To Quiet the Little Voice - 9. 9. The Ravine

The Ravine

Corey finished wrapping the little girl’s leg in newspaper and duct tape. Wasn’t the most ideal splint in the world, but it would do till the rescue squad could meet them at the trailhead. He hated when someone in his group managed to get hurt on one of these hikes.

It was bad enough when the powers that be forced them to take a bunch of green kids hiking in the woods every fall. There were never enough adult hands actually had some outdoor common sense available to come along, so most times they had green adults too.

He smiled at the girl and offered her a paper cup with some ice in it. She gingerly took an ice cube and pressed it to where she had bitten her lower lip in the fall.

“Think you can tell me how you managed to end up down here, now you feel a little bit better?”

She sniffled a little and looked sort of sheepishly up thru her eyelashes.

“Bobby dared me to try and swing off of the funny looking ropey plant over there. I guess it wasn’t wrapped as tight around the tree as I thought it was. It sort of started peeling off the tree and next thing I knew I was down here and my leg hurt like the dickens.”

Corey rolled his eyes. If it wasn’t against the parks department policy he would come up here with his buddies and cut those dang wild grape vines out. Every time he brought a bunch of these pre-teens up here one of em managed to get into some sort of trouble with em. Now he had to figure a way to get her back up out of the ravine. And from the looks of those clouds he had better do it fast.

Corey bent close with the intention of scooping the tiny 12 yr. old up in his arms, but she scooted back away from him. He froze. There was more wrong here than a possible fracture he was sure.

“Don’t touch me!”

She looked more frightened than she had when he first got to the bottom of the ravine.

“OK sweetie – I will not touch you till you say it’s ok. But I need to know what’s wrong, or I will not be able to fix it.”

She clamped her lips tightly and gave him a defiant look.

“You can’t just fix me like I am some broken toy!” She glared at him.

“No, you are right. But I can help you, which is all I am trying to do. Did I hurt you when I splinted your leg? Is that why you are afraid?”

“You didn’t hurt me. But I’m not gonna let you either. That’s all men want – is to hurt us gals in the program. I wish my aunt had never signed me up!”

“Whoa. Slow down there a second missy. Someone from the program hurt you?”

“Oh like you didn’t know. Half the gals here have had that dirty old man lay hands on em, and I am not gonna be the next one!”

Corey sat down heavily on the sand beside her. He had a good idea who the “old man” had to be. He had seen the guy watching the gals, and had told the program director, but watching is sort of what an advisor is supposed to do. Without more there really wasn’t anything could be said. Now it looked like they had the “more”, at the expense of a bunch of pre-teen gals.

He let out an exasperated sigh. ‘Now what the hell can I say to prove she can trust me,’ he thought.

“Sandy, I am not sure what you have seen, or heard, but we need to talk here. There are a couple things you and I need to deal with. If someone is hurting girls in the program, I promise you I will put a stop to it. One way or another. It WILL stop. But right now we have other things we have to deal with. You hurt your leg pretty bad. It could be broken, and this isn’t one of my best efforts at making a splint. We need to get you up out of this ravine, and we need to do it before the cloud over there with the attitude decides to rain on us and turn this sandy stretch into a stream. Then we need to get you out to the trail head and into an ambulance. Now – if you would rather one of the other advisors come help you up the slope, we can do that, but it means you will have to stay here alone for a little while, till I can find the others and get help. I think Mrs. G is big and strong enough to carry you up, but there is no cell service out here. I would need to go find her and come back for you. Then once we make it to the trail head we need to hope I can uplink to a satellite with my laptop computer to get someone out here for you. Or drive you into town myself, but you barely want me in the ravine here with you. I don’t want to stress you out more by making you share my truck with me for two hours.”

“Well- I guess I really don’t have too much choice do I? Do I need to try and walk or were you going to carry me somehow?”

“I was hoping I could carry you up stream to where it is less steep and get you topside.”

Sandy sat back against the tree and pouted, then looked up with a calculating glint in her eye.

“How’s about if you carry me piggy back? I could hold a rock in my hand, and then I can be sure you will not try any funny business. I could just pop you one if you did. That way we both have to trust each other.”

Corey laughed. “You’re on. When we get out to the trail head you can make the call on if I just drive you into town or we wait there for the rescue squad. It should show you can trust me.”

“You know, all this healthy food you people have been feeding us is getting a little boring. Do you think maybe we could stop for a pizza pie in the little town on the way back to the hospital? Then I can tell you about Festus.”

“Festus?”

“That’s what the girls have taken to calling the old goat. They didn’t want to take a chance on one of the adults hearing them use his real name.”

“Ok, but you have to know I will come down on ‘Festus’ hard for this. No one and I mean NO ONE, hurts one of my charges and gets away with it. Will the girls he touched talk to me? We can keep it as low key as I can while we gather info, but once I have enough there will be cops involved.”

“Oh yes, they will talk. It was all I could do to keep em from screaming till we got the pictures last night! Will photos of him sneaking into a gal’s tent and a recording of the gal telling him to bugger off be enough?”

“Are you sure you are only 12?!?”