sounded like it was being tortured out of him. I didn’t know a damn thing about concussions except the person with the head injury needed to be woken up every few hours.
But now Gabe was slowing, stumbling more, and slurring his words.
We needed to stop.
I’d found the creek and hoped we’d gone east. The falling sun was behind us so I was eighty percent confident I’d gone the right way. If not, Zane and Cooper would just have to search. I looked about for someplace for us to hunker down and wait.
There was a large log near the creek, which incidentally wasn’t a creek as such. Maybe when it rained it would swell or in the spring when the snow melted it was full but for now, it was an ankle-deep trickle of water. Not only would Zane be following it but I needed to clean some of the blood off Gabe’s face. So the log resting against a tree near the creek was a perfect place to stop.
“I found us a place to stop.”
“How long?” Gabe slurred.
“We’ve gone far enough.”
“How long?”
“A good long while, Gabe,” I lied. “We can stop now.”
I walked us to the log and when we got close I realized it was indeed the perfect spot. The way the trees were positioned Gabe could rest in the corner and there was a very large tree trunk that would provide some cover.
“I need you to turn around and face me. You’ll take two steps back and you’ll be against the tree. Can you slide down it? I don’t think I’m strong enough to lower you down.”
“Yeah.”
His quick acquiescence told me how bad off he was. No inflection, no more frustration, there wasn’t even resignation. All I heard was exhaustion and pain.
I helped the best I could. Unfortunately, Gabe was big, and being as injured as he was, he was dead weight when he slid down. Not only did his t-shirt pull up and his back grated against the bark, but he pitched forward. To control his fall I went down with him.
Son of a motherless goat, that hurt like a motherfucker.
One of my knees hit soft dirt, the other landed on a rock. And Gabe’s shoulder smacked me in the nose. The only plus-side to all of that was he was on his rear end where I’d intended and the shoulder I’d face-planted into was not the side with his gunshot wound.
Gabe groaned and his head lulled to the side, and a flashback of us in the cabin when I first went to him hit me hard.
“Gabe? You with me?”
He mumbled something incoherent and the fear I’d been about to tamp down rushed back with a vengeance.
I was somewhere out in the wilderness, with no phone, no food or water, no shelter, and the sun was low in the sky. It would be dark soon and Gabe was damn near catatonic. I had no medical training. He’d lost a good amount of blood. He had a concussion. And his ribs were broken.
Punctured lung.
Oh, God.
“Gabe, I need you to open your eyes for just a minute, baby.”
More illegible mumbling.
“Please, Gabe. Just look at me. Can you breathe okay like this? Should I lie you down?”
“No,” he garbled. “Need…upright…hurts…but…okay.”
All right. Okay. What next? Think, Evette. What next?
Blood was trickling from the large, gaping gash on his forehead. I needed to stop that. Then I’d check his shoulder.
With a plan—albeit not a complete or good one—I took off my shirt, turned it inside out, and inspected the sleeves. I abandoned the notion I could use them to tie around his head and instead worked to rip the tee up the side seam. This was much harder than I thought it would be. It was then I decided I needed to stop watching action flicks that made everything look so damn easy because it wasn’t. Tearing a shirt into shreds was hard. So hard it took me a long damn time and I was almost out of light.
Once I had the shirt taken apart, I tore the front of it in half. I took one of my two pieces of material to the creek and soaked it. The water looked so damn enticing. I was thirsty as all get-out and I might’ve chanced drinking it if Gabe hadn’t told me help was on the way. I just had to hold out a little while longer. With that thought, I realized I knew nothing about survival. If I had, I would’ve checked