Trespasser by Paul Doiron

Author:Paul Doiron
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781250001597
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Published: 2011-06-10T07:00:00+00:00

22

I slid on the edges of my feet down the icy slope and ordered Barter out of the way. Maybe because he didn’t know what else to do, he handed the boy to me. I felt beneath the jaw for the carotid artery. There was no pulse. I bit down on the icy tips of my glove and yanked it off with my teeth. The bare skin of my palm detected no breath from either the nose or open mouth.

Carefully, I placed the boy flat on the frozen ground. I eased my broken hand out of the parka and spread my screaming fingers below Travis Barter’s sternum. I pressed my good hand atop the shattered one, gulped down a big breath, and began a series of thirty compressions. The intensity of the pain made me grit my molars, but I continued CPR. After I’d completed thirty compressions, I wiped my eyes and tilted the boy’s head back gingerly. I covered his mouth with mine and administered two rescue breaths.

Still no pulse.

Heedless of the pain, I started pumping the boy’s chest again. Thirty compressions, followed by two rescue breaths. Then feel for a pulse. Thirty compressions and two rescue breaths. Then feel for a pulse. I wondered how long I could keep going before I passed out from the agony.

I pressed two fingers to Travis Barter’s neck. Blood was moving through the artery. The pulse was faint. I pressed my ear to his mouth and felt the damp heat of his breath.

The boy was alive, but for how long?

* * *

It took half an hour for a deputy to arrive on the scene and half an hour more before the emergency medical technicians showed up. Cars were off the road all over the peninsula, the deputy told me. Frozen branches were snapping everywhere, bringing down electrical wires. Power lines were sizzling and snapping, rendering roads impassable. The ice storm was shaping up to be the worst in years.

I watched the EMTs secure Travis Barter’s neck and head with a brace and carefully strap him to a stretcher. His body was as floppy as a sock puppet. The medical people exchanged worried looks.

While the ambulance crew ministered to the injured teenager, Calvin Barter stood beside his ruined vehicle, muttering obscenities. His long black beard grew high on his cheekbones, so that little of his face showed beside his coal black eyes. His chest and belly wanted to burst loose from his mud-splattered snowsuit, and his boots were sizable enough for Bigfoot to wear. Even his hands were gargantuan. I wondered how those thick fingers could ever button a shirt.

I waited for the deputy—my buddy Skip Morrison—to set up some emergency beacons. Then I took him aside. I explained about the ATV vandalism case and how I’d chased Barter and the boy through the woods. I told him about crashing my sergeant’s ATV, and he gave me a pitying look. I didn’t mention my broken hand, just kept it tucked inside my parka, out of sight.

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