August Ansel - Shadow Road

Renna knelt to take Kory’s head on her lap while Arie scooted to his feet. Sure enough, the trap was the toothed variety, outlawed in dim ages past but treasured by some collectors and picked up for current use by gods knew what sort of person. The only mercy was the shape of those teeth—squared off pegs rather than triangular points.

She drew her knife and slit the sodden leg of his jeans from cuff to knee. With all the blood it was hard to tell, but he had at least three puncture wounds that would need stitches. The flesh was already badly swollen, turning dark beneath the skin as they watched. He began to shiver convulsively.

“Curran, get him up to the fire,” said Arie. “I need to clean this.”

Curran worked his arms under Kory and cradled him. “Here we go, little man. I gotcha.”

“I’ll get water boiling,” said Handy. He pelted up the rise ahead of everyone but Talus, who already stood at the crest, whining softly. Curran was not far behind, his long legs making short work of the climb, even with the boy in his arms.

Getting off her knees, Arie stumbled. She stood for a moment, head down, to catch her equilibrium.

“All right?” asked Renna. Her hair had come mostly loose from its horsetail; it bushed out in wild waves and curls all around her battered face. A small rush of gratitude flooded Arie, and she touched an unmarked spot along the younger woman’s jaw.

“If you don’t look like Medusa herself,” she said. “Go ahead. I’m right behind.”

“I’ll find the first-aid pack,” Renna said. She was already halfway up the little slope, as if that long day and the hard knocks it had dispensed were nothing more than a faint inconvenience.

In the minute it took Arie to get back to camp, the sky had gone full dark. The fire blazed high and the lantern sat next to Kory, a white beacon that lit his wounds garishly. They’d elevated his injured leg on one of the packs, and Curran was carefully swaddling the boy in blankets.

Arie dippered boiled water out of the pot and washed her hands, eyes on Kory as she scrubbed. There weren’t many flying insects out in the chill weather, but Curran used his knit cap to swat intermittently at the few gnats circling the lantern.

“Let’s see what’s what,” said Arie, settling herself at the boy’s feet. Handy dipped a clean towel in the hot water and wrung it out. She folded it into a large rectangle and began to blot away the congealing blood from Kory’s wounded leg. Steam curled into the night air, first from the rag and then from the boy’s skin. He moaned from inside his cocoon of blankets. Talus was stretched along his side. She looked at his partially exposed face, gave it a brief, tender lick, and then turned her attention back to what Arie was doing.

“The bleeding isn’t as serious as I’d feared,” said Arie. “Let’s give him one of those aspirins we found today. Only one, though, until we have him closed up.”

The zippered first-aid bag they’d brought from the Wallace’s lay open like a book in Renna’s hands. “There’s a lot in here,” she said. “Suture kits. And glue.” She pulled out a small white tube and held it up.

“Grace be thanked for it,” said Arie. “Hold onto it for me. And Handy, there’s a paper sack of medicinals in my things, about halfway down. Find the dried yarrow—it’s marked. Make tea.” She lowered her voice a bit. “There’s whiskey, too. We’ll want it.”

While Arie and Renna removed the boy’s ruined jeans, speaking to him steadily all the while, Handy got the yarrow steeping in their cook pot. This he laced with whiskey and poured off a mugful. Renna took it, and while she helped Kory sip at the concoction, Handy soaked fresh rags in the remainder.

With the dirt and blood washed away, the damage to the boy’s ankle and foot was brutally obvious. The powerful spring had sunk the jaw’s metal ridges into Kory’s lower leg in way that looked disturbingly like the asymmetrical bite of a gigantic human mouth.

“This one first,” said Arie, indicating a deep laceration in the meat of the boy’s calf. It puckered open like a blind eye, still steadily oozing blood. “It’s too deep for the glue. I need to stitch it.”

Handy poured yarrow tea over Arie’s hands and she washed as well as she could, wincing but not pulling away from the heat of it. This he followed with a splash of whiskey. Even then, the steam rose from the lobster-pink skin of her hands. “You too, Renna,” she said. “I’m going to need your help.”

She once more sponged the seepage from the largest gash on Kory’s leg and pressed a dry rag against it. The first-aid kit yielded a miniature bottle of antiseptic solution. She poured a few precious drops onto her hands and Renna’s, then drizzled it over Kory’s slashed flesh in a thin, red-brown stream. The curved needle in the suture kit was already equipped with sterile thread.

“Now,” she said to Renna, “I need you to help hold these edges together while I stitch. Curran, keep him still as you can.”

The fixing took longer than she intended, but this type of trouble always did. During the worst of it, time lost relevance altogether. Even with the whiskey in him and Curran doing his best to still and calm the boy, the deeper stitches caused Kory to cry out. Handy ended up crouched opposite Arie, gripping Kory by knee and ankle. The flesh continued to swell and stiffen, making a difficult task even harder. By the time she finished, Arie’s back was damp with sweat and chilled in the night air.

“Break open that glue,” she said. Renna did, and held it out with a badly shaking hand.

Arie, though, was rock steady. With gestures so economical she might have practiced them a thousand times, the old woman blotted each of the smaller lacerations, applied the glue, and pressed the edges together with deft precision. By then, the leg was showing ugly subdural branches of red and purple. She swaddled it snugly from knee to toes with a length of torn sheet.

“Done,” she sighed, her voice hardly more than a husked-out whisper.

“He’s still shivering,” said Renna. She’d already shrugged out of the green coat and wrapped Kory into it.

“Shock, likely,” said Arie. “Curran, get the other blankets.” Talus refused to move away from him, so they bundled boy and dog together. Curran folded his own sleeping bag under the boy’s knee, so that Kory’s lower leg was elevated without direct pressure on the wounds.

Arie crushed two more aspirins into water. Helping the boy sip, she studied his pale, sweaty face. He was neither fully conscious nor unconscious, eyes partly closed. He still moaned from time to time, like any distressed young thing, in soft little exhalations. Each time he whimpered, Talus pressed her muzzle closer to his neck.

“You excellent thing,” Arie whispered to the dog, stroking the silk of her ears. Talus looked at her, and the fathomless wells of love in those dark eyes made Arie’s throat tighten with unshed tears.

They built up the fire again and Handy handed around fresh tea. He held up the bottle of whiskey, looking from face to face. Renna and Curran held out their mugs. “Sister?” he asked.

“A thimbleful,” said Arie. He tilted the bottle more generously than that, and she drank deeply. The heat of it radiated across her chest and into her weary limbs. “Bloody nora,” she croaked. “I would swear this is the longest day I’ve ever lived.”

Curran rubbed his face. “This morning seems like a week ago.” He looked over his shoulder at Kory and Talus. The boy had finally quieted and appeared to be asleep. “His leg looks like shit,” he said softly.

“He won’t be walking on it,” said Arie.

“I’ll piggyback him.”

“I’m almost sure there are small breaks in his foot,” said Arie. “Maybe hairline fractures in his ankle.” She shook her head. “That leg needs to be elevated and given time, or it’s not going to heal.” She tipped her mug, drank the remainder in a draught.