“Eric!” I shout. “I need help!”
He comes running so fast the poor dogs race to keep up. He bursts into the camp, as if expecting to see me wrestling a newly woken grizzly. He has a rifle over his shoulder, and he’s carrying a brace of spruce grouse, which he throws into the snow as he runs toward me.
“Fire,” I say. “I need the fire going. Now. I have to boil water.”
“You’re hurt? Or Storm?” He wheels to look at the dog bounding up behind him.
“Baby,” I say, barely able to get the word out, my heart thumps so fast. “I found a baby.”
“A baby what?”
The infant lets out a weak cry, and Dalton goes still.
His head turns toward the tent as he asks in a low voice, “What is that?” and I realize he doesn’t recognize the sound. Or if he does, it only sparks a very old memory. His younger brother, Jacob, might very well be the only infant he’s ever seen. Dalton was raised in Rockton, where there are no children.
Before I can answer, he’s crouched and opening the unzipped tent flap.
THREE
Dalton gingerly peels back the tent flap. He peers inside.
Then he jerks back. “It’s a baby.”
“That’s what I said.”
He rises, looking stunned. “Where…?”
“I found her with her mother, under the snow. Both of them—the mother and her child. The mother’s dead, and I don’t know how long the baby was out there, and I’ve warmed her up, but she’s dehydrated, and I let the fire go out, and now I can’t boil water to make it sterile and—”
He cuts off my babble with a kiss, gloved hands on either side of my face. Not what I expect, and it startles me, which I suppose is the point. His lips press against mine, warm, the ice on his beard melting against my chin, and it’s like slapping someone who is hysterical. Well, no, it’s a much nicer way to do it.
I’m startled at first, and then all I feel and smell and see is him, and the panic evaporates. Tears spring to my eyes. As he breaks the kiss, he brushes the tears away and says, “Everything’s okay. You’ve got this.”
I nod. “I-I don’t know much … anything really about…”
“It’s more than I do.” He smiles, and then that vanishes, as if he realizes that might not be what I need to hear right now.
“We have this,” he says. “We can hold off on sterilizing the water. If she’s dehydrated, just use what you have.”
He returns to the tent, and I follow with my bit of melted snow. When the dogs crowd in, he waves them back. Storm herds Raoul off, like a big older sister taking charge. He’s seven months old, a wolf and Australian shepherd cross, heavier on the wolf, which means he understands pack hierarchy.
After the dogs move, Dalton reopens the tent. Then he stops, and his breath catches.
“Fuck,” he whispers. “Are they supposed to be that … small?” There’s an odd note in his voice, part wonder and part terror, and when I nudge, he moves aside, letting me go in. Then he stays there, holding the flap open.
“I’m going to need your help with this,” I say.
He nods, rubbing a hand over his mouth as he eases into the tent. He’s still a meter away from the baby, but he moves as if he might somehow crush her from a distance.
“Pick her up, please,” I say. “I have to get this water into her.”
He inches closer. His arms move toward the baby. Then he stops. Repositions his arms, mentally trying to figure out how to do this.
“You won’t break her,” I say.
“Are you sure?” He gives me a smile, but worry lurks behind it. He looks back at her. “How do I…?”
“One hand behind her back. The other supporting her head. She’s too young to hold it up on her own. She’s also too young to escape.”
“Got it.”
He still makes a few pantomime attempts, reconfiguring his hands in the air before he actually touches the baby. It’s an awkward lift, and when she wriggles, he freezes. I lunge before he drops her. He doesn’t, of course. He just tightens his grip a little and looks down at her and …
There are experiences I’ve heard women talk about that I have never had. Never even imagined, to be honest. Hearing about them, I’d inwardly roll my eyes, because if I never felt a thing, then clearly this thing does not exist. Or, as I’ve learned, I just never experienced it until I met Dalton. That thing they write poetry and songs and cheesy Valentine’s cards about. Being in love. Being with someone that you can no longer imagine being without.
When Dalton holds that baby, I get another of those experiences. My insides just … I don’t even know what. I feel things that I don’t particularly want to feel at this moment, may not ever want to feel, considering this might be the one thing I can’t give him.
I see Dalton holding the baby, and then he looks over at me with this little smile that …
Nope, not thinking about that. Tuck it away. Lock it up tight.
“Am I doing it right?” he asks.
“Yep,” I say, a little brusquely. “Now I need to get the water into her. I don’t know how old she is, but she definitely isn’t weaned yet. She’ll want something to suck on, but unless you have a clean rubber glove hidden in our packs…”
“Yeah, no.”
I inhale. “It probably wouldn’t do any good. Suckling requires strength, and she’s weak. And I need to stop talking.” I take a deep breath. “From wild panic to overanalyzing.”
“The situation isn’t critical. We’re only an hour’s fast walk from town. We just need to get a little water into her.”
He shifts her, getting more confident in his hold. Then he stops. “She’s so…”
“Small?”
He laughs, but it holds a touch of nervousness. “Yeah, we covered that, didn’t we. I just can’t believe…” He swallows. “All right. I’m going to try to open her mouth so you can drip water in. Just a few drops into the back of her throat, and I’ll make sure she swallows it.”
“Done this before, have you?”
Another laugh, still nervous. “With a two-hundred-pound man. Years ago. Guy who ran away and passed out from dehydration. I had to get fluids into him before I hauled him to town for a saline drip. This is a little trickier. She won’t need as much water, though.”
“True.”
He puts a finger to the baby’s lips. Dalton isn’t a huge guy. About six feet tall. Maybe one-seventy, lean and fit, as he needs to be for life out here. That fingertip, though, seems like a giant’s, bigger than the baby’s pursed lips. He prods, and her mouth opens.
“Now let’s just hope I don’t get bit.” He wriggles his finger in and then stops. “Though I guess that would require teeth. How young do you think she is?”
“Babies can be born with teeth, but they usually fall out. They don’t get more until they’re at least six months. She’s well below that. Maybe a month?”
“Fuck.” He takes a deep breath. “Okay, here goes, I’ll prop—”