“This hooks in here.”

      My dad reached around and clipped the carabiner of the safety strap to the D-ring on my harness. I knew how to do it, he’d taught me himself, but he was nervous, so I didn’t protest.

      “Don’t take this off,” he said. “Not until you’re ready to get out of the tree stand.”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “If you do, you might fall and hurt yourself. Do you know how many hunters needed medical attention last year after falling out of tree stands?”

      “Fifty-seven hundred,” I responded automatically. Dad was right. Repetition really did make things stick.

      “That means during their lifetime, the average hunter has up to a five percent chance of needing to go to the hospital from falling,” dad quoted his favorite statistic.

      “Yes, sir,” I replied. “I won’t take off the harness unless I’m getting out of the stand.”

      “Good.” Dad climbed down the ladder. He looked up at me from the ground and posited one more question. “What’s the first rule of hunting?”

      “Never shoot something you don’t intend to kill,” I answered. “The second one is nearly as important. Never shoot at something you can’t see.”

      “Good.” Dad fidgeted for a few seconds. “I’m not far over that way. If something happens, call for help and I’ll be here in a second.”

      “I’ll call if anything goes wrong.”

      It was an empty promise since I knew everything would be alright. It wasn’t my first time hunting, or even my second. I had been going hunting with my dad for three years. Nothing had happened so far, and nothing would go wrong this time. He was just nervous since this was my first time in a tree stand by myself.

      “Alright,” he said. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

      He hitched his rifle a little higher on his shoulder and walked further into the woods. I heard him shuffling through the fallen leaves as he trekked down the hill the few hundred feet to his tree stand, then everything was quiet.

      Dawn had broken twenty minutes prior, and nature was still shaking itself awake. I wore a second layer, a vest, to ward off the chilly November air. Still, when breezes rustled gently through the trees, they carried with them a certain discomfort.

      That would change with the rising sun, the rays of which I could just start to see filtering through the bare branches of the forest. I liked the forest this time of year. Leaves no longer obscured the view in every direction, and while some might find the greys and browns of fall boring or even depressing, they soothed my soul.

      Truth be told, I didn’t go hunting with my dad for the sport or the meat. The quiet and solitude were my main draws. It was the only place I could sit and hear nothing, feel no stress of homework, no worries of what someone else thought of me. I was alone with my thoughts, and that was enough.

      My chances of even spotting a deer were historically very low, but I set up my rifle for the off chance. I inserted the small magazine, worked the bolt to put a bullet in the chamber, and turned on the safety. From here, it was inevitable my mind would wander.

      “Always focus on your surroundings,” my father often said. “If you aren’t paying attention, you might let the biggest buck you’ve ever seen get away.”

      This was always followed by the same anecdote of him missing a shot one time because he was dozing. Though the story is, no doubt, true, the antler size seems to increase with each telling.

      I was okay with it, though. Killing animals netting a fancy trophy were the farthest things from my mind.

      And what fills a 13-year-old’s thoughts when he’s out in a tree stand? I tried to be spiritual, to focus on God’s creation and thank Him for it, but the teenage mind is a fickle yet predictable arena. It was not long before thoughts of Heidi Jenkins popped into my head. Heidi was the prettiest, smartest girl at school, a fact some of my other friends would debate. We can’t all be right I suppose.

Heidi was a year younger than me and yet we got along just fine. My mid-pubescent brain didn’t yet view her as a romantic interest, and I had no idea why she should fill my thoughts any more than Marty or Steve or any of my other friends.

      A movement jolted me back to the present and I swung my rifle into position, thumbing the safety switch. The doe was no more than twenty feet away, close enough that I should have seen her earlier. I could practically feel my dad chiding me. My finger dropped to the trigger instinctively, nearly pulled it reflexively, but my father’s teaching’s kept my muscles in check. I lifted my finger to rest once more on the trigger guard, reset the safety, and scanned the surroundings.

      The woods were as quiet as ever and I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. There was no danger, no flashes of orange or tell-tale signs of other hunters, and I had a clear shot on the deer. She turned, presenting her side to me in a nearly perfect shot. I disengaged the safety off once more and eased my finger onto the trigger.

      The doe looked back, a signal of some sort, and two fawns bounded into view. I snapped on the safety and sat up, breathing heavily, though I don’t know when that had started. I’d almost been the hunter in Bambi, the menacing figure with no screen time and yet one of the biggest impacts on the course of the story.

      As my rapidly bearing heart slowed, I watched the deer meander through my area, the fawns nibbling on food here and there while the mother watched for danger. It was a picture-perfect scene.

      The wind shifted slightly, and I knew this intimate viewing of nature was at a close. The doe lifted her head, sniffing the new breeze and the scents on it. One of them was my own. She bolted, her fawns close behind, and melted into the trees in a crunching of leaves, but causing considerably less racket than you might expect.

      Part of me was sad at the missed opportunity to bag a deer and bring home some meat. My father would have been proud, would have shown the picture to everyone he knew.

      On the other hand, I’m glad I wasn’t able to shoot. That scene, those deer walking through the forest, is a picture which has remained with me ever since. It’s easily one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

      After the deer were gone, I settled back in to wait. My mind wandered again for some time before I was jerked back to reality, this time by a crash. I scanned the trees, cocking my head and straining to hear the slightest noise. It had been a big sound, almost like a tree falling. A resonating creak surged into existence, culminating in another hideous crash, this one accompanied by a sharp cry.

      “Dad?” I called. It took a few seconds for my brain to process what I had just heard. “Dad!”

      I lunged for the ladder, pulled up short as I tried to descend the first rung. I struggled, pulled, jerked, trying to figure out what was wrong. In a moment of clarity, I remembered my harness and reached back to unhook the biner. The extra few seconds probably saved me from injury. The pause forced my brain to start working again, and I climbed down the ladder in a controlled fashion.

      “Dad!” I called once my feet were firmly planted on the ground. I slung my rifle over my shoulder, grabbed a small pack from the base of the tree, and started down toward my father’s tree stand. The slope was relatively steep, and the leaves and branches covering the ground made it difficult to find any purchase on the underlying soil. I slid more than walked on my way down, slamming into a few trees along the way but miraculously sustaining no real injuries of my own.

      My father’s silence continued despite my hails, and finding his location was harder than I expected. Only trees and hillside met my view and I searched more and more frantically. It should be right here! Then, the dark metal of the tree stand jumped out at me, ladder hanging askance from its tree. I could not see the small platform nor my father.

      I had overshot my father in my frantic search and had to work my way back up, a task simultaneously harder and easier than the descent. My muscles, already burning with fatigue, struggled to push me up the slope, but gravity no longer seemed intent on pulling off me feet and throwing my down the hill. I slipped and slid on the ground, pulling myself forward when necessary with trees and shrubs.

      The tree his stand still hung from leaned sideways, the cause of this shift immediately apparent. A second tree, dead and rotting but clearly still heavy, had finally fallen, crashing into my father’s tree. It lay atop the living tree, perched precariously in the branches, but not looking like it would go anywhere in the immediate future. I hoped.

      Working my way around the trees, I finally spotted my father’s orange hat amidst the underbrush.

      “Dad!”

      He didn’t say anything, didn’t move as I scrambled toward him. He was clearly unconscious, but that was the only the first of my concerns. A huge limb from the dead tree had broken off and fallen atop him, one of its spear-like branches impaling his legs.

      “Dad, can you hear me?” I shouted. I dropped to me knees beside him, slipping my rifle from my shoulder and slinging my pack to the ground near his head.

      Blood already soaked the leaves around my father’s leg, and panic clouded my thinking. I was halfway out of my vest before I remembered my first aid kit contained a dozen more sanitary, more absorbent items. I pulled out some gauze and ripped open the packaging, nearly sending the white material into the dirt. Bunching up the gauze, I tried to press it to the wound, but the branch prevented me. I couldn’t apply pressure, and my father was bleeding out.

      I screamed, tears of frustration running down my face as I watched the blood continue to leave his leg. He was going to die here because his stupid son didn’t know what to do. And then I remembered.

      “Massive bleeding,” my father read from an index card. “What do you do?”

      “Direct pressure,” I answered.

      “Not moderate bleeding,” Dad corrected. “Massive bleeding.”

      Of course. I tore through my pack, throwing items to the ground until I finally emerged with a tourniquet. The blood on my hands made the packaging slick. I couldn’t get a grip on the plastic to tear it open. My teeth on one side of the notch and both hands on the other side did the trick, and the small roll of stretchy material fell to the ground. I scooped it up, scrambling frantically for the end.

      “Tight enough for the rectangles to change to squares,” I told myself as I wrapped the tourniquet around my father’s leg, a few inches above the puncture site.

      The operation was simple, and in less than a minute, I had the tourniquet applied. The clothing around the wound was soaked with blood, I couldn’t immediately tell if blood was still seeping out. Though the indicators on the tourniquet said it was tight enough, I still wasted several minutes convincing myself of the fact.

      What was next.

      “Shock is usually fatal if left untreated.” In my mind’s eye, Dad sat behind a metal table and held the dreaded index cards. “What are signs of shock?”

      “Massive bleeding,” I muttered, rummaging through my supplies now scattered around the area. I knew how to treat shock. Just elevate the legs and cover the person. And call 911.

      I grabbed my cell phone from my pocket, the thing slipping around in my bloody fingers. I wiped my hands on my pants, then cleaned the phone screen until I could see it well enough to punch in the unlock code.

      No signal.

      I looked around for someplace high up where I might get some bars, a tree to climb, perhaps. No, I needed to attend to my father. The chances of getting signal out here were remote, and he would die unless I treated him correctly. Shoving the phone back into my pocket, I located an emergency blanket and unwrapped it. After shaking it several times to unfold it, I did my best to tuck it around my father’s large frame.

      I needed to raise his legs as well, to shunt as much blood back to the heart as possible. I did this with one of them, but the other was still pinned to the earth by a limb weighing several hundred pounds. Panic began to rise in my throat again. If I couldn’t elevate both legs, was he going to die.

      “Do the best you can and move on.” My dad’s words echoed in my mind. “Many lives have been saved by less than perfect treatment, but people usually die when no treatment is rendered.”

      Good advice. I needed to get his leg unpinned anyway. I looked at the limb on top of my father, even tried to lift it but to no avail. I’d have to cut the impaling branch off to get him out, but all I had was my pocketknife which, sharp as it was, would not be of much use against the wood.

      I squatted, rapping my knuckles against my forehead, willing myself to think. There had to be something here that would work. Dad had an emergency saw in his bag, didn’t he? I found his pack where he had left it, propped up against his tree stand ladder. Problem was, when the tree had been knocked sideways, it pinched and crushed the bag, pinning it in place. Even the zippers were hidden, leaving the contents inaccessible.

      Not if I had a knife, I realized a moment later. The blade made short work of the tough fabric, but only a few items fell out, none of them the saw. I fished my hand through the opening, groping through the interior to extract items one by one. Many, like dad’s satellite phone, had been smashed by the tree. Fortunately, the saw was intact and I rushed back to my father. He was still unconscious, and as I looked at his pale face, I had a horrible thought.

      I never checked for a pulse or to see whether he was breathing.

      Dropping down beside his head, I did both, feeling for the artery in his neck while watching his chest. He was breathing, I noted with relief after a tense five or six seconds, and while his pulse was weak, it existed.

      I sat down heavily, dropped my head into my hands, and started to cry. I had forgotten the most basic thing and it could have killed my father. I didn’t know what I was doing, and he wasn’t going to make it because of me.

      But he wasn’t dead yet, I realized. Imperfect treatment was better than none. It had saved his life so far, but right now I was doing nothing, and that would kill him. Angrily swiping tears from my cheeks, I tried to recall everything I knew. He was breathing and had a pulse. I had stopped his bleeding. Or had I? The wound on his leg was the only one I had seen, and I hadn’t looked for any others.

      Quickly and methodically, now more in control of my emotions, I swept his body with my fingers, feeling everywhere I could and looking for blood. Fortunately, other than the tree through his leg, he appeared to have no major injuries.

      Now I could work on this branch. Unraveling the emergency saw, I fed the thin, tough wire around the branch and placed a finger through the rings on either end. I began working the wire back and forth, taking off a small line of sawdust with each pass. It would take a while, but the saw was sharp. This would work.

      “Peter.”

      I looked around, confusion addling my fatigued mind. My father was awake, looking at me, and it took a moment for this fact to process.

      “Dad!” I shouted. “Are you alright?”

      “I’ve felt better.” Dad’s voice was raspy, but to hear him say anything at all made my spirits soar. “It looks like I have a stick through my leg.”

      “Right.” I chided myself for the stupid question. “I put a tourniquet on it.”

      “It’s a good one,” Dad told me. “Looks like it’s doing the job.”

      “I’m working on getting you out.” I pointed to the branch impaling my father’s leg. “I’m half-way through.”

      “Good work,” Dad encouraged me. “What we need to do now is call for help.”

      “I don’t have any cell service.”

      “I have a satellite phone in my bag.”

      “Smashed when the tree fell,” I interrupted him.

      “Well,” dad said after a moment. “It looks like you need to finish cutting through this branch. We do need to crib the limb behind me, though, otherwise it may fall once you’ve cut all the way through.”

      “Crib?” I hadn’t heard the term before.

      “Put stuff under it so it can’t fall,” my father explained. “Get the sturdiest sticks you can find, and we’ll build a tower like with Lincoln Logs.”

      I didn’t really understand, but it was good to have Dad back, telling me what to. Everything was going to be alright now. Under my father’s direction, I gathered enough sticks and logs to create an overlapping support system, bracing the branch up behind Dad.

      “And now, get back to cutting this branch,” Dad said once I was done. “This time, though, cut down here nearer to my leg.”

      I obeyed, so intent on my task I did not see the pain which must have been on his face. Every stroke of the saw had to have been excruciating for him, but he never made a sound.

      The tree almost pinched my saw as I finished the cut, but I jerked it free in time. My fingers were bloody from their contact with the saw’s rings, but I barely felt the pain. Dad was free now.

      “Not yet,” he said as I reached for the branch. “You’ll have to finish your first cut.”

      Sure enough, the weight of the limb had driven the branch down against the amputated length, once more pining my father, but this time with weight and friction. I set to work on the original cut.

      I was stymied by the pain in my hands but bolstered by my father’s encouragement and direction. By the time I had cut through the branch, my fingers were so stiff I had to work to uncurl them from the saw.

      “Okay, get your rifle now.”

      I picked up the gun from where it lay nearby.

      “Drop the magazine and clear the chamber.”

      I did this, spitting a bullet to the side. I picked it out of the dirt and leaves and put it in my pocket.

      “Use the butt of the rifle to knock the segment loose,” Dad said. “Then I’ll be able to move.”

      “Won’t that hurt?” I worried.

      “No more than the pain I’m in now,” my dad said. He placed a stick between his teeth. “Just do it and get it over with.”

      I smashed the butt of my rifle against the small segment of branch I had cut out, not looking at my father. I could hear him whimper as I struck the wood repeatedly, sliding it free little by little. Finally with a last strike, the wood popped free. The limb sagged under its own weight, but the gap remained, just enough for my father to wiggle free. I helped him move his leg and extract the portion of the branch stuck into the ground. After hours of work, he was finally free.

      The stick remained in his leg to help control the bleeding, and I wrapped around it with gauze and bandages.

      “Take my gun and plug up the barrel,” Dad instructed me next. “I’ll need to use it as a crutch, and I don’t want dirt getting inside.”

      I unloaded my father’s gun, then set to work turning it into a crutch. I covered the barrel with some cardboard pilfered from a bandage box and held it in place with duct tape. Then I helped Dad to stand up, me on one side and his gun on the other.

      “There’s no two ways about this,” he said, looking up the hill. “It’s going to suck, but we have to do it. Let’s get this over with.”

      What followed was the longest hour of my life. The trek up the hill was difficult, and I learned a lot of new words. Even once we were at the top, it was another half mile to the truck. Dad felt pain with every step, and I had to force myself to ignore it as we pushed forward, one hop at a time. The going was excruciatingly slow, and darkness had fallen by the time we arrived.

      “No cell service,” Dad said as he leaned against the tailgate, blue light from his phone illuminating his face in the darkness of night. “Looks like you’ll be driving.”

      “I don’t know how to drive, Dad.”

      “I’ll teach you,” Dad said as I helped him around to the passenger seat. “Just be glad this isn’t a stick shift.”

      My dad lost his leg but he’s still alive, so I guess that’s a pretty good trade. They say I saved his life, I guess I did, but one thing is for sure. I couldn’t have done it without him.