Chapter Twenty-Two #2
I barely hear him over the pounding in my skull.
All I see is Storm’s black fur under that grizzly.
All I hear is her yowl of pain and terror.
All I smell is bear and blood. Its head swings back to bite, but Storm grabs it, her jaws clamping down near its throat.
It bellows. I raise my gun, sights locked on its open jaws.
A rifle retort. Before I can pull the trigger, the bear falls back, blood and flesh spraying from inside its mouth. I still fire as soon as it hits the ground, putting another bullet into its skull.
When I start to run for Storm, Dalton shouts, “Casey! No!”
I know he’s saying we need to be sure the bear is dead, but I don’t care. Right now, what matters is that it is on top of Storm.
I press my gun to the bear’s closed eye and put my fingers under its jaw.
When I don’t feel a pulse, I dart to its side to start heaving its body off my dog.
By then, Dalton is there, and in his intake of breath, I hear imminent heart attack, seeing me shoving at a grizzly that might not be dead.
It is dead, though, and then both of us are pushing with everything we have as Storm scrabbles to get free, whining in a way that sets the blood pounding in my ears again.
When she’s almost out, I help, digging her from under that mound of fur. She tries to rise but can’t, and her breath comes labored and shallow, her brown eyes rolling in agony.
“I’ve got you,” I say as tears stream down my face. “I’ve got you, baby.” I pet her with one hand as my other runs down her side. She whimpers, and her breath makes a horrible sucking sound that I know means a punctured lung.
There’s a sound to my side. The scramble of boots on dirt. I don’t look up. I know it’s the woman coming out from her hiding spot, and know I should run to help, but all I care about is my dog.
“Stop!” Dalton snaps. “Stop right there, or I swear I will put the next bullet in you.”
I glance over just long enough to be sure Dalton isn’t talking to me. A woman stands, poised to run.
Gretchen.
Of course it’s Gretchen.
I return all my attention to Storm. The momentary distraction gave my heart a moment to slow, and I focus on my own breath. In and out. Do not panic. Just assess.
Storm is breathing. The sound is labored and shallow, and her eyes roll in panic, but she’s breathing.
“Backpack!” I say.
Dalton throws it to me as Gretchen says something that I don’t bother to process. Storm’s still struggling to stand, and I press her down gently.
“Shh, shh. I’ve got you.”
My hand comes back covered in blood, and the panic surges again. There’s raw flesh on her side, a chunk ripped open, and blood streams from it. When I try to check, she convulses in pain, and I take more deep breaths and fumble with a syringe, pulling sedative from a bottle.
“You are under arrest for the murder of your husband,” Dalton says to Gretchen.
“What?”
I don’t hear the rest. I give Storm the needle, all the while praying it’s the right choice. Not enough to knock her out, but enough to relax her.
Dalton starts talking on the sat phone. When I glance up, his handgun is trained on Gretchen as he tells someone—Anders, probably—to bring the ATV and bring it now.
I block everything again and turn my attention to Storm. She’s quieting, the sedative pulling her down, and I gently prod the chunk of flesh back and—
My heart seizes. Bone juts through just below the bitten chunk. It’d been covered in bloody fur and I hadn’t seen it. Her rib has broken and jabbed through, and her breathing is still labored, still raspy, even with the sedative.
Is it worse? Did I make things worse? She’s punctured a lung and a second rib has punctured her side, and I don’t know what other internal injuries she has.
A grizzly crushed her. All that weight falling on top of her, and I don’t know how badly she’s injured, and maybe I just made things worse by sedating her. What if she can’t breathe? What if—
I take deep, ragged breaths myself. I’m ready for that. If she stops breathing, I am ready.
“Casey?” Dalton says, his voice low. “Will’s on his way. What can I do?”
“Just make sure that woman doesn’t fucking run away again. Because if anything happens to our dog because we had to rescue her, after she ran away yesterday…”
I don’t finish that. It’s probably not in my best interests to threaten someone with bodily harm if they stick around and things go wrong. But Dalton only comes over and kneels beside Storm.
“Gretchen’s not going anywhere,” he says.
I look over to see he’s tied her up. I don’t know when that happened. I know I should feel sympathy for her ordeal, but Storm’s hurt, and right now, I’m blaming Gretchen for that, justified or not.
“Make sure Storm’s breathing,” I say. “I gave her something to calm her, and now I’m afraid I shouldn’t have and—”
“She’s relaxed and breathing.”
“But she punctured a lung. I can hear it.”
“So can I.” His voice is wonderfully calm, and as long as I don’t look into his eyes and see the panic there, I can draw on that calm, believe in it, let it tell me everything is fine.
He continues, “I’m listening to her breathing, and I will tell you if it changes, okay?”
I nod.
“Then we’re all set. I’m here. Focus on what you need to do.”
He runs his hands down Storm’s back, and if those hands seem to shake, I tell myself it’s just because I’m shaking. He’s not freaked out. He’s calm because Storm is fine and I have this under control.
I don’t have it under control.
She’s bleeding, and her lung is punctured, and I have no idea what else is wrong.
I take more deep breaths and concentrate on that rib poking through.
It looks horrible, but I need to leave it be.
It’s only trickling blood. Let April handle that.
The same with the chunk of missing flesh.
While blood keeps seeping, it’s not gushing, and there’s no major artery there. It’s just ripped muscle and skin.
Look for more. What else—
The roar of the ATV cuts me short. Anders whips into the clearing. The first thing he sees is Gretchen, sitting with her hands bound behind her. His lips compress, and his eyes shoot daggers her way, but after that, he ignores her, running instead to us.
He drops down beside Storm. I quickly tell him what happened and what I can see.
“I don’t know what else could be injured,” I say. “I haven’t had time to look.”
“She’s breathing,” he says. “We just need to keep her that way while we get her back to town.”
“Should we do that? Should we have called April out? Maybe we shouldn’t move—”
“I’m here,” a voice says through panting breaths.
My sister appears, still wearing a nightshirt and sweats.
And she’s not alone. Kenny is right behind her, with the cane he uses when he doesn’t have his braces on, and he’s still wearing sweats and a jersey pulled on backward, and there’s a moment where my brain pauses to process that.
Then I remember April saying last night that she wouldn’t be able to watch Rory early this morning because she had an appointment.
No, apparently she had an overnight guest.
I should be cheering with joy, and instead, my heart plummets, this thing I wanted so much for her coming at the same time as this.
I vault to my feet and run to April, and then stop short before I hug her, knowing that isn’t her thing. But she gives me a quick embrace.
“Thank you,” I say, tears filling my eyes. “For coming.”
“Of course.”
That’s all she says, along with a pat on my back, as if I’m a child needing reassurance. Then she’s striding to Storm.
I start telling her what’s wrong, but she lifts a hand to stop me. She’ll make her own judgments. So I just say that the grizzly fell on her, and we had to pry her out.
“Punctured lung,” she says, running her hands over Storm’s chest. “Possibly the other part of that broken rib. No, two broken ribs. The rest seem intact.”
She checks Storm’s eyes, which are flagging but the dog isn’t fully asleep.
“I gave her a bit of sedative,” I say. “To keep her still.”
“Good.”
She continues her examination and pulls out a stethoscope for the breathing and heart rate. As she checks, she murmurs, “Good, good,” and I finally start to relax. If there is one person in this world who will never give me false reassurances, it’s my sister.
“We’ll take her to the clinic,” April says. “She’s stable, and her vital signs are fine. There could be internal injuries besides that lung, but nothing that will get worse for transporting her. Now, let’s get her into the ATV.”