Green Desert - Chapter 4.6.3 - Bhanar

I wasn’t dead. I hadn’t been shot. I was alive.

“Help him!”

I turned toward the voice. Zhíno, still facedown on the ground. Séara standing with feet spread, gun in both hands and pointing at the ground.

Pí‘oro lay bleeding in front of me. His hands glistened crimson. I dropped the gun away from him and bent over to look at his wound. Right in the gut. Right in the side of the gut. Sideways through him. Nasty wound. Massive internal bleeding. He needed medical attention now. “Why did you shoot his guts?” A leg wound would have stopped him. Or a shoulder if possible. But never a gut shot.

Séara stood over me. “Apply pressure to the wound.”

I took off my shirt––Zhíno’s shirt––and lifted Pí‘oro’s hands to press against the gaping hole. “It will not be enough. He needs a hospital.”

The old man groaned.

“Lift him. We’ll put him on the horse.”

There’s no way I was going to lift a man Pí‘oro’s size by myself. “Zhíno, come here.”

The scruffy-looking blond scrambled over to us, still as naked as a newt. Then again, I was only underwear and shorts ahead of him. I grabbed Pí‘oro’s lower shoulder and pushed him to a sitting position. He moaned loudly.

“Twice in one day,” I muttered. Always carrying Pí‘oro.
Zhíno grabbed his other shoulder. Séara had disappeared.
“On three. One, two, lift!”