“He’s… hungry.”
Jason was relieved and surprised to see Winona’s eyes open. “How much ketamine did you want me to inject?”
He wanted to double-check.
“Seventy-five milligrams… every thirty minutes. Keep track … how much. Tell the Team.”
He glanced at the time. “Twenty minutes until your next injection. Are you getting relief?”
“Enough.” There were lines of pain on her face, but her gaze was on the wolf. She spoke to it in her mother tongue, her voice reassuring, both of the animal’s ears turned toward her. “He’s … beautiful. We should … dart him.”
Leave it to Winona to think of the wolf when her own life was in danger.
“How do I do that?”
“The darts… my medkit. They’re ready. The dart gun. Strapped to the side of my pack. It’s easy.”
Jason had qualified as an expert marksman with rifles, so he ought to be able to figure this out. That’s what he told himself, anyway.
Without moving Winona, he managed to get the dart gun. He played with it for a moment, examined the action, saw that it was essentially an air gun that used compressed gas to propel the dart, which was, from the look of it, a ballistic syringe.
Okay, he could play.
He loaded a dart into the contraption.
“How long … before they come?”
Jason had been too busy to ask himself that question. He glanced at his watch. “It’s only been about twenty minutes. I don’t know how far Henriksen has to go to get back into radio contact.”
When Henriksendidreach dispatch, it would take several minutes to tone out the right people and another hour for the Team to get to the parking area. They’d hiked for three hours to get to this spot.
Jason’s heart sank.
They won’t make it in time to save her leg.
Not unless they came by helicopter, and even then…
With a tourniquet, she had two hours, and that was it. After that, the tissue damage from lack of blood flow would be too severe. Though he’d originally been trained to release the tourniquet every thirty minutes, that recommendation had changed after too many people had slowly bled to death, one release at a time.
Winona put her hand on his. “Wait. We can’t … dart the wolf yet. Too long … until they get here.”
Jason’s chest constricted to think that she’d been asking about time for the wolf’s sake and not her own. “Okay, then. We’ll wait.”
He set the dart gun aside and got the next syringe of ketamine ready for her.
Chapter 20
Jason injectedWinona with another seventy-five milligrams of ketamine, watched the pain on her face ease a little, her suffering tearing at him. “Better?”
She nodded, her eyes drifting shut.
And for a few minutes, she seemed to sleep.
The wolf sat nearby, watching through those golden eyes. It hadn’t shown aggression or gotten closer, which was a relief. It also hadn’t run off. If it stayed here, he’d be able to dart it, and Winona’s suffering wouldn’t be for nothing.
He broke off another chunk of meat, tossed it, watched the wolf snap it up with powerful jaws. “You reallyarehungry.”
“He wants … to be with people.” Winona’s eyes were open.