Page 36 of Flames and Blood

We’re inside it with the sky gone gray at the bottom and the sun not up yet. Close enough that I don’t look at it twice.

We go in far enough to be safe, and I put a fire together where the light can’t reach the entrance. Not for warmth. For something to look at.

I glance down at where my shirt has dried to my ribs. Bullet lodged beneath my lung. I dug it out back on the ridge, and the wound’s closed now. There’s a hole through the coat and nothing under it.

“Yours shut?” I ask Meyer, who’s stripping off his jacket.

“Yep.”

“You said it went through,” the kid says.

“It did.” He sits down against the rock and puts his boots out toward the fire. “Went through, came out, closed up. I’ve had colds that took longer.”

“You don’t get colds.”

“I remember them.”

Kent lowers himself down one-handed, gets his back against the wall, and immediately starts moving the arm, testing it, turning the wrist.

“Stop that,” Meyer says.

“I’m checking it.”

“You checked it at the truck.”

“And it was broken at the truck, and it’s still broken now, which is a problem.”

“It’s still broken because you keep checking it. Let it heal.”

Kent holds it still for about four seconds.

“How long do bones take?” he asks me. He’s definitely newly turned.

“Depends how straight it’s sitting.”

“Straight-ish.”

“Straight-ish takes about a day. There’ll be a bump on the bone for a bit. But it’ll heal.”

“See,” Meyer says.

“Nobody asked you.”

“You asked him, and he agreed with me.”

“Set it, then. Go on. You’ve wanted to since the fork back in the road.”

“I offered at the fork.”

“You offered like a man who wanted to cause me pain.”

Meyer gets up, takes the arm, and pulls it straight in one movement. Kent makes a sound through his teeth and doesn’t say anything for a moment afterward.

“Better?” says Meyer.

“No.”

“It’ll be better tomorrow,” I say.