“Is he dead?” Bobbi stood across the river, clutching her shivering arms over her drenched torso in the lengthening shadows.
“He’s fine. Everybody’s fine.” McKenna crouched over Oliver. Hewasfine, wasn’t he? Not like Bobbi had been back when she was four. When she’d had to stay in the hospital for three weeks with pneumonia after her near-drowning incident.
McKenna tapped the screen on her phone and dialed 911. She wasn’t taking any chances. “Hi. My sister’s fiancé, er, boyfriend, almost drowned and my sister is stuck on the other side of the river because the bridge is broke, and oh my goodness, Nate, you’re bleeding.”
He’d lifted his left pant leg and McKenna could see lots of blood trailing down his shin into his sock while the dispatcher started firing off questions and Bobbi kept screaming, “Is he dead?” from across the river.
“I’m fine,” Nate said.
“No, you’re not,” McKenna said.
“Is he breathing?” the dispatcher said.
“All down his leg,” McKenna said before realizing the dispatcher was asking about Oliver breathing and not Nate bleeding. “I mean yes, he’s breathing. We’re all breathing. I think we’re all breathing. Nate, is Oliver breathing?”
Oliver continued staring open-mouthed at the sky like a fish not just out of water, but one headed toward the light. “Tell him to stop looking at the sky like that. Make sure he’s still breathing.”
“He’s still breathing,” Nate assured her.
“And you’re still bleeding,” McKenna felt the need to point out.
“I think he’s in shock,” Nate said.
“We think he’s in shock,” McKenna said to the dispatcher. “The breather, not the bleeder.”
The dispatcher continued asking questions, Bobbi continued yelling, “Is he dead?”, McKenna continued answering the dispatcher’s questions when she wasn’t yelling, “He’s not dead,” to Bobbi and “Goodness, you’re really bleeding. Are you sure he’s still breathing?” to Nate.
“Hey, you big oaf. You doing okay?” Nate leaned closer, shaking Oliver’s shoulder. “Say something, man.”
The dispatcher had no sooner told McKenna that help was on the way when Oliver, with the type of growl McKenna only imagined coming out of something feral, sprang forward and rammed Nate in the head, knocking him flat on his back.
“Oliver, no,” McKenna yelled.
“What was that?” the dispatcher said.
“The breather just headbutted the bleeder,” McKenna said as Bobbi screeched from the opposite shore—“Ishedead?”
MCKENNA
“He should’ve given up the bench.”
NATE
“I should’ve given up the bench.”
Fly out to Nebraska to say a heartfelt goodbye and what did Nate get? A whopping headache, bloody pants, and twelve stitches. He could only imagine the laugh this would’ve given his mentor. That was one thing to smile about, he supposed.
Still, last place Nate wanted to hang out any longer was some ER in who-knows-where, Nebraska. Two hours had already been two hours too long. Especially since it had taken a ridiculous amount of time for the paramedics or EMTs or firefighters or whatever they were to triage the situation out at the river.
It’d been like listening to them work out that old riddle about the chicken, the fox, and the corn as they decided in which order to accomplish rescuing a screaming lady on the other side of the river and transporting two patients—one of them an aggressive moose—by ambulance to the nearest ER.
Nate hadn’t wanted to get the rental vehicle wet and bloody, so even though he’d felt capable of driving to the ER himself, he rode with Oliver in the ambulance—after they’d given Oliver some sort of sedative—and let McKenna drive his rental to the ER.
He hadn’t seen any of them since, but McKenna must’ve made it to the ER okay because a nurse brought him his keys. He assumed McKenna’s sister would have to drive her back to the river at some point so she could retrieve her own vehicle.
Man, what a stupid day.
But now that his knee was stitched up—stupid river rocks—and his forehead was bandaged up—stupid Oliver—Nate was ready to leave this stupid day behind and never step foot near loopy tall Nebraska women with gorgeous turquoise eyes and wild curly hair ever again.
