Does he know he hit me? How long will he wait before he crosses the river to finish the job?

The blood, pumping through my fingers, shows no signs of slowing.

There is something truly awe-inspiring about how fucked I am.

My campfire continues to blaze away happily beyond the brush. I did a good job building it. That ice shack might become a bonfire yet.

If I were John Rambo, I’d crawl out there, thrust my knife into the coals and cauterize my wounds with red-hot steel. And then I’d pass out from shock or be dead from blood poisoning in a matter of hours. Because Rambo is a bullshit macho fantasy.

But the image of an over-muscled Sylvester Stallone with his signature headband slaps me awake.

Where’s my bandanna?

Did I leave it drying over the fire?

I pat my pockets, unzip every zipper, dig everywhere, it seems. But the bandanna is nowhere to be found.

I sure as shit am not using my belt or bootlaces for a tourniquet. Not just because I’d rather not lose my leg, but because the only way out of my predicament is to go mobile. I know that the medical thinking on tourniquets has done a 180-degree turn because of lessons learned during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan where lives were saved from their quick application. Many limbs were also lost though. I’m not going to attempt a tourniquet until I begin feeling woozy from blood loss, by which time it will probably be too late.

As I bring my free hand to my face to stroke my chin, I brush cloth at the hollow of my throat. It’s the bandanna. I tied the damned thing around my neck because I was afraid of losing it.

I undo the knot, shake out the cloth, fold it into a triangle, roll it tight. I slide the bandanna under my leg and grab both ends. I pull hard and tie off the ends with a square knot.

I recline against the stump and look at my leg but, of course, I can’t see anything. I reach down and find the cloth already warm and wet with blood. But there seems to be less of it.

And, if the situation turns dire—can it get any more dire?—I can slide a stick under the bandanna and begin to twist and make a last-resort tourniquet.

Suddenly, I hear a gunshot. I throw myself to the frozen ground.

Another shot.

I sit up again against the stump.

What the hell?

There were no bullet impacts anywhere near me. No bursts of bark. No snow kicked up from the laden pine boughs. Jewett wasn’t blasting away around the shack, hoping to get lucky.

What was he firing at, if not me?

It must have been Shadow, I realize.