"I'm sorry," Valentine said. "I thought you'd gone mad."
"I knew what I was doing. Pass me that disinfectant."
"You should get going," Valentine told Duvalier. "If you pass some of our local constables, have them send an ambulance."
Duvalier gathered up her stick and pack, and wheeled her bicycle over to Ahn-Kha. She kissed him on the ear. "You taste like a muskrat. Don't let him leave you."
Valentine glared at her.
"I'll hang around at Price's motel," Duvalier said. "They made him pay for a month because of the Grog. If you make it back out you can find me there. Unless, of course, I get the feeling I'm being watched. Then I'm gone."
* * * *
Valentine applied dressings, then sat Ahn-Kha on the saddle of the bike. The tires immediately flattened, but it served as a convincing conveyance for a wounded Grog, with one long arm draped around Valentine's shoulder. Birds called to each other in the trees; they both could lie down and die and the birds would still sing on.
"How you doing, old horse?"
"The wounds burn."
"They'll get you patched up. Hope that supply truck passes soon."
"I can walk all the way there if I must."
No supply truck came, but a white ambulance snapped deadfall twigs as it roared through the riverside hills. It didn't employ a siren, but there was no traffic to hurry out of the way.
Valentine sat Ahn-Kha on the weed-grown shoulder and stood in the roadway, waving his arms. The ambulance, tilted due to a bad suspension, came on, unheeding, lights flashing-
Then swerved and braked, stalling the motor.
The driver spoke through the wire grid that served as his window. "You almost got yourself killed, quirt." His associate used the stop to light a cigarette.
"We're trying to get to the hospital. My friend's wounded."
The clean-shaven pair in blue hats exchanged a look. "A Grog? Try the-"
"I'm hurting too. Can we-"
"On a call, sir. We'll radio back and have you picked up." He nodded at his associate, who touched a box on the dashboard.
"Thank you. Thank you very much."
"Don't move. Another ambulance will be along." The driver got the engine going and moved off.
"Curbside service," Valentine said, taking out his pocketknife.
"My David, what are you going to do?"
"We're both going in wounded."
Valentine raked the knife twice across the outer side of his left hand. He'd been anticipating the pain, which made it all the worse.
"Defensive wounds," Valentine said.
"I hope we have no need for a real dressing. This is our last one," Ahn-Kha said.
"Just give me some surgical tape and a scissors. I'll close them with butterfly dressings. Those two in the ambulance might have noticed that I didn't have a big dressing on my hand."
"I will cut the tape. You're bleeding."