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glow.
    The light inside seemed very bright. Merideth’s injured friend lay near the
tent wall, her face flushed and sweat-shiny, her long curly brick-red hair loose
and tangled. The thin cloth covering her was stained in dark patches, but with
sweat, not blood. Her companion, sitting on the floor beside her, raised his
head groggily. His pleasant, ugly face was set in lines of strain, heavy
eyebrows drawn together over his small dark eyes. His shaggy brown hair was
tousled and matted.
    Merideth knelt beside him. “How is she?”
    “She finally went to sleep. She’s been just the same. At least she doesn’t
hurt … ”
    Merideth took the young man’s hand and bent to kiss the sleeping woman
lightly. She did not stir. Snake put down the leather case and moved closer;
Merideth and the young man looked at each other with blank expressions as they
became aware of the exhaustion overtaking them. The young man suddenly leaned
toward Merideth and they embraced, silently, close and long.
    Merideth straightened, drawing back with reluctance. “Healer, these are my
partners, Alex,” a nod toward the young man, “and Jesse.”
    Snake took the sleeping woman’s wrist. Her pulse was light, slightly
irregular. She had a deep bruise on her forehead, but neither pupil was dilated,
so perhaps she was lucky and had only a mild concussion. Snake pulled aside the
sheet. The bruises were those of a bad fall: point of shoulder, palm of hand,
hip, knee.
    “You said she went to sleep—has she been fully conscious since she fell?”
    “She was unconscious when we found her but she came to.”
    Snake nodded. There was a deep scrape down Jesse’s side and a bandage on her
thigh. Snake pulled the cloth away as gently as possible, but the dressing stuck
with dry blood.
    Jesse did not move when Snake touched the long gash in her leg, not even as
one shifts in sleep to avoid annoyance. She did not wake from pain. Snake
stroked the bottom of her foot, with no result. The reflexes were gone.
    “She fell off her horse,” Alex said.
    “She never falls,” Merideth snapped. “The colt fell on her.”
    Snake sought the courage that had seeped slowly away since Grass was killed.
It seem irretrievable. She knew how Jesse was hurt; all that remained was to
find out how badly. But she did not say anything. Resting one forearm on her
knee, head down, Snake felt Jesse’s forehead. The tall woman was sweating
coldly, still in shock.
    If she has internal injuries, Snake thought, if she is dying …
    Jesse turned her head away, moaning softly in her sleep.
    She needs whatever help you can give her, Snake thought angrily. And the
longer you swim in self-pity, the more likely you are to hurt her instead.
    She felt as if two completely different people, neither of them herself, were
holding a dialogue in her mind. She watched and waited and was vaguely grateful
when the duty-bound self won the argument over the part of her that was afraid.
    “I need help to turn her over,” she said.
    Merideth at Jesse’s shoulders and Alex at her hips, they eased her up and
held her on her side, following Snake’s instructions to keep from twisting her
spine. A black bruise spread across the small of her back, radiating both ways
from the vertebrae. Where the color was darkest, the bone was crushed.
    The force of the fall had almost sheared the spine’s smooth column. Snake
could feel shattered chips of bone that had been pushed out into muscle.
    “Let her down,” Snake said, with deep, dull regret. They obeyed and waited in
silence, watching her. She sat on her heels.
    If Jesse dies, she thought, she will not feel much pain. If she dies, or if
she lives, Grass could not have helped her.
    “Healer … ?” Alex—he could hardly be twenty, too
young to be burdened with grief, even in this harsh land. Merideth seemed
ageless. Deep-tanned, dark-eyed, old, young, understanding, bitter. Snake looked
at Merideth, glanced at Alex,