I cut down deep into the bite trying to think of the five-and-a-quarter-pound Brown I’d caught at Ninepipes the week before. The head of that fish was so big I had to swing an axe just to split it from the spine. A fish so big the ducks were in danger. I held this thought as I leaned over the red blood of Florence’s leg to suck poison through my teeth. I closed my eyes and sucked hard. I could taste the iron-slick blood. I thought of that Brown lifting its head from the water, pulling a small wake behind itself. I could smell blood in my nostrils. My stomach quivered. I spit three times. I spit until my saliva stringed, and I wiped my mouth on the sleeve of my uniform, and then I sucked some more.

I could feel the hot sun on my scalp. The weeds buzzing hard. I clamped my mouth down tight over her leg and gave it one long pull rolling my eyes up to see Louise looking back at me. My tongue was salt. I sucked again harder. There was a sudden stinging taste in my mouth. I thought of all of that poison curdling my watering tongue. I looked up to see Louise still watching me, and I felt foolish for caring what she thought. I sucked blood until I was breathless. And then I had to take a breather. I had to stand in the dizzying sun and look away from Florence. I had no way of knowing if I had saved her. I looked off toward the sun-bleached fields, down the long road to Mission. My chest was trembling.

I took a deep breath and squatted down next to Florence. “Put your hands around my neck and hold on,” I told her. I pulled her next to me and hoisted her up and over to the car. Her grandmother got in back with her. Louise sat in the front seat before I could get a leg in. I switched on the siren with no car in sight for miles, with only magpies fanning the low marshes. I floored that car like a sheriff. One hundred miles an hour all the way to Mission. The windows sang with wind.