the son of a bitch had fallen clean and he could get back to work. He could feel a hot trickle down his back where the tree had broken skin when it hit him; nothing bad, though. He’d kept going in combat with worse injuries. Besides, he was pissed, both at the tree and at himself. If he’d done something wrong he wanted to know what it was, so he didn’t do it again. Mentally reviewing every step, though, he couldn’t see a damn thing he should have done differently.
He began methodically removing the limbs—limbing—and worked steadily through the morning. His shoulder ached, and blood made his shirt stick to his back. He ignored both. When he was finished with the limbs his stomach told him it was time to put some food in it, and his head told him he needed to let the dog out. Maybe he’d come back later this afternoon to begin cutting up the trunk.
When he got back to the house he let the dog out to do its business, which it did, then came running back to the house and barked to be let in. Hunting dog or not, the pup liked being inside, liked company. Ben ate some stew, then stripped off to take a shower. Not only was he sweaty from the morning’s work, but his back was still leaking red. Standing with his back turned to the bathroom mirror, he looked over his shoulder at the injury.
It was hard to tell with all the blood smeared around, but he thought the injury looked more as if the impact had broken the skin open, rather than an actual cut. For sure the area was swollen and bruised, and still trickling blood. Maybe it needed a stitch or two but he didn’t think so, and in any event he wasn’t going to hike around the valley looking for someone willing to sew him up. It might heal ugly on its own, but it would heal.
He showered, keeping it brief but enjoying the warm water. The bleeding got worse, of course. He got some gauze out of the bathroom cabinet and folded a thick pad, put some antibiotic salve on it, and with several tries managed to get it placed just right over the wound. Then he leaned his back against the door frame to put pressure on the pad until it stuck. There. Good. First aid taken care of. Now he wouldn’t drip blood all through the house.
He put on a flannel shirt and some clean jeans, put his bloody clothes in the bathtub and ran cold water for them to soak. Then he made some coffee and sat down for a while to read, pleased with the morning’s work despite the injury.
Sela took a deep breath; there were sixty or seventy people gathered in her store—some she knew, some she didn’t—and from what she could tell all of the community patrol was there, which was good. She’d never been good at public speaking; school presentations had been agony for her. But this wasn’t performance, it wasn’t showing her stuff, it was communication. People needed to know what was going on.
“Some of you may already know, but Carol fell down the stairs and broke her leg yesterday, and I’m in her place until she can get on her feet—”
“Wait a minute.” Predictably, it was Ted who interrupted. “You weren’t elected. You weren’t even in the running. Why are you taking her place instead of someone who was interested in doing the job?”
“For crying out loud, Teddy, give it a rest,” Trey muttered, earning himself a glare from Ted and a titter from a few others, because the Teddy Roosevelt look hadn’t gone unnoticed.
“Ted,” Ted snapped.
Her heart started pounding hard and her cheeks burned. Sela wanted to just walk out and leave them to it, but she mentally bolstered herself and said, “Because Carol asked me to. And because I talk to her several times a day, every day.”
“That still doesn’t make you the logical—”
“It does to me.” Mike frowned at Ted. “Maybe you weren’t standing close enough to hear that night at the school, but most of the ideas Carol presented were ones Sela whispered to her. Sela was the one who handled things early this morning when the Livingstons had that break-in.”
There was an immediate buzz of comments from people asking what had happened, exactly, how were the Livingstons, had the sheriff been contacted, etc., which set Ted off in another direction.