Supervolcano All Fall Down(73)

He had one good leg. The hunters made animated crutches. The fellow who’d shot him turned out to be Ralph O’Brian, who worked at the Shell station down the street from the Trebor Mansion Inn when he had anything to do there. “I’m so goddamn embarrassed,” he said. “I never done nothing like that before, swear to Jesus I didn’t.”

“Believe me, once is twice too often,” Rob said through clenched teeth. The leg hurt like a mad son of a bitch now, and sparklers of pain burned him whenever it touched the ground or bumped O’Brian, who was on that side of him. He would be, Rob thought. It didn’t hurt enough to make him want to pass out or anything. He rather wished it would have.

They were almost back to town when they came upon a middle-aged woman hauling a big sack of rice to her outlying house on a sled. In a matter of moments, the rice was off the sled and Rob was on it. The woman put the sack on her back and trudged away.

The clinic did what it could for Guilford. There was a real hospital in Dover-Foxcroft—a little one, but still. Rob hoped he wouldn’t have to go there. At the clinic, Dr. Bhattacharya said, “Oh dear me! How did this happen?” The small brown man sounded like somebody who did tech support from Mumbai.

“Damn Venezuelans are giving the moose AKs,” Rob answered, deadpan.

For a split second, the doctor took him seriously. Then he snorted through his bushy mustache. “You are probably not at death’s door,” he said in his lilting English, sending Rob a dirty look.

“Good,” Rob said. “What really happened was—”

“I’m a crappy shot,” O’Brian broke in.

“Yeah, well, listen, Mr. Crappy Shot, go on over to the school and let Lindsey know what happened to me, okay? And stop at the Mansion Inn and tell the guys, too,” Rob said. Ralph O’Brian nodded and scurried away, seeming relieved at the excuse to be gone.

Dr. Bhattacharya brandished a needle. Rob wished he had an excuse to get the hell out of there, too. “I will give you the local anesthetic,” the doc said. “It will sting, then you will grow numb. Then I will clean the wound and I will suture it. You will experience some pain when the local anesthetic wears off. I will give you pills for it. They will help less than you wish they would. I will also give you antibiotics.”

“Have any more good news?” In spite of the way Rob’s leg was yelling at him, he felt the needle go in and the sting of the local. He felt them several times, in fact, because Dr. Bhattacharya stuck him again and again. Then, blessedly, he stopped feeling anything south of his knee. The doctor went to work.

When he finished, he said, “Let me see if we have a set of crutches that will fit you. Your height is . . . ?”

“I’m six-one,” Rob answered. Using crutches through snow didn’t sound like something he much wanted to do. The alternative seemed to be staying right here till he healed, though. Crutches, then, if they had them.

Dr. Bhattacharya pulled a pair from a closet, shook his head, and put them back. “Too short,” he muttered, and tried again. The next set he found made him nod. “Yes, these will do.” He used set screws to adjust their length. “Six feet one, you said.”

“Uh-huh.”

“See how you do here, then.”

Rob tried. He’d used crutches before, but that sprained ankle was half a lifetime ago now. The knack didn’t come right back. He swung himself across the linoleum of the clinic floor. Dr. Bhattacharya gave him a vial of Vicodin and one of amoxycillin.

What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. Somebody said that. Who? He couldn’t remember. If it was true, he’d just gained some serious strength points. And, if he could make it back to the Trebor Mansion Inn without breaking his other leg or his neck, he’d pick up some more.

Then the local would wear off. He wasn’t looking forward to that, even with drugs in his anorak pocket. Maybe it would make him stronger, too. Somehow, he couldn’t work up much enthusiasm for finding out.

Lindsey rushed in just before he was going to leave the clinic. “I got Marya to cover my class for me,” she panted. “Ralph said you got shot! My God!”

“Ralph said I got shot?” Rob echoed. Something in the way that was phrased made him go on “Did he say who shot me?”

“No. Who?”

“He did.”

Her face was a study—disbelief, amazement, and rage chasing one another across her features. “I’ll murder him!” she said when her mouth stopped hanging open.

“Don’t,” Rob said wearily. “It was just one of those stupid things. It wasn’t like he meant to do it—and I’m not too badly damaged, anyway.”