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She looked around for something to use as a lever, but none of the laths were sturdy enough to bear the weight. She was going to have to try and lift it herself.
“What’s happening?” Alice demanded in a reedy, terrified voice.
“Focus on this,” said Gutsy tersely. “Brace yourself.”
Gutsy straddled Alice’s pinned legs, crouched, wrapped her arms around the heavy beam, and lifted. The wood was thick and solid, designed to support the rainwater tank on the kitchen roof. The carpenters who’d put it in place a year or so after the dead rose had done their job very well. The beam had been shaped from the heartwood of a telephone pole, and Gutsy knew the math. Utility poles weighed thirty pounds per cubic foot, and the beam was a foot square. She used the strength of her thighs, her core, her lower back, and her wiry arms, and pulled.
The moment the timber began to move, Alice Chung felt her legs. She felt every nerve ending, every inch of them. She screamed so loud it seemed to shatter what was left of the kitchen. Gutsy, straining, screamed too as she heaved the beam up and walked it back, inch by inch. Black poppies blossomed in front of Gutsy’s eyes, then turned a bright red. She forced herself to stare through them down at the floor, seeing Alice’s knees, then her shins, her sneakers… and finally the floor. With a cry she let the beam drop. It smashed down with a shudder.
Gutsy darted forward to examine the deep cuts on Alice’s legs. They were very bad. Worse than she thought. Alice was still screaming as the pain threatened to overwhelm her. Gutsy had no first-aid kit with her, realizing with horror that she’d left it in the Humvee.
So, instead she whipped off her belt and wrapped it around Alice’s right upper thigh, cinching it tight to stop the bleeding. That tore a new shriek of pain from Alice, but Gutsy had to endure it.
“I have to stop the bleeding,” she said, once more forcing her tone to sound infinitely calmer than she felt. Alice’s screams dwindled to whimpers but spiked again as Gutsy buckled the tourniquet in place. The cut on her right thigh was the worst, and Gutsy was worried about the amount of blood Alice had already lost.
Alice’s left leg was still bleeding profusely, and Gutsy had no second belt. So, she pulled out her small lock-knife, flicked the blade into place, and began cutting strips from the hem of Alice’s pajama top. She used the widest strip for the second tourniquet, since wide strips did less damage to nerve endings and blood vessels. She inserted a broken piece of wood into a loop in the strip to allow her to turn it like a dial, using the torsion to exert pressure on Alice’s upper thigh. Luckily the blood was only pumping, not shooting out in jets, which she hoped meant that no arteries were severed.
Once the second tourniquet was in place, Gutsy fumbled for Alice’s hand and told her to hold it, repeating it until Alice gave her an actual spoken answer instead of a hysterical nod.
“You’re doing great,” Gutsy said. “It’s going to be okay.”
The gunfire outside made a liar of her, and they both knew it. Gutsy wondered where the heck Alethea was, and feared for her friend. She leaned over and kissed Alice’s flushed cheek.
The next step was to bandage the wounds so that direct pressure would further stop the bleeding and allow her to remove the tourniquets. She cut more strips off Alice’s top—some for bandages, and some for padding. Soon, she realized, Alice would be wearing just pajama bottoms and a thick tank top, but modesty was a luxury that had no place in a crisis.
The cuts looked horrible, and there were little pieces of cloth punched into each by the beam’s passage through the pajamas. That was something she’d need to take care of later to avoid infection. Now, all that mattered was keeping Alice from bleeding to death.
Alice was panting, though, and her eyes were glassy with shock. Gutsy
got up and hurried into Alice’s bedroom, grabbed a pillow and blanket off the bed, and came back and draped the blanket over her. It would keep her warm, and serve as makeshift clothing. She tucked the pillow under Alice’s head.
There were more sounds of fighting outside in the street, and Gutsy wanted—needed—to go see what was happening, but she simply could not.
Gutsy knew she had to do more than this if Alice was going into shock. Ideally, she would have liked to carry her to the bedroom, but she didn’t want to risk moving her for fear of restarting the bleeding. So, she kicked enough debris out of the way to clear the floor near the stove, then helped Alice lie flat. Then Gutsy dragged the beam end over and gently—very, very gently—raised Alice’s ankles and placed them on the solid wood. She rushed back into the living room and came back with both couch cushions, carefully inserting them under Alice’s calves to take the strain off her knees and thighs. It was still uncertain whether one or both legs were broken, but the fact that Alice didn’t scream when her legs were lifted was a hopeful sign.
“Alice,” she said, “I need you to stay like this, okay?”
Alice nodded. She was either unable or unwilling to speak. Her color was still bad, and she was sweating. Cold sweat, too, so Gutsy got a big decorative macramé blanket and draped it over her. Once that was done, Gutsy took the wooden torsion bar from Alice’s hand and gradually eased the tension while keeping her other palm on the bandage, feeling for the warmth that would bloom if heavy bleeding began again. It did not, and Gutsy exhaled a ball of tension, taking it as a good sign.
There was a heavy thump against the front door.
“That’s probably Alethea,” said Gutsy. “I’ll let her in. Don’t move.”
Gutsy headed for the door, but before she got there it flew inward, the lock tearing from the hinges, splinters filling the air.
It was not Alethea.
It was a ravager. He was big and broad-shouldered, and he had a pump shotgun in his hands.
Gutsy had no chance at all.
PART TWENTY THE ROAD TO ASHEVILLE
If we really think that home is elsewhere and that this life is a wandering to find home, why should we not look forward to the arrival?
—C. S. LEWIS
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