Mind games. That’s what they are, Walding thought.
He was getting tired because he was going into shock. He knew it. He tried to keep firing his rifle. It was the only way to stay alive. Sooner or later, they were going to be rescued. They were going to get off the mountain. That’s what he told himself. Walding was trying to stay positive. But he knew his leg was in bad shape. Being a country boy, he had blown his fair share of animals in half. So it wasn’t a shock seeing the effects that a bullet actually had on flesh. This helped him cope with the disturbing visuals.
From working on a farm, he had inherited his grandfather’s grit and steel. How many times when he was baling hay did he feel like giving up? How many times during football practices—two-a-days in the brutal August sun—did he cramp up but stay on the field? How many obstacles had he overcome in his life? His parents’ arrest? Moving in with his grandparents in a new town with a new set of rules. Walding was digging deep to deal with the misery. He had no morphine. Nothing to kill the pain. He had been lying on the ground for at least an hour with his lower leg tied to his thigh with a bootlace. And he was still functioning.
But when shock sets in, the waves consume the mind like a tsunami to the soul. He closed his eyes and whispered prayers: “Our Father, take care of my family if anything happens to me.”
It was his moment of clarity. He wasn’t thinking about himself—what would happen if he bled out. If he died on the mountain. He was thinking about his wife and children. Who would take care of them?
Then his mind drifted to his grandfather—the most important figure in his life. He’d learned so much from the old man. How to live a good moral life. How to treat people with respect. He’d learned to be mentally tough and face adversity like a man.
I’m going to come home, Papa. I promise.