Keep Her Safe From Me

ile I was sitting in the hospital cafeteria wit

ove Bridal Veil Falls. Their car was still at the trailhead. The

e road in f

r heels bloody. I found them sheltering under a rock ledge a half mile above the falls, and by the time I got them down

at the trailhead w

lamp strapped over her hat, and she looked at th

this

bus before

and by then the road behind us had drifted over too. We sat in the ambulance with the engine running and the heat on and the

The county's got three other road

at me across

ours,"

e ho

with Clara and the radio, and the wind rocked the ambulance on its springs

in half without asking and handed me one side. It was

like mustar

't min

ade a

ace because

not last long, but it changed the inside of

her about her f

one of my

Everything about h

e quiet and I a

and two on this one. She asked if I had family here and I told her a brother and that he was dead. She did not say she was sorr

as a geologist. He was doing survey work on the eastern

sor

radio was working that morning and he called his office at nine and said he was on his way down.

ooked

been pre med already, but I changed it because I wanted to

ou take the n

She set the sandwich down. "Now tell m

e of the bus and the

c. He said if he did not know better he would say a large animal had bitten him

it a

ep sayi

it's what

moment. Her green eyes wer

I think you've seen those marks before. I think the night Peter fell you were already on the trail befor

ld I be

ned back in her seat. "Maybe y

k and said the couple were awake and asking for water, and Clara got up to see to them. When she came back she sat down beside me instead of across fro

he said. "Let

s fi

e look

. She turned my hand over in hers and ran her thumb along the line of stitches,

l that,"

es

t is

n't k

Her thumb moved along the inside of my wrist and set

the al

you've been up here every day for

the cab was the red glow from the radio, and her face was cl

a," I

ll me you don't know. I've spent ten years listening to men tell me

my wrist. I could have

tell you,

hy

u wouldn't

y m

came through from the back. "Do

hen she let go of my wrist and got up, an

he front of the bus. "You've

ght about Daniel in the workshop and Marcus at the window and the via

to ask you ag

kn

you goi

yellow and bright through the snow. Clara walked out to meet it w

d. "Look in your

to the ambulanc

and familiar. It was my glove. The one I had lost on the trail three we

the whole time, and on the back of it, written in black m

pl