Chapter Four

      “We can’t stop now—look around you. There’s no shelter, the cold is starting to bite into me just like it is you, and we need to find food and shelter before the next storm blows up.”

      “So that’s a no, then,” Mildred said quietly.

      Ryan failed to respond. “I can’t see why we can’t just rig something to carry Doc. It won’t be the first time. There’s no immediate danger.”

      “I’m not saying we can’t do that, just that we need to stop awhile. I need to examine him properly, see if his wounds are infected, or if this is something in his blood. I can’t give him another shot until I know what’s going on with him. It won’t take that long, Ryan.”

      She looked back to where Krysty was helping the old man along. His gait was stiffer than before and he was trembling. There was little doubt that it would only be a matter of half an hour—perhaps not even that—before they had to carry him. But if she waited until that was forced on them, it could make all the difference between treating his fever successfully or leaving him too far down the road to the farm.

      Ryan kept walking, narrowing his eye to take in the horizon. At the edge there were a few objects that may be croppings or may be the first signs of a settlement. Maybe another hour’s march if they could force the pace. But Ryan felt the ice seep into his marrow, was still tired from lack of sleep and exertion; the only thing keeping him going was sheer will. He was scared. If he stopped, would he be able to start again?

      Then he looked back for the first time. Resolutely he had kept his eyes ahead while they marched, not wanting to turn back to check Doc when Mildred caught up to him. He knew that if he did, he would probably agree with her assessment. That was something he didn’t want to do. He wanted to press on, for his own sake, but knew that his sense of duty to those he led would make him stop.

      As it did when he saw the condition that Doc was now in. The old man had never looked so frail. Ryan didn’t even want to consider what the fever was doing to his already fractured mind.

      Wearily, and with a sense of resignation that he could not hide, he slowed and held up his hand. “Okay, okay, we stop and check Doc. But you’d better make it quick for his sake as much as ours. There isn’t much shelter out here, and we can’t make much.”

      “I don’t need long, believe me,” Mildred said, hurrying back to where Krysty had gently lowered Doc onto the cold rock floor of the plain. He was unresponsive, lost in his own world.

      Needing no direction, Jak and J.B. joined Ryan in using what they could spare of their own outer clothing to form an improvised barrier against the winds that blew around the prone figure. They had traveled light and there was nothing across this arid expanse of rock and ice to use as a windbreak. Shedding an outer layer meant exposure to the elements themselves, but it was playing percentages. If Mildred could be as quick as she had said, then they may just avoid exposure.

      Working quickly, Mildred was on her knees. Krysty pulled away Doc’s fur coat, the frock coat beneath and the tattered remnants of his shirt, the bloodied edges of which had already been trimmed to allow Mildred access to his wounds in the cave. The Titian-haired woman also maneuvered her body so that it formed an extra barrier between the prone Doc and the direction of the winds.

      Mildred knew that she could count in seconds, rather than minutes, the time she would have to make her examination before Doc’s exposed flesh wound succumbed to the elements and before those who had sacrificed their own warmth to provide cover would begin, equally, to succumb.

      The area uncovered was around his ribs. The wounds on the arm could be dealt with swiftly and would not need him to be so protected. But the torso was another matter. Krysty had contrived to expose as little of the old man as possible, and Mildred had just enough area in which to work. She removed the dressings she had placed earlier and could see that the wounds showed no signs of infection. The flesh was healthy, if still raw.

      Fumbling with the cold, she redressed the wound and Krysty dextrously reclothed Doc while Mildred looked up at the men standing over them.

      “You can get covered again, guys. There’s enough slack to just roll up his sleeve.”

      While J.B., Ryan and Jak gratefully replaced their heavy coats and hugged themselves into the materials to try to suck warmth from them, Mildred jacked up the layers of sleeve on Doc’s arm, thanking whatever deity she thought may still exist that the old man’s wounds had been on the forearm. It saved a whole lot of hassle. Having to strip him to examine the upper arm would have taken precious time and probably finish him off by itself.

      Removing the dressings and checking the wounds, she could see that these, too, were clean.

      Replacing the dressing, her mind raced. No infection visible, so it had to be something that acted quickly in the bloodstream. Why hadn’t that antibiotic shot worked? No one else who had needed a shot was feverish…but then, their wounds had been the lesser. It had to be that just one of the hypos was a dud. She’d have to try another and hope that it worked.

      “I’m going to give him another shot and hope it works. Meantime, we’re going to have to help him until we can find some shelter, because he won’t be strong enough to stand alone until we can get some rest.”

      “No problem. We’ll take it in turns. I’ll take first—”

      “No.”