Page 17 of When The Dust Settles

“Oh, for crissakes, Glenn, you bled through your T-shirt.”

I loosened my belt, unfastened the button-fly, and then tried to shove my jeans to my thighs. I was surprised at the feeling of being stabbed when I tried. “Fuck.”

“Okay,” Rand sighed. “This isn’t gonna work.”

Groaning, I told him to yank my jeans and underwear off the wound fast.

“Oh, I’m gonna have to do that too, but you need stitches.”

“No, I—”

“It’s too deep and too wide.”

I really could think of nothing worse at the moment than Rand taking needle and thread to my skin. “Just—”

“Shut the fuck up,” he ordered. “It needs cleaning and stitches and—if you could see it, you’d agree with me.”

“I can see it,” I said. I had forgotten this part of driving stock, the part where pain factored in. “Tape’ll do just fine.”

“It’s too deep for—fuck.”

“You’re making a big deal outta—”

“I’m gonna give you a local anesthetic,” he said, ignoring my comment.

“How do you have that?”

“I just got through telling you that I have a doctor on my ranch.”

I was done talking to him.

He gave me the first shot, the painkiller, in my left hip and then the second, the antibiotic, in the other.

“Gonna brand me next?” I teased.

“We don’t brand nothin’ on the Red no more, ain’t ya heard?” He sounded exasperated so I made a point of not answering him. “Glenn?”

“Stop talking. I’m bleeding here.”

His noise of disgust was not lost on me.

“I think I need a nap.”

“Among other things, I would say so,” he agreed. “You need a week at the Red just eatin’ and sleepin’.”

“Like that’d happen. You’d put me to work in no time.”

He was quiet for a moment. “I wouldn’t, though. You could just be.”

It was possibly the weirdest conversation I’d ever had with him, and I didn’t realize I was dozing until I was poked with something. “Can you feel that?”

“I can feel pressure, but it don’t hurt none.”

“Good ’cause I’m poking you with a needle.”

I grunted.

He started grabbing stuff to clean the scrape out with, water and soap, and he was really taking his time and being careful, which surprised me.