“You can see that?” I leaned in for a closer look, and Kaci rolled her eyes at usboth.
“If you know what you’re looking for. Have you shifted since this happened?” he askedher.
“Twice.”
“That waswise.”
“Yeah, and she’d probably be much better off now if she hadn’t climbed a tree right after one of those shifts and ripped it openagain.”
Kaci kicked me under the table. “Tattletale.”
“Okay, well, it needs stitches on the surface,” Vicsaid.
I nodded. “That’s one of the reasons we’re going back to theranch.”
“No need to wait.” Chris set a green canvas zip-up pouch on the table, then he started removing cellophane from four disposable coffeecups.
“What’s that?” I asked as Vic opened the pouch and began pulling out sealed packets of sterile wipes, gloves, and a couple of instruments that looked like scissors withoutblades.
“It’s a field medicine suturekit.”
“You’re going to stitch her up now?” I demanded. “Are youqualified?”
“He is,” Kaci said. Though she didn’t lookpleased.
“Qualified, yes. Able?” Vic stood and held his broken arm up for emphasis. “Not at the moment.Chris?”
Chris took the chair next to Kaci’s and sterilized his hands with one of the alcohol wipes. Then he pulled on a pair of sterile gloves that were latex-free, according to thepackage.
I scowled as he opened a packet containing a thin, curved piece of metal that seemed designed to causepain.
“It’s a suture needle,” Kaci explained, and I made a mental noteneverto cut myself around theseguys.
“Unfortunately, I don’t have anything for the pain. I probably shouldn’t do this, but…” Chris glanced up at Vic, who nodded and set an unopened fifth of whiskey on the table in front of Kaci. “If it was good enough for civil warsoldiers…”
“Amputation and gangrene were good enough for civil war soldiers!” I snapped. “She needs a local. Aninjection.”
Vic exhaled slowly. “This is more like a field medic’s tent than a doctor’s office, Justus. If you’d kept a better watch onher—”
“This isn’t his fault,” Kaci insisted. “It’smine.”
“No, he’s right.” I peeled plastic from the cap of the whiskey bottle. “I shouldn’t have let you go out therealone.”
“Fuck you both!” Kaci snapped. “I got taken because I wasn’t paying attention. That could have happened to either one of you. And I got myself out of it, thank you verymuch.”
“And right into this.” Vic lifted her arm into her own line of sight. “But that’s nothing that hasn’t happened to all of us.” He pushed up his short sleeve to show off a jagged scar winding around his leftbicep.
Chris lifted his shirt to reveal a thin white line zagging across a stomach that gave me an inferiority complex about abs I’d been pretty proud of half an hourago.
I unscrewed the lid of the bottle and pushed it towardKaci.
She shook her head. “Noway.”
Chris shrugged. “That’s your call. But don’t say we didn’t offer.” He laid her arm across the rag I’d used earlier, then began to dribble alcohol over thewound.
The alcohol bubbled and Kaci hissed. “Why does that hurt worse now than it didbefore?”
“Because now you’re focused on the pain. Before, you were busy being pissed atme.”
