Peter frowned. “No. That would be distasteful. White people don’t get dirty on purpose.”
Were all northern teens this prissy? Joe dug his socks out of his shoes and put them on. “I promise you, Peter, lots and lots of white people had no problem getting dirty with me.”
“I’m not a sex toy.”
Joe’s chest tightened. He worked to keep his voice level. “Neither am I. I did what I had to do to live. You would’ve done the same if you hadn’t left.”
Peter closed his eyes and shook his head.
He could believe whatever he wanted. Joe knew the truth. Peter thought his belly was empty now? This was nothing. Joe had no regrets. Not about the sex work.
They walked toward the place on the road where they’d left Devin and the twins. Halfway there, a sharp cry shattered the stillness of the night.
Marcus in pain. Or Flix.
Joe broke into a run. Peter struggled to keep up, but Joe didn’t care. He needed to make sure Devin was safe, that they weren’t under attack. Water lapped out of the mouth of the jug Joe carried, wetting his shirt, but it didn’t matter. He had to get to Devin.
Close enough to make out the scene, no one had a gun drawn; no other people were nearby. Joe relaxed, less worried for Devin, then kicked himself because Marcus must be awake and hurting. Those broken bones weren’t small cracks. His tibia hadn’t broken the skin, but Joe had been able to feel the displacement. Marcus’s arm wasn’t bad. It seemed the fall mostly impacted his right leg, where the tibia was broken. And his foot — Joe hadn’t checked to see how bad it was for fear he’d make it worse, but the blood soaking the heel of Marcus’s shoe made it pretty clear he’d fractured something enough to break the skin.
Joe pulled the bottle of pain pills from his pocket, shook out two and fed them to Marcus, whose skin had paled. “What’s going on?”
Devin and Flix were crouched over the lower half of Marcus’s body. Devin met Joe’s eyes. “We took off the shoe.”
“It’s so bad. Oh, God, Joe, it’s so bad.” Flix stared at Joe with his mouth open, his eyes wide. Even in the dark, Joe saw him shaking.
“He was complaining it was too tight,” Devin said, “told us it hurt too much. We were trying to help.”
Joe gently nudged Flix to the side. “Go up to Marcus’s face and rub his scalp like you were doing last night.”
Joe couldn’t decide what was worse, Marcus’s injuries or Flix’s anguish. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He could do this. Look at the mess the fall had caused. He opened his eyes and looked down.
Blood covered almost everything. Underneath the blood, Marcus’s heel had split in half. The back part of the bone bowed up at an almost ninety-degree angle. What skin was visible stretched taut and white.
Joe’s stomach lurched. “Does anyone have a shirt that’s not too dirty?” He rummaged through the backpack containing their medical supplies and found the anti-infection spray. “Devin, help me lift his leg. Hold him still.”
Marcus screamed when they moved his leg, but once his ankle was in the air, Joe steeled himself and tuned out the cries. He sprayed as much anti-infection as he could around every exposed area. Someone handed him a t-shirt, and he managed to rip it into an awkward bandage. He wrapped it as carefully as he knew how and lowered the ankle to the sleeping bag. Nothing else could be done. But Marcus would get an infection sooner or later unless they got him real help.
They had to get to Purcell.
Marcus’s life depended on it.
SIX
Midday sun warmed Joe’s face. He licked a trickle of blood from his cracked lips and rolled his right shoulder, which ached from the work of carrying Marcus. On the other side of Marcus’s body, Flix stumbled, his face etched with dirt and tears. Ahead of them, Devin held the foot end of their makeshift stretcher in one hand. With the other, he half-supported, half-dragged Peter along the dusty stretch of highway.
Four days ago, they’d left the lake in the northern suburbs of Dallas. Each day since, they’d walked as fast as they could, as long as they could. Once they cleared the Dallas metro area, the abandoned houses and shopping centers thinned. They’d crossed into Oklahoma two and a half days ago and hadn’t seen a soul since. The barren, bleak land stretched flat, red, and empty in every direction.
Marcus twitched on the stretcher, and Joe glanced down at him. He tried to look only when he had some comfort to offer. A sip of water. Medicine. Reassurance. Joe had been able to offer less and less of all three as the days wore on. He would run out of pills in a day or so. The water jugs were empty. Marcus’s eyes were sunken, his skin deathly pale. He shivered even though the sun was out, and he was wrapped in both the sleeping bags and the jackets. His skin burned to the touch.
Joe had given him antibiotics, had sprayed more anti-infection, had kept the dressings fresh. None of it made a difference.
The mile markers promised they weren’t far from Purcell, less than a day’s walk, but Marcus might not make it. Infection festered in his foot. Angry red streaks spread away from his blackened heel, up his leg. Joe had seen it this morning when he’d changed the bandage. He hadn’t told Flix.
The sun had passed over their heads maybe an hour ago. In the past few days, that had been Joe’s cue to call an end to the day. They’d had no place to hide, nowhere to be safe, so they had laid at the side of the road and took turns getting a few hours’ sleep. Today, they needed to keep going until someone couldn’t walk another step. Joe wasn’t giving up on Marcus’s life.
“What is
