me, I saw Hiram coming up the hill. I watched him idly, looking for Bowser. Then I saw the dog, a little way from Hiram, nosing at the grass as if he might have picked up something interesting.
Suddenly, Hiram let out a frightened bellow and bent forward, seeming to stumble. He went down on his knees, then got up again, thrashing around as if his foot was trapped in something. Bowser was running toward him, ears laid back. I jumped up and started running down the hill, yelling for Rila, but not looking back to see if she had heard.
Hiram began screaming, one ragged scream and then another, never letting up. He was sitting down and bending forward, holding his left leg with both his hands. Off to one side of him, Bowser pounced on something in the grass, then jerked his head up and shook it savagely. He had something in his jaws and was shaking it. One look at it told me what it was.
I reached Hiram and grabbed him by the shoulders, forcing him back.
“Let go of that leg,” I yelled. “Lay back.”
Hiram quit his senseless screaming, but he bawled at me, “It bit me, Mr. Steele. It bit me!”
“Lie back,” I said. “Be quiet.”
He did lie back the way I told him, but he wasn’t quiet. He was doing a lot of moaning.
I pulled my jackknife out of my pocket and ripped his left pant leg open. When I pulled it back, I saw the darkening bruise and the two punctures, with a bright drop of blood glistening on each of them. I used the knife to rip the pant leg lengthwise, then hauled the pants up so much of the thigh was exposed.
“Asa,” said Rila behind me. “Asa. Asa. Asa.”
“Find a stick,” I told her. “Any kind of stick. We’ll have to put on a tourniquet.”
I unfastened my belt and stripped it from the loops, then wound it around his leg above the wound. Rila crouched on the other side of him, facing me. She thrust a stick at me, a dry branch. I looped it through the belt and twisted.
“Here, hold this,” I said. “Keep it tight.”
“I know,” she said. “It was a rattler. Bowser killed it.”
I nodded. The wound had told me that much. No other North American snake in these latitudes could inflict such a wound.
Hiram had quieted down somewhat, but was still moaning.
“Hang on,” I told him. “This will hurt.”
I gave him no chance to protest. In telling him, I was only being fair, giving him fair warning.
I sliced a deep gash in his leg, connecting the two puncture marks. Hiram howled and tried to sit up.
Rila, using her free hand, pushed him back.
I bent my mouth to the cut and sucked, tasting the warm saltiness of blood. I sucked and spat, sucked and spat. I hoped to goodness there were no broken tissues in my mouth. But it was no good thinking of that now.
Even had I known there were, I would have done the same thing.
“He’s fainted,” Rila said.
I sucked and spat, sucked and spat. Bowser came up to us, sat down ponderously, watching us.
Hiram moaned. “He’s coming to,” said Rila.
I rested for a moment, then went back to the sucking. Finally, I quit. I’d pumped out at least some of the venom; I was sure of that. I sat back on my heels and reached for the stick. I loosened the tourniquet’ for a few seconds, then tightened it again.
“Get one of the cars turned around and headed for Willow Bend,” I told Rila. “We’ve got to get help for him. I’ll carry him up.”
“Can you handle the tourniquet and still carry him?”
“I think so.” I said to Hiram, “Put your arms around my neck. Tight as you can. And hang on hard. I have only one arm to carry you.”
He locked his arms around me and I managed to get him lifted and started staggering up the slope. He was heavier than I’d thought he’d be. Ahead of me, Rila was running for one of the cars. She had it turned around and waiting for me when I got there. I hoisted Hiram into the back, got in beside him. “Come on, Bowser,” I said. Bowser leaped aboard. The car was already moving.
People came tumbling out of the rear door of the office building when Rila pulled up and leaned on the horn. I lifted Hiram from the car. Herb was the first to reach us. “Snake bite,” I told him. “Rattler.
Get an ambulance.”
“Here, let me have him,” said Ben. “There’s a bottle of whiskey in my lower left desk drawer. I don’t suppose you gave him any.”
“I’m not sure …”
“Damn it, I am. If it doesn’t help, it won’t hurt. I’ve always been told it helps.”
I went for the whiskey and brought it back to the front office, where Hiram was stretched out on a sofa.
Herb turned from the phone. “The ambulance is on its way,” he said. “There’ll be a paramedic with it. He’ll take over. I talked with a doctor. He said no whiskey.”
I put the bottle on a desk. “How are you, Hiram?”
I asked.
“It hurts,” said Hiram. “I hurt all over. I hurt terrible.”
“We’ll get you to a hospital,” I said. “They’ll take care of you there. I’ll go with you.”
Herb grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to one side. “I don’t want you to go,” he said.
”But I have to. Hiram is my friend. He’ll want me.”
“Not with those newsmen out there. They’ll follow the ambulance, in the hospital, you’ll be fair game to them.”
“The hell with them. Hiram is my friend.”
“Be reasonable, Asa,” Herb pleaded. “I’ve built you and Rila up as mysteries. Recluses. Publicity shy.
Exclusive people. We need that image. For a while longer, at least.”
“We don’t need an image. Hiram needs help.”
“How can you help him? Hold his hand? Wait while the doctors work on him?”
“That’s part of it,” I said. “Just being there.”
Ben joined us. “Herb’s right,” he said. “I’ll go along with Hiram.”
“There has to be one of us. Myself or Rila. It should be me.”
“Rila,” said Herb. “She’ll be upset, hysterical.”
“Rila hysterical?”
“The newsmen won’t press her as hard as they would you,” said Ben. “If she says she won’t talk, she’ll have to say it fewer times than you would. She could build up her exclusiveness, while you …”
“You’re bastards!” I shouted. “Both of you are bastards!”
It did me no good. In the end, Ben and Rila rode the ambulance and I stayed. I felt horrible. I felt I’d lost control, that I was no longer my own man, and I felt a terrible rage and fear. But I stayed behind. On this end of the operation, Ben and Herb were, calling the shots.
“This will give us a fresh headline,” said Herb.
I told him what he could do with his fresh headline I called him a ghoul, I rescued the bottle we hadn’t used for Hiram and went into Ben’s office, where I worked on the bottle morosely. The drinking didn’t help. I didn’t even get a buzz on.
I phoned Courtney and told him what had happened. For a long time after I had finished, there was a silence on his end of the line. Then he asked, “He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m waiting to hear.”
“Hiram is the one who talks to Catface, isn’t he?”
“That’s right.”
“Look, Asa, in a few days, Safari will be there to go into the Cretaceous. Is there anything that can be done? The time roads, I suppose, aren’t open yet.”
“I’ll try to talk with Catface,” I said. “He can hear what I say, but I can’t hear what he says. He can’t answer back.”
“But you’ll try?”
“I’ll try,” I told him.
