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I moved around the clearing, using his flashlight to look for something that matched his description. I almost missed it because the flowers had closed their petals for the night but I grabbed a handful of the plant and brought it back to him.
“Grind it into a paste," he instructed and I did so using a smooth round stone and a hollow in the base of a nearby tree root.
While I was making the paste, he tied a bandage tightly around his thigh over his pants. The tourniquet did the job and slowly stopped the bleeding.
I presented the pungent green paste to Coal and he nodded.
“Smother it over my ribs, then rinse your hands off. It has numbing properties so might make it difficult to fire your gun," he instructed.
I scooped up a big blob of the paste and smeared it gently over the huge bruise. Coal tensed at my touch and I tried to be as careful as I could. A tingling numbness started to radiate from my fingertips almost as soon as I touched the green mush.
I wiped the excess off on my jacket and rummaged in my pack until I found a bottle of water. I rinsed the remainder off as quickly as I could then offered the bottle to Coal. He took a swig.
"Could do with some of that whiskey around now,” he joked and handed it back. "Can you bind those bandages over the paste? I'll tell you when they're tight enough."
It took several minutes of me wrapping and tying bandages until Coal was satisfied and I sat down next to him on the springy moss-covered ground with a sigh of exhaustion. My eyes were trying to force their way shut again and I had to stop myself from laying back and giving in to sleep.
Coal took a slow, deep breath and stood up."It's working." He smiled down at me, offering a hand to help me up too.
“I'd rather not tug on your arm while you have three broken ribs," I said, refusing his hand and finding my own way to my feet.
K
aloo took the hint and set off in the direction Alicia and Laurie had taken, her nose to the ground and tail wagging high in the air.
We followed at what I felt was a pretty decent pace for the walking wounded and I was hopeful that we wouldn't be left so far behind after all.
"Are you tired?" Coal asked.
"Or concussed I guess. You?" I smiled wryly.
Coal looked away and didn't answer.
“I'd take a drink over a nap right now," he said after a while.
“Oh no, a nice soft bed with fluffy pillows and a duvet, that would be heaven."
"Maybe you could tempt me," he joked. I got the feeling he was trying to change the subject with his flirting and I flushed red as I looked away from him. "I get nightmares about my parents dying in that lab," I said lightly. "But I didn't when we drank that whiskey."
I could feel him looking at me but I kept my gaze on the surrounding forest.
"It makes the things I've done seem easier to bear sometimes," he said after a pause.
"Like what?" The words were out before I could stop them, this was clearly not a topic he wanted to discuss but I waited patiently, ready to let the matter drop if he chose to change the subject.
"There used to be three of us," he began. I didn't say anything. "Me, Alicia and Blane. He was our little brother, not blood but real enough for us. You remember that story I told you about Hunter finding us and teaching us to fight?"
"Yes," I said.
“Well it was just like I told you: Alicia and me fighting a losing battle. But the bit I missed out was that we really needed the food for Blane. We used to look after him. He wasn't much of a fighter, he hid and watched us fight those kids. It wasn't because he didn't want to help, but he was younger than us and he wasn't as tough as this world needs us to be.
“We always looked after him and we didn't mind. I guess we thought he'd toughen up as he got older and be more able to look after himself." He sighed and looked ahead at the trail for a while.
I waited and eventually he went on.
"We loved him, we tried to help him get stronger, we worried about him not being able to look after himself. He refused to join us when we were training with Hunter but I tried to teach him what I'd learned in the evenings. It didn't really work and I got frustrated with him, I shouted at him about it, tried to make him see it was necessary to survive out here." Coal stopped talking and we moved on. I concentrated on the steady rhythm of our feet pounding the miles away and the sight of Kaloo bounding back and forth, leading us ever onwards until he decided to continue again.
“I should have just accepted he wasn't a fighter in the same way that we were, he saw the world in a different way. One night there was a raid on the town, a group of outsiders tried to steal food and supplies from us. We were outside when it all happened and one of them, a boy not much older than me, crossed our path with arms full of food that he'd stolen. Alicia and I moved to stop him, but Blane just turned tail and ran.
