She narrowed her eyes and said, “Says the man who hit me, restrained me with tape, and threatened to lock me in a bedroom. Tell me, when do the whips and chains appear?”
“They won’t if you lose the attitude and start answering my questions,” I said flatly.
“You haven’t asked any questions.”
“Yes, I did. Outside. Never mind. I’m not arguing with you. What were you doing traipsing around on private property?”
“I wasn’t traipsing around. I was out hiking, and I got lost. Then, I walked up on those feral pigs, and they started chasing me. When I saw the boulder, I figured it was my best chance to get away from them,” she said, not once meeting my eyes during her explanation.
“You go hiking without a pack often?” I asked, not believing her bullshit for one second.
She blinked and visibly swallowed. “I dropped it so I could run faster.”
I nodded and rubbed my chin with my thumb and forefinger. “You aren’t wearing the proper attire for hiking,” I observed as I scanned her from head to toe. That’s when I saw it. Blood, seeping from underneath her calf. “What happened to your leg?”
She suddenly grimaced, as if she had forgotten about it until I mentioned it. “I think one of them got my leg when I was climbing up the rock.”
“Oh, hell. Let me see how bad it is,” I said and approached her without waiting for permission. She grunted when I rolled her over but didn’t give any other kind of protest.
Gently pulling the torn denim apart, I sucked in a sharp breath when I saw the gaping wound. “Shit, it looks like one gored your calf with its tusk. We need to get you to the hospital.”
She rolled herself to her back and let out a pained groan before insisting, “No! No hospital.”
I arched a brow and waited for more. When she didn’t offer any further explanation, I asked, “Why?”
“Just, please, no doctor, no hospital,” she begged, her eyes wild with panic.
I nodded. “Okay, no doctor, but that wound needs to be cleaned and stitched. It’s going to hurt like a bitch with no anesthetic. I got some whiskey in the kitchen that might take the edge off,” I offered.
“I’ll take the whiskey,” she said with no hesitation.
“Be right back,” I said with a small smile.
I walked to the far side of the kitchen and placed a call to Splint. He was a member of my club, but he worked as a paramedic and had quite a bit of medical training from his days in the military. “Brother, I need you to bring your kit up to Badger’s cabin. I got a girl up here that got gored by a boar on her calf. It’s pretty nasty, and she’s refusing to go to the hospital.”
“Sure thing, Prez. Heading out now,” he said.
“And, Splint, keep this shit to yourself.”
He chuckled. “Yes, Prez.”
When I poured the glass of whiskey, I also mixed in a crushed sleeping pill. It wasn’t ideal, but refusing to go to the hospital left limited options. At least this way, she would wake with a cleaned and stitched wound without having to suffer through the pain.
Carrying the homemade anesthetic in one hand and a beer for myself in the other, I returned to the living room to find her struggling to remove the tape from her wrists. I shook my head and sighed in exasperation. “I was considering removing the tape, but clearly, it’s too soon. I’m going to help you sit up so you can drink this down,” I said and held up the glass of whiskey.
She nodded and eyed me warily. I reached under her arms and hoisted her to a sitting position, being careful to keep her leg from dragging along the couch’s textured fabric. “Here you go,” I said and held the glass of whiskey to her lips. She tentatively took a sip and hissed at the burn when she swallowed.
“It tastes funny,” she said.
“It’s an aged whiskey, so it has a stronger taste than your run-of-the-mill whiskeys. Can have a bit of an aftertaste, too, at least for the first few sips,” I told her, like I was some kind of whiskey connoisseur. I was just spouting off random bullshit so she would drink it and pass out.
She nodded and continued to drink. Good. With any luck, she would be out cold by the time Splint arrived to take care of her leg. I studied her while she sipped from the glass. She was incredibly beautiful, yet somehow, she seemed familiar, though I couldn’t place her. She had long, golden blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. Her lips were full and enticing, perfect for...I shook my head, refusing to let my mind go there. Luckily, she finished the drink within a few moments, and I returned to the kitchen to wait for Splint.
When Splint arrived, the woman was sound asleep on the couch. He inspected her wound and suggested we move her to one of the bedrooms.
“She’s going to flip when she wakes up, but if that’s better for you, let’s do it,” I said.
Two hours later, Splint came out of her room and found me drinking a beer on the couch. “That was a nasty wound, Prez. She’s going to have to take very good care of it and keep a close watch on it for infection. I flushed it out as best I could and gave her an injection of antibiotics, but that might not be enough. Wounds like that almost always get infected.”