been near death before. He knew that sometimes the body turned off the pain. Slowly, he mentally took inventory. There were parts that hurt like hell. Others he couldn’t feel at all.
Cody swore as loud as he could, and smiled. At least he had his voice. Not that anyone would hear him in the canyon. Maybe his brain was mush; he obviously had a head wound. The blood kept dripping into his eyes. His left leg throbbed with each heartbeat, and he couldn’t draw a deep breath. He swore again.
He tried to move and pain skyrocketed, forcing him to concentrate to stop shaking. Fire shot up his leg and flowed straight to his heart. Cody took shallow breaths and tried to reason. He had to control his breathing. He had to stay awake or he’d freeze. He had to keep fighting. Survival was bone and blood to his nature.
The memory of his night in the mud near the Rio Grande came back as if it had only been a day earlier, not three years. He’d been bleeding then, hurt, alone. Four rangers had stood on the bank at dusk. He’d seen the other three crumple when bullets fell like rain.
Only it had been hot that night, not cold like now, and then the air had been silent after all the gunfire. He finally heard movement in the shadows and wasn’t sure which he feared more, armed drug runners or demons. If the outlaws found him alive, they’d kill him. If the demons found him dead, they’d drag him into hell. Reality and nightmares dueled in his mind as sanity seemed to drip away with his blood.
Cody had known that every ranger in the area would be looking for him at first light; he had to make it to dawn first. Stay alive. They’d find him, he kept thinking, until he finally passed out.
But not this time. No one knew where he was tonight. Once he lost consciousness, he’d freeze.
No one would look for him tonight or tomorrow. No one would even notice he was gone. He’d made sure of that. He’d left all his friends back in Austin after the shooting. He’d broken up with his girlfriend, who said she couldn’t deal with hospitals. When he came back to his family’s land, he didn’t bother to call any of his old friends. He’d grown accustomed to the solitude. He’d needed it to heal not just the wounds outside, but the ones deep inside.
Cody swore again.
The pain won out for a moment, and his mind drifted. At the corners of his reason, he knew he needed to move, stop the bleeding, try not to freeze, but he’d become an expert at drifting that night on the border. Even when a rifle had poked into his chest as one of the drug runners tested to see if he was alive, Cody hadn’t reacted.
If he had, another bullet would have gone into his body, which was already riddled with lead.
Cody muttered the words he’d once had to scrub off the walls in grade school. Mrs. Presley had kept repeating as he worked, “Cody Winslow, you’ll die cussing if you don’t learn better.”
Turned out she might be right. Even with his eyes almost closed, the stars grew brighter and circled around him like drunken fireflies. If this was death’s door, he planned to go through yelling.
The stars drew closer. Their light bounced off the black canyon walls as if they were sparks of echoes.
He stopped swearing as the lights began to talk.
“He’s dead,” one high, bossy voice said. “Look how shiny the blood is.”
Tiny beams of light found his face, blinding him to all else.
A squeaky sound added, “I’m going to throw up. I can’t look at blood.”
“No, he’s not dead,” another argued. “His hand is twitching, and if you throw up, Marjorie Martin, I’ll tell Miss Adams.”
All at once the lights were bouncing around him, high voices talking at once.
“Yes, he is dead.”
“Stop saying that.”
“You stop saying anything.”
“I’m going to throw up.”
Cody opened his eyes. The lights were circling around him like a war party.
“See, I told you so.”
One beam of light came closer, blinding him for a moment, and he blinked.
“He’s hurt. I can see blood bubbling out of him in several spots.” The bossy voice added, “Don’t touch it, Marjorie. People bleeding have germs.”
The gang of lights streamed along his body as if trying to torture him or drive him mad as the world kept changing from black to bright. It occurred to him that maybe he was being abducted by aliens, but he doubted the beings coming to conquer the world would land here in West Texas or that they’d sound like little girls.
“Hell,” he said, and to his surprise the shadows all jumped back.
After a few seconds, he made out the outline of what might be a little girl, or maybe a short ET.
“You shouldn’t cuss, mister. We heard you way back in the canyon yelling out words I’ve seen written but never knew how to pronounce.”
“Glad I could help with your education, kid. Any chance you have a cell phone or a leader?”
“We’re not allowed to carry cell phones. It interferes with our communicating with nature.” She shined her flashlight in his eyes one more time. “Don’t call me kid. Miss Adams says you should address people by their names. It’s more polite. My name is Melanie Miller, and I could read before I started kindergarten.”
Cody mumbled a few words, deciding he was in hell already and, who knew, all the helpers’ names started with M.
All at once the lights went jittery again, and every one of the six little girls seemed to be talking at once.
One thought he was too bloody to live. One suggested they should cover him with their coats; another voted for undressing him. Two said they would never touch blood. One wanted to put a tourniquet around his neck.
Cody was starting to hope death might come faster when another shadow carrying a lantern moved into the mix. “Move back, girls. This man is hurt.”
He couldn’t see more than an outline, but the new arrival was definitely not a little girl. Tall, nicely shaped, hiking boots, wearing a backpack.
Closing his eyes and ignoring the little girls’ constant questions, he listened as a calm voice used her cell to call for help. She had the location down to latitude and longitude, and described a van parked in an open field about a hundred yards from her location where they could land a helicopter. When she hung up, she knelt at his side and shifted the backpack off her shoulder.
As she began to check his injuries, her voice calmly gave instructions. “Go back to the van, girls. Two at a time, take turns flashing your lights at the sky toward the North Star. The rest of you get under the blankets and stay warm. When you hear the chopper arrive, you can watch from the windows, but stay in the van.”
“McKenna, you’re in charge. I’ll be back as soon as they come.”
Another M, Cody thought, but didn’t bother to ask. Maybe your name
