youmeApart from that smile of his.
‘Well isn’t this a to do?’ he said, sweeping a pine stump and sitting down. His face shone with sweat as he held his right arm, blood pumping from the same clean cut as the thing on the ground between us.
He nodded at my belt. ‘Spare me that, John? I’m bleeding awful
bad here.’
‘How do you know my name?’ I asked.
We both knew how.
He looked down at the b****y stump. ‘Awful bad, John.’
I removed my belt and threw it at him. He tied a deft tourniquet above his elbow, tightening it with his teeth. When he was satisfied he patted
his arm.
‘Much obliged.’
I was still on the ground, my throat arid and raw. ‘This is a trick.’
He c****d his head. ‘Sitting here with half an arm, in a place I don’t know, bleeding all over the ground and looking just like
