“How am I not going to think about it?” she screamed back at me.
“Think about the boys you're going to tease at the pool,” Robin told her.
I held her leg with one hand, then brought the sharpened edge to the teeth marks and pressed. She screamed and I hesitated, my own heart probably pounding as hard and as fast as her heart was pounding.
“Can you do it?” Robin asked me.
I swallowed, or thought I had, and nodded.
I brought the branch back and pressed harder and faster until the skin broke and I could tear down through the wound. Blood seeped out around the incision.
“Do you remember his instructions?” Robin asked.
“I think so.”
“You think so?” Teal asked through her cries.
I placed the bag on the ground and carefully looked at the contents until I located the rattlesnake weed. Then I looked at Robin.
“Got to suck it out now,” I said.
“I've already had dinner. Okay, I'll do it,” Robin said, which surprised me. She looked at Teal. “This doesn't mean we're in love,” she told her, and brought her mouth to the wound. She sucked and spit, sucked and spit. When I thought it was enough, I tapped her on the shoulder and she sat back. Then, again following Natani's instructions, I squeezed the juice of the weed into the wound.
“What is that? It looks like some weed,” Teal said.
“It is, but it has medical powers,” I said. “Natani told us.”
“Maybe it's just in his imagination.”
“We'll know soon,” Robin said.
“Thanks a lot.”
“You're going to have to chew this now, Teal, and swallow the juice. Swallow as much as you can.”
I gave it to her and she grimaced. “It tastes horrible.”
“Chew it!” Robin and I screamed at her simultaneously.
She closed her eyes and chewed.
“We have to make a fire, Robin, and boil the leaves in water.”
“What water?” she asked.
I smirked and lifted my canteen. “What choice do we have?”
We broke another thick branch, and I sifted through the sand and rocks under the brush until I found the thickest dead twig I could. I beat it open with a rock and brought the first branch to it. Robin gathered some dry moss and we took turns rubbing and rubbing, spinning the branch just the way Natani had shown us. It seemed to take forever, but finally there was some smoke. Encouraged, we both worked harder and harder, bearing down as he had instructed until, finally, a tiny flame was born.
Cheered, we fed it the dry moss carefully until we had a good flame.
“I can't believe you two did that,” Teal said, watching calmly, her eyes opening and closing. Suddenly, as if the sight of the fire was too much, she began to heave. She vomited hard and fast, moaning and groaning.
“He said whoever was bitten would be very sick,” I reminded Robin.
“Oh, I'm going to die,” Teal moaned, embracing herself.
Using more branches and thin vines, I devised a way to hold the canteen over the flame. Into it, I stuffed the remaining snake weed. When I thought the water was boiling, I fished out the leaves, and then, using the thin vines of the bush, we wrapped them around Teal's wound, again as Natani had instructed. Teal vomited again, but now she was just dry heaving and really suffering.
“What do we do now?” Robin asked.
“Looks like we take our rest earlier than 1 had hoped,” I said.
Using the backpack to fix a pillow for Teal, we urged her to try to sleep. She was shivering now. The desert night had dropped the temperature to where it was actually cold. Robin fed the fire, building it until we had some decent flames.
“Make it gigantic,” Teal muttered. “Maybe someone will see it and come help us.”
“Maybe,” Robin said, and started to forage for more wood.
“Be careful, Robin. I used all the snake weed in the bag on Teal.”
She walked on tiptoe, gently moving brush, avoiding big rocks, and gathering twigs and branches as quickly as she could. Teal watched with a dazed look on her face.
“Will I be all right?” she asked me.
“Sure,” I said.
Of course, I had no idea if she would be all right. How poisonous was the snake? How much poison was in her body? How effective was Natani's weed medicine? Was it crazy to believe in him? The treatments he had given Robin and Teal for their sunburn seemed to help, and the ointment he had given them for theirhands helped. The Indians lived side by side with all this danger, these creatures. What they had to help themselves must work or they wouldn't use it, I thought.
Teal's eyes closed and opened. She shivered and moaned. If she died out here, it would be so horrible, I thought. It made me rage against Dr. Foreman, but I did so silently, for I didn't want to stir Teal up and worry her any more.
Robin returned again and we fed the fire. It did provide warmth. The embers rose with the smoke and traveled out and away with the wind.
“Anyone looking for us would see this,” Robin said.
I nodded.
We both looked at Teal. She seemed to have fallen asleep, but every now and then she would shudder and moan and cry.
“Maybe we didn't get the poison out fast enough or all of it,” Robin said.
I shook my head. Her guess was as good as mine. We continued to sit on both sides of Teal, our knees up, looking at the fire. Coyotes howled around us, the wood crackled.
“Once, when I was very little, I went on a picnic with my mother,” Robin said. “She had some boyfriend with us, but I can't remember his name. I remember we made a fire and they roasted marshmallows for me, and then we had hot dogs and my mother sang and played her guitar. I fell asleep on the blanket, and when I woke up, there
