Part 3
Cal held himself upright against the hut while Owen worked the swollen door free. The first breath from inside smelled of old ash and mouse droppings. He would have taken worse; Lucy had stopped complaining about her cold hands, and that worried him more than the complaints had.
Owen got him onto a sagging cot, tested the fireplace draft, and found dry wood beneath a bench. Cal still had matches in the little waterproof tin he carried inside his coat. Getting the tin open took both men.
The fire caught slowly. Owen brought Lucy close enough to warm, helped her out of her wet outer mittens, and wrapped a dry piece of sacking around her shoulders. She sat holding her hands apart as though something fragile rested between them.
Cal tried to help her with the straps on her prosthesis. The effort pulled at his thigh, and he had to stop before she noticed how badly his hands shook. She finished the buckles herself and stretched the leg beside the hearth, relieved to be free of the boot that had trapped so much snow.
Flint limped over to her. Blood spotted the floor under his right forepaw, and a little glitter of glass showed near the pad. Lucy reached for him, then started toward the door with her mittens cupped.
“No snow on it, Lu.” Cal pulled a clean inner fold from his shirt. “Hold this there. Gently.”
She sat back down and offered Flint her palm before she touched the paw. He turned his head away and panted, but let her lay the cloth against it. Cal watched until her hands steadied, then let his own head rest against the wall.
Owen cut away the ruined fabric around Cal’s thigh. The wound had opened when he’d fallen, and the improvised dressing needed replacing. Owen tore strips from his undershirt, folded them thickly, and secured them while Cal concentrated on the chipped enamel cup on the shelf.
At thirty-two, Owen had a Marine’s habit of keeping his voice ordinary when his hands were doing something difficult. He had mentioned his service when he’d come to ask Cal about an old officer that morning. Now he kept his injured ribs turned away and pretended that kneeling didn’t hurt.
“Still with me?” he asked.
“Hate that cup.” Cal pointed with his chin. “Been staring at it too long.”
Owen glanced at the shelf. “I’ll break it when we’re done.”
Cal almost laughed, then thought better of it. He listened while Owen checked Lucy’s fingers and asked her to count them. She told him she had ten, the same as yesterday, and Cal shut his eyes for a moment.
The wind eased after dark. Through the window he could see the truck’s last red glow below the hut, scarcely a couple hundred yards away; their careful route around the traps had made the journey feel much longer. He could make out nothing on the ground around it.
“My medical bag was in the truck,” he told Owen. “It might have been thrown clear.” He called Flint to the window and pointed toward the glow; the dog lifted his nose toward the familiar road, ears turning.
Owen looked outside. “I can try.”
“Not with those ribs. He knows the bag.”
Cal gave Flint the fetch cue they used in the yard. The dog hesitated on his sore foot, and Cal nearly called him back. Then he slipped through the open door, following their scent downhill. Cal stayed at the window with Owen’s hand braced under his elbow.
The wait lasted long enough for Lucy to ask twice where he was. Cal could hear tags once, then nothing. When the scratching finally came at the door, he had to sit down before Owen opened it.
Flint dragged the duffel over the threshold. Its melted outer pocket hung open, but the inner case still held sealed dressings and small bottles. Owen set aside everything damaged by heat and used what remained to clean and cover Cal’s wound. There was enough for Flint’s paw, too; the visible loose sliver came away with the soiled cloth, and Owen covered the cut without probing it.
Lucy held the dog while he worked. When Flint tried to stand, she spread her coat beside the cot and patted it until he lay down. Cal reached across her to put his hand on the dog’s neck.
“That’s enough fetching,” he murmured.
Flint settled across the draft beneath the door, his ears turning whenever the loose latch rattled. Lucy fell asleep against Cal’s uninjured side. Cal stayed awake, counting her breaths without meaning to. He had been doing that since the first night she’d slept in his cabin, before the placement visits and the forms, when he hadn’t known whether anyone would let her stay.
A faint whining sound passed the window. Flint lifted his head; then came a snap against the eaves and a soft impact outside. Cal eased Lucy onto the rolled jacket and made his way to the door with Owen.
A small drone lay under the broken gutter. Ice had collected along two blades. Owen covered the lens with his glove, and Cal saw the emblem on its housing: three narrow bars inside a ring.
He had watched men paint that mark on equipment during his Army service. He knew whose contracting business had kept it after the uniform came off.
“Rusk,” he said.
Owen stopped turning the drone. The former officer he’d come to ask about had disappeared after corruption allegations failed to stick; the reports about his freight crews and missing people were why Owen had wanted Cal’s help. Neither man had seen the faces behind the masks that morning.
The little machine didn’t prove who had been flying it. It did make Cal look past Owen into the trees, imagining the warm room where someone might have watched their window.
Owen shut the door. “How well does he know you?”
“Well enough to know I’ll stay with her.” Cal looked at Lucy, still asleep beside Flint. “We go when we can see the ground.”
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