Cobalt Blue Summer

Chapter 6

When we arrived at the camper, Gran insisted that my ankle would need to be examined at the clinic the next morning; however, she was scheduled to work the a.m. shift. Surprisingly, Caleb offered to take me since he wasn’t scheduled to work until afternoon, and she accepted. I was exhausted and in too much pain to argue about anything. Austin appeared shell shocked. While Caleb and Gran took control, he leaned against the wall in the corner by the door, subdued with his arms crossed and his eyes on the floor. He only spoke to say a quick goodbye as he and Caleb left. It would be torture not to talk to him for an entire week about what we had seen. I wondered if he was really needed at home to help his dad or if he was in big trouble.

As soon as the guys left, Gran gave me ibuprofen and something to eat and put me to bed on the sleeper sofa with an ice pack on my ankle. It was a long night. Even the pressure of the sheet on my foot was painful, and my mind obsessed over the details of the day. The pieces weren’t falling together logically. Caleb had seemed more concerned over Austin’s seeing the bigfoot than over the hiker’s disappearance, and it sounded as though his father had been the same way. He hadn’t asked us for a description of the hiker or the creature, though I, of course, had no way to know what he and Austin were talking about now. Maybe he had been waiting until I was out of the way. Did he believe we had actually seen a sasquatch, or did he think our imaginations were out of control? Surely, if I had seen the creature twice in a few weeks, then he had seen at least one at some point during all of his backwoods camping trips. I’d have to poke around tomorrow to see if I could get any info out of him. He certainly hadn’t talked tonight.

Caleb showed up promptly at the designated time the next morning. After swallowing a couple more ibuprofen, I had clumsily managed to shower and get ready in the camper’s tiny bathroom. I had just unlocked the door and sat down to elevate my foot when Caleb’s knock sounded. I yelled for him to come in.

“So, how’s the patient this morning?” he asked as he stepped into the RV, closing only the screen part of the door behind him. “Ready for an x-ray?”  His hair still looked slightly damp from his shower, and I could smell the musky scent of his body wash. He almost seemed a little shy standing just inside the doorway looking down at me.

“Yeah, ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.” I avoided his eyes, lowered my feet to the floor, and stood without putting any pressure on my injured foot. Before I could attempt my first hobble toward the door, he was at my side lifting me into his arms as he had the night before.

“Caleb, you don’t need to carry me. It’s just a sprained ankle. I can manage.”

“You don’t know that yet, could be broken.”

“This is a waste of time. I’m sure it’s not broken. I’m only going to the clinic to make Gran feel better.”

“Thoughtful of you,” he said sarcastically and deposited me into the passenger side of his truck.

“So, is Austin already gone?” I asked on the drive to the clinic in Lake Village.

“Yep.”

Great, back to his monosyllabic vocabulary again. “Care to expand on that, cave man?” I thought but didn’t dare utter aloud. At the clinic, he scooped me into his arms before I could even get out of the truck. The wait in the clinic was short, and, as I expected, my ankle was only sprained not broken. The doctor wrapped it, gave me some crutches to use for the first few days and a brace for later, and instructed me to keep it elevated as much as possible and to use ice packs initially to keep the swelling down then sent me on my way.

“So,” Caleb asked as I tentatively made my way to his truck on my new crutches, “any plans for the rest of the day?”

“Nope, just icing and elevating,” I answered, wondering why he asked.