“You could’ve died,” she says, her voice wobbling. “It just… tore into you like you were meat. What if it had? What would I have done?”
“You’d have found your way out of here and called for help.”
She gives me a curious look and doesn’t respond, but opens the first aid kit and unzips it.
“You are strong and capable.” I swallow, remembering how she does so well under my praise. “And you’re my brave, brave girl, aren’t you?”
She nods. “If I knew how to shoot—”
“We’ll fix that.”
“Promise me?” She holds my gaze. “I want you to promise me, Dario, that once we’re out of here and find… some sort of… normal again, that you’ll teach me how to shoot.”
She reaches me and kneels beside me. I squeeze her hand. “I promise you, baby. Promise.”
Her eyes flutter shut and she kisses my bruised and bloodied fingers.
“Thank you.”
The next few minutes are spent with me biting down to keep from screaming out loud and her pouring antiseptic on my open wounds. It hurts like a motherfucker, but I don’t want her to feel any worse about it than she has to, so I make myself swallow down the need to scream.
She’s a gentle and tender nurse. I close my eyes and let myself enjoy this brief moment of role reversal—me being the one in need of help, and her being the caretaker.
It’s then that I realize for the second time that night… she could run. And easily. I’m in no position to give her chase or to even know where she went. If she took off now, she’d have the best chance of getting away with it she’s had since we got here.
But she doesn’t. She doesn’t try to get away from me. She only doctors my wounds like a gentle nurse and stays right by my side.
In a short time, sleep overcomes me. She’s bandaged every wound she could after disinfecting them as thoroughly as possible.
“Tell me,” she whispers. “I don’t know much about these things, but I’ve figured out a few things.”
I close my eyes, drifting in and out of sleep.
“Mmmm?”
“So, for starters, I don’t think coyotes normally attack humans?”
“Correct.”
I take in a deep breath and release it slowly.
“What would make a coyote attack?”
“Few reasons,” I whisper, my voice sounding strangely distant. “First, if you’re on what they consider their terrain, they could get territorial. But we’ve been here for days and this is the first I’ve seen one, so I’m going to assume that wasn’t the cause here.”
“Okay. Go on.”
“Second, they feel you’ve attacked their young.”
She frowns. “Haven’t seen any young, and that was a male coyote.”
“How do you know?”
She rolls her eyes. “Because my mama taught me about the birds and the bees, and that was most definitely a male coyote displaying his wares.”
“Greeeeaaaat,” I mutter. “So that’s probably out of the question.”
“Right.”