Pain

Letting his eyes fall shut  again, Hunter listens to the brief recap of what had happened. He remembered tumbling down the embankment and hitting the water. Then being pulled under. The thought makes him shudder and he grips Katie's hand a little tighter. Coughing some more, his lungs ached and he wondered if he'd ever get all the water out.

His chest? Come to think of it, it did feel pretty sore, and it takes a moment for his lethargic mind to realize that not only had he breathed in a bunch of water, but Katie had probably given him CPR. What about anything else? He sort of just felt numb all over. "Um..." Yeah, he'd thought he'd lost himself there too for a few minutes.

"Here you are." Jeff was back and tucking a blanket around Hunter's shivering body. "Just lie still. Can you hear us?" 

Hunter nods slowly, prying his eyes open once more. They stung from having been open underwater. 

"Good. How do you feel?" 

"Mm..." It was hard to speak with chattering teeth. "Ss...s...stupid." 

Jeff can't help his chuckle and he rubs Hunter's shoulders under the blanket to warm him and keep his blood flow going. Not having heard Katie himself, he repeats her question. "Are you hurt anywhere?" 

Hunter blinks, forcing his eyes to open wider before coughing again. "I... I don't think so..." 

"Thought maybe you hit your head." Jeff runs a careful hand through Hunter's hair, checking for any injuries. 

"Uh-uh." Hunter shakes his head a little. "I just... I couldn't breathe and... and passed out I guess." 

"I've never known the undertow in this river to be that bad," Jeff muses as he continues to keep Hunter warm - and keep him talking so his mild shock didn't turn into something worse. He was glad for Katie's presence as well, knowing she would help keep Hunter calm.

"Mm... I got caught..." Hunter coughs again, spitting up what he hoped to be the last of the water. "My leg..." 

Jeff lifts his eyebrows and glances to Katie before speaking to Hunter again. "Which leg?"

"Um..." Hunter tries to think. "Left... I think."

Jeff moves down to Hunter's legs and feels through his jeans, starting at the ankle and moving up. When he reaches the knee, he knew immediately something was wrong. 

Crying out in pain, Hunter puts Katie's hand in a death grip before rolling onto his back. "No don't touch it... please, please..."

Jeff sighs and tilts his hat back on his head. "Hunter, I think you dislocated your knee." 

Hunter groans, still trying to breathe after the shock of pain. "Is it... is it bad?" 

"I don't know - but your kneecap isn't where it's supposed to be."

"Can you put it back in place?"

"There's a chance I could." Jeff nods. "There's also a chance there's more damage than that or that I do something wrong and make it worse." 

Hunter swallows hard. As he becomes more alert, the more his numbness turned to pain in more than one place - but his knee was by far the worst. He blinks another couple drops of water out of his eye as he shivers again. "What... what do we do?" 

"I don't know." Standing up, Jeff checks his cell phone, just to confirm what he already knew - no signal. They were too far out to contact anybody. But to make Hunter ride would not only put him through excruciating pain, but could potentially injure his leg even more. But what choice did they have?

Leaning his head to the side, Hunter's eyes fall shut again as he tries to concentrate on Katie's hand that combed through his hair, rather than his pain. He felt stupid, embarrassed, helpless and scared. The terrifying ordeal had lasted only minutes, yet the adrenaline still raced through his veins. 

Looking down at Katie, Jeff locks eyes with her. There was simply no solution other than Hunter riding, but it wasn't going to be easy. The rest of their ride, and lunch, were completely forgotten. "Hawk doesn't do very well with extra passengers. You up to having Hunter ride double with you?"