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Farraday appeared just as a large wild hog approached the stream from the opposite direction. "What the f...?"
Before she could finish, the hog ran right into her legs sending Farraday into the air. She crashed down, catching her leg on one of the beast’s curved tusks. The hog squealed, and Farraday screamed. "Glenda, shoot straight," I said, as I fired my weapon at the hog. I fired three shots. I'm not sure how many hit the hog, but it fell over on its side with Farraday's leg still stuck on its tusk.
"I need some help here, Everly."
I noticed she resorted to using my actual name. I knelt beside the hog. "I think it's dead. We need to get your leg off the tusk."
"No shit," she said.
We left most of our gear back at the camp, expecting to make a short hike to the creek. Another good lesson learned—never leave camp without all your survival gear. After looking at the situation, I explained the obvious to my partner. "I can't move it, so I'll have to move your leg."
"I know. Just do it."
The tusk had caught the back of her calf. Thankfully, she had muscular calves. I was hopeful that there were no important blood vessels to worry about. "Do you have your first aid kit?"
"Yeah, but I can't move enough to get to it until you get my leg off."
"OK. On the count of three. One. Two." I eased her leg off the tusk and eased it to the ground.
"What's wrong with you? You said on three. Help me up."
I helped her to sit up. I couldn't see very well in the dark, but I could tell by her movements that she was in pain. I took her pack off and fished out the small first aid pouch like the survival pouch I had in my pack. I dumped out the contents.
"Do you want me to clean and bandage it, or do you want to do it yourself?" Farraday seemed to prefer to do everything herself, and I'd be just as happy not having to deal with the wound on her leg.
"You can do it."
Fudge. "OK. I'm going to pour some water on it to wash it out. All we've got is some antibiotic cream and a few adhesive bandages." I cleaned and dressed the wound as well as I could with what we had. It didn't seem to be bleeding very much. "Do you have an extra shirt or anything?"
"At camp."
Right where my extra clothes were too. I took off my shirt and tore one sleeve out. Farraday laughed.
"What's so funny?"
"I know you and Leif have a thing going, but who wears a pink lacy bra to survival training. You're something else, Belle."
Back to Belle again. "First, Leif and I definitely do not have any thing going on between us. Leif is friends with my boyfriend, Chance. He's the one that arranged for me to take this training and stay at Leif's. Second, Chance is the one who packed my bag for this trip. I'm guessing he picked out what he liked."
"Really. You and Leif aren't ...?"
"Leif and I aren't anything. I think he's kind of an ass."
She reached up to give me a high five. "Sorry, Everly. In my business, you'd think I'd be better at reading people."
I had tied my sleeve around her bandaged leg while we talked. After Farraday checked for other injuries, we started back to camp. At first, she moved pretty well, but the longer we walked the slower she got. We didn't make it back to camp until after midnight. We were both, exhausted. I checked our gear to see if there was anything more I could do for her. I found a packet of two pain relievers and handed it to her. "This is all we've got. I don't know if you should take both now or take one now and save one for later. It's going to be a long walk back tomorrow."
She ended up taking both pills, drinking some water, and crawling into her sleeping bag. I banked the fire and followed her.