When Davis finally landed on solid ground, it took two seconds for his yells to catch up with him. Davis was so still in the clouds of snow that even he thought he was dead. But after a minute, the Scotsman slowly got to his feet.
When he had landed, he thought at first that the snow had broken his fall. But as he stood up and attempted to walk, he realized with a gasp that the snow had broken something else. He had landed on his one ankle all wrong, and now the agony was blistering underneath the skin. Even when he didn’t put weight on it, he could feel every nerve. He winced and then muttered, “A tragedy, just like everything else.”
As he hobbled along, he reached into the pocket of his jacket, hoping to take a swig of whiskey to kill the pain. But all he could find was the cut of glass, as his glass flask had shattered during the tumble into the valley. He yelped a little and pulled his hand out of his pocket. Even in the darkness, he knew the cut on his finger was deep, but the blood was warm. He took a handkerchief from his other pocket and wrapped it tightly around his wounded hand.
After tying off the cloth, he glanced around, trying to find his bearings. He was on the valley floor, so deep that not even the long arm of the blizzard could reach him. The wind had calmed down, and massive snowflakes were falling like raindrops racing each other on a window. Still, the heavy cold had settled along the valley floor, and if Davis was wading in the chill before, he was drowning in it now. The blizzard was dripping in his brain, calcifying the gray matter and turning his mind to stone.
Suddenly, a little flicker of light appeared ahead in the abyss. The light was only as bright as a firefly’s pulse, so weak that the flame could be blasted away by a whisper. But still, there was magnetism in the fire that drew him towards it. Perhaps it was because it reminded him of the lighthouse from his childhood back in Scotland, the rotating beam he could see on clear nights from his family’s estate. Perhaps it was because he was desperate for even a glance of heat. Or perhaps his dazed mind thought that it was a light shining from the train. They talk of fish at the bottom of the sea that are drawn to lights in the venomous dark, unaware that it’s an anglerfish luring them into its jaws.
Whatever the reason, Davis continued stumbling through the night towards the little flame, until he became nothing more than a shadow against the light.