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“Positive,” I say into the radio mic. “Do you carry antivenom?”
“I know we have it for rattlers and cottonmouths,” she says. “This town doesn’t get its name for no reason. But we don’t get many coral snake bites. I’ll have to check.”
I glance over at Parker and whisper, “She’s checking.”
He closes his eyes, as if in silent prayer.
I roar past a tractor driving down the road by the grain elevator. Parker is holding his son tight, whispering to him that everything is going to be okay.
What I remember about coral snakes is their venom contains a neurotoxin that’s more dangerous than almost any other snake’s. But they don’t have retractable fangs, like a rattlesnake, so they can’t deliver the venom with quite the same punch. They can’t bite through boots and maybe not even denim. But for a little boy in a pair of shorts, his exposed legs would have been an easy target. And Leo probably doesn’t weigh much more than fifty pounds. Whether it was a big dose or a little one, it won’t much matter. Whatever poison got in will take its toll.
“Daddy,” Leo says, his words slurred, “I don’t feel so good.”
Parker’s eyes well with tears, and his arms are trembling as he holds his boy. I’ve never seen my old friend like this before.
“You’re being very brave,” I say to Leo, and add, as much for Parker’s benefit as Leo’s, “You’re going to be okay.”
The boy’s breathing is becoming labored, each inhalation wheezing more than the one before it.
“Don’t talk,” Parker says, but the boy keeps uttering sounds, mostly unintelligible.
“Can’t… feel… my fingers,” the boy whispers in a hoarse, wheezy voice. “Can’t… feel… legs.”
“Oh, God,” Parker groans as the boy turns limp in his arms. “What’s happening?”
I don’t answer. The last thing Parker needs to hear right now is that the neurotoxin is paralyzing his son’s muscles. If it stops his lungs or his heart, Leo will die before we get to the hospital.
“Make sure he keeps breathing,” I say, and Parker lowers his head to listen to the weak rasping sounds of his son’s labored breaths.
I blast into town and speed the F-150 through a red light, honking my horn along the way. Up ahead, I see the hospital.
The voice comes back on my radio: “You there, Ranger?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“We’ve got the antivenom.”
“Thank God,” Parker mutters next to me.
“Get it ready,” I say into the radio. “We’re here.”
There are a couple of cars ahead of me waiting to turn into the hospital parking lot. A car exiting the lot from the wrong lane has everything jammed up.
I yank the wheel and the truck lurches over the curb, racing through a patch of grass. The truck tires kick up hunks of sod. I hit the pavement, the tires chirping, and head toward the ER entrance. I honk my horn over and over as I pull up, and a trio of doctors or nurses in scrubs run out.
Parker is out the door before I even get the gearshift into park.
CHAPTER 17
AN HOUR LATER, I’m sitting in the waiting room with Etta, while Parker and Josie are inside the hospital with Leo. Not knowing how to keep a five-year-old busy, I put buds in Etta’s ears and let her listen to a playlist of Willow’s songs.
That seems to do the trick. She nods her head and dances in her seat, her worries about her brother forgotten.
My worries aren’t, though.
I pace up and down the floor, my boots loud against the tile. I feel like we got here in time, but until you get word from the doctors, you just never know. Maybe the antivenom might not be working. Maybe the poison had spread too much throughout his body.
I’m also racked with guilt.
