To Renew the Ages by Robert Coulson

Author:Robert Coulson [Coulson, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-06-25T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

The tourniquet wasn’t pleasant, but Tamara held it, watching her arm slowly swell below the twisted belt, while Bill built a small fire with the mesquite branches. As soon as the fire caught, he walked over and loosened the tourniquet a moment, then tightened it again. Tamara gasped with pain.

With the fire blazing, Bill drew his knife from its sheath and thrust the blade into the flames. Tamara sat watching him, holding the belt tight around her arm. She was beginning to feel dizzy now, and the world was slowly dissolving into flickering firelight. When Bill rose and walked over to her, he seemed enormously tall, towering above her. The knife-blade flashed red. Some corner of her mind assured her that it was merely reflecting the firelight, but it seemed to have become part of the fire itself.

Then Bill released the tourniquet, held her arm firmly in his left hand, and slashed the knife-blade across the puncture wounds, and Tamara was convinced it had become part of the fire. It felt as though a burning brand had been laid across her arm. She cried out and tried to jerk away, but Bill held her arm in an iron grip and slashed again. Then with the blood flowing freely from the wound, he sheathed the knife and covered her with the blanket.

She could feel a gentle heaving of the earth beneath her. Illogically it reminded her of the term “ground swell,” but surely the ground couldn’t actually be moving. Her right arm ached terribly. Looking up, she saw Bill kneeling beside her.

Fumbling with her left hand, she clutched his wrist for support.

“You’ll be all right,” he said reassuringly. “I’ll bandage those cuts when they’ve bled enough, but right now the thing to do is relax, sleep if you can, and let the poison bleed out. You’re going to be sick for awhile, but you ought to get over it.”

She remembered their decision to part company. “You’ll stay with me?” she asked. Somehow, that was terribly important.

“I’ll take care of you. Now lie back and relax.”

The next thing she knew, it was morning. Her head hurt, her arm ached, she was covered with sweat, and her stomach was in turmoil, but at least the ground had stopped moving. Turning her head, she saw Bill sitting in front of a small fire.

He caught the motion of her head and came over. “Feel any better?” he inquired.

She considered this awhile. “I don’t see how this could be an improvement over anything, but I seem to recall feeling worse last night.”

“You’ll be all right, then,” he said reassuringly. “The way that snake venom hit, I was beginning to wonder.”

“I thought snakebite… killed people,” she said weakly. “Not just made them sick.”

“No, it doesn’t often kill, even without any treatment. It hit you harder than it does most people, though. I suppose it might have killed you if nothing had been done.”

She raised her right arm: it seemed slightly puffy, and a rough bandage covered the knife wounds.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.