The Upright Man by Michael Marshall Read Free Book Online Page B

oddly comforting. He stopped frequently, turning his head in hope of recognizing something and to reassure himself that his environment remained bear-free. He’d just about given up when he heard something that sounded like running water.
    He abandoned the path of least resistance and pushed his way through the undergrowth, very carefully. One more fall and he would not be walking anywhere anymore.
    On the other side of the bushes was a clearer area, and then a gully. The gully, he hoped, though it didn’t look at all as he remembered it. He’d only been there in darkness, of course, and had had no time to observe its appearance before finding himself at the bottom. His glimpses with the flashlight had shown it to be fairly wide, however, and about fifteen feet deep at the point where he’d holed up. What was in front of him could only be about twelve feet across, but was a lot deeper. The sides were extremely steep—far too steep and rocky for him to consider climbing down.
    He must have overshot his position of the night before.
    He glanced right, the direction he’d have to go. Tough-looking trees and bushes grew right up to the side of the drop. He could go back around the long way, but it was a long way. Hence the name. Left looked more clear, but was going in the wrong direction. And it was steep.
    Christ, he thought, wearily. His stomach was full of razor blades. His head felt like an avalanche of glass. Did heeven need the bag? Maybe it was the smell of alcohol that had attracted the bear. Maybe it was still there, waiting. And drunk. He stood irresolute.
    Get the bag, he thought. What else are you going to do?
    He trudged up along the edge of the gully. It began to narrow, but not enough that jumping it was a possibility. Twenty years ago maybe he’d have tried to vault ten feet. Actually, no, he wouldn’t—especially when both sides were muddy and rocky and the run up was too short and his ankle was screwed. Either way, it sure as hell wasn’t happening now. He hit a bank of trees and had to dodge left for a little while before skirting back around to the gully.
    He stopped. A tree lay across the gap. It had fallen there from the other side, chance bringing it down neatly so there was plenty of trunk on either side of the void it spanned.
    Tom limped up to it. The trunk was fairly large, perhaps two feet in diameter. The wood looked to be in good shape. He gave an experimental tug on a branch, and it rebounded crisply back, suggesting the tree hadn’t been down for long. So it wouldn’t be rotten. Maybe. It went from the side where he was to the side where he wanted to be. He could walk nine, ten feet, instead of many hundred.
    Right—but nine feet during which there’d be nothing underneath him but empty space, and beneath that, a lot of sharp rocks. Nine feet across a trunk that wasn’t super-wide, might be slippery, and which certainly had snow on it: nine feet which would be hard even if he didn’t have a bad ankle.
    Tom’s head swirled for a moment, as if some hidden deposit of alcohol had tardily arrived in his brain. When the world stopped moving, he stepped up to the log and put his good foot on it. The trunk didn’t seem to move. It was big and solid. It would take his weight. His mind was the only thing that would make it harder to cross than a stretch of icy pavement.
    He slid his foot a little farther along, accidentally brushing some snow off in the process. Interesting, he thought, immediately seeing the possibilities: don’t walk it—slideit. That way you don’t have to lift your feet (less scary), and clearing the snow will make the next step less slippery too. He poised his weight and lifted the other foot up onto the trunk, so that he was standing sideways on it.
    He stood there a moment, testing his balance, looking like the world’s loneliest and coldest surfer.
    Then he started out along the trunk. He slid his left foot along a foot, waited until he felt solid, then pulled