He woke up the next day curled into himself, knees up, arms in, nestled down into the leaves and grasses on the top of the small rise. The sun broke weakly through the spring-bare leaves of the poplar that crowned the low hill. He didn’t feel anything in his leg—no sharp pain or crunching—so he slowly unfolded himself along the ground. His body ached and his hands had turned from brown to ash-gray. He couldn’t stop shivering. He lay for a minute under the mute arms of the trees like a sacrifice and felt his stomach turn and claw beneath his bruised skin. He didn’t know what time it was, nor how long he’d slept, only that his neck was stiff from the awkward bend of sleep and his head throbbed from lack of food and cigarettes. He brought his hand up to his face, raw from the wind.

Around him he saw plenty of deadfall blown from the crowns of storm-scarred poplar, so he collected some of the stronger pieces, tested them and when he found the right ones, long and straight, he broke them over his good knee and laid them to either side of his ankle. He took off his flannel shirt, scored the seams with his teeth and ripped it into strips and bound the sticks to his ankle. Then he slipped off the boot from his left foot and pulled it carefully onto his right. He winced but did not cry out. He lay back down gasping, sucking air through his teeth although the pain wasn’t so bad. He moaned and sucked air because of what was to come, of what he imagined when he thought of walking out of the woods. He stood, pulling himself up with a small tree that grew next to him, trying not to bend his bad leg. He stood there tottering, mimicking the stiff sway of the trees bending on the low tongue of wind which had changed directions and blew now out of the woods and toward the river. Simon bent down and grabbed a larger branch; it held his weight so he began hobbling toward higher ground, away from the river.