The water was a red-brown. Not the clear streams I’d grown used to in the past weeks of travel. But it was all the water available for the gouge in my companion’s side.
He hissed when I scooped a handful over the wound. Questioning the cleanliness of my hands while washing apples, I expected him to ask about the purity of the water. But his face was white and his teeth were clenched. If he hadn’t the energy to worry maybe I should be a little more concerned.
I sucked in a breath when repeated rinses exposed white. Bone.
“What?” he demanded. “Is it bad?”
“It ain’t good,” I said, and rummaged around in my pack.
The salves were for small cuts and scrapes – but for this? I didn’t have enough at home, let alone in my pack.
“How’s the bleeding?” he asked. “Is it too much?”
“Look at it yourself!”
Ma had bemoaned my bedside manner. I only thought treating a patient as I would normally was basic respect.
“I can’t,” he said through clenched teeth, and I realized it wasn’t an issue of mechanics.
“I don’t know how to tell you,” I said. “But will it kill you? I think not. The potential for infection, on the other hand…”
He wanted to say something else, but the effort to not scream was too much. I looked around for something to place over the wound, for more bandage material, and stopped when I realized all that was left was my skirt. The last, mildly undamaged skirt I had left, and certainly the only one I had at the moment. I looked around. I didn’t even like the guy. He was dead weight. The only reason I kept him around was because it was my mother’s voice in my head saying that we never turn away a person in need.
That’s how she died. Though to be fair, those men killed her. This one couldn’t even skin a rabbit – that already had been killed.
“What?” he asked, panting. “What is it?”
I stood up, heart pounding. Could I really do this? Would the guilt eat me alive the way people said it would?
“Meg?” he said, voice cracking.
He was a child in a grown man’s body. A child had an excuse. He didn’t. He disgusted me. The thought of him languishing by the water for days, weak from blood loss and then dying from fever – if the wild animals didn’t get him first – didn’t feel as awful as I thought it might. When had I become so apathetic?
“Meg, please don’t go!”
Mouth pressed together, I grabbed up my bag, my water skin (I left his, I couldn’t stomach that) and retreated a few more steps, waiting for my conscience to kick in, waiting for that voice to say I couldn’t do it. But instead I felt lighter. One person traveling alone was less likely to be noticed, and I had every intention.
“Meg,” his voice came out feebly this time as I turned.
“Good luck,” was all I said.
He wailed, but I didn’t look back.