"No fabric fibers in the wound. Good. Puncture depth is about half an inch, maybe less on the top hole. The tear is the problem. Muscle fascia is intact, that's why it isn't bleeding worse. I'm going to close the tear with three interior sutures and a running stitch on the skin. Then a pressure bandage. Rabies is not endemic in Alaska wolves. Antibiotics as soon as we can raise anybody on the radio."
"You've done this before," I say. My voice sounds far away.
"On oranges. And on rescue mutts at a clinic in Seattle before grad school, one summer I've never told anyone about." She's threading a curved needle. "I thought about being a vet before I fell in love with data. I never quite killed the reflex."
"You don't tell people."
"It's not on my CV. Nobody hires an evolutionary biologist because she can suture a calf muscle. It only annoys them." She looks up at me. Her eyes are calm. Her hands are steady. "Bite down on something. I'm going to start."
I take the wooden spoon she's holding out. I bite down on it.
She starts.
I watch her hands. These are the same hands that type grant proposals and hold wine glasses in beige hotel rooms. Right now they're smeared with my blood, moving with a competence that turns me on as much as it terrifies me. She stitches like a woman who knows exactly what the flesh will let her do. Interior.Interior. Interior. Then the neat running line on the skin, small precise loops, no wasted motion.
She ties off the last suture and sits back on her heels. When she wipes her forehead with the back of her arm, it leaves a streak of flour and blood across her brow.
"You'll walk," she says. Her voice trembles for the first time. "You'll limp for a couple weeks. You'll want to save this pair of snow pants because I want a receipt. Muscle will heal. You didn't lose function."
"Doc."
"Yeah?"
"Hell of a job."
She lets out a breath that has been sitting in her chest since she saw the blood. She turns her face into my knee. She's not crying. She's just breathing.
I put my hand on the back of her neck and hold her there for a second while she does it.
"Water," I say when she comes up. "You. Sugar. You're about to fall over."
"I'm not—" She stands up and immediately grabs the back of the chair. "Yeah. Okay. Sugar."
I get her seated. I get her a glass of orange juice from the jug Mags sent home with me, one-handed. I keep one hand on her shoulder while she drinks it, because her color isn't right.
"That's a real thing," she mumbles into the glass. "Adrenaline dump. God."
"You saved my life," I say. "Your body is allowed to react."
She sits with that for a minute.
Then she stands up, steadier now, and walks to the counter where the base station radio lives, and picks up the handset.
"Misty Meadows to Port Promise," she says. "Misty Meadows to any station. Over."
Hisssssss.
Static. White noise. It's not the normal background hum. It's the rhythmic popping crackle of atmospheric interference.
"Misty Meadows to Kingfisher," she tries. "Misty Meadows to Birch Bay. Rhys, copy."
Pop-hiss-crackle.
"Aurora," Aris says, looking at the window.
I lever myself up out of the chair, favoring the leg, and go to the window. The sky above the trees is beginning to glow. Green and violent purple ribbons dance across the twilight.
It's beautiful, but it's a communications killer.
