Page 24 of Protecting the Flame

Chapter 5

Will moved to her seat.While Mattie unbuttoned his flannel shirt, Emma grabbed a coil of nylon rope from Will’s pack. Looping the rope across Will’s chest, she threaded it beneath his right armpit and behind his back while Mattie got busy removing the fabric cover from Emma’s seat back. Then, Emma knotted the rope into a kind of tourniquet, only instead of a stick, she used one of Will’s collapsible hiking poles from his pack. When Will was good and tight, she tied the legs of a spare pair of his waterproof pants into a snug knot then carefully fed his bad arm through until the loop rested on his right biceps. Then, cocking his arm at the elbow, she placed her booted foot on the knot she’d made in the pants and put her weight into it, bearing down, applying more and more pressure.

His body resisted. His muscles hardened. His face blackened with blood, and the veins of his neck and arms and chest stood in thick cords. She knew she was hurting him. He was panting, hard and fast, trying to ride the crest of the waves of pain that shook his body. Sorry, sorry, sorry. She bore down.

Then, all of a sudden, there came a dull thunk that was the sound of a butcher’s cleaver against a carving board, and Will screamed.

“Oh!” Mattie’s hands flew to cover her mouth. “What happened?”

“I think it worked.” Sweat matted her hair to her face. Her neck was slick, but Will was bathed in perspiration, his thermal shirt soaked through. He’d flung his good arm over his eyes, but she could see the shine of tears. She touched his damp cheek. “Will? Did we—?”

“Yes.” The word was a croak. “Give…give me a second,” he said, voice tight. “Mattie, get the…the sling I was wearing, okay?”

“You bet.” Snatching up the sling, she slid past Emma and knelt in the space between Will’s legs and the back of her mother’s seat. “Here it is, Will.”

“Thanks, honey.” Will cupped the girl’s head with his good hand. “Emma, if you’ll bend my arm across my chest, then Mattie can slip on the sling.”

“Sure.” Her insides had turned to jelly. A good thing her stomach was empty, too. She kept hearing that clunk the bone made as it socked back into place, and the memory made her a little queasy. “What can we do about the pain?”

“It’s already not as bad. But I think I should probably take some more acetaminophen.”

“I’ll get it.” She put a hand on his good arm. “We have to get you out of those wet clothes. You have extras, right?”

Face still ashen, he’d fallen back against her seat and closed his eyes. “In my pack. Side pocket. I’ve got another shirt in my luggage. But I’m not sure I can move my right arm enough to get it out. Don’t want it to dislocate again.”

“Do you have surgical scissors?”

“In my kit. Why?” Then his mouth twitched into a tired half-grin. “Cut me out?”

She’d seen medevacs in action. “That’s the plan.” Retrieving the scissors along with a fresh top, she said, “You let me do the work. Don’t help.”

Beginning at his waist, she cut straight up the middle to his neck and then flayed open the arms. From there, it was a simple matter of peeling the fabric away from his torso. As she did, her pulse gave an absurd little thump. Will was toned and tanned and much more muscled than he appeared. In the chill, his nipples puckered, and when her fingers brushed his sides, his skin jumped.

“Sorry!” Flustered, she took an involuntary step back. My God, someone would think she’d never seen a man’s chest before. “Did I hurt you?”

“No. Ticklish.” He closed his eyes as she wiped away sweat from his chest and neck with a camp towel before making him sit forward so she could dry his back. “Stop worrying,” he said, his eyes still shut. “All pain passes, Emma.”

He said that so gently, with such kindness, and yet the words were arrows to her heart. It was as if he somehow saw into her, read all her grief and regret. Before she could respond, though, Mattie handed her Will’s clean thermal. “Here. Trade you for the towel.”

“Thanks. Okay,” she said to Will and rolled his fresh top to the neck. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” He remained motionless as she worked the top over his head and down to his shoulders. “I can do the left arm,” he said, though his jaws clenched and he sucked air through his teeth as he cautiously threaded the arm through its sleeve. “Now for the hard part.”

“You let me do the work,” she said. “Go limp. Dead weight.”

“I’ve got to help a little,” he protested. “There’s no way you’ll be able to both keep the arm bent and pull on the top. Maybe I should make do with half a shirt.”

“That is not an option.” She already didn’t like that he wouldn’t be able to get his arm through a parka sleeve for a day. But his quip about half a shirt gave her an idea. “Mattie, I saw a roll of duct tape in Will’s pack. Go get it, okay?”

As Mattie scuttled off, Will gave her a narrow look. “What are you going to do?”

“Give you half a shirt,” she said as Mattie trotted back. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do.”

In the end, she cut Will’s thermal top on his right side straight up from the waist to the seam at his sleeve and then down the inner seam to the wrist. Then, draping the shirt over his bad arm, she had Mattie cut lengths of duct tape which she smoothed into place from his waist to his armpit and then down to his wrist.

“Okay, I’m impressed,” Will said as she worked. “It’s like a vest with side ties.”

“Or chain mail,” Mattie said.

“Whatever works.” Securing the open flap of shirt at his wrist with a last piece of tape, Emma took a step back. “How’s that?”

Mattie favored Will with a critical eye. “He looks like the time my dad dressed up like the Mummy for Halloween. Except he started really coming all undone when we were only halfway. Mom used tape to hold his costume together on account of he only had on his underwear underneath.” The girl stopped to consider a moment. “And only the top half. He said he didn’t mind the breeze.”

Will and Emma looked at one another then broke up. “Ow, ow, ow!” Will said, grimacing but still sputtering. “Stop making me laugh!”

Better than you looking like Death warmed over. Laughing made her ribs hurt, too, but it was worth it because Will would be okay. She had to believe in that. As long as Will was okay, they were, too.

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