Don't Open That Door - GoM 1

7

Alex made sure the stranger was out or asleep again, and let out a heartfelt sigh. She rested his head carefully on his sleeping bag, checked he hadn't pulled any stitch of his wounds open, took the frontal torch off and lowered the camping led to a soft glow.

Time for a break.

She went out of her tent into the cool night, threw some firewood into the campfire and sat down on a tree stump. She'd left her mug full of coffee on the stones around the fire and it was already hot, so she retrieved it and sipped her coffee with another sigh. It was past midnight and the last hours since she'd found the stranger collapsed on the path had been pretty busy.

After stopping the bleeding from both wounds, she faced the problem of the night falling in three or four hours. She could only drag the man a few yards, so she set her tent by the path to the Hollow and laid him down in there, on the cutting-edge sleeping bag she found in the man's backpack. She congratulated herself for her small-but-complete first-aid kit, because it allowed her to clean and stitch the stranger's wounds. No matter how bad they looked, a couple of times an hour the man came back a little, tried to push her away and sit up. In the end, only pain and blood loss knocked him down.

Then fever hit him, and he stirred and tossed, in and out, burning from head to toes. Alex managed to give him some water and that seemed to soothe him. But she knew he was still at the brink of death, and she needed to keep taking close care of him if she wanted to save his life. She never wondered why. It was in her bones: somebody needed her help in order to survive, so she helped.

Alex turned the frontal torch on again and gathered as much firewood as she could from around the tent. She fed the fire, drank a long sip of coffee and went back into the woods.

A stream ran some fifty yards away from her tent, flowing down the hill—hardly more than a thread of water then, at the end of summer. She refilled her bottles and her pot, washed her face and headed back to her tent.

She was growing weary. Pity. There would be no sleep for her that night. She stuck her head into the tent. The man was quiet, eyes closed. He needed to drink more as of hours ago. But she needed to defend the campsite first. If the pack was any closer than a mile around, the smell of blood would drag the wolves like a magnet, coming from the long trace down the old trail, the man's clothes, his wounds.

So she dropped into the fire a handful of small, rounded leaves. It was lion shadow. Finding the bush ten steps away from the tent had been quality good luck. Old Bootter had taught her that burning those leaves was an effective defense to keep wolves away.

"Nooksacks of old believed it smells like a mountain lion to wolves' keen noses. Now I don't know if it's true—maybe it smells like rotten shit to them. But they do stay away, and that's all that matters."

The burning leaves produced a thick white smoke. The soft breeze didn't penetrate the dense canopy, so it wouldn't blow the smoke away.

Her belly repeated the word 'hunger'. Maybe she'd be able to have a bite in a while, if she could make the man drink more water and keep from struggling and tearing his wounds reopen.

Back into the tent, she sat down by his side and refreshed the cloth covering his forehead. She took a moment to take a real look at him for the first time. He had a nice face, with a firm jaw. His longish hair covered the back of his neck and his forehead in loose curls, dark against his pale face.

Alex covered his eyes with the wet cloth again and wetted another, pressing it softly to his lips. He swallowed eagerly, his eyelids fluttering. The fever was a tad lower and his wounds were no longer bleeding.

He still wore the same ripped, muddy, blood-drenched clothes. Alex knew she couldn't handle his dead weight to change his flannel and pants. And if she tried, she'd surely end up messing with those horrible wounds, caused by fangs sunk deep into his flesh. So she'd cut open the fabric to patch him up.

When the man didn't suck at the cloth against his mouth anymore, she tucked him in with the sleeping bag and looked around. She needed some distraction in order to stay awake. The stranger's backpack was an interesting option, so she pulled it closer to the camping led and fished through it. She found his wallet and took out his driver license.

"Hello, Tom Sutton," she muttered, reading it. "Thirty-six... You live in Newhalem? So you work at the dams?" She took a closer look at the picture and frowned. "That's some sad face, Mr. Sutton. D'you always look like a Greek tragedy? And blue eyes, who knew. I like them."

Next she found a huge hunting knife in a leather sheath. It was in an external side pocket of the backpack, in such a way that he could unsheathe it and wield it in a single move. The blade was razor sharp, with a jagged back, meant to stab deep in its way in and rip in its way out—and hurt like hell in the process.

Under some neatly-packed food and two full changes of clothes—all top quality, like the rest of his gear—Alex found a handful of herbs and weeds, wrapped in a rustic cloth. When she opened it, she saw every kind of herb was sorted with different strings.

"You're all neat, Mr. Sutton," she murmured. "Let's see your little stash... Speedwell, fairy veil, stonecrop, salvia... silver lace? What the hell? Why on earth would you go around with silver—?"

The man squirmed with a sore moan. His eyes fluttered open and he tried to sit up once more. Alex dropped everything to grab his shoulders and pin him down, as she muttered soothing words. When he finally gave up and lay still, she refreshed his face.

"Sit tight, Mr. Sutton. We're gonna put these weeds of yours to good use," she said, brushing some short loose curls off his sweated temple.

She tucked him in yet again and left the tent. She was soon back with a tea smelling of fairy veil and speedwell, and a greenish ointment made of ground herbs in a dish.

Lifting his head carefully, she was able to make him drink half the tea. Then she removed the clothes dressing his wounds, washed his side and his thigh, and applied the ointment, meant to ease the pain and prevent new bleedings. She had to slice another one of her spare tops in stripes to bandage his wounds.

"You owe me two good tops, Mr. Sutton," she muttered.

When she was done, she picked up everything and left the tent, to burn the bloody clothes and more lion shadow.

The first birds singing at dawn sounded like a heavenly choir in Alex's ears: the night would soon be over. Tom Sutton's fever had receded and he was actually sleeping. As soon as a little light touched the sky above her, she burned the last lion shadow leaves left and opened her sleeping bag outside the tent, by the fire. She needed to sleep at least a couple of hours, and she totally intended to.