The monitor lets out a long, continuous tone, a flat, horizontal line showing on the screen.
Jason shakes his head, his chest heaving with the effort of the compressions. “Lidocaine’s not holding.”
Wyatt stares at the monitor, his voice flat as slate. “Epinephrine. Bella. Draw one CC. Push it directly.”
I don’t think. I grab the red-labeled vial, draw the liquid, and push it through the port. My knees are shaking, my forehead pressed against the cold metal edge of the table as I squeeze the black bag again.
Please. Please.
The continuous tone breaks.
A sharp, distinct beep echoes in the quiet room. Then another. The green line on the monitor spikes, a clean, high QRS complex showing on the screen.
“Rhythm’s back,” Jason lets out a long, ragged breath, his hands stopping on the ribs. “Sinus. Heart rate’s climbing. Ninety. One hundred.”
The air rushes back into my lungs, a hot, painful wave that makes my head spin. I keep my hands on the bag, squeezing in rhythm, my eyes fixed on the green spikes on the screen as if my gaze alone can hold the line.
Wyatt looks at Atlas’s tongue, his slate eyes softening a fraction of an inch. “He’s pinking up. Heart is holding. I’m starting the gastropexy. Jason, prep the suture.”
The next hour passes in a blur of green thread, silver needles, and the steady, rhythmic beep of the monitor. Wyatt works with a quiet, hypnotic precision, his large, scarred fingers moving through the tissue with a gentleness that looks like art.
He tacks the stomach to the abdominal wall, a permanent lock to keep it from twisting again, before he washes out the cavity and closes the muscle layers in neat, perfect rows.
By the time the last suture is tied, the sun has dropped behind the ridges, the sky outside the window a deep, freezing violet.
Jason helps Wyatt lift Atlas off the table and carry him to the thick wool recovery mat by the waiting room wood stove. We wrap him in heavy patchwork quilts, his head resting on a folded towel, a slow, warm heat radiating from the iron stove.
Jason leaves for the bunkhouse, his face lined with exhaustion, his boots quiet on the pine boards.
The clinic waiting room is silent, the only sound the soft hum of the backup generator and the rhythmic, deep breathing of the recovering dog.
Wyatt sits on the floorboards beside Atlas, his back pressed against the wood wainscot. He looks incredibly tired in the dim light, his shoulders slumped, his head resting in his hands. The flannel of his shirt is damp with sweat, his jaw slack with physical and emotional exhaustion.
I slide onto the floor beside him, my knees touching his, my hand resting on Atlas’s flank. The warmth of his body rises through the quilt, a steady, living heat.
My voice is low in the quiet room. “He’s stable.”
“I missed the signs.” Wyatt doesn’t look up from his hands. His voice is a dry, gravelly rasp, barely carrying over the hum of the stove.
“Wyatt.” I turn my head to look at him.
“I’m the doctor. I keep things alive. That’s my job. I saved Atlas downrange, kept Dolly and the pups breathing. I missed my best friend dying. I sat in that clinic for six years with him, and I didn’t see it.” His shoulders tighten, his fingers curling into his hair.
The raw, bleeding wound of his survivor’s guilt is laid open between us, a black hole that no amount of work or routine could ever fill.
I slide my hand over his knee, my fingers closing around his denim, grounding him.
“You can’t keep punishing yourself.”
“I should’ve seen the signs.” He stops, his hands dropping from his face, his grey eyes watching mine. Wyatt glances at me. “I should’ve seen the signs in Atlas.”
“You're trying to carry the weight of his final days. Jesse loved you, and he loved this place.”
“Not enough to stick around.” Grief pulls at his voice. “Not enough to stay for Atlas.”
“Wyatt…” My voice carries the warm, steady register I’ve used to talk hundreds of strangers back from the ledge. “I wish he’d never left.”
A slow, shuddering breath escapes his chest. He leans his head back against the wall, his eyes closing, a single tear cutting a clean line through the dried sweat on his cheek.
