Frost said to the boy. “You have to go out now.” He had to repeat it because of the noise of the women outside.
The boy said “Are you going to cut off his leg?”
“Yes.”
The boy looked faint, wobbled. But he nodded and let Salmon lead him by the hand to the door.
Grace squatted and screwed the lid off the half-full bottle of alcohol. She poured a little alcohol on the pink rag and wiped the three plastic bottles. There was no sterile place to put them, so she stood the full bottle of alcohol and the bottle of skag-in-water again on the floor. She held one hand at a time over the basin and with the remaining bottle she sterilized her hands, and she poured alcohol over all the items in the basin. She wiped the sides and rim of the basin with the alcohol-soaked rag. She fished out the needle and threaded it and stuck it vertically into the rim of the basin. Salmon came forward and had her one hand sterilized. Grace motioned with her head to Frost, who came and squatted and held his hands over the basin and rubbed them all over with the alcohol she poured. Then he stood.
Grace handed him the knife and then the hacksaw, dripping. “Hold these till they dry.” He took them and stood there with the knife in his right hand and the hacksaw in his left.
He said “Where’s the powdered skag?”
Grace did not reply. She took the rag from the basin and squeezed out some of the alcohol and turned and knelt on the floor and studied the bloody mess of the shattered leg.
Frost said “You two go out for a minute. We’ll call you.” Salmon and Jessica left, Salmon holding her sterile hand away from the plastic over the door.
Grace wiped the blood from the skin above the wound. She folded the cloth and wiped the area again. She said, without looking up “I need something to put underneath to raise the leg up.”
Still holding the knife and the hacksaw, Frost went to the doorway and pushed the covering of thick transparent plastic back with a shoulder. He looked into the main room. It was as before, but the woman who had been lying on the mattress on the floor was now lying on the Hide-a-Bed beside the field boss. Another man lay on the mattress on the floor. Two women were trying to remove his blood-soaked poncho. As they slid it up his torso Frost saw the wound and the slight but steady flow of blood over the corrugations of the ribs. He saw the shallow white chest rising and falling. Beyond the women, he saw the face of Daniel Charlie, troubled, silent as a moon above the tumult. Jessica and Salmon stood near the doorway to the room from which Frost looked out.
He said to Salmon “If no ribs are broken, press on the wound to slow the bleeding.” Salmon turned and stepped between women toward the man on the mattress.
He saw nothing out there that could be used to support the man’s leg. He let the plastic curtain fall and turned back into the room and set the saw and the knife back into the basin. He said to the man “Bend your good leg.” The man did so. “Help him lift his other leg.”
The man, pale, eyes squeezed shut, brow creased, groaning loudly, raised the leg while Grace supported the lower part. Frost doubled the end of the mattress over on itself. The man lowered his good leg to rest on and hold in place the folded mattress, and Grace supported the wounded lower leg while he lowered the thigh to the mattress. The heels of both sandals rested on the floor. There was room to cut now.
Grace and Frost sterilized their hands again, and Grace wiped the back of the upper calf, where she had not been able to before, and Frost crouched near the man’s feet, holding the saw and knife again. He said “We’ll need more skag.”
Grace said nothing.
He said “I’ll send someone back to get the powder.” He waited. She did not reply. He rose, turned toward the doorway.
Grace said “Wait. There may be enough.”
“There’s four people need it. So far.”
“Come back.”
He stood staring down at her.
She said, wiping the skin again “There is no powdered skag.”
Frost stood there gaping.
Grace did not look at him. She dipped the rag into the basin and wrung it out over the floor. She spread the rag on the man’s leg above the knee. She unscrewed the cap of the skag bottle.
Frost exclaimed softly “What!”
Grace said “Can you lift your head?”
The man managed to boost himself partway up on his elbows. Grace tilted the bottle, and he took a good swallow of the liquid. She gave him a little more, then put the lid back on and set the bottle down as the man lay back again.
Frost said “What happened to it? You haven’t had to use any of it since Salmon.”
Grace said nothing. After a while the man’s face went slack and dreamy. She turned and gave Frost a hard and fearful glance and blurted “It’s gone, that’s all.”
He said “Someone stole it.”
Grace shrugged, watched the man’s face.
“Jesus Christ, Grace!”
He took the saw and knife in one hand. He picked up the bottle of skag-in-water and went to the doorway and pushed the plastic aside with his back. “Salmon.” She was kneeling beside the man on the mattress, pressing her hand against the wound. She rose and came to Frost. Blood began trickling from the wound again. Frost said “Give them all one swallow each. There should be enough.” She held up her hand to show him that it was bloody. Frost said “It doesn’t matter.” She took the bottle.
Frost let the curtain fall, turned. He said “So someone stole it.”
Grace shrugged again. “It’s gone. It’s just gone.”
“Damn!”
She held out her hand to him, looked up at him steadily. He turned the knife, and she took it from him by the handle. Again she watched the face of the man as he sank deeper into his trance. She said “We need more.”
“He won’t give us any more. Not after today. And I won’t ask him for any more.”
“Bundy should never have attacked.”
“You’re saying you want me to talk to Langley.”
“We need more. You’ve got to do something.”
“I’m finished talking. We’re way past talking now. Anyway, I’ve got nothing he needs. He’s got all of Wing’s spuds. His cows. He’d just laugh at me.”
“Take it.” She slashed the air with the knife.
“Take Langley’s skag!”
“We need it, Frost!”
“Jesus Christ, Grace. I don’t even know where he’s got it. But even if I had an army there’s no way I could get near it. It’s what he’s about. It’s his heart and soul. Nobody’s going to get near Langley’s skag. But what the hell happened to it? Nobody could get past my dogs. Was it someone on the farm?”
Grace again watched the man’s face. She said “Get Jessica. Get Daniel if he’s there.”
Frost closed his eyes, let the saw hang at his side, released a long sigh. “One of my own people took it.”
Grace said “He wants land. You said he wants to trade. He’ll leave us alone if we go to Wing’s. And he’ll give us skag.” Her voice had lost its hesitancy. There was a metallic edge to it.
He said fearfully, almost pleading “Grace, don’t say that. Please. I can’t stand to hear you say that.”
“It’s war, Frost. He’ll take your farm. Talk to him.”
“What are you saying? Is it you saying this? Give him my farm…?”
“He’ll take it.”
Frost just shook his head.
Grace said “Then it’s gone anyway. And we’re all dead.”
Frost went on shaking his head, looking down at the floor.
“Dead, Frost. You, me, Will, Daniel, Jessica. I guess that’s what you want.”