Up Close and Dangerous (8 page)

C
AM LISTENED TO
Mrs. Wingate talking. He felt as if his consciousness was split in two and part of him drifted away into fog, tethered only by her occasional demands that he respond. On a far closer level he was also aware of his complete physical misery; he was so cold that he had a whole new appreciation of the word. Why couldn’t the two parts trade places, and the physical awareness float out there in the ether? The one thing he didn’t want to happen, right now, was for the two to merge, but at the same time he knew he couldn’t let himself drift any further away.

Hearing her voice gave him something to focus on, helped keep him from floating away into darkness. He knew he was hurt and he even knew why, though he was fuzzy on how. He’d crash-landed the plane, evidently successfully since they were both alive. He remembered the engine inexplicably quitting, and he remembered trying to get the plane to the tree line so the vegetation would help cushion the impact. That was it; nothing about the actual crash at all. His next memory was of his head feeling as if someone had used a baseball bat on it—hell, his entire body felt like that—and nothing making sense except Mrs. Wingate calling his name.

He had to concentrate hard to hold on to the thread of what she was saying, and sometimes his thoughts drifted and he’d lose touch, only to be brought back by a sharp question or a jab of pain. Sometimes every word was crystal clear; sometimes they were just sounds that he knew were supposed to mean something but didn’t. There was no clear line of demarcation between what was real and what wasn’t, and he floated in that no-man’s-land.

Now she was touching him. That, at least, was real, because he could feel her. He was vaguely surprised; she didn’t want to speak to him, but she’d touch him? Strange. She’d covered him with something, he didn’t know what, but it felt nice and heavy. Then she’d lain down beside him, put her arms around him, and begun briskly rubbing his chest and arms. A faint warmth began to seep into him.

The warmth, as faint as it was, felt great. What also felt great was her breast against his arm, which he guessed proved that, even if he was half dead, a man was still a man and a breast, any breast, was always worthy of attention. Lulled by the comfort of both breast and warmth, he began drifting to sleep.

His relaxation shattered when his entire body suddenly tensed and shook. He’d been cold before, teeth-chattering, body-shaking cold, but had experienced nothing like this. Shudders racked his entire body, clenched every muscle, rattled every bone. He shook so hard he thought he might break his teeth, and clenched them together. Mrs. Wingate tightened her hold on him, murmuring something he couldn’t understand. After a few minutes the convulsive shaking stopped and, exhausted, he felt his muscles go limp.

He’d barely relaxed when another spasm seized him.

He didn’t know how long the excruciating spasms lasted, just that they were agony, and he was helpless to control them. She stayed right there the whole time, holding him, stroking him, talking to him. He fastened onto the sound of her voice as if it were a lifeline, even though most of the time he couldn’t understand what she was saying, because as long as he could hear her that meant he wasn’t dead. His own body was trying to kill him, but to hell with that. Fuck dying. He didn’t intend to give up, though he was so exhausted giving up would be easier than battling through this.

He just wanted to rest for a while. Sleep. But even during the brief periods when the shaking stopped and he could relax, he couldn’t sleep because she kept talking. At some point his brain reconnected and the words made sense again. “—good,” she was saying. “You’re shivering, and that’s good.”

Shivering? She called these brutal, muscle-locked spasms
shivering
?

In a moment of clarity he managed to say “Bullshit.”

He heard a low sound that was almost like a laugh. Mrs. Wingate, laughing? Maybe he was hallucinating.

“No, it is good,” she insisted. “It’s your body generating heat. I know
I
feel warmer, now. Even my feet aren’t as frozen.”

He did a laborious mental inventory of his body. Maybe she was right. He couldn’t say he was toasty, but he was definitely warmer. He tried to open his eyes, but they’d been glued shut. Slowly, every movement needing every ounce of concentration and strength he had, he lifted his right hand toward his face.

“What are you doing?”

“Eyes…trying to open my eyes.” Fumbling clumsily at his eyelids, he could feel a thick crust under his fingertips. “What’s…this crap?”

“Dried blood. I guess your eyelids are stuck together,” she said matter-of-factly. “You’re a mess. When you’re a little warmer and I’ve gotten some chocolate down you, I’ll clean your face and get your eyelids unstuck. Then I’ll see if I can manage some stitches, though I warn you the results won’t be pretty.”

Stitches? Yeah, he remembered now. His head was cut. The first-aid kit had sutures in it, and he’d told her to sew him up.

He didn’t want to wait for her to clean his face; he wanted to see
now.
He wanted to get up and assess the situation for himself. He needed to see how much damage the plane had sustained. Maybe he could still make radio contact.

Another spasm grabbed him and shook him. The interval this time had been longer, but the spasm itself was just as intense. She held him tightly, as if she could ease the shaking by controlling it. The tactic didn’t work, but he appreciated the effort.

When the spasm left and he could relax again, he was so tired he gave up on any idea of getting up and assessing anything. He wanted to just lie there. Besides, he thought vaguely, if he got up, he wouldn’t be able to feel her breasts against him and he was really liking that. Okay, so he was a dog. He liked breasts. Throw him a bone and call him Fido.

It occurred to him, in his floating, fuzzy way of thinking, that he could feel her breasts even better if they were lying facing each other.

“What are you
doing
?” She sounded a little alarmed, or maybe that was annoyed. “If you throw these clothes off after all the trouble I went to to get you covered, I’ll leave your butt in the snow to freeze.”

Annoyed.
Definitely.

“Get closer,” he muttered. He was trying to get his left arm up so he could roll onto his left side, facing her, but she was lying against his arm and he couldn’t manage the necessity of first pulling away from her, then lifting his arm, then rolling onto his side.

“All right, but be still. Let me do it.”

She moved around some, heaving and wiggling, then she lifted his left arm and slid under it, pressing against his side. He almost sighed with pleasure, because now he could feel both of those soft/firm mounds. She draped an arm across his stomach and cuddled closer.

“Better?”

She had no idea how much. He made a sound in his throat. Let her interpret it any way she wanted.

“I guess this is warmer. In a few minutes I’ll get up and get to work. If I stay here any longer, I might go to sleep, and that won’t be good. I have a lot to do, but I have to take my time doing it or the altitude gets to me.”

He wanted to ask what she had to do, but he was so sleepy and tired, and he was feeling much warmer—almost comfortable, in fact, that staying awake was fast becoming almost impossible. He made another sound, and that seemed to satisfy her noise requirements. She kept talking, and he tuned her out and went to sleep.

8

C
AREFULLY
B
AILEY CRAWLED OUT FROM UNDER THE ENORMOUS
pile of clothing. Justice was asleep, and though she thought she was supposed to keep him awake, because of the head injury, she also thought sleep might be the best thing for him. He had to be exhausted from all that shaking and shuddering.

She felt better, herself. Her feet were still cold, but overall she was much warmer—though she did miss the down vest that was now covering Justice. To make up for its loss, she fished a third shirt from the pile and put it on.

Lying down for a while had helped her headache and nausea, too. If she were careful and didn’t forget to move slowly, maybe the altitude wouldn’t bother her so much.

Even though she knew what she would see, she took a moment to look around again, at the massive mountains with the white peaks soaring high above her. But for Justice, they would have crashed on those bare expanses of jagged rock, with little or no chance of survival. Once again she felt the immensity of the wilderness surrounding them and an overwhelming sense of being alone.

She listened for the distinctive
whap-whap
sound of a helicopter or the distant drone of a plane, looked for smoke that might indicate a campsite, but…there was nothing. Shouldn’t someone be searching for them by now? Justice had sent out that Mayday call, surely someone had heard it and contacted the FAA, or whatever agency needed to be contacted. She didn’t care if the ASPCA was contacted, so long as
someone
was searching for them.

The utter silence was unnerving. She didn’t expect car horns or flares arching overhead, but some indication there were other human beings on the planet would be welcome.

The lack of sound and movement, of activity that would have given her hope, only reinforced her profound sense of isolation. How would they survive the night up here, with no water, no way of making a fire?

By continuing to do what she was doing, that was how. She had a ton of clothes they could use as cover, they had at least a little food to eat, and there was moisture in the snow. She also had Justice’s knife—

Oh, crap. Where was the knife?

Still in her pocket, she thought, relieved. With it, she could manage to rig together some sort of shelter for them, enough, at least, to keep them out of the wind. The first item on her to-do list, though, was to feed Justice.

Climbing back into the plane, she finished removing all of her clothing from the suitcases, setting aside the candy bars when she finally found them, as well as the packs of wet wipes she’d packed. When her suitcases were finally empty and the trash bags containing her clothes were on the ground, by flipping the lids back she had enough clearance to drag the opened cases over the tops of the seats. The bags could be put to some use; she’d figure out later exactly what that use would be.

Going back to Justice, she knelt beside him and thoroughly examined the contents of the first-aid kit. Besides the space blanket there were scissors, which would come in handy; lots of gauze pads and adhesive bandages; a roll of tape; cotton balls and cotton tips; a tube of antibacterial salve; both alcohol and iodine wipes; antiseptic towelettes; plastic gloves; OTC painkillers; and—oh, joy—sutures. There was a bunch of other stuff, like finger splints and a twelve-hour lightstick, but her immediate concern was that the kit contained the basics to treat the cut on Justice’s head. It did, which meant she had no excuse if she chickened out. To further seal her fate, there was a First Aid Guide.

She flipped through the guide, looking for any instruction on setting stitches. There was, complete with illustrations. Unfortunately, the first line said
“Thoroughly flush wound with water for five minutes, then gently wash with soap.”

Yeah, right; she didn’t even have water to half-ass flush the wound with, much less “thoroughly.” She’d have to do the best she could, and pray there was no debris in the cut.

Wait a minute. She had mouthwash!

Quickly she pulled open the trash bag containing her toiletries and pulled out the zipped plastic bag in which she’d put her shampoo and mouthwash. Taking out the mouthwash, she turned it over and read what was in it, from which she learned nothing because she wasn’t a chemist. On the front, however, it said it killed germs. It was wet, it killed germs, and she had almost a pint of it.

She also had the plastic bag in her hand. Quickly she filled the bag with snow, zipped it closed, and placed it on a rock. If she was lucky, while she was dealing with Justice’s injury, the sun would warm the rock enough to melt the snow, and they would have water. Not much of it, true, but every little bit counted.

With everything she needed laid out on one of the trash bags, she was about to wake Justice when she realized that he probably had mouthwash, too. Going to his bag, she unzipped it and found his shaving kit stuffed on top of, as she had expected, a single change of clothing and underwear. The kit had two zippers; the one on the left opened to reveal a hairbrush, a travel-size bottle of shampoo, and about a dozen condoms. Men. The right side held a toothbrush, a tiny tube of toothpaste, a disposable razor, and a travel-size bottle of mouthwash.

“Damn it,” she said, sighing. He’d already used the mouthwash at least once; about half of it was gone, and there hadn’t been much to start with. Half an ounce wasn’t going to make any real difference, so she left the little bottle in place, zipped up the shaving kit, and replaced it in his bag.

She’d have to do the job with what she had. She just hoped what she had was sufficient to keep him from developing a raging infection.

First, though, she needed to get some sugar into his system, and then, well, a couple of preemptive painkillers were probably called for.

Carefully she removed the shirt that covered his face; even though she knew what he looked like, she almost flinched when confronted by the reality. His entire face was covered with dried blood, caked in his eyes, his ears, his nostrils, the corners of his mouth. Even worse, his forehead was swelling, pulling the edges of the cut wide. She hadn’t anticipated the swelling, and winced at the idea of stitching him now. The swelling would probably get worse, though, so waiting wasn’t an option either.

“Justice,” she said, reaching under the layers of clothes to touch him. “Wake up. It’s showtime.”

He inhaled, a quick, deep breath. “I’m awake.”

His voice was stronger, so maybe she’d made the right choice to get him warm before she tried to do something about that cut.

“I have a candy bar here. I want you to eat a couple of bites, okay? In a little while, if we’re lucky, we’ll each be able to have a swallow or two of water. Then I want you to take two ibuprofen. Can you swallow them without water? If you can’t, I’ll put some snow in your mouth, but we can’t eat much snow because it’ll lower our body temps. Uh, on second thought, maybe you should take the ibuprofen first, let it get started working.”