An Arm and a Leg Read Free Page B

coyote howled from what sounded like only a few yards away, and she held her breath. It was a useless tactic, of course, since the coyote didn’t need to hear her breathing to know she was there. He’d probably smelled her long before she heard him calling his mate to dinner. Smelled her covered in Tim’s blood.
    When the coyote inexplicably neither howled again nor showed up with a knife, fork, and bib, Frankie breathed a sigh of relief. Coyotes are generally afraid of people, but the smell of blood and her own weakened condition would have been a temptation to any carnivore trying to find a meal during New Mexico’s worst drought on record.
    She’d been lying on her right arm, and now it was numb. In an effort to get into a more comfortable position, she moved the arm as much as she could in the confines of her shelter until feeling began to return. Her body complaining like a circus contortionist with arthritis, Frankie tried to straighten her legs a bit.
    Then the mass that formed the back wall of her shelter moved.
    Had the early-hibernating bear either had cubs or been in a foul mood, Frankie could have been history. But the drowsy creature moved slowly, seemingly unconcerned about the pitiful human’s proximity. Grateful for the lethargic bear’s unwillingness to leave its cozy bed, she rolled out through the shelter’s opening. With her adrenaline-charged body again primed to break the land-speed record, she forced herself to walk slowly for several yards in the nearly complete darkness before breaking into a run.
    When it became apparent that she’d made good on her getaway, she stopped and studied the now cloudless sky. She marveled at how close the stars appeared against their black velvet background as she searched the Little Dipper’s handle for the North Star Polaris.
    As thousands of humans throughout past millennia had done, she used Polaris to get her bearings. With a returning infusion of confidence, she began to walk.
    For what seemed like hours, she forced one foot in front of the other while her vision blurred and her thigh muscles twitched. Surely she’d come across a road at some point. Or even an animal trail that she could follow to water.
    Her thickened tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. All she could think about was water. She imagined its coolness trickling down her throat. She could almost feel the warm wetness of it washing over her in the city swimming pool where she and Tim had spent hot summer days. And she could hear ice cubes clinking together in a tall glass full of it. She picked up two small stones, rubbed the mud off them, and put them into her mouth to encourage her salivary glands to do their job.
    Trees often blotted out her view of the heavens. During those times, she continued on in what she assumed to be the correct direction until she again caught sight of Polaris and adjusted her bearing accordingly.
    She stepped into a familiar-looking clearing. Hadn’t she passed that way an hour or so ago? And weren’t those the same three pine trees towering over a scrub oak bush that she’d thought looked like Shakespeare’s three witches stirring their cauldron? Her stomach fell. She was going to die here. She’d die and her body would never be found.
    Her knees gave way. She dropped to the ground and sobbed.
    ****
    Early morning sunlight, damp earth, and the pinpricks of pine needles sticking into the flesh of her arms brought Frankie awake. The fallen needles and leaves she’d used as a blanket had offered little protection from the cold, and none against the mist of the late morning rain. She brushed off the soggy mat, sat up, and leaned back against the trunk of the pine tree under which she’d collapsed the night before.
    She’d hoped it was all a bad dream. Hoped it would be somehow miraculously over upon wakening. But it was never going to end. She was going to—
    No time for histrionics. Uncle Mike’s voice again. Get a grip.
    “But I don’t know where I