“It’s fine,” he says quickly.
“Blake…” Gretchen says.
I tense, ready for him to snap something at his wife, but he sighs and drops his head.
“I’m sorry, Katie,” he says. “I know you’re trying to help. I’m angry with myself, and I shouldn’t be snapping at you.”
Gretchen clears her throat, and he looks her way with a sheepish smile. “Or at you. Sorry, hon.”
“Just let Katie do her thing, okay? You don’t want to be a day’s walk from here, passed out from pain.”
He nods and allows me to run it through some basic usability tests. The problem with those is that they rely on self-reported pain. When he winces, is he faking it? When he doesn’t react, is he suppressing it?
He’d jumped earlier when I was prodding his ankle, but now his reactions are much more muted, meaning I can’t tell whether that means he’s not injured or just trying to convince us he’s fine enough to continue on their hike.
“May I wrap it?” I ask.
“Yes,” Gretchen replies before Blake can answer. “Please.”
I do that as I talk them through care. It’s the basic RICE first aid. Rest. Ice. Compression. Elevation. Compression means the bindings I put on, and I show them how to replace them and give Gretchen extras. Ice will need to mean cold streams. Elevation means raising it above his heart when he’s sleeping. As for resting, since they already plan a couple of days off, I only agree that this is a good strategy.
“You have pain medication?” I ask.
“Ibuprofen,” Gretchen. “It’ll work on the swelling, too, right?”
“It will. But the meds and the ice are short-term measures. Even if it seems better when you get back to Whitehorse, see your doctor. Don’t keep on with the ice and pills past that.”
“We will.”
Gretchen envelops me in a hug before I can duck it. I’m not sure I would have anyway. While I’m not really the hugging type, I know she’s trying to show gratitude. I survive the hug, and Storm survives the petting. They ask if there are any good spots to camp nearby, and I direct them a little farther west, where they’ll find a small meadow near a stream.
“Just check for berries,” I say. “You don’t want to pop your tent in the middle of a cranberry patch and have bears visit.”
“We won’t,” Gretchen says with a smile, and I motion for Storm to set out back the way we came.
CHAPTER THREE
I meet up with Dalton and fill him in as we walk back to Haven’s Rock. Wearegoing back, and we are aware of the risk of leading them there. But I’d stuck around long enough to see Gretchen and Blake move on, and Dalton and I walked the first twenty minutes in silence so we could listen for the sound of anyone following us. We hear nothing. Storm hears nothing. We’re good. For now.
We can’t lurk with a teething baby—Rory was sleeping, but now she’s grumbling, ready to break into screams. Afternoon is passing into evening, and we can no longer expect sunshine until midnight. We need to get back and tell the others what we found.
Once we near town, we divert into the forest, taking a longer route on rough paths, just in case we’ve left too much of a trail.
Haven’s Rock is bustling. Shifts are ending. People are heading to their quarters or out for dinner, and—to add confusion to the mix—the Roc doesn’t seem open yet. With no prospects for a post-work cocktail hour, people mill about like automatons with their path blocked.
“What’s up?” I say to one of the residents.
“Roc’s closed.”
“She can see that,” a voice says. “She means why is it closed.”
I turn as a tall woman with raked-back curls and dark brown skin walks up behind Dalton.
“Stealing your baby, Eric,” she says. “Auntie Yolanda has missed her Rory time today. That was one hell of a hike you guys took.”
“What’s going on at the Roc?” I say. “Is Isabel okay?”
Isabel runs the Roc, as she did in Rockton. While she has help as our population grows, she’s still not comfortable enough with her new staff to leave them in charge. Or maybe “comfort” isn’t the right word, implying she doesn’t trust them. Isabel just likes to be in control.
