Jack half-ran up the incline, watching for any movement above him.He'd stuck to the deer path most of the way, but it veered away from where he thought he'd seen his brother. He glanced at the compass to get his bearings and kept going.  He hoped with everything in him that the poachers wouldn't come back, but there had obviously been a difference of opinion between them. If the knife-carrier managed to convince his partner the necessity of killing their witness, then they would return.  He looked franticly up the hill as he jogged, searching for any sign of his brother. Leaves and trees seemed to close in on each other, making a thick, opaque curtain. The flowers he and Cody found so alluring earlier were an irritant now. He needed them to wither and get out of his line of sight.  He'd found the pale blue shirt so easily before, he began to panic when he didn't find Cody right away.  He paused, thinking he'd gone too far, that somehow he'd missed Cody and needed to backtrack. As he turned to go back he saw the tip of Cody's rust-colored boot, half hidden by the base of an ancient oak. He ran up the slope, breathless and afraid. Cody had crashed down the hill, smashing brush and breaking saplings as he fell. He'd come to rest against a massive oak tree. He lay half on his side, angled against the tree, his legs and one arm flung around the trunk in an obscene hug. The other arm remained hidden beneath his body. Blood oozed slowly from a wound in his shoulder. He lay still, soundless. After the speed of the search Jack felt suddenly afraid of finding him, of realizing his worst fear. "Please, Cody," he whispered. He held his breath, touched Cody's neck. He found his brother's pulse, and exhaled in relief. Tearing the shirt away from Cody's injured back, Jack took a wad of gauze from the small first aid kit and put it gingerly on the wound. He pushed against it with both hands, trying to stop the blood flow. After a minute Cody moaned and moved slightly. "Be still," Jack instructed softly. Maybe, he hoped, the movement would mean no spinal injury from the fall. He looked up the incline. Cody had fallen at least 25 feet, at a steep angle. Jack wondered how fast he'd been going when he hit the tree. Cody moved again and moaned, interrupting Jack's thoughts. "Easy, kid," Jack said softly. "Don't move. Breathe slow." "Jack?"   "Yeah, little brother; it's me." "What happened?" Cody's voice sounded slurred and muffled.  "I was hoping you could tell me, kiddo. Poachers, I think." "Are you okay?" Jack removed one hand from Cody's back to brush a couple of fire ants from his brother's face. Was it Cody who was allergic to them or was it Michael? "I'm kind of worried about you right now," he said, trying to sound light, falling miles short. Cody lay still for a minute, breathing hard. "Am I on a case?" he asked. Jack laughed dryly. "No," he answered. "Vacation." Cody grunted and managed, "We'll have to remember...to do this... again next year." "Oh, yeah," Jack muttered, looking around the shadowed hillside and up to the ridge above them. Trees could be hiding any number of potential threats. "That'd be great." Worry tugged at the back of his mind, sending sparks of warnings to every part of his body. Instinct assured him that the poachers would return.  He gently removed his hands from the gunshot wound. The bleeding had at least slowed down. He got new gauze pads and laid them over the bloody ones, liberally taping them to Cody's back. He slipped a hand under his brother, feeling from the top of his shoulder to the middle of his chest for an exit wound and finding none. "Listen, Cody," he said, "the bleeding's about stopped back here, and I can't find an exit wound. Where else are you hurt?" "Exit wound?" He drew in a shaking breath. "Am I shot?" Cody's thick voice held an air of  surprise. "Yeah, genius. Now, where else are you hurt?" Jack tried to keep his voice level and calm, but could hear the edge of fear in it. "Head... shoulder … knee … hurts to breathe ..." Cody sounded more alert now, and in more pain. Jack scanned the ridge again, expecting an army of bad guys to appear at any moment. He hoped that they'd seen the last of the  poachers, but he couldn't count on it; couldn't stake their lives on it. He bit his bottom lip, considering their options. A mosquito flew near his ear and he waved it off.  "Cody, I probably shouldn't move you at all, but I got a feeling those guys are coming back." "THose guys?" Cody was still speaking into the ggrass that cradled his head. "The poachers.  I want to put some distance between them and us. I'm going to roll you over, and get us out of here. Understand?" Cody grunted. Jack didn't know if he really did understand, but it didn't really matter. This was going to be rough, either way."Okay, then, I'll do the work." He took hold of Cody's hip and slipped a hand under his neck and around to his chest. He rolled his brother as gently as he could, but could feel Cody stiffen in pain. Releasing him as gently as possible, Jack leaned forward to wipe dirt and tears from cody's face. His brother was pale, fighting pain with ragged, sharp breaths. Jack wished he could think of something to say to make things better, but there was nothing. He looked back up to the ridge again and briefly fingered his Glock. He'd be at a disadvantage, even armed. They had to get moving. No sign of movement up there. Yet.     Jack leaned back on his haunches and examined his brother to survey the damage. He grimaced. It didn't look good. Besides the gunshot wound, Cody's right arm had been broken n the fall. His elbow rested on the ground, a short distance from the base of the tree. About three inches from the wrist Cody's arm bent at a crazy angle, as if it had an extra joint. Jack took a slow, deep breath, trying to calm the mounting panic and anger that kindled in the pit of his stomach. Cody had not lost consciousness, which surprised Jack. He lay on his back, his left arm draped across his face, panting between gritted teeth. Sweat covered his face, mixing with blood from cuts and scrapes.  He moaned and reached over to cradle his injured shoulder, then the ribs on his left side. When that didn't ease the pain he balled his fist and hit the dirt beside him. "Oh, Jack," he breathed, "I feel sick." His voice was thick and slurred, and he whispered, "Oh, God, help me."

Jack glanced up at the blue sky, clouds dancing unconcerned just above the treetops. They looked almost close enough to touch. Suddenly he thought of the bulky toy circular he'd stuck in his jean pocket. That, coupled with the gauze strips in the little kit, could serve as a splint for the arm. If he could deal with the injury to the arm and control the bleeding from the wound in Cody's back, the rest seemed minor.



"Cody," Jack said softly, "look at me." He took Cody's face in his hand, but Cody whined and pulled away and he let go. "Cody," he repeated, "look at me."


Cody turned his head slightly, tried to focus on his brother, closed his eyes and opened them again. 



A deep cut ran from beside his left eye to the middle of his ashen cheek. His lips, the color of milk, were split and seeping bright red. Jack looked into his eyes. The pupils were even, but when Jack blocked the sun with his body and then moved away, they were slow to react to the changing light. Cody couldn't seem to focus. Jack wondered how serious the concussion was.



"It must ... be really bad." Cody interrupted his thoughts.



Jack didn't answer.



"I've never seen you... look so scared."



Jack looked away for a minute, wishing he could hide his feelings better from his brother. "It's okay," he assured Cody. He chewed on his bottom lip for a minute, thinking. The damage to the wrist was worse than any break Jack had ever seen. They wouldn't get anywhere with a displaced fracture slowing them down. With the angle Cody's hand had ended up, Jack wasn't even sure it was getting an adequate blood supply. To get Cody away from here he had to immobilize the arm. He would have to set it, he decided, even if the blood flow hadn't been interrupted. "Here's the plan. I'm going to splint your arm, and then we're going to get the heck out of Dodge."



Cody frowned at him. "Splint ..." he took a shallow breath, "my arm?"



Jack nodded toward the mangled wrist. "Cody, doesn't that hurt?"  



Cody turned his head, looked, then turned back to Jack, panic in his pale eyes. "Oh, God, Jack ..."  



"Easy. It's okay." The level of calm in his voice surprised him. Not a trace of his own fear showed as he spoke. "Calm down, now. I'm getting you out of here. You don't need to worry, okay? Just rest for a minute, and let me do this. We're going to have to keep our heads if we're going to get ourselves out of this."



Cody nodded and seemed to quiet some, but still writhed in pain.


Jack pulled the gauze out of the first aid kit. The thought of setting the badly broken bones scared him, but with the material he had on hand he didn't know what else to do. Right now, he decided, the only thing he could concentrate on was getting Cody to help. Any damage he did could be fixed when they got to a hospital. 


He glanced around the hill again. If he and Cody were caught here, with the gunmen firing down on them they wouldn't stand a chance. That made the decision easy.



Rising and stepping over Cody, Jack sat on his brother's right side. Without moving the injured arm he slipped Cody's gold wedding band off the ring finger of his right hand and felt for a pulse in the wrist. He frowned, repositioned his finger and concentrated. He found a pulse, weak, but there. The blood flow to Cody's hand hadn't been completely blocked, but Jack worried that there wasn't enough getting through to make much difference. Hopefully, setting the arm would help that, too. He pocketed the wedding band and put his foot against Cody's underarm. "I'll pull on three," he warned.



Cody licked his torn lips and nodded. "It hurts now," he said, sounding like a little boy.



It's going to hurt worse, Jack thought. "Grit your teeth," he suggested. He took Cody's right hand.



Cody reached for Jack. "Oh, God! Jack!" he cried franticly, "wait! Jack, wait! I think ... my hand—"



Jack realized as Cody began to speak that the hand was swollen, too. He hesitated only a second, then closed his eyes and pulled hard. He felt the bones in the arm slide into place, but the hand shifted, too, and Jack knew he'd made that injury worse.



Cody stopped midsentence, the words strangled in his throat. For a second, his eyes widened in shock and pain. He stiffened briefly, his eyes lost focus and rolled back and he exhaled, slipping into unconsciousness.



Jack sat still, fighting nausea and dizziness. He blew air slowly from puffed cheeks and frowned, swallowing and saying aloud, "Well, that was really, really bad." He splinted the arm, using the circular for support and wrapping the long gauze strips around it.


After he finished, he examined the other injuries Cody had complained about. The cut on his lip was minor, but the one on his face was deep, and still bleeding. "Well, Code," Jack said as he gently placed butterfly stitches across the torn skin, "so much for the perfect face. Mom always said you were too handsome for your own good, anyway." He was less worried about the loss of the perfect face than with the loss of any more blood. 



  He ripped open the front of his brother's ruined shirt. The ribs on his left side were already bruising and swollen. In a normal situation, Jack knew, they wouldn't even wrap them, but this was anything but a normal situation. If he couldn't reach help on the cell phone he wanted some kind of support around them before they started their journey out of the park. He decided to tend them when they got back to camp.



The longer they stayed here the more nervous Jack grew. The sound of small animals and wind made him increasingly jumpy. The gun on the ground beside him seemed too far away. He sighed. Everything seemed too far away. He'd moved down to check the injured knee when Cody started to stir. As Jack ripped the knee out of the bloody, torn jeans Cody whispered, "Jack?"



"Right here, buddy."



"Those are... seventy dollar jeans … you just tore."



"That's what you get for wearing seventy dollar jeans camping, you nitwit. You and your expensive clothes. Anyway, you tore them first." He examined Cody's knee. Nothing broken, he decided with relief, but the injury would make their escape just that much more difficult. "Knee's not too bad," he told his brother. "I've seen Travis get worse than this wrestling with his mamma."



Cody didn't answer.



Jack glanced up at his brother's pale face. Cody was staring just above his head, frowning slightly. Jack grabbed the Glock and spun, all in one motion. There was nothing behind him. No bad guys. No birds. Nothing.



He turned back to Cody. "What?"



"I remember … some, anyway. There were five guys. Four ... big, blond. Armed to the teeth. But the other one … old. Hispanic, I think. Dressed all wrong. And scared." He paused. "It was a hit, wasn't it? They shot the old guy."



"Maybe." Jack looked around again. Now he knew they'd be coming back.



"He ran," Cody said, suddenly.



"Who?"



"The old guy."



"Well, let's hope he's fast. Maybe they won't be looking for you while they're looking for him. He might buy us a little time, at least." Jack's eyebrows drew together as he spoke. He didn't like the idea of the old man, scared and running for his life, but he couldn't help him. He had his hands full taking care of Cody, and he had no idea where the old man had gone. He checked the ridge again. "Where's that cell phone of yours? Maybe we can call for the Calvary."



"Left it in camp."


Jack looked away, hiding his disappointment. If he hadn't teased Cody about it they may have the phone here now. They could call for police and a helicopter to lift him out. He looked at his brother. 



Cody lay with his eyes squeezed shut, chewing his lower lip. HIs body still convulsed as waves of pain stabbed through him, but for the most part, he seemed more in control. He opened his eyes when Jack touched his hand.  "I'm really scared, Jack," he whispered.



Jack cleared his throat, raising his eyebrows. "I know. It'll be okay." He looked skyward again to relieve the tension in his neck. "You feel like sitting up?" he asked. It didn't matter if Cody felt like it or not, and both of them knew that.



"No," Cody answered. He lifted his left hand as Jack moved to kneel beside him. "Help me anyway."



Jack lifted him to a sitting position as carefully as possible, aware that he hurt Cody with every movement. "I'm sorry, kid,"



Cody nodded, tight-lipped.



Jack pulled his tee shirt over his head. Using his pocketknife he cut the shirt in half then along the side seam, making two long strips. With one he made a sling, tying it behind his brother's neck to support the weight of the injured arm. The other he tied around Cody's middle, securing his arm to his chest to prevent as much movement as possible in the trip down the hill. "You ready for this?"



"Like a root canal," Cody breathed, trying to grin reassurance to his brother. It turned into a grimace, and Cody swallowed hard to stifle a moan.


Jack put his arm around his brother's back, catching hold of a belt loop on his jeans, and let Cody slide his left arm around his shoulders. "Slow and easy," he instructed, and he lifted.
Jack watched his brother for a minute, thinking of the supplies in the sorely inadequate first aid kit. He'd put the kit together for fishing trips with Travis, planning for skinned knees, hooks in fingers, poison ivy and the like. Never had he anticipated anything serious. He cursed himself for his shortsightedness.