Under the Northern Lights(59)

Closing the door, I secured the inside latch. “Come on—let’s take a look at that leg.” I got him over to my couch bed, then made him sit down on it. The bear had clawed him in the thigh. I wasn’t an expert or anything, but it looked pretty deep. “You’re gonna need to take these off,” I said, tugging at his pants.

He tried to smile, but it came out more like a grimace. “This sounds familiar,” he mused, undoing the button of his pants.

A nervous laugh escaped me. “Yeah, except I’m the doctor this time.”

“You’ll do fine, Mallory,” he said. “But maybe you could get me some of that pain medicine.”

He nodded over to his supplies, and I knew he meant the alcohol. I hoped we had some left. While he took off his boots and pants, I searched for things I’d need to patch him up. Michael called out additional supplies and instructions. “Boil some water to clean the wound. You’ll need gauze pads, tape, scissors, antibacterial ointment. And a needle and thread—this is going to need stitches.”

That made me pause. Feeling all the blood drain from my face, I looked over at him. He was lowering his pants over the wound, examining it as he went. It looked bad, looked bloody, but it was what he’d said that terrified me. “I can’t . . . sew you.”

He gave me a pain-filled expression of encouragement. “Yes, you can, Mallory. You can do it because you have to do it. And if there’s one thing I know for certain about you, it’s that you’ll do what has to be done . . . no matter how much you hate doing it.” His sentence had an ominous feeling of foreboding about it, and I knew he wasn’t just talking about this moment anymore. I had a hard time swallowing the lump in my throat.

I headed over to him once I had all the supplies he’d asked for. I gently placed a gauze pad on the wound and had him apply pressure before I began the process of boiling water. When everything was ready to go, I was fairly certain I was going to throw up. Taking a long gulp of the whiskey, Michael nodded at me. “It’s okay, Mallory. You can’t hurt me any more than I’m already hurting.”

Again, that sentence felt overly full of meaning. My heart couldn’t take it. I began with cleaning the wound. In addition to being the first thing I needed to do anyway, it seemed the easiest task. Michael flinched and squirmed the entire time, clenching his jaw so hard all the veins in his neck were bulging. I didn’t stop, though. I knew the best way to get through this was quickly.

The seeping blood was nauseating, but even worse was the knowledge that I was inflicting pain on another human being. That made me feel sicker than anything else. By the time the wound was as clean as I could get it, I had tears in my eyes.

Michael let out a relieved sigh when my ministrations stopped and took another swig of alcohol. “You’re doing good,” he said. “Now for the stitching.”

My heart sank, and my stomach roiled. “I don’t think I can . . .”

Michael gently put his hand over mine, and I locked eyes with him. “Don’t think of it as skin. It’s a quilt . . . just a quilt.”

Even though his leg was probably radiating with pain, he looked so encouraging, so filled with positivity, like he knew with absolute certainty that I could do this. Like it was no more complicated than learning how to trap animals, collect water, chop wood . . . live his life.

Inhaling a deep breath, I let it out slowly. “Okay,” I told him, feeling stronger. “I can do this.”

My hands shook a little as I tried to prep the needle. Stopping, I flexed them and tried again. The thread successfully slipped through the eye, and I said a quick thanks. Holding the wound closed with one hand, I hovered the needle near the skin with the other.

Michael had his eyes shut when I looked up at him, his face a mask of concentration. “Michael,” I whispered. He popped them open to look at me, and I shook my head. “You know you can’t live like this forever, don’t you?”

He opened his mouth, and I expected him to tell me he was fine, that he preferred living this way, but instead of speaking, he shut his mouth and looked . . . thoughtful.

While he was distracted with pondering his life choices, I slid the needle into his skin. A pained whimper left him, and I instantly wanted to stop hurting him. I wasn’t finished, though, so I choked back the empathy—the guilt and regret—and fixed him to the best of my ability. And that felt full of meaning too.





Chapter Twenty-One

Michael took it easy for the next few days, letting his body heal. I checked his bandages every chance I got, and I had to say, for my first time sewing skin, it looked pretty darn good. That entire scenario was something I’d never imagined myself doing. Ever. Blood and gore, they weren’t my favorite things. But even still, the worst part was having to put Michael through that kind of torment. If I could have knocked him out, I would have.

Only three of the bear’s claws had pierced his skin, but the ragged marks it had left were deep. Michael would have scars from the encounter. Like most men I’d ever met, he didn’t seem too worried about that. It was the whole “chicks dig scars” mentality. While he recovered, I worried. I worried about infection, worried about the injury not healing properly, and worried about the bear returning. That last one was the only one Michael was worried about too. Just a few short hours after I’d cleaned him up, he’d gone out to the shed to remove the blood and fortify the door. I’d helped him as much as I could, and by the time we were finished, I doubted we could have gotten through the door, let alone a bear.