The Raven's Gift - Don Rearden [93]
“Before you guys showed up I thought I’d die alone out here. Probably deserved to. But you showing up changed that. Something of a miracle, John.” He stopped and popped the switch up and down again. “I don’t have to die alone now.”
“I’m not liking your tone, Red. What are you asking of me?” John asked.
“Easy. You put me out of my misery.” Red stood back up and smiled at him. “That’s the deal. Take it or leave it. But I don’t want the girl here when you do it. You can take her out of town a ways and come back for me. She doesn’t need to know nothing about it. And she doesn’t need to think she can’t trust you, either.”
“I don’t think I can hold up my end of that bargain,” John said. “I think you should just come with us.”
Red shook his head. “Told ya, I’m spent. I’m like Chief Joseph said, ‘My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I’ll fight no more, forever.’”
“Chief Joseph wasn’t asking someone he just met to shoot him. You’re going to have to just do it yourself, Red.”
Red smiled and shook his head again. “Now, now, John, I’m afraid that wasn’t the deal now, was it?”
THE TEMPERATURE IN THE HOUSE dipped to twenty below, according to the thermometer on his parka zipper-pull. When Anna coughed, bursts of steam erupted from her mouth. The coughing fits lasted four or five minutes, and she gasped and sobbed. She would sit, slumped in the bed, the blankets and sleeping bags covering her, her red knitted cap on her head, a heavy green fleece scarf wound around her neck. Frost covered her eyebrows, and small beads of sweat froze against her forehead.
John sat next to her, patting and rubbing her back, helpless.
“What’s happening to me?” she asked, and then coughed up a tablespoon-sized glob of green phlegm. “I don’t mean to be a baby. But I’m so cold.”
He moved closer and wrapped his arms around her. “You’ll be okay,” he said. “We’ll use the camp stove and get it warm. I’ll melt some snow and make you some tea. Some tea will make you feel better.”
“I don’t want to die here, John.”
“You’re not going to die. What makes you say that?”
“My body aches. I’ve never hurt like this.”
She began to convulse in another fit of coughing. Between coughs she heaved and shook uncontrollably. John slid his hand beneath her jacket, sweater, shirt, and finally touched his hand to her lower back. He recoiled momentarily from the heat, as if he’d touched his hand to a woodstove. She was burning up. He didn’t know if he should undress her and try to break the fever. He pressed his open hand to her burning skin and rubbed her back.
When she stopped coughing, she leaned against him and sobbed in raspy, crackly breaths. After several minutes she pulled back the covers and looked at her lap. She gasped for air and pointed at the wet spot between her legs.
“I messed myself!” she cried.
“It’s okay,” he said, getting up from the bed. “I’ll get the camp stove going and we’ll get you cleaned up. It’s okay, Anna. Just try to relax, girl. Relax. Breathe. There you go.”
Outside he heard another group of snow machines racing away from the village. He peered out the frosted window. He could barely make out the shape of several dark objects with their red tail lights racing east across the snow-drifted horizon. He hoped whoever it was would bring back help.
35
“What do you think about me taking the machine through town?” John asked as they readied the sled for their departure in the morning.
“Don’t think it would make much sense,” Red said. “No reason to go hunting for trouble, which you’re sure to find. First sound of a machine running down the road will bring the guns. I’m worried enough about us firing up that Tundra for a few minutes.”
“How many people do you think are left?”
Red pointed to a ladder attached to the side of the tank. “Want to take a look? Pretty good view up there.”
John nodded and Red mounted the ladder. John worried that Rayna would get scared when she heard footsteps above her, so he poked his head inside.