- - End of All Things, The (29 page)

Twelve hours. How would she know when it was time? Carly looked up at the sun. It was only a couple of hours past dawn. Maybe eight or nine o’clock. So, about sunset should be right, she figured. As long as she gave him his pills at the same time every day, it should work, even if it was an hour or two sooner or later. At least she hoped it wasn’t necessary to be exact.

The hell of it was that she didn’t know. Carly could be making it worse with her incompetent nursing. 

She sat and stared at the fire. What would she do if Justin died? Carly hadn’t let herself even consider the possibility, but it was a very stark and horrid reality.
He could die.
She closed her eyes. The pain that thought inspired was so intense she knew his actual death would destroy her. She’d want to lie down and die herself, but who would take care of Shadowfax and Sam? She let herself cry a little, just to ease some of the hard, hot knot of tension in her chest, but then she wiped her face and got back to work. She had to do everything she could to save him. 

Carly had listened to Justin’s survival lessons well. She headed downhill, following the contours of the land to its lowest point, and sure enough, she found a small creek where she filled a bucket and headed back to the camp.

She went into the tent and stripped his clothes, cutting off what she couldn’t remove easily. “You know, you might actually be turned on by this if you were conscious,” Carly told him with a teasing note in her voice. She sang when she ran out of things to say. She hoped Justin could hear her, hoped the sound of her voice soothed him. 

She poured rubbing alcohol into the creek water to kill the germs, but she was still careful to keep it away from his wound when she placed water-soaked towels over his overheated body. It was what she and her father had done to try to lower her mother’s fever. Carly couldn’t tell if it was helping or not. He began to shiver, even though his skin was hot to the touch.

“Carly,” Justin said.

Her eyes flew to his face. “
Justin?
”

But Justin was not awake. He was muttering in his sleep, and she couldn’t make out the rest of what he was saying. Carly rinsed out the cloth she had laid on his head and put it back. His hair was soaked with sweat.

At some point, she must have dozed off, and she jerked out of sleep when Justin shouted her name. She sat up, confused for a long, awful moment before reality came back to her. It was dark. She’d missed his antibiotic dosage. She scrambled out of the tent and went to get the bottle. 

“Carly! Carly!
Carleeeeee!”

“I’m right here,” she assured him, crawling back inside. “I’m right here, Justin. Right here.” She fished a pill out of the bottle and tried to put it in his mouth, but he tossed his head in his delirium. 

“Carly!”

“Here, Justin. I’m here.” She pinched his jaw open and shoved the pill into his throat. “Here, drink this, honey.” Carly poured a small dribble of water in his mouth. Justin sucked at it eagerly, so she tipped in more, bringing the bottle to his lips.

Carly took the bottle away after Justin drank almost all of it. She didn’t want him to get sick from having too much at once. She refreshed all of his cool towels and put some wood on the dying fire. Shadowfax still stood guard in her spot by the corner of the house and she greeted Carly with a soft nicker. Carly went over to her, and Shadowfax lowered her head to rest over Carly’s shoulder and hooked her foreleg around Carly’s waist as she had done after the attack in Carcross—the equine version of a hug that gave comfort as intended. “Thank you, Shadowfax,” Carly said, and laid her forehead against the horse’s neck. “After this is over, I’m giving you a sugar cube the size of a Volkswagen.”

Sam was curled up by the fire. His tail thumped in the dust when she walked over to him and gave his ruff a scratch. He arched against her hand and his back leg jerked in time. She chuckled, but her laughter died when she realized she hadn’t fed him all day. Feeling ashamed, she gave him a can of wet food on top of his dry food, which he seemed to enjoy, if practically inhaling it was any indication.

Carly crawled back into the tent. Justin was still muttering, and she could make out some of the words. 

“
. . .
 save you . . . can’t stay . . . No, Carly,
don’t
!”

“Justin, I’m right here. Right here beside you.” Carly took one of Justin’s hands in hers. His skin burned with fever. “Can you feel me? Please, Justin, wake up. Please, wake up.” Her voice cracked on the last word. She hung her head and struggled not to cry. It was a battle she lost. She lay down beside him and sobbed like a baby while he twitched, muttered, and called her name.

In the morning, Sam brought Carly a rabbit. He dropped it at her feet when she crawled out of the tent. His tail wagged eagerly, and she petted him. “Thanks, Sam. Good boy. But I’m not hungry.”

Sam picked up the limp body and dropped it again, closer to her bare toes. He nudged it toward her with his nose.

“All right, Sam. I’ll eat it.” Maybe if she cooked it, he would feel satisfied. Carly gave Justin his morning dose of medication. It might have been just her hopeful imagination, but he did feel a bit cooler. Hope could sometimes be a terrible thing.

Carly took Justin’s knife off of his belt. She gutted and skinned the rabbit, not even having the energy to be grossed out by what she was doing, and put it on a spit over the fire to cook while she went in and refreshed Justin’s towels.

The smell of cooking meat caused her stomach to clench in hunger. As soon as it was done, Carly decided to eat a little of it and wound up devouring the whole thing. Sam seemed mighty proud of himself when she gave him the bones to chew while she set about re-wetting Justin’s towels again. She laid the last over Justin’s forehead and hair.

“Carly, love you,” he muttered. “Love you.”

She froze. Did he mean that, or was it just part of his fevered ramblings?

And that’s when Carly realized she loved him, too, and it might be too late for him to ever know.

“Carly?”

“Right here, Justin,” Carly mumbled automatically. She had woken at dawn to give him his pill and refresh his cool towels, and then she had fallen back asleep, exhausted. She’d lost track of how many days had passed. Time had ceased to matter, except for when the sunrise and sunset told her it was pill time. 

“Carly, are you all right?”

She bolted upright, instantly awake. “Justin?”

“Yeah.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “God, I feel like shit.”

“You got shot,” she said. Tears spilled out of her eyes and ran freely down her cheeks. “You’re awake. Oh, thank God, you’re
awake
.”

Justin gave her an odd look. “How long was I out?”

“Days and days,” Carly replied. “I don’t know. A long time.”

He tried to sit up and groaned. She put a hand on his shoulder. “Please, don’t try to get up.”

“I’ve got to go.”

“Go where?”

Justin laughed. “I need to piss, Carly.”

She flushed. “Oh. Okay. Let me get you the pan.”

“Don’t tell me,” he said with a groan. “You haven’t had to take care of me like a baby, have you?”

“I would have done far worse.” Carly crawled out of the tent where Sam was waiting at the doorway, eagerly sniffing inside. “Yeah, go ahead, he’s awake.” The wolf darted through the opening, and she heard the sound of an enthusiastic canine lapping at a face and Justin’s soft laugh.

Carly handed the pan inside and wandered over to pet Shadowfax to give him his privacy. He passed the pan back out, and Carly gave him a bottle of water before she took the pan away to dump and rinse it. She returned to find Shadowfax had stuck her head inside the tent. She heard Justin’s chuckle. She found Justin lying with his head pillowed on Sam’s back, stroking the horse’s nose.

“Seems everyone was worried about me,” Justin commented.

“I was so worried you were going to die. I didn’t know if I was giving you the right antibiotic, or if I was taking care of you properly or—”

“You did just fine. Now, tell me what happened.”

“You don’t remember?”

“I remember riding down the highway after we crossed the border, and that’s all.”

Carly told the story. She had to pause in a couple of places to regain control of her emotions, but she forced her way through it.

“You killed them?” Justin asked.

Carly nodded.

“I’m proud of you, Carly. You protected us.”

“That wasn’t the hard part. Taking care of you when I didn’t know what I was doing was worse.”

“It sounds like you had good instincts about it. Taking the arrow out, the antibiotics, the cool towels . . . Thank you, Carly. Thank you for taking care of me.”

“You don’t need to thank me, Justin. You would have done the same.”
And I love you.

“Be that as it may, I’m still grateful. Come on, lie down and get some sleep. You look like you need it.”

“After I make you some breakfast.” Carly scurried out of the tent before he could object.

She made Justin some of the powdered eggs; something she thought would be easy to digest after days of having nothing but the bit of soup that Carly had dribbled into his mouth. She brought him the plate and sat down beside him. “Eat it slowly,” she said, still taking care of him.

Justin nodded. “Where’s yours?”

Carly hadn’t even thought of food for herself. “Sam will bring me something. He’s been reminding me to eat by bringing me rabbits and squirrels.”

Justin shook his head with a soft laugh. “I take it that you’ve learned to clean game?”

“Yeah. While you were sick, my mind was on you, not on what I was doing, so it didn’t really bother me.” Her voice trembled a bit, remembering those dark and terrible hours when she didn’t know if she was helping him or hurting him, when she knew that he could possibly die and there was nothing she could do about it. She never wanted to feel that horrifying helplessness again.

“Oh, Carly.” His eyes were soft and sad. “I’m so sorry that I scared you so badly.”

“I was just scared I wasn’t doing the right things to help you.”

Justin put his plate aside. “Come here.”

Carly went happily into his arms and laid her head on his chest. The strong, steady thump of his heart reassured her.

“You never cease to amaze me,” he whispered into her hair. “Every time there’s a challenge, you surpass it with flying colors. You know, you’re more of a survivor than I am.”

“What do you mean?”

“The way you adapt, figure things out, and refuse to be defeated by anything. I’m trained. I do these things from knowledge. You figure them out on your own, and you never back down in the face of adversity. And you have the kind of courage that seasoned warriors would envy.” The soft rumble of his voice beneath her ear was soothing, as was the kiss he brushed on the top of her head. She remembered him telling her right after they had left Juneau that he thought she was a survivor. Was this the sort of thing he had meant?

“I’m not brave,” Carly said quietly. “I was scared to death.”

“Courage isn’t the absence of fear; it’s forging ahead despite that fear.”

“I just did what I had to do.”

“That’s what’s so special.”

Carly could see that he wasn’t going to understand, but she felt weird allowing him to believe she had virtues that she didn’t. “Eat your eggs before they get cold,” she said and left his embrace.

“Share with me. You made me far too much.”

“I’ll go get a fork.”

He shrugged. “We’ll share that, too.” He speared a mouthful of eggs on his fork’s tines and held it out to her. Carly opened her mouth and he placed the bite inside.

“I’m amazed at how good these are,” she said. “I’d never believe that powdered stuff would taste this good.”

“One of the rare exceptions. Open up.”

Carly did, and he put another forkful of eggs into her mouth before taking a bite himself. He alternated feeding himself and Carly until the plate was empty. Both of them were pleasantly full.

“Wow, I really did make too much,” Carly said with a sigh. She lay back on the sleeping bag beside him. He reached out a searching hand until he found hers and clasped it, twining their fingers. They lay in companionable silence for a while.

She peered over at him to see if he was asleep and saw his eyes were open. He was gazing at the top of the tent with a thoughtful expression. “Justin?”

“Mmm?”

“I need to tell you something.”

“What?”

Carly took a deep breath. “I love you.”

Justin said nothing, though his eyes widened. A sharp dart of pain stabbed her heart at his silence, but she didn’t regret saying it. If this experience had taught her nothing else, it was that important things like that should never remain unsaid. You never knew when life could take away your chance to do it, when it would suddenly be too late. She forged ahead. “I love you. When you were laying there so sick, I kept thinking you might die without knowing it, without ever hearing it, and I needed to tell you.”

The silence was heavy, oppressive. Carly wanted to run out of the tent and hide herself in the woods for a nice, long cry.