders said.
 
“Who are you?”
 
“Someone with experience in the area of airline liability. We have an exceptional case against the airline – much better than if you had died.”
 
“I’m rather pleased about that, too, but ‘We’? And is there any chance I can get some dry clothes?”
 
“I’ll send my assistant. There is an all-night Walmart down the road, but I’ll have to bill you for her time.”
 
“Uh, OK.”
 
“Here, jot down your sizes.” He handed the note off to an overdressed woman in her 20s. “The work on the suit against the airline won’t cost anything, of course. We’ll just take a percentage of the settlement.”
 
A middle age woman in a severe business suit approached the table. “Hi Gavin. Sorry to interrupt you two, but I’m from Schiller and Schiller. This is my card. If we won’t be representing you I have to ask if you made any effort to find other survivors while you were in the woods.”
 
“I’d advise you not to answer that,” Anders said
 
“If not, there may have been hate crimes committed, at least to the extent of civil liability. We’ll have to check who else was on the plane.”
 
“Hate crimes?” Gavin asked.
 
“Don’t worry,” said Anders. “We can represent you in that, too, though we’ll have to bill by the hour.” To the other attorney he said, “I need some privacy with my client.”
 
She nodded and backed off.
 
“Look, I just want to go home. My family has to be worried sick.”
 
“April will be back with your clothes and she’ll drop you off, Gavin. Your home is only an hour away. Now let’s get that statement to the police out of the way. The FAA will send someone to speak to you, too.”
 
The sun was up when April pulled into Gavin’s driveway off a suburban street in Roanoke.
 
“Our office will be in touch with you,” she said. “Once again, we strongly urge you to refrain from commenting on last night’s events without our presence. That includes to news media people.”
 
“Right.”
 
Gavin exited the car and walked to the front door of his simple but pleasant two story home. His feet hurt, mostly from the rough treatment they had received during the night but in part from chafing on account of his new shoes. He patted his pockets for keys but realized they were in his missing jacket. The front door opened in front of him. It was his son David.
 
“Hi dad. Can’t talk. Here comes the school bus.”
 
“OK, we’ll talk later.”
 
He entered the small foyer and smelled the familiar aroma of home. A gray tabby cat slept on the sofa in the living room.
 
He climbed the steps to the second floor and opened the door to the main bedroom. His wife was still in bed. She opened one eyelid and then closed it again.
 
“Hi, honey,” Sarah said. “Today is a work-from-home day, so I’m sleeping in an extra hour. You’re late. Flight get delayed?”
 
“There were problems. Didn’t anyone call you during the night?”
 
“I don’t know. My phone is off. Can we talk about this later?” she asked.
 
“Sure.”
 
Sarah turned away onto her other side.
 
Gavin walked down the steps and sat next to the cat who ignored him. He reached for the TV remote but hesitated to push the power button. He wasn’t quite ready to watch the news. He put the remote down, closed his eyes, and stroked the cat. The cat purred.