Shot by arrow

As the man and the boy wheel their heavily loaded cart through the back streets of a small port town, a sudden attack shatters the grim silence. Something whistles past the man's head and clatters off the street, breaking against a wall. He grabs the boy and falls on top of him, pulling the cart toward them. It tips over, spilling the tarp and blankets into the street. From an upper window of a nearby house, a man draws a bow on them. The man pushes the boy's head down and tries to cover him with his body. He hears the dull thwang of the bowstring and feels a sharp, hot pain in his leg. "Oh you bastard," he says. "You bastard." He claws the blankets aside, lunges for the flare gun, cocks it, and rests his arm on the side of the cart. The boy clings to him. When the archer steps back into the window frame to draw the bow again, the man fires. The flare rockets up toward the window in a long white arc, and then they can hear the man screaming. He grabs the boy, pushes him down, and drags blankets over him, telling him not to move or look. He pulls the blankets out into the street, finds the case for the flare pistol, opens it, takes out the shells, reloads the pistol, and puts the rest of the loads in his pocket. He tells the boy to stay just as he is, pats him through the blankets, and rises, limping across the street.

Entering the House and Confronting the Woman

He enters the house through the back door with the flare gun leveled at his waist. The house is stripped out to the wall studs. He steps through into the living room and stands at the stair landing, listening for movement in the upper rooms. He looks out the front window to where the cart lies in the street, then goes up the stairs. A woman is sitting in the corner holding the man. She has taken off her coat to cover him. As soon as she sees him, she begins to curse him. The flare has burned out in the floor, leaving a patch of white ash, and there is a faint smell of burnt wood in the room. He crosses the room and looks out the window. The woman's eyes follow him. She is scrawny, with lank gray hair. He asks who else is up here. She does not answer. He steps past her and goes through the rooms. His leg is bleeding badly; he can feel his trousers sticking to the skin. He goes back into the front room and asks where the bow is. She says she does not have it. He asks where it is. She says she does not know. He asks if they left her here. She says she left herself here. He turns and goes limping down the stairs, opens the front door, and goes out into the street backward, watching the house. When he gets to the cart, he pulls it upright and piles their things back in. He tells the boy to stay close.

Suturing the Wound in the Storeroom

They put up in a store building at the end of the town. He wheels the cart through and into a room at the rear, shuts the door, and pushes the cart against it sideways. He digs out the burner and the tank of gas, lights the burner, and sets it in the floor. Then he unbuckles his belt and takes off the bloodstained trousers. The boy watches. The arrow has cut a gash just above his knee about three inches long. It is still bleeding, and his whole upper leg is discolored; the cut is deep. Some homemade broadhead beaten out of strapiron, an old spoon, God knows what. He looks at the boy and tells him to find the first-aid kit. The boy does not move. He tells him again, more sharply, to get the kit. The boy jumps up, goes to the door, digs under the tarp and blankets piled in the cart, and comes back with the kit. The man takes it without comment, sets it in the concrete floor in front of him, unsnaps the catches, and opens it. He reaches and turns up the burner for the light. He tells the boy to bring the water bottle. The boy brings it, and the man unscrews the lid, pours water over the wound, and holds it shut between his fingers while he wipes away the blood. He swabs the wound with disinfectant, opens a plastic envelope with his teeth, and takes out a small hooked suture needle and a coil of silk thread. He sits holding the silk to the light while he threads it through the needle's eye. He takes a clamp from the kit, catches the needle in the jaws, locks them, and sets about suturing the wound. He works quickly and takes no great pains about it. The boy is crouching in the floor. The man looks at him and bends to the sutures again. He tells the boy he does not have to watch. The boy asks if it is okay. The man says yes, it is okay. The boy asks if it hurts. The man says yes, it hurts. He runs the knot down the thread, pulls it taut, cuts off the silk with the scissors from the kit, and looks at the boy. The boy is looking at what he has done. The man apologizes for yelling at him. The boy looks up. The man says, "Let's start over." The boy says, "Okay."

Aftermath and Recovery

In the morning it is raining, and a hard wind rattles the glass at the rear of the building. He stands looking out at a steel dock half collapsed and submerged in the bay, the wheelhouses of sunken fishing boats standing out of the gray chop. Nothing moves out there. His leg is throbbing. He pulls away the dressing, disinfects the wound, and looks at it. The flesh is swollen and discolored in the truss of the black stitching. He dresses it and pulls his blood-stiffened trousers on. They spend the day there, sitting among the boxes and crates. The boy is reluctant to talk, and when the man offers to tell him a story, the boy refuses, saying those stories are not true. The man says they do not have to be true, they are stories. The boy counters that in the stories they are always helping people, but they do not help people. The man asks the boy to tell him a story instead. The boy says he does not have any stories to tell. The man suggests he could tell a story about himself. The boy says the man already knows all the stories about him. The man says he has stories inside that the boy does not know about, like dreams or things he thinks about. The boy says stories are supposed to be happy. The man says they do not have to be. The boy says the man always tells happy stories. The man asks if the boy does not have any happy ones. The boy says his are more like real life. The man says the boy's stories are not. The boy agrees. The man says real life is pretty bad. The boy asks what the man thinks. The man says he thinks they are still here. The boy says a lot of bad things have happened but they are still here. The man says he thinks that is pretty good, that it is a pretty good story, that it counts for something. The boy says it is okay, he just wants to have a little quiet time. The man asks about dreams. The boy says he does not want to talk about anything. The man says he does not have good dreams anyway, they are always about something bad happening. The man says the boy told him that was okay because good dreams are not a good sign. The boy says maybe, he does not know. He tells the man that when he wakes up coughing and walks out along the road, he can still hear him coughing. The man apologizes. The boy says one time he heard him crying. The man says he knows. The boy says if he should not cry, the man should not cry either. The man agrees. The boy asks if his leg is going to get better. The man says yes. The boy asks if he is just saying that. The man says no. The boy says it looks really hurt. The man says it is not that bad. The boy asks if the man was trying to kill them. The man says yes, he was. The boy asks if he killed him. The man says no. The boy asks if that is the truth. The man says yes. The boy asks if that is all right. The man says yes. The boy says he thought the man did not want to talk. The man says he does not. Two days later they leave, the man limping along behind the cart and the boy keeping close to his side until they clear the outskirts of the town.