Page 21 (2/2)

"Oh boy, Sally," he said, "you’re a bit of a mess here" Her eyelids slowly fluttered open Even in the bad light Toreat pain "Where are you hurt?" he asked

"Everywhere"

"Can you pin it down for ?"

Sally snorted "Since when did you become a prude?" Then she winced and touched her abdomen "Stomach and arm"

Tom opened the bottom buttons of her shirt, saas clearly a knife wound She wasn’t coughing up blood, so he didn’t think she had any serious internal injuries Or he hoped she didn’t He removed a small bottle of antiseptic and soently cleaned the wound and applied a clean bandage He used his knife and cut open her sleeve to reveal a ragged black hole Toently raised her arm and leaned to take a look at the back of it, saw a second, slightly sh," he concluded "Bullet hit you in the back of the arh the biceps What they’d shoot you with?"

"Don’t know," she said through gritted teeth "Soh it felt pretty darn big going in and co out"

"Missed the arteries Didn’t break the bone," Tom said "You alere a lucky one, Sally"

"Lucky ood luck, then give me the other kind"

"Don’t even joke," he chided as he cleaned the entry and exit wounds, placed sterile pads over thee around her arm "I’ve seen my share of bad luck already today"

Toe with neat precision, but inside he was beginning to feel a slight edge of panic It was now too dark to track Chong Tom helped Sally sit up and let her drink from his canteen

"Don’t suppose you saw my horse anywhere, did you?" she asked "I left her tied to a tree, but she must have spooked"

"No," said Tom "Look, Sal, what happened and who did this?"

"It’s complicated," she said "I ran into a couple of the White Bear crew You know White Bear?"

He nodded White Bear had once run with Charlie Pinkeye’s gang but had dropped out of sight years ago "Heard of hiuy froas casinos before First Night, right? Tells everyone that he’s the reincarnation of soh from what I heard he doesn’t have a drop of Native A here?"

She hissed in pain as To her stomach wound He wished Lilah was here

"OW--da a tree spike to sew that up?" she snarled

"Don’t be a sissy"

She cursed hie Tom endured it as he worked Curses were better than screams

"What about White Bear?" he proot chomped by those zo to take over his territory Charlie always had prime real estate Mountainside, Fairview, couple of other towns, and the trade route all through these uys with him Most of the! But he has a lot of theht, and maybe twenty more Maybe twice that number if the rumors are true … and he’ll probably try to scoop up any of Charlie’s guys who are still sucking air"

To "Why’d they attack you?"

"They didn’t I, um, kind of attacked them" She touched Tom’s arm "Tom … I think they have your brother, Benny"

"What?"

"I saw the kid Your brother’s, what, fifteen, sixteen?"

"Fifteen What was this kid wearing?"

She thought about it "Jeans Dark shirt with red stripes and a vest with a lot of pockets"

To breath "That’s not Benny That’s his friend, Louis Chong He’s Chinese, not Japanese Besides, Benny’s half Irish American"

"What do I know? It’s dark, he’s a kid, I’m shot for Pete’s sake" She squinted at hi for? The Chinese kid?"

Tooing to leave?" she asked

"That’s the plan, but we see ood-bye?"

He nodded

"Das won’t be the sa ars, Sally, but I’h "If that’s what you think, Toht There’s no one in this whole chain of mountains who doesn’t knoho you are and what you do And I mean before you served Charlie and the Hammer to the zoms on a silver plate" She paused "A lot of people look up to you No … they look to you For how to act For how to be"

"Come on, Sal, let’s not--"

"Listen to ht, and in the years after, a lot of us did sos to survive You don’t know Or … s too, but the thing is that since then you’ve been the kind of guy people can look at and say, ‘Oh yeah, that’s how people are supposed to act’ There aren’t a lot of examples around since the zoms, man, but you …" She smiled and shook her head

To that this is pain and shock talking here, so let’s get to the point Where did they take Chong and how’d you get hurt?"<ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>