Page 59 of Repentance and Absolution

“You all right?”

“Well, my heart’s goin’ like a scared jackrabbit’s, and I almost shit myself. But sure, I s’pose.”

I gave him a grin. “I feel the same. Don’t worry about it. We should be thankful Irene’s a crack shot. She got him twice and he probably would’ve died without the bullet to his neck, although it didn’t hurt. Well, it hurt him.” I gestured to the bear.

“Fuck, Jimmy. Is Clarence gonna be all right?”

“I hope so. We need to get him inside and warmed up—and he needs a doctor.”

“We got a doctor in town?”

“Yeah.”

“How do you know?”

I stared at him. “Because I needed to find that out in case you got crushed by a tree or cut your hand off learning to chop wood.”

Oscar’s cheeks reddened. “You make it sound like I’m feeble as a girl.”

“Girls ain’t feeble. They’re just not allowed to show their strength half the time. Anyway, I thought you liked feeling like that.”

He blinked at me. “Between the sheets maybe, but not for regular everyday stuff.”

“I just…needed to know who to go to if we needed more medical know-how than I’ve got to hand.”

I took a chance and lifted the soaked fabric of Clarence’s trousers where the bear’s claw had torn it. I wanted to see how bad it looked. T’was right at the crease where his thigh met his groin, and while I was trying to get a look at the wound, Oscar pushed at my shoulder.

“Jimmy.”

“What?” I examined the deep cut, trying not to let my dirty fingers get too close. I wasn’t really paying attention to much else.

“Um, he ain’t… There ain’t no… I mean, I think Clarence ain’t a fella.”

Oscar’s words seemed like nonsense, and I couldn’t get what he was saying, so I turned to stare at him, my forehead wrinkled with confusion.

“What?”

Oscar pointed near to where I’d pushed back Clarence’s trousers.

“There’s no cock. That there’s a cunt. I ain’t seen that many, but I’m pretty sure.”

The door opened, Irene rushed out and I only had time to glance at where Oscar was pointing before he stood and turned away, pretending to attend to his horse.

“Here, Jimmy. Will this work?” Irene said, shoving a torn length of sheet at me.

She glanced down to where Clarence was exposed and tried to cover him up while I pretended not to notice.

“Yeah. Thank you.”

“I’m the one who’s thankful, Jimmy. Thank God you and Oscar were here.”

“You killed that bear, not me. He was already a goner when I shot him. Where did you learn to shoot like that?” I said, hoping to distract her while I wrapped Clarence’s leg.

The gash was high up on the inside of his thigh, but I was able to wind the cloth around a few times and snug it up into the groin in order to fasten it. I wanted to do that before we moved him or we’d risk him losing too much blood.

“Clarence taught me to shoot, and t’was fun, so I practiced quite a bit o’er the summer. This is the first time I’ve shot something bigger than a fox.”

“Well, you did real good. Now help me get him inside.”