The violent jarring launched Jack into the dashboard, something struck the undercarriage, and by the time he was back in his seat, nose pouring blood, Dee had pulled the Rover into a shady spot between several giant ponderosa pines.
She killed the engine and Jack opened his door and stumbled out.
Easy to see the path they’d blazed through the forest—saplings severed, pale tire tracks in the trampled grass.
A couple hundred yards through the trees, four trucks raced by, and Jack stood listening to the roar of their engines, which after ten seconds, quieted down to a distant idling that went on and on, Jack listening, inadvertently holding his breath while his shoulder throbbed like a second heartbeat.
Dee walked over.
“They’re wondering if we’ve gotten ahead of them, or pulled a fast one,” he said. “If they’re smart, they’ll send two trucks up the canyon and two trucks back to the meadow to wait.”
“But they don’t know we’re out of gas,” Dee said. “If they think we doubled back, maybe they’ll keep going all the way to the highway.”
The engines went silent.
Naomi called out to Jack.
He spun around. “Shhh.”
“You think they’ve moved on?” Dee whispered.
“No. They’re listening for the sound of our engine. Go get the guns.”
They walked as far back into the woods as Jack could manage—barely fifty yards—and lay down in a bed of pine needles.
“Dee,” Jack whispered.
“What?”
“You’ve got to listen for what’s coming, okay? I have to rest now.”
“That’s fine.” She ran her fingers through his hair. “Just close your eyes.”
Jack turned over onto his right side, and he tried to listen for approaching footsteps but kept passing in and out of consciousness as the sun moved over the pines and made a play of light and shadow on his face.
The next time he woke the sun was straight overhead and he could hear Dee telling Cole a story. He sat up. His head swirled. Looked down at the pine needles, some of which had become glued together with blood. He felt feverish and cold, and soon Dee was there, easing him back onto the forest floor.
He opened his eyes, tried to sit up, thought better of it. Dee sat beside him and the sun was gone. Through the pines, the pieces of sky held the rich blue of late afternoon.
“Hi there,” she said.
“What time is it?”
“Four-fifteen. You’ve been sleeping all day.”
“Where are the kids?”
“Playing by a stream.”
“Nobody came?”
“Nobody came. You’re thirsty, I bet.” She unscrewed the cap from a milk jug and held it to his mouth. The coldness of the water stung his throat, ignited a fierce and sudden thirst. When he finished drinking, he looked up at his wife.
“How am I doing, Doc?”
Shook her head. “I stopped the bleeding, but you’re not so hot, Mr. Colclough.” She reached into the first aid kit, cracked open a bottle of Tylenol. “Here. Open.” Dumped a handful of pills onto Jack’s tongue, helped him wash them down. “I have to get that bullet out, and I need to do it before we run out of daylight.”
“Fuck.”
“Jack, there’s worse people you could be stuck with in this situation.”
“Than Wifey, MD?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re a GP. When’s the last time you even held a scalpel? Med school? I mean, do you even have the tools to—”
“Really, Jack? You want me to tell you the gory details of what I’m about to do, or you want to turn your head away and let me do my thing?”
“You can do this?”
She squeezed his hand. “I can. And I have to or you’ll get an infection and die.”
Jack lay flat on his back, his head turned away from his left shoulder, wishing for unconsciousness.
“Jack, I need you to be as still as you possibly can.”
Dee cut away his shirt.
“Using my Swiss Army knife?”
“Yep.”
“You’re going to sterilize it?”
“I’m afraid your health insurance plan doesn’t cover sterilizations.”
“That’s hilarious. Seriously—”
“It’s already done.”
“What with?”
“A match and an iodine pad. I’m going to wipe down your shoulder now.”
Felt like ice on a flaming wound as she cleaned the dried blood and gunpowder from the entry hole.
“How’s it look?” he asked.
“Like somebody shot you.”
“Can you tell how far in it went?”
“Please let me focus.”
Something moved inside his shoulder. There was pain, but nothing like he’d feared.
Dee said, “Shit.”
“First-rate bedside manner. What’s wrong?”
“I thought maybe I could do this easily. Just pull the bullet out with these plastic tweezers.”
“That sounds like a super plan. Why can’t you do it?”
“I can’t get at it yet.”
“Fuck, you’re going to cut me.” Jack heard the snap of a blade locking into place. “Big blade? Small blade?”
“Think about something else.”
“Like what?”
“Like what we’re going to have for dinner.”
And he did think about it. For four seconds. Pictured the jar of pickled beets in the Rover and it made him want to cry. All of it—lying here in the woods in extraordinary pain without food and the day leaving them and nowhere to go and no way to get there— and then the knife entered his shoulder in a revelation of searing pain.
“Holy motherfuck—”
“Hold still.”
She was really going after it, and Jack made a crushing fist, fighting back a surge of nausea as he tried to ask if she saw the bullet yet, if she could get at it now, desperate for some indication that this would be ending soon please God, and then his eyes rolled back in his head and he descended into a merciful darkness.
When he came to, Dee was crouched over him, headlamp blazing and Cole and Naomi beside her looking on. She was lifting a piece of string attached to a needle and smiling. She looked exhausted.
“You passed out you big baby.”
He said, “Thank God for that. Please tell me you got it.”
Naomi held up a squashed mushroom of lead between her fingers.
“I’m going to make you a necklace so you can wear it.”