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They'll lower a basket from a helicopter, pile him in and then whoosh
him off to the hospital where doctors will see his smushed body and say, "He
must have had one helluva fall!"
They'll spend eighteen hours operating on him, rebuilding bones and
muscles and kidneys and duodenums. They'll keep him in intensive care for
two weeks, declare him "saved," transfer him to another ward for ten more
weeks, get him into physical therapy to relearn how to use atrophied muscles
and bones held together by pins and plates.
He'll return to work six months after that, and Ron "Bear Butt" McBride
will slap him on the back and say, "Welcome back you dumb sonofabitch!" and
everyone will laugh haw haw. They'll pour beer over his head and celebrate his
life with white cake and cheese doodles and a keg stuck in an old fifty-gallon
turpentine drum filled with ice. No one will work that day, as it will be pro­
claimed Merrik Allen Moore Day, and he'll sit and regale everyone with his trip
to Bryce Canyon.
Yeah, he'll survive; he's not a quitter. With friends like his, how could
he be? Of course, the one question that they're going to want to know right
away is the single most important question to every guy who's been in an acci­
dent:
"So Merrik, does the Patriot still salute?"
That'll be a pretty good question in a few months, but it's an even bet­
ter question right now. Merrik struggles to raise his head and have a look, fear­
ful that any movement might further damage what must be a broken spine.
Though he sure as hell doesn't want to cripple himself, he's got to know if the
old hydraulics are still functioning. He takes a deep breath and looks, and
gasps.
"Where am I?" he says, for as Merrik looks down toward his plumb­
ing, he sees nothing but snow, rocks and a creosote bush. He raises his hand
before his face, but doesn't see that either. His other hand follows suit, but the
result is the same. Merrik begins to panic as he realizes that he can't see any­
thing of himself. "I'm blind!" he screams out, but then realizes that he can see
the canyon floor and the snow and some dried-up brush.
The tingly feeling stays with him and it soon becomes clear what's
happened. A few yards to his left, he sees a body with an expensive Arc'teryx
backpack still strapped to it. Merrik stands up, goes over and examines it.
Though the body is messed up good and not even all in one piece anymore, the
backpack has emerged unscathed. Now that's what five hundred bucks'll get you, he
thinks. He searches around for the rest of himself, finds his right arm not too far
away. A little more searching reveals his lower half, including his pelvis,
propped up rather comically against a boulder. Merrik chuckles, but not
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