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“I’ve been bit!” he yelled.

I knew exactly where to look, and my eyes caught the disappearing rattle of a snake. George had been bitten by a rattler, one that would have gotten me if I hadn’t moved to the right.

“Oh my God!” He yelled. “Jesus, it hurts. Hazel,” he choked, “I can’t … breathe.” The last word came out muddled and strangled.

I knew the pain, and it was horrible, the worse thing I’d ever felt. But with some antivenom and time, I’d recovered. I wasn’t allergic to the poison, but some people were. George was. Based upon his breathing and quickly swelling face, George was moments away from dying. I knew how to cut and suck out the poison, but I’d never done it before. Besides, his reaction would kill him before I could help.

“What can I do?” I crouched next to his body.

George’s breathing was falling to something squeaky and weak.

“What the hell, Hazel?” a voice said from behind me.

I screamed and stood with my knife in one hand, my other arm hanging limp at my side.

“Joey?” I exclaimed.

“Who is that guy?” Joey asked.

“Joey!” I blinked at Trisha’s wayward boyfriend, wondering if it was the drugs in my system conjuring him here. There didn’t seem to be any other reasonable explanation—except that maybe Joey had been hiding, and there wasn’t a much better place to hide than The Wild. My gummy brain keyed on Trisha’s words: Joey’s allergic.

I said, “Joey, do you have your EpiPen?”

“I … I don’t. I’m sorry. What got him?”

“A rattler.”

“Shit. All right.” Joey slung the pack he’d had on his back off and onto the ground. “Damn, he’s probably beyond helping, Hazel.”

I watched, right there but from a strange distance, wondering what Joey was going to do. I crouched next to him.

Joey listened to George’s mouth. “This guy looks dead as a doornail, but I think I hear some strained breathing. I can open a pathway in his throat.” He reached into his pack for an ink pen and bit off the cap and then pulled out the innards tube with his teeth, spitting it away. He grabbed the knife from my hand and held up both tools. “Want me to try?”

I nodded because I didn’t know what else to do.

Joey got to work, searching George’s swelling neck with his fingers and then cutting a hole. “Everyone thinks this is called a tracheostomy, but that’s not the right term. It’s called cricothyrotomy. Trisha and I have been learning all about it on YouTube because I’m so allergic to scorpion venom, and those fuckers are everywhere.” After he cut the hole, he slipped the ink pen’s casing into the hole. Joey leaned in. “How about that? I hear air moving.”

He looked like disreputable Joey but was behaving with the calm intelligence of a medical professional.

“What?” he said when he saw my expression. “Hey, it was Trisha’s idea to learn this shit. First time I’ve done it. I hope it works.” He shrugged.

“We need to get back to town,” I said.

“That’s not where I’m going. You don’t look good, Hazel, but you can make it. Come back for him. He won’t go far, dead or alive. I’ll tourniquet his leg and watch him until I see someone else coming this way. I’ll do CPR if he needs it, but I’m not sucking out any blood.”

I didn’t argue with him, ask him why he didn’t want to come into town. I knew the way to Black Vulture, and I’d never wanted to be there so much in my life. I would not remember many details about my run back to town, except the sense that some distant voice guided me as my beat-up body stumbled the whole way.

CHAPTER

35

IT HAD BEEN three days since the ordeal in The Wild. I was going to be okay. The drugs George had injected into me—basically, a roofie—had messed with my consciousness as well as my memory, but I knew what had happened. Mostly. Though Rohypnol isn’t a pain management medication, the drug had relaxed my muscles and made me not care about the pain I should have been feeling, which did hit me once the drugs and the adrenaline wore off. It was hideous for about a day and a half. I was fortunate to have Sonny help me at the house when I got home from the hospital. I was only taking Ibuprofen now.

My arm in a sling, I found my way to a booth at the diner, put my hat on the seat beside me, and sat across from Calloway.

I couldn’t remember when it started, but this was our debrief station. No matter what the case—something local, or something I worked on for someone else, Calloway and I would meet here and talk about it when it was over.

Dixie dropped off two coffees and told us to let her know if we wanted anything else. She knew what we were doing. She also knew that we only had coffee, black, during these meetings.