I watched him bleed for longer than was right to stare. He held it away from his body, gripping his wrist for pressure so that it might not fall and so ruin his vesture.

Drip. Drip.

“I’m sorry for shouting,” he told me.

“It’s fine,” I thought would be gracious to say.

We made for a steady pace over empty land. Over still grass and under still wind. The herds were still shuttered in case of storm, and the residents were retired for dusk’s onset. A honey-gold guitar jostled against the back of its bearer, strapped as it was over his shoulder. It made the tiniest of wounded noises each time.

Nick inflicted me with an incredulous inspection. “I’m still foul fuckin’ furious though. How come you couldn’t’ve trusted me?”

“I do?” I replied, though I was by some measure cowed and confused by his intensity. “I did! I don’t understand what I’ve done wrong?”

Nick shrugged his guitar round his body and inspected the broken string with a scowl as it bounced against his stomach, then shrugged it round-reverse to his back. Even since the passage of an hour, the note which its broken string had died to make thrummed in my memory. Just out of the edge of hearing, I felt its ghost in my skull, my viscera; it distracted me.

“I had us handled back there,” he glowered. “If we aren’t of a mind together, you can’t be throwin’ down the gauntlet off’n your own.”

“But we could have won, and yet you wavered. We were afalter in the face of danger when we needn’t’ve been. I’m not so cowardly as you think, and you’re stronger even than I thought.”

We passed by a standing tool shed and caught in the distance the first sign of candle-light in the dark panes of the Residence. “Kid I can’t blame you, ‘cause there are practical gaps in your education. And I know it was the plan – in a lot of folks minds – for you never to face all this,” Nick sighed. “But it’s time for a lesson in monster arithmetic.”

He fumbled a bit to figure which finger he could spare, and then raised one pinky awkwardly. “One,” he declared. “I can take one dog easy, lickety quick. Put him in the dirt.”

“Two,” he continued, making use of his remaining ring finger. “Call me brash or prideful, but I’m a tough enough cookie, and this here chopper is sharp enough, I’ll say with confidence I can make meat of two at once.”

I nodded slowly.

“Three,” he announced, and then his third extended finger let past a dribble of his bleeding. “Shit,” he whispered, and quit counting on his digits. “Three is where the problem starts. Now I can still win, you hear. Don’t you doubt it. But I can’t do it without taking a few teeth.”

He glared at me.

“What?”

“Don’t you think for a second there’s shame in that. Four. I’m man enough to know my limits. I’ve got no gain in bragging to you. But know that I could have crushed four of those animals by my lonesome if I needed to.”

I was beginning to catch on. “But?” I encouraged him.

He seemed to appreciate my participation. “But I would carry out of that struggle some ugly kind of hurts. I mean nothing’s certain and fate is fickle, but. If four beasts come at you determined enough and all at once, I mean the fact is they’ll getcha.”

He was quiet a moment, so I invited the last of his count. “Five?” I asked.

With a grim look, he replied. “I could take at least three of them with me when I go.”

There comes a point in life (in mine at least, and I hope in yours) where the adults in your life begin (though I emphasize begin) to set aside the pretty lies we feed to children and speak the truth plainly. To be sure, there are plenty of mistruths in maturity to fill the absence and confuse the education, but for this span of my history I would come to appreciate each bitter secret which my elders would see fit to trust me with.

“But you had me with you?” I pointed out; a question anticipating an unflattering answer.

“Still three for me and two for you, and we both get hurt,” he responded, though this prediction was generous on my behalf. “You’re missing the point though. Dog isn’t stupid. I mean, they’re dumb, sure. But they aren’t stupid.”

I recalled the vivid image of my error, in which one animal had risked its life and teeth to save its pack-mate. I considered their caution in facing Nick’s cut. If nothing else, the dogs understood our arms; their geometry, their function, their sharp. “Mhm,” I nodded again.

“The secret is, they’re counting their odds the same as we are. Same as we are, they’re loath to see their own hurt, ‘n loath for a brother to die.”

There were two figures in shadow distant ahead, seated in chairs by the side of the Residence’s entry. I recognized Mr. Sadiqi at the distance only by the shape of his hat as he stood. Still too far even for shouting, I waved and he returned the gesture.

“And for what? To chew on me or you? To make one meal at the mortal cost of their number? Naw, there’s easier prey out there, ‘n safer suppers to be caught.”

“So you would see us run.”

“I’d see us disengage. That’s a French word: it means tactics. When you force the fight, it changes the stakes. Everyone gets stupid. Everyone starts taking risks they mightn’t if they’d been thinking right.” Nick halted, and I stopped to face him. Mindful of my shirt, he used his elbow to jab me affectionately. However kind he was behaving, there was a feeling in my gut which augured that the man could be provoked, by the smallest disrespect, to take a swing at my expense. “You think on that, you hear?”

I had questions. I desired clarifications. But I knew the right and wrong times to ask; so I assented I’d heard, and promised I’d think, and so he was mollified.

Soon we’d marched until the point we could holler at the house and have our meaning apprehended. Then once yelling was possible, it was started and it did little but escalate.

Unfortunately, it is the common way of things that folk are poorly ready for distress (or any such tumult which upsets the routine). I suppose they become confused. I suppose it is easier to argue than accept than something has gone wrong. Worst though is that no one seems, in these moments, to speak in complete sentences. So I will spare you the recounting of our welcome, as most of our shouting was only in the effort to convince my Auntie Seung-Hee (who’d been the one seated out waiting for us) that yes indeed a hand had been hurt, and then afterwards to compel her that our need was greatest for the medical kit and leastmost for handwringing.

Nick’s wound was dire in need of stitches, and at last my Auntie was persuaded to fetch out needle and suture. She fled in a state of alarm, more than necessary. Though she had been assured in no uncertain terms I was arrived safe, she was deficient in making that communication to Momma and the others, and so she incited a small panic within.

Meanwhile Mr Sadiqi stepped forward and into his hand’s aggravated temper. Where for me in prior, Nicolas had censored the extent of his grievance, he withheld nothing from his superior in present.

“I’m god-damned sick of it, Mister S. Fed up, all the way to my chin,” Nick hissed. He leaned in closer to keep his complaints from carrying.

The moonless dark was cut by what little lamp-light passed through the dining room curtains. I was stuck there aside the two men, listening and uncomfortable. Both seemed to have forgotten me. Though I had want of dinner, for the escape of a book, and for the comfort of my bed, neither man had given me leave to retire, or set me to a task.

“Be mellow, Nick! Whatever harm’s been done, we’ll see to it -”

“I’ll say you will!”

“- but you’ve got sense to know that this very minute is the worst to be hot for -”

Mister Sadiqi raised his hands in a gesture of contrition. Voices and volume were rising inside the residence, and the first hand glanced warily at the door, and at the second floor window.

Nick interrupted him anyway. “Then when will the moment be? When will my wants be apprehended, and my suit ad-fuckin’-judicated, if not for when I am hot? Tomorrow, when I am easier to ignore, and the master of the house charges me in gold coin for the privilege of having my skin knit with his thread?”

Mister Sadiqi stiffened. His tone was severe. “Not one of us would bill you for your care. You do me a disservice.”

“Cut your act sir, spare me of it. I may not be inflicted by a paper check, but I know damn well the boss’ll be all too happy to count anything he can, inflate any value rendered, against the debt he owes to me.”

For a moment, Mister Sadiqi hesitated. “If you’re upset with your wage, we can have that discussion with Mister Walton at the appropriate time,” he said without conviction.

“For the sake of Mount Rushmore and Teddy Goddamn Roosevelt, stop enabling Quade ‘pinch-purse’ Walton!” Nick’s arms shook with frustration and his fingers were pale. “Why ought I suffer his austerity for a second longer?”

Here the front door swept open, letting out warmth and light and Momma too. Her appearance put Nick to pause, until her worried gaze fell on me and she blew sputtering raspberries in relief.

“Baby, you okay?” Momma reached out to embrace me, but I was embarrassed to receive it in front of the men. She anticipated this within the part of a second and stroked my hair gently instead.

I murmured my assurance that I was perfectly well. My heart hoped that Nick would have some words to speak to my bravery, though I would not expect or admit it.

“Eugh, that woman! I’m gonna pull off Seung-Hee’s skin with my teeth,” Momma made a grotesque and toothful face and clawed at my ribs with tickling fingers. “Worry me for nothin’!”

“Momma, stop!” I laughed despairingly, as her nails scratched away my warrior’s dignity from me.

She straightened and turned to face Hand Nick.

“Ms Z,” Nick acknowledged. He had lost his hat, so he made a fist and pressed his thumb knuckled against his forehead as if he would have tipped it to her. His gesture was respectful, but impatient.

Mister Sadiqi’s hat was already off, so he simply nodded. “Ma’am,” he said.

“Ms Hektor is on her way with a poultice and your fixings,” Momma declared. “Am I to understand you saw hurt in defense of my son? Then you’ve got my thanks, and you’ve got it twice.”

“That’s right,” Mister Sadiqi offered. His tone and tact were diplomatic. “Mr Baker has always been a friend to Ghost Perch,” he commended. Even I could tell though, it was a mistake to say so at the end of Nick’s patience.

“I am glad of your thanks, Ma’am, I am glad of it,” the working man assured her in exactly the way to mean he wasn’t. He paused to measure his words. “Of course I would help. I’m not about to see Todd come to harm, I hope you see that. Whatever’s in my power to do to make this place safe for the kids. Not just me neither, all us hands, we all want that.”

“I believe you,” Momma promised. She seemed uncomfortable though.

“And we’ve been a friend to Ms Ashli too, wild as she was – and little Coop! He’s growing up so fast. And the garden shed, I helped build that you know – I’ve been told you were all very pleased with the shed.”

He nodded eagerly at her, until Momma was encouraged to reluctantly mimic his assent.

“Six years I’ve been a loyal man to this here ranch,” Nick whispered loudly. His regard was firmly on Mister Sadiqi as he spoke it.

Momma blinked in surprise. “Ah? You’ve been with us six years? That’s very good of you.” She turned back towards the door. “Anne dear, surely we’ve kept this poor man waiting long enough?” She called.

Nick’s voice lowered: he was overstepping himself. “I hope I have an advocate in you Ma’am,” he entrusted of her.

But Momma offered no such assurances, only polite excuses. When Auntie Anne Hektor joined us in the night air, Momma chirped out in relief, taking her own leave to fetch some cocoa (which no one asked for). She clutched once at my shoulder before she went, but I had become upset of her in this moment and chose instead to stay.

Do not judge her for this. I ask you, do not.

Ms Anne Hektor was older than Momma, by ten years it is my understanding, and she carried herself with surety. There was gray in her hair, in the way a hack of a poet would call it steel. Her posture was unpretentious, and she was long since run out of patience for the luxury of self-doubt. Leaning into the weight, she hoisted out a heavy tin bucket with her in one hand, and lightly held a silver-wire grease-lantern in the other.

“Hold out your arm,” Auntie Hektor ordered the hurt man blandly. She thrust her lantern into my keeping, and swatted at her dress to squat down and unpack the bucket. “The injury must be rinsed until the blood runs cleanly. We will assume that nothing vital to your survival has been cut, as you are upright.”

She hefted up a spouted, wicker-handled teapot, setting it aside on a patch of grass. Then she unfolded a kerchief on the ground and picked a handful of herbage separate into three twined bundles and pointed to each of them. “That’s willow bark, it’s for pain. That’s yarrow, it’s for bleeding. And that’s snakeroot. Snakeroot is poison if I overdose you, but it’s good for fever and infection, so we’re using it anyway. Todd, light. Higher. Good.”

The woman took her patient’s arm firmly and without his permission and inspected it. At the same time, she patted the side of the pot and frowned.

“Still too hot. We’re going to rinse you with this, and you’ll drink… let’s say a cup, too. Here.”

She plucked a small wooden cup and splashed it halfway full of steeped liquid. It steamed in the air and she handed it for Nick to drink from his good hand. None of us men spoke or dared to interrupt her. During her ministration, there was no opportunity available or taken to recruit her sympathy for Nick’s reparation; more, there was no point. Auntie Hektor wore about her an invisible armor of propriety which, for a laboring man’s limited conversational agility was unbreachable.

Grumbling, she sloshed the teapot round. “How am I supposed to cool this down without mixing it with dirty water?” She shot a pointing finger at Nick, killing off whatever he had been thinking to say. “Drink up,” she ordered.

He startled, then slurped down his cup and grimaced.

“Todd, how might someone cool hot water without making a mix of it from a septic source?”

Having been holding out the lantern at a long angle such that my arms wanted to shake, I snapped to attention.

“Auntie,” I addressed her respectfully. Realizing I’d caught no trouble, just a question, I felt safe providing an answer. “I would, in Auntie’s place, and in absence of ready coil piping, dip the pot’s belly into the rain cistern: as it would be most nearly cold.”

She nodded thoughtfully and stared at me until I realized the obvious.

I reached out to collect the teapot from her. “And… um, if it pleases Auntie, I would be glad to do exactly that for her?” And then -

...

I suppose it does not stretch the imagination to see what I did next. Doubtless I am thrilling you with the stepwise instruction for the practice of prairie medicine. Once again I have caught myself recollecting the minutiae of practical things. Do you need to know how the laceration was rinsed? How the curved needle is threaded, or the flesh stitched closed? Is it a compelling thing to know how a poultice of crushed herbs and honey is applied, or to be told the signs of inflammation, or enumerate the contingent tinctures which would be defense against the onset of fever, or blood poison should they come? Suffice it to say they were done, to the limit of our proficiency. Instead I must fix more neatly on what is salient to the broader chronology, for it was not our hazard to lose our man’s thumb that night, but the hand entire.