“You mash, then. We gotta get it cleaned out.” He handed me the fork and I started breaking the roots down. Buzzy sponged the exit wound, then poured more solution into the hole; Pops’ body tensed on the pain. The wound bubbled as he coughed.
“Stop it! You’re hurting him!”
Buzzy ignored me.
“Pops, I’m gonna shift you on your side so’s I can clean the back. It’s gonna hurt.” He rolled him over and Pops grimaced. He washed out the entry hole. “You got the poultice done?”
“I think so.”
Buzzy washed his hands in the leftover root water, then began packing the entry wound with the poultice.
“It’s a lung shot, so tape plastic over the exit hole,” Pops whispered. “Tape it on three sides and leave one open so air can get in and out.”
Buzzy packed the entry wound, then covered it with gauze and tape. We carefully eased Pops onto his back.
The exit wound was the size of two half dollars with tatters of flesh and lung and fractured bone. He carefully lifted bone splinters out of the wound with the blade of the pocket knife.
“Don’t pack it too tight around my lung,” Pops said. Buzzy carefully placed some mashed root into the wound. I took a ziplock from the pack and split it with the pocket knife and handed a plastic square to Buzzy. He taped it on three sides and wrapped gauze around it. He placed the unused poultice in a ziplock bag with a sprinkle of root water.
“How does that feel?”
“Like some bastard lung shot me then a coupla striplings decided to play witch doctor.” He coughed.
I took Buzzy aside. “Is he gonna die?” My voice cracked as all the fear, guilt, sadness, of before came racing back, but doubled up because it was Pops.
“I dunno. The bullet went clean through an looks like it only took some lung with it. But we gotta get him to a hospital.”
“I just can’t be having him die on me, Buzzy. Promise me he isn’t gonna die on me!”
He looked away. “We gotta make a stretcher or somethin. You stay with him while I go get some poles an stuff.” He took Pops’ ax and handsaw and disappeared into the woods.
With the wounds plugged and packaged, some of the color returned to Pops’ face. His breathing became steady and deep. I knelt beside him and wiped his forehead with a wet T-shirt.
“Thank you, son.” He sounded weak, but his voice had lost the desperate rasp of before.
I took a new shirt from his pack and helped him to a sitting position. I gingerly removed the bloody old shirt and threaded his arms through the clean one.
He grunted and huffed from the pain. “Kevin, hand me my jug and prop me against this rock.”
More grunting and huffing as I moved him. He kept his left arm at his side and pulled the cork out with his teeth and took a sip of mash, then coughed. Something heavy bounded through the trees. I took up the crossbow and crouched in front of him, shielding an attack. Buzzy pushed out of the underbrush, dragging two stout pine saplings. He laid them parallel, then placed smaller limbs across the saplings like railroad ties. He lashed the crosspieces to the larger poles. We flipped it over, tied Pops’ walking stick to the frame to strengthen it, then laid the bedrolls on top for padding and placed it next to Pops. We slowly eased him onto the pinewood stretcher, him grunting and blowing and grimacing.
“Let’s do an equipment check,” Buzzy said. We ran through the essentials. “Shit, we gotta go get the paddles. They’re down by the canoe.”
“No, we don’t. Just leave them.”
“We’re gonna need em.”
“No, we won’t; let’s just go.”
“How we gonna cross the river?”
The river.
“Forget it. It’s too dangerous. We can just do the rope thing.”
“We used almost all the rope to make the stretcher.”
“We’ll find some other way across. You can’t be running down there.”
Suddenly Buzzy bolted for the canoe, zagging and juking to avoid a bullet. He grabbed the paddles, spun, and sprinted back to camp, two shots exploding at his feet. He threw the paddles to me and dove behind the rock. “Jesus Christ!”
We huddled in the shelter of the rock for five minutes. Finally Buzzy stood to hoist the pack and a bullet thunked into the tree next to him, then the rifle report. He jumped to the ground. “Shit!” The sun had already set behind Harker Mountain, but we were two hours from the cover of night.
“We’d better wait until dark.”
“No way, Buzzy. We gotta get to help now.”
He looked over the top of the rock, then quickly ducked his head down.
“How we gonna get outta here without gettin shot?”
“We can sprint to the trees over there. Once we’re in the underbrush, he can’t see us.”
He nodded. I was at the front of the carrier, Buzzy at the rear wearing the pack. We picked up the stretcher, bending low to avoid the bullet plane.
“When I say go, we sprint for the woods. You ready?”
“Ready.”
“One, two, three, go!” We ran hunched for the underbrush fifty yards away. Halfway there another shot hit at Buzzy’s feet. Briar and mountain laurel ripped at our bare legs as we plunged in and drove through the undergrowth until the camp and the lake were out of sight.
We put Pops down on a clear flat spot. I knelt to him and brushed a mosquito away from his face. “How are you feeling?”
“Like a horse kicked me in the chest.” He coughed.
“We’re gonna get you out of here.”
“Listen to me, son. Under no circumstances are you to put yourself in harm’s way for me. Your mother needs you.”
I sat down next to him and for the first time contemplated losing him. Tears slid. “But I need you!”
He reached up with a shaky hand and wiped them away. I took his hand and held it. Buzzy saw us and moved off to the side. Pops and I stayed like that for about five minutes.
Finally I said, “Does it hurt when we carry you?”
“Don’t worry about what hurts; worry about getting us all home safely.”
I nodded and stood.
“Best keep off the trail til dark.”
“Good thinking, Buzz,” Pops said.
“Stop talkin, Pops. It ain’t helpin you.”
He coughed.
We picked up the stretcher and slalomed through the trees and brush, out of sight from the lake. We worked our way to the slight valley between the lake and the rise of Old Blue. After an hour, with dark coming on, we crossed the trail down from the summit.
“You boys best prop me up on my side with my good lung above my shot one. And lash me in—I don’t want to be falling out and rolling back down the mountain.”
We secured Pops with the last of the rope, wrapping it tightly around him and the crosspieces, leaving his right arm free.
Buzzy and I switched places. It was lighter at Pops’ feet, but the pack dug into my shoulders. Regardless of the weight I kept pushing, keeping Buzzy on pace from the back.
It was full dark, but there was enough light from an early moon to see the rocks and fallen limbs on the trail. We were halfway up the switchbacks, moving deliberately, when Buzzy slowed, then stopped. “Gotta rest.”
“Can’t rest. Come on, let’s go. We’ll rest at the top.” He huffed, then stepped forward. My heart was thumping, sweat running out of me, but I pushed Buzzy on, setting our pace from the rear. The trail steepened and the switchbacks shortened as we neared the summit. Buzzy faltered and stumbled, losing his grip on the right-hand pole. Pops pitched sideways and grunted in pain. I pulled up to right the carry. Buzzy stopped.
“Keep going,” I urged. “We’re almost there.”
“I can’t do it.”
“You gotta do it. Let’s go.” I pushed the carrier into his back. “Come on, man.” He stepped forward onto the steepest part of the trail. Pops was forty-five-degreed, tied in like a mummy, as we slowly worked to the top. His eyes were closed, but I could tell he was awake.
We stepped, then stopped for a moment, stepped, then stopped, up the steeply angled trail. The moon was bright on the mountain face and the summit came into view. “We’re almost there,” I said between grunts. My shoulders were numb and my legs were quivering from the weight.
“I feel like a piece of furniture brought up from the basement by two underpaid moving men.”
We were twenty feet from the top with Pops almost vertical. Buzzy slipped on the gravel and went down facefirst. “Ow, mutherfucker,” he yelled, then apologized to Pops.
“No apology needed, son. Couldn’t have said it better myself.”
He turned to me, blood streaming from his nose and lip. “I can’t get traction on the gravel. I need my hands to grab.” We put down the stretcher, laying it sideways against a rock to keep it from sliding down the mountain.
“We could pull him up with ropes from the top.”
“We used all the rope. All we got is like ten feet left.”
“Why don’t we tie the front end of the stretcher to the pack frame. You wear the straps, which will keep your hands free to help pull us up.”
“That could work.”