"Bluffing" mother nature

Lying in bed, passing time, within the "eggshell white" corridors, Liam is a "mummified Egyptian" living through the pain after a bear's claw underneath the "bandages [winding] around his scalp." Deceivingly, he pours another lie off the tip of his tongue to reassure Gabriella as "[he] meant [for] the bear to come after [him] instead of" her. In the short story Bluffing by Gail Helgason, Liam and his girlfriend are trekking up in the wilderness near a lake when they encounter a grizzly bear. Liam begins to "run away" to divert the bear's attention, to save her. Now, he is "propped up in bed." He is a liar; Swiftly diverting others, only to tell the the other hikers they "came across an elk carcass... [and] some grizzly" was around the lake. Distastefully, he plans to leave for "Yosemite [or] New Mexico" to spend his time along the rocky cliffs, and thousands of miles away from his girlfriend. Beyond the "steel edge" in his voice his honestly is fake as he is a simple man "guiding American and German tourists up... in the Rockies" who won't "have his photo in glossy magazines." Lying in bed once again, "the doctor sweeps into the room" when the "nurse begins to snip away" the bandages which will cut away the deception he is living with.