First Blood

The wound was not something Teasle wanted to look at very long. There was a rank gas coming out the open chest.

'How… bad?' Orval said, wincing.

'Don't you worry about it,' Teasle said. 'We'll fix you up.' He was unbuttoning his own shirt as he spoke, slipping it off his shoulders.

'I asked you… how bad.' Each word was a distinct pained whisper.

'You've seen enough things wounded, Orval. You know how bad it is as much as I do.' He was rolling his sweaty shirt into a ball, setting it on the hole in Orval's chest. Immediately the shirt was soaking blood.

'I want to hear you tell me. I asked you —'

'All right, Orval, save your strength. Don't talk.' His hands were sticky with blood as he buttoned Orval's shirt over the bundle he had put on the wound. 'I won't lie to you and I know you don't want me to lie. There's a lot of blood and hard to see for sure but it's my guess he hit a lung.'

'Oh my Jesus.'

'Now I want you to stop talking and save your strength.'

'Please. You can't leave me. Don't leave me.'

'That's the last thing you have to worry about. We're taking you back, and we're going to do everything we can for you. But you have to do something for me too. You hear? You have to concentrate on holding your chest. I have my shirt inside yours and I want you to hold it close to where you're hit. We have to stop the bleeding. Can you hear me? Do you understand?'

Orval licked his lips and nodded weakly, and Teasle's mouth tasted full of dry dust. There wasn't a hope that a rolled-up shirt would stop the bleeding from a wound that size. His mouth stayed dusty and he felt streaks of sweat trickle down his bare back. The sun was long gone behind the clouds, but the heat was continuing to press on him, and he thought of water, realizing how thirsty Orval must be.

He knew he shouldn't give him any. He knew that from Korea. A man shot in the chest or stomach would vomit water he drank, and the wound would rip larger, and the pain would get worse. But Orval was licking at his lips, licking at his lips, and Teasle couldn't bear to watch his pain. I'll give him a little. A little won't hurt.

There was a canteen snapped to Orval's belt. He worked it loose, the canvas cover rough, and unscrewed the cap, pouring a little into Orval's mouth. Orval coughed, and the water bubbled out mixed with blood.

'Dear God,' Teasle said. For a moment his mind was blank: he didn't know what to do next. Then he thought of the radio and swung over to it. 'Teasle calling state police. State police. Emergency.' He raised his voice. 'Emergency.'

The radio crackled with static from the clouds.

'Teasle calling state police. Emergency!'

He had been determined not to radio for help no matter what happened. Even when he saw the crashed and burning helicopter, he had not called. But Orval. Orval was going to die.

'State police come in.'

The radio shrieked with lightning, and in the ebb a voice came through, indistinct and raspy. 'State… here… ble.'

Teasle couldn't waste time asking him to say it again. 'I can't hear you,' he said hurriedly. 'Our helicopter has crashed. I have a wounded man here. I need another helicopter for him.'

'… done.'

'I can't hear you. I need another helicopter.'

'… impossible. An electric storm moving in. Every… grounded.'

'But dammit he's going to die!'

The voice answered something, but Teasle couldn't make it out, and then the voice dissolved in static and when it came back it was in the middle of a sentence.

'I can't hear you!' Teasle shouted.

'… sure picked… guy to try and hunt… Green Beret… Medal of Honor.'

'What? Say that again.'

'Green Beret?' Lester said.

The voice was starting to repeat, broke up, never came back again. It started to rain, light drops speckling the dust and dirt, spotting Teasle's pants and soaking in, pelting cool on his bare back. The black clouds shadowed over. Lightning crackled and lit up the cliff like a spotlight, and as fast as the spotlight came on, it went off and the shadows returned, bringing with them shockwaves of exploding thunder.

'Medal of Honor?' Lester said to Teasle. 'Is that what you brought us after? A war hero? A fucking Green Beret?'

'He didn't shoot!' Mitch said.

Teasle looked sharply at him, afraid he was out of control. But Mitch wasn't. He was excited, trying to tell them something, and Teasle knew what it was: he had already thought of it and decided it was no good.

'When you dragged Orval back,' Mitch was saying, 'he didn't shoot. He isn't down there anymore. He's swinging around behind us and now's our chance to move!'

'No,' Teasle told him, rain pelting his face.

'But we've got a chance to…'

'No. He might be swinging around, but what if he isn't. What if he doesn't want just one target, and he's waiting down there for the whole lot of us to get careless and show ourselves.'

Their faces went ashen. The clouds unloaded and the rain came down for real.

10

It came and it came. Lashing at them solidly. Teasle had never been in anything like it. The wind was whipping the rain at his eyes, driving it into his mouth.

'Storm, my ass. It's a goddamn cloudburst.'

He was lying in the water. He didn't think it could get worse, and then the rain increased, and he was almost buried in the water. Lightning cracked bright like the sun, darkness instantly was everywhere, darkness that got blacker and blacker until it was like night, only the time was late afternoon, and rain lashing blind at his eyes, Teasle couldn't even see to the edge of the cliff. Thunder shook him. 'What is this?'

He shielded his eyes. Orval was lying face up, mouth open in the rain. He'll drown, Teasle thought. His mouth'll fill up with water and he'll breathe it in and drown.

He squinted at his men stretched out in the water on the ledge, and realized that Orval wasn't the only one who might drown. Where they all lay was now the bed of a raging stream. There was swift water rushing down the rise behind them, surging over them, sweeping toward the edge of the cliff, and though he couldn't see the ledge, he knew what it looked like. It was the top of a waterfalclass="underline" if the storm got any worse, they'd all be washed over the side.

And Orval would be the first to go.

He grabbed Orval's legs. 'Shingleton! Help me!' he called, rain driving into his mouth.

Through his words it thundered loud.

'Grab his arms, Shingleton! We're clearing out!' The temperature had gone down rapidly. The rain was now shocking cold on his bare back as he remembered stories about men caught in flash floods in the mountains, about men washed down draws and thrown over cliffs and crushed and broken on the rocks below. 'We have to clear out!'

'But the kid!' somebody yelled.

'He can't see us now! He can't see anything!'

'But the kid might be waiting for us up there!'

'We don't have time to worry about him! We have to get off this ledge before the storm gets worse! It'll sweep us over!'

Lightning flashed brilliantly. He shook his head at what he saw. The men. Their faces. In the lightning and rain, their faces changed to white skulls. As suddenly as they came, the skulls were gone, and he was blinking in darkness and the thunder hit him like a string of mortar explosions.

'I'm here!' Shingleton yelled, grabbing Orval's arms. 'I've got him. Let's go!'

They heaved him out of the water, bearing toward the rise. The rain doubled, heavier, faster. It was streaking at them almost sideways, drenching them, pouring off them in a constant rush. Teasle slipped. He fell hard on his shoulder and dropped Orval into the swirling current. He struggled splashing to grab Orval, to keep Orval's head above water, then slipped again so his own head went under water and he breathed.