“Travis! Travis!”
The boy’s eyes finally came open, and he blinked not knowing where he was. He smacked his dry lips. He looked up at Ian with a dazed expression. “Sorry…Dad…”
“Aw, Jesus, Travis!” Ian said, relieved beyond words that the boy was alive. “You’re going to be okay, buddy.” Then he rolled him carefully onto his side and saw that the back of his jacket was shredded and he was bleeding. The damn cat had got him from behind but, thanks to Travis’s clothing, the mauling had not gone deep and, with the help of the snow, his bleeding had been stanched.
“You get him, son?” Ian asked.
“I don’t think so. I’m sorry, Dad.”
He was delirious, probably more from cold than his injury. Thank God he’d buried himself under dead leaves and pine needles to preserve his body heat. “I’ll get you outta here, son, hang on,” Ian said, now running on automatic. He stood and fired twice into a thick tree—three shots were the signal that you were lost, two was a standard response from a search team, and one shot could be mistaken for a hunter. You never sent a bullet into the air with the possible outcome of it returning to earth to find a living person or innocent livestock.
Then he put the rifle strap over his shoulder and scooped up Travis in his arms. Immediately he remembered doing the same for Bobby. But this time it was different—there was muscle tension in Travis’s body. He was responding to the pain, maybe from the cold, maybe from having a mountain lion’s claws in his back.
“Wake up, Travis! Wake up! Did the cat get you, huh? Tell me,” he panted, walking as fast as he could. He hoped he wouldn’t fall. His torso was okay—he had on a T-shirt, sweatshirt and jacket, but his legs, knees and feet were now soaked with ice and snow. “You with me, buddy?”
“Who…you…？”
Ian laughed in spite of himself, just hearing the kid’s response. “Your guardian angel, my boy! You shoot at the cat?”
“I…think…”
“He left a bloody trail—you get a shot off?”
“I…I couldn’t a hit ’im,” Travis answered, his tongue thick.
“Yeah, bet you got lucky. He’s bleeding way worse than you. Good for you,” Ian said. “Talk. Keep talking. Tell me.”
His speech was slurred and labored, but Travis did as ordered. “Got me…from…the tree…I saw him…I had him…bastard got Whip…”
“Keep talking,” Ian said breathlessly, now laboring heavily under the weight of Travis combined with the difficulty of moving through the snow. “Almost there,” he said, but in fact, he wasn’t sure how far it was. He kept tromping. And tromping. But he knew the woods, knew the river’s edge that ran by his property. “Talk to me! Tell me about your girl!”
And the boy tried. He named her—Felicity. Must be the next generation’s girls’ names, Ian thought, almost laughing if he’d had the breath. “Keep talking!” he demanded. “This Felicity, you in love with her or something?”
“She’s a good girl…”
“That bites,” Ian said. “Sucks she couldn’t be a bad girl. You don’t know, bud—those bad girls, they get right under your skin. She pretty?”
“Pretty,” he said.
“Atta boy, keep talking,” Ian said, laying the boy carefully on the ground. “I’m going to fire a couple shots to let them know we’re coming.” And Ian quickly put another two in a fat tree, just to be sure there was some backup on the way. The kid was in rough shape so, if he had to, he’d take him out of here and come back in the dark of night for Jack, but it would be better if—
“Hey!” Jack shouted. “What you got?”
“Your boy,” Ian said in a weak breath. Then he saw the truck about a hundred yards down the road.
“Lemme help,” Jack shouted.
“I’ve got him. You drive.”
“I don’t know this road,” Jack said. “I can’t feel it.”
Ian let a laugh erupt. “I fucking plowed it for you! Let’s get going!”
When they got to the truck, Ian balanced Travis on his thighs and pulled the keys out of his pocket, pitching them to Jack. Then he climbed into the cab with a boy the size of a man on his lap. Travis’s head was lolling back and forth and he was struggling to keep his eyes open. Before Jack had the key in the ignition, Ian had ripped open Travis’s jacket and shirt, tearing his undershirt open, then he did the same with his own three layers. He pressed Travis’s bare chest to his own and hugged his body close, warming him with his own body heat.