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Twelve hours. Carly had to wait twelve hours. It seemed like an eternity. She decided to keep herself busy. She erected the tent and then dragged the tarp he lay upon off the sleeping bags, which she put in their proper places inside the tent. She then dragged him inside the tent to rest in comfort. She arranged him on his side before she went back out to the fire, where she burned the bloody tarp and the blood-soaked bandages. She didn’t know if there were bears or other dangerous predators in North Dakota, but it was better to be on the safe side.
Twelve hours. How would she know when it was time? Carly looked up at the sun. It was only a couple of hours past dawn. Maybe eight or nine o’clock. So, about sunset should be right, she figured. As long as she gave him his pills at the same time every day, it should work, even if it was an hour or two sooner or later. At least she hoped it wasn’t necessary to be exact.
The hell of it was that she didn’t know. Carly could be making it worse with her incompetent nursing.
She sat and stared at the fire. What would she do if Justin died? Carly hadn’t let herself even consider the possibility, but it was a very stark and horrid reality. He could die. She closed her eyes. The pain that thought inspired was so intense she knew his actual death would destroy her. She’d want to lie down and die herself, but who would take care of Shadowfax and Sam? She let herself cry a little, just to ease some of the hard, hot knot of tension in her chest, but then she wiped her face and got back to work. She had to do everything she could to save him.
Carly had listened to Justin’s survival lessons well. She headed downhill, following the contours of the land to its lowest point, and sure enough, she found a small creek where she filled a bucket and headed back to the camp.
She went into the tent and stripped his clothes, cutting off what she couldn’t remove easily. “You know, you might actually be turned on by this if you were conscious,” Carly told him with a teasing note in her voice. She sang when she ran out of things to say. She hoped Justin could hear her, hoped the sound of her voice soothed him.
She poured rubbing alcohol into the creek water to kill the germs, but she was still careful to keep it away from his wound when she placed water-soaked towels over his overheated body. It was what she and her father had done to try to lower her mother’s fever. Carly couldn’t tell if it was helping or not. He began to shiver, even though his skin was hot to the touch.
“Carly,” Justin said.
Her eyes flew to his face. “Justin?”
But Justin was not awake. He was muttering in his sleep, and she couldn’t make out the rest of what he was saying. Carly rinsed out the cloth she had laid on his head and put it back. His hair was soaked with sweat.
At some point, she must have dozed off, and she jerked out of sleep when Justin shouted her name. She sat up, confused for a long, awful moment before reality came back to her. It was dark. She’d missed his antibiotic dosage. She scrambled out of the tent and went to get the bottle.
“Carly! Carly! Carleeeeee!”
“I’m right here,” she assured him, crawling back inside. “I’m right here, Justin. Right here.” She fished a pill out of the bottle and tried to put it in his mouth, but he tossed his head in his delirium.
“Carly!”
“Here, Justin. I’m here.” She pinched his jaw open and shoved the pill into his throat. “Here, drink this, honey.” Carly poured a small dribble of water in his mouth. Justin sucked at it eagerly, so she tipped in more, bringing the bottle to his lips.
Carly took the bottle away after Justin drank almost all of it. She didn’t want him to get sick from having too much at once. She refreshed all of his cool towels and put some wood on the dying fire. Shadowfax still stood guard in her spot by the corner of the house and she greeted Carly with a soft nicker. Carly went over to her, and Shadowfax lowered her head to rest over Carly’s shoulder and hooked her foreleg around Carly’s waist as she had done after the attack in Carcross—the equine version of a hug that gave comfort as intended. “Thank you, Shadowfax,” Carly said, and laid her forehead against the horse’s neck. “After this is over, I’m giving you a sugar cube the size of a Volkswagen.”
Sam was curled up by the fire. His tail thumped in the dust when she walked over to him and gave his ruff a scratch. He arched against her hand and his back leg jerked in time. She chuckled, but her laughter died when she realized she hadn’t fed him all day. Feeling ashamed, she gave him a can of wet food on top of his dry food, which he seemed to enjoy, if practically inhaling it was any indication.
Carly crawled back into the tent. Justin was still muttering, and she could make out some of the words.
“...save you... can’t stay... No, Carly, don’t!”
“Justin, I’m right here. Right here beside you.” Carly took one of Justin’s hands in hers. His skin burned with fever. “Can you feel me? Please, Justin, wake up. Please, wake up.” Her voice cracked on the last word. She hung her head and struggled not to cry. It was a battle she lost. She lay down beside him and sobbed like a baby while he twitched, muttered, and called her name.
In the morning, Sam brought Carly a rabbit. He dropped it at her feet when she crawled out of the tent. His tail wagged eagerly, and she petted him. “Thanks, Sam. Good boy. But I’m not hungry.”
Sam picked up the limp body and dropped it again, closer to her bare toes. He nudged it toward her with his nose.
“All right, Sam. I’ll eat it.” Maybe if she cooked it, he would feel satisfied. Carly gave Justin his morning dose of medication. It might have been just her hopeful imagination, but he did feel a bit cooler. Hope could sometimes be a terrible thing.
Carly took Justin’s knife off of his belt. She gutted and skinned the rabbit, not even having the energy to be grossed out by what she was doing, and put it on a spit over the fire to cook while she went in and refreshed Justin’s towels.
The smell of cooking meat caused her stomach to clench in hunger. As soon as it was done, Carly decided to eat a little of it and wound up devouring the whole thing. Sam seemed mighty proud of himself when she gave him the bones to chew while she set about re-wetting Justin’s towels again. She laid the last over Justin’s forehead and hair.
“Carly, love you,” he muttered. “Love you.”
She froze. Did he mean that, or was it just part of his fevered ramblings?
And that’s when Carly realized she loved him, too, and it might be too late for him to ever know.
“Carly?”
“Right here, Justin,” Carly mumbled automatically. She had woken at dawn to give him his pill and refresh his cool towels, and then she had fallen back asleep, exhausted. She’d lost track of how many days had passed. Time had ceased to matter, except for when the sunrise and sunset told her it was pill time.
