Page 34 of My Favorite Bad Decision
His leg is clearly broken, and it’s a compound fracture at that. There’s absolutely no way he is walking up the mountain or back down it, and I am not equipped for this. At all. These guys probably have medic training and have dealt with more of this shit than I have by far.
I glance up, hoping one of them will take charge, but they all look worried and slightly queasy.
“Send someone on to the next camp,” I tell Gideon. “I bet there’s a doctor there.”
He nods. “They ran there first to ask. Can you help him, though?”
I sigh.No. Not really. I can at least stabilize it until they get him out of here, I suppose, but nothing more.
“See if you can find me a board, or a stick, but as straight a stick as you can get. And something to wrap it with.” I return to Gerald. As much as I’ve loathed him from start to finish on this trip, I pity him now. “They’re running to the camp to see if there’s a doctor there, and they might have some pain meds for you.”
“How the hell am I gonna get back down?” he demands, his face screwed up in agony.
“They must be prepared for things like this. I’m sure they have some kind of stretcher, and they’ll carry you back. You’re gonna be fine.”
“I assume it’s broken?” Miller asks behind me.
I nod, rising. I have the most inexplicable urge to rest my head against his chest. Why would I want him to comfort me whenhe’sthe one who put me in this position in the first place? His arm reaches out, as if he wants the same thing, before it falls loosely to his side instead.
I work on making Gerald comfortable until the porters return with a flat board and gauze. I wrap the leg as tight as possible without cutting off the circulation. There’s not much else to be done.
Leah is biting her lip and looking from Gerald to the summit. We’re eight hours away. She wants to keep going.
“What should I do, babe?” she asks. “They’ve already carried all of our stuff up.”
“We paid them to carry it up, and they’re paid to carry it down too,” he says.Selfish prick.
She hesitates and then shrugs. “I’m gonna go ahead and finish. I’ll see you in two days.”
Gerald’s jaw falls open. “Are you serious? Ipaidfor you to come on this trip.”
“Right, and we’re nearly to the top,” she replies with a blithe shrug, “so I want to finish.”
I stand up, planning to remove myself from this argument, just as two people reach us with a medical kit in hand.
“We’re both doctors,” says the woman. “What’s going on?”
“His leg is broken,” I tell them. “It looks like a compound fracture. I did my best to set it and then wrap it, but take a look to make sure it’s okay.”
I expect Gerald to mouth off about how I probably fucked it up, but he says nothing as the woman kneels down beside me, undoing a little bit of the gauze to look for herself.
“Are you a doctor?” she asks. “Or a nurse?”
I shake my head. “I got through two years of medical school. That’s it.”
Her head tilts. “You made it through the rough part and left?”
I give a small shrug and look away. “It wasn’t for me.” I wonder if that sounds as false to her ears as it does to mine. There’s pity in her eyes, so...probably.
“Could we stop discussing Kit and focus on my fucking leg?” shouts Gerald.
The woman ignores him. “You did a good job,” she says to me. “I don’t think I could’ve wrapped it that well.”
I’m already backing away. I want no part of this conversation. “Anyone could have done it.”
“No,” she says behind me. “Not anyone.”
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