She can't know. No one can know. Even we can't know. We'll never
understand it."
"Where is Davey?"
"He's doing a...ritual. With your thumb."
They sat silent and strained their ears to hear the winds and the
distant shuffle of the denizens of the mountain.
Alan shifted, using his good hand to prop himself up, looking for a
comfortable position. He brought his injured hand down to his lap and
unwrapped his blood-soaked T-shirt from his fist, gently peeling it away
from the glue of dried blood that held it there.
His hand had shriveled in the night, from ice and from restricted
circulation, and maybe from Davey's ritual. Alan pondered its crusty,
clawed form, thinking that it looked like it belonged to someone --
some*thing* -- else.
Buddy scaled the stalactite that served as the ladder up to the lofty
nook where he slept and came back down holding his water bottle. "It's
clean, it's from the pool," he said, another major speech for him. He
also had an armload of scavenged diapers, much-washed and worn soft as
flannel. He wet one and began to wipe away the crust of blood on Alan's
arm and hand, working his way up from the elbow, then tackling the
uninjured fingers, then, very gently, gently as a feather-touch, slow as
a glacier, he worked on Alan's thumb.
When he was done, Alan's hand was clean and dry and cold, and the wound
of his thumb was exposed and naked, a thin crust of blood weeping liquid
slowly.
Pages:
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168