I do not move.
The wind is carrying three of my men to me. I know they are two miles east. I know there are ridges and a creek between us. They are gone, off, away, running. And I have them in my nose like they are standing in front of me.
I take another breath.
I open my eyes.
"Dean."
I do not yell. My body needs Dean and his rifle and his calm face.
"Dean."
He is at my side in seconds.
The rifle is up. His eyes go to the tree line first — that is who he is, that is the job — then to my face, then down my body. Reading for injury before he reads for anything else.
"What?"
"I don’t know."
I hold up my hands.
Dean looks.
He does not flinch. He does not pull back. He takes my wrist in his hand and turns it once in the afternoon light and looks at the nails. His face does not change. He turns the other wrist. He looks at the other set.
"How long?"
"I do not know. Since I came outside. Maybe longer."
"You did not have these on the porch."
"I don’t think so."
He sets my hands down.
"Open your mouth."
I do.
He looks. He uses his thumb under my chin to tip my face up — careful, no pressure, just for the angle. He looks at my canines for a long moment. He moves my chin a quarter-inch to the left to get the light on the right side. He looks at the left side.
He closes my mouth with the same thumb. Gently.
He steps back.
He does not speak right away.
He has the rifle in his other hand and he is standing two feet from me in the clearing, putting information together — the slight narrowing at the eyes, the small flat compression of his mouth. Checking his own animal against what he saw.
"Dean."
"Yeah."
"Tell me."
He looks at me.
