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“Fine. No tricks. No hoodoo. No rabbits out of the hat.”

“Thank you.”

“We should get going. We still have a ways to go.”

Janet spits out one last mouthful of salt and we head back up the trail.

A few minutes later, they point past me.

“Are those coyotes following us?”

I look and they’re right. On the other side of the scrub, four coyotes lope along beside us.

I say, “Don’t worry about them. They’re not going to bother us.”

“Are you sure?”

“I mean, if we die they’ll eat us in a hot second. So my plan is not to die. Is that your plan,

too?”

They smile.

“That’s my plan.”

We keep climbing. I hate the situation, but it’s even worse for Janet. They’re wearing high heels. They tried taking them off a couple of times, but the heat coming off 115-degree rocks was worse on their feet than the shoes, so they had to keep them on. I can tell they’re in a lot of pain and still distracted by the coyotes because they don’t even notice when their foot comes down just a few inches from a sidewinder ducking under a rock. I pull them away, but the damn snake gets their ankle. They scream, but I pull them up the hill a few yards to get clear of the snake.

When I lay them down, their ankle is already swelling.

“It burns,” Janet gasps.

I pull their shoe off and look at the wound.

“It’s not as bad as it could be. It didn’t get its fangs in too deep. Let me fix this. I know some easy hoodoo.”

Janet grabs my shoulder and squeezes hard.

“No tricks. No tricks.”

“You could lose the damn leg or even die.”

“Then help me.”

I set my coat next to them and give them the sleeve.

“Here, bite down on that. This is going to hurt.”

I get the black blade from my boot and cut the wound open more. Janet screams into the coat as blood gushes out. I squeeze the wound to get out as much of the venom as possible. Finally, I lean over and suck out blood from the wound, spitting it out fast. Even so, my lips tingle with poison. I have no idea if what I’m doing is helping. I’ve just seen it in a hundred Westerns and I can’t use hoodoo, so it’s better than nothing.

In a few minutes, the swelling seems to have stopped. I cut one of the sleeves off my shirt and tie it around their leg to stop the bleeding. Janet is still and ice white. Their pupils are pinpoints in the sun.

I help them up into a sitting position.

“Do you think you can hold yourself up on your good leg?”

Janet looks at me, bleary.

“I’ll try.”