“This is a peach, isn’t it?” he said.

I couldn’t see anything at first. I saw the round red pulse of my blood on the night sky. I had to look back into the darkness several times before I saw the light. I had to get her up out of the snow fast, but I wondered if there was any hope for the woman. It was so cold the stars were brittle. Snow was so tight it squeaked beneath my boots. I was sure I saw the mist of her breath. I pulled the blanket from the woman’s face as she struggled. I felt the push of her hand. Her head tipped back and for a moment her eyes opened on my face, but there was so much blood running from her scalp I could not see her. I could not tell what color her hair was from the blood. And then my teeth were throbbing with chattering. I couldn’t quell my panic.

“Charlie,” Stoner said to me like a command but I couldn’t hear the words that followed.

I lifted her head up with one shaking hand. My palm warmed by her blood. The breath of her blood rose around us.

“She knows it all,” he said.

“What are you talking about?” I yelled. My heart exploded. I felt the thunder of my wild pulse. They had left Louise to die because of a mistaken idea. “You crazy sons of bitches,” I said. “She knows nothing.”

Sickness kicked me. My hands shook violently. My worst fear had struck. Years of the nuns’ cruel words buzzed in me like hornets in the ribs of deer. I would learn one thing, they had told me: I was good for nothing. I felt the lump of my heart sinking. The last thing Louise would see, I thought, was my failure. My life’s work boiled down to this moment. In the snow my skin pulled up so tight my bones knit. I knelt down beside Louise, removed my jacket and clutched it to her thin shoulders. There was no wind, no sound at all except for her breathing etched, her lungs squeaking. The tight cold moving tighter around her. Her eyes were colorless in the darkness, the pupils opening, pulsing, then opening again. But I remembered the color of her eyes in sunlight, how she would turn to me and her brown eyes could change to green. Her breath labored to clouds. I caught for a moment the gleam of the river, the black, pulling current beside our grim vigil. Seconds ticked in me.

She was dying.

I wasn’t going to let this happen, not to Louise. Louise was not going to die by the roadside. I clasped her wrist in my fingertips and checked her pulse. I felt the strong beating will of her heart. “Hold on, Louise,” I whispered to her, and she squeezed my hand.