“Hey there, it’s time to wake up.” Another pained groan spilled from chapped lips, dried saliva at one corner of the guy’s mouth. “Hey, wake up.” He shook a little more insistently, throwing a glance back at Louis, who was watching him intently. Pulling the sleeping bag off the stranger’s shoulders, the pungent smell of infected skin nearly made Hank tumble over.Shit. Pulling the fabric all the way to the man’s waist and further down mid-thigh, he handled him carefully, trying to inspect him more closely.
The stranger was dressed in a worn green fleece, the soft threadbare fabric ripped around the neckline and the sleeves. The equally distressed jeans were dirty, held up by a string of yarn pulled through the belt hoops, the zipper broken. One hand rested between the man’s thighs, the other was hidden under the fleece, tucked against his chest. Maneuvering the stranger onto his back, Hank carefully attempted to pull his left hand from underneath the drenched fleece, eliciting a string of small sobs from the man.
“No. No, no, no,” he whimpered, curling in on himself on instinct. Hank had seen it lots of times with animals. The self-preservation of every living being was astonishing. Awe-inspiring, almost.
“Shhh,” Hank coaxed. “I just gotta check your hand. I promise I’ll be careful.” As he leaned in over the guy’s upper body, the smell of infected skin grew heavier, and he breathed through his mouth instead of his nose. Slowly pulling the hand from underneath the fleece, he tried to ignore the pained whimpers spilling from the man’s lips. “Nearly there,” he reassured the stranger until his hand was entirely freed and he could hold it towards the dim light entering the shelter.
“Shit,” Hank cursed. The slender hand was remarkably clean, covered by a piece of gauze. A greenish yellow seeped throughthe white gauze, as it covered what must be a large wound on the back of his hand. It was clearly infected, the gauze soaked with puss and blood.
“Goddamnit,” Hank rubbed at his forehead beneath his knitted hat. Just his luck, the only medical professional being up in the mountains somewhere, probably on one knee, proposing to his nephew this very minute. Carefully placing the hand back against the man’s chest, he drew the damp sleeping bag back over his shoulders and scooted backward out of the shelter.
Louis raised his head expectantly, his ears alert as he waited for instructions from Hank. Patting the pup on the head, Hank sighed, breathing in the fresh air outside, cleaning out his lungs.
“What the hell are we gonna do now, huh boy?” He shrugged. “If your daddy was here, he’d know exactly what to do, wouldn’t he?” The pup started dancing frantically around at the familiar and beloved noundaddy,looking towards the driveway. “No, no, sorry boy. My mistake.” Pulling out his cell phone from his front pocket, he silently prayed for a signal. With the weather and the remote location of the cabin, it wasn’t always a sure thing that there would be one. Pressing a random button, the small screen lit up, showing a full battery and two bars.Thank God.
Quickly pulling up Henry’s number, the phone rang a few times, before a breathless Henry answered it.
“Hank. What’s up? Is it Louis?” Henry’s familiar voice, now panting heavily, rang through the phone.
“You better not be picking up if you’re being manhandled—or worse—by my nephew,” Hank groaned, squeezing his eyes shut. A youthful chuckle spilled through the phone.
“Of course not.” Hank could hear the smile in the young man’s voice and could just imagine his bright, beaming eyes in front of him. “He’s long done manhandling me. We’re out hiking.” He heard Colton mumble something in the background, his deepbass sounding miles away. “You wanna say hi to him? He has some good news to share with ya,” Henry murmured softly.
“In a minute, kid. I need to just run somethin’ by ya first.”
“Oh, okay…? Go ahead, Hank.”
“How would you treat a badly infected hand wound?” Hank rushed out, not eager to explain the circumstances but not wanting to worry Henry either.
“What happened?” Alarm was evident in the young man’s voice. Always the goddamn caretaker. “Did you hurt yourself?”
“Nah, nothin’ like that. It’s someone else.” Hank tried to keep his voice somewhat neutral.
“Who is it?” Henry asked, Colton again murmuring something in the background, sounding like a fondsweetheart.
“No one you know,” Hank spoke, shifting on his feet, the cold biting at his cheeks.
“Now, that’s a load of horseshit,” Henry laughed. “I know everyone, and you damn well know that. So, who is it?”
“I don’t know. I found him sleeping in Colton’s shelter. I think he has a fever, and the wound smells really foul and looks pretty infected, too.”
“In Colton’s shelter? But… Why is he in our shelter? And you’re sure you don’t know him?” Hank didn’t have to be standing next to Henry to know that his head was spinning by now, probably entertaining all sorts of ideas about wild animals and strange men visiting their shelter on a regular basis.
“Breathe, kid,” Hank chuckled. “Everythin’s fine. No squatters takin’ over your property.”
“Okay…” Henry sighed. “And he’s… unconscious? Unresponsive?” Hank could just imagine the veterinarian now going into full-blown professional rescue mode.
“He’s making a lot of noises, you know, whimpering and such when I touch him, but I think he’s asleep.”
“Okay. Any other visible injuries? Head wounds or the like?”
“Not as far as I can tell, son,” Hank replied. He hadn’t exactly given the stranger a full physical.
“Good. Okay, first, you gotta get him out of the shelter and somewhere warm, okay?”
“Okay…”
“When you’re back at your place—”
