Keep Her Safe From Me

edge of a treatment table in a curtained bay with my boots dripping onto the tile,

said. "Then I'l

e one wh

ou're the one sitting in front of me." Sh

climb down, and the knuckles were split where the rock had caught th

dn't fe

elt

half with a man on your b

ot to t

s a small crease between her brows that I would come to know very

I'm going to le

work. She had good hands, quick and certain, and she talked while s

the east ridge," she said. "I've see

es

w, Dale said.

s on the western

the sam

atched her thread the

alk much abo

sn't muc

lled, and I kept my face still, an

le flinch,

had

rted the next one. "Peter's leg. The tear in his cal

says something they have been turning ov

a fall,"

ished the second stitch and reached for the scissors. "I've been in this hospital for six years, Elias. I've seen

hey got hurt. They don'

the third stitch and looked at me with her hands still. "Peter had four

it a

nimal attack. The forest service says the same. But there's no animal in this state that leaves marks

tion reported the tracks because I had written the rep

tracks look

u'd know better than m

. I don't do the

he bandage roll. "Whoever wrote it said the prints were too large for a wo

the ambulance, but I could feel him lis

took my right hand and turned it over. The knuckles there w

e said. "You called me doctor

lluride ER. And you

r the closure. The station radioed that no one was going up. So either you diso

call. He got it out b

In a blizzard. Withou

sn't time

efore she asked it. "How did you find him? The trail's a mile and a half long and t

d had been in the air from the moment I stepped out of the station. The truth was that I had

I said. "I've walke

not an

he one

as off on that hand. I don't know when she had taken it off. Her bare thumb pressed against the inside of my wrist, right over th

ecause her breath caught and s

s that?"

ati

g my wrist. Her thumb moved, just slightly, and I

bla

hands were not quite steady. She pulled her gloves off and dropped them in the bin an

staying tonig

tion bun

'll lose the use of two fingers." She pulled a card from her pocket and wrote something on the back with a

fingers brushed, and the spark came a th

her hand

t that,"

here's something else. When Peter came in, the surgeon found a second wound. On his shoulder, under his jacket. He di

rned a

else could." She let the curtain fall open. "If you know something about what's on that mountain, Elias, you should tell me. Because I've got a sample i

at on the table with my bandaged hand in m

e was low

oing to

said.