Fifty Degrees Below - Kim Stanley Robinson [134]
After that moment there were at least a few seconds he did not recall at all. He didn’t recall the impact (although he did, in his nose, kind of; the feel of it) nor falling to the ground. He must have gotten his hands out to catch himself; his left wrist was sore, and the first thing he remembered for sure was kneeling and seeing his nose shoot out blood like a fountain. Trying to catch black blood in his hands; not staunch it, just catch it; finding it hard to believe just how much blood was pouring through his hands onto the ground, also down his throat and the back of his mouth. Swallowing convulsively. Then touching his nose, fearing to know what shape his fingers might find; finding it had no feeling, but that it seemed to be occupying much the same space as before. Peculiar to feel his own nose as if someone else’s. It was the same now. His fingers told him the flesh was being manipulated, but his face didn’t confirm it.
Very strange. And here he was. Back on the spot, some days later . . . let’s see; must be . . . two days.
He crouched, looked around. He got on his hands and knees, in the same position he had been in while watching the blood fountain out of him. It was still seeping a little bit. Taste of blood. For a second during the prodigious flow he had wondered if he would bleed to death. And indeed there was a large black stain on the ground.
Now he twisted slowly this way and that, as if to prick more memories to life. He took off a glove and got his little keychain flashlight out of his pocket. He aimed the beam of light; frail though it was, it made the night seem darker.
There. Off to his right, up the slope of snow, half embedded. He leaped over with a shout, snatched it up and shook it at the wind. His hand axe.
He stared at it there in his hand. A perfect fit and heft. Superficially it looked like the other gray quartzite cobbles that littered Rock Creek. It was possible no one would ever have known it was different. But when he clutched it the shaping was obvious. Knapped biface. Frank whacked it into the nearest tree trunk, a solid blow. Thunk thunk thunk thunk. Quite a weapon.
He put it back in his jacket pocket, where it jostled nicely against his side.
He hiked through the trees under bouncing black branches, their flailing visible as patterns in the occlusion of stars. The north wind poured into him. Clatter and squeak of snowshoes. He slept in his van.
Inevitably, he had to explain what had happened to a lot of people. Diane of course had seen him at the hospital. “How are you feeling?” she asked when he went into Optimodal the next morning.
“I think a nerve must have been crushed.”
She nodded. “I can see where the skin was split. Broken nose, right?”
“Yes. Maxillary bone. I just have to wait it out.”
She touched his arm. “My boy broke his nose. The problem is the cartilage heals at new angles, so your breathing could be impaired.”
“Oh great. I hate having to breathe through my mouth when I have a cold.”
“They can ream you out if you want. Anyway it could have been worse. If you had been hit a little higher, or lower—”
“Or to either side.”
“True. You could have been killed. So, I guess your nose was like the air bag in a car.”
“Ha ha. Don’t make me laugh or I’ll bleed on you.” He held his upper lip between thumb and forefinger as he chuckled, squeezing it to keep from re-opening the vertical cut. Everything had cracked vertically.
“Your poor lip. It sticks out almost as far as your nose. You look like the spies in ‘Spy vs. Spy.’ ”
“Don’t make me laugh!”
She smiled up at him. “Okay I won’t.”
In his office about twenty minutes later, he smiled to think of her; he had to press his upper lip together.
His appreciation for Diane grew as he saw more of the responses he got to the injury. Oversolicitous, amused, uninterested, grossed out—they were bad in different ways. So Frank kept discussions limited. The lunch runners were okay, and Frank told them a bit more about what had happened.