Читать книгу The Summer Wives: Epic page-turning romance perfect for the beach - Beatriz Williams, Beatriz Williams - Страница 14

NOW, I DIDN’T know much about boats in those days, but I knew enough to grab the rope the young man tossed me and loop it tight around one of the bollards. The tide was high and slack, and the boat rode only a foot or two beneath the wooden planks. Inside the boat lay Popeye, coughing and wheezing, bleeding all over the place from I don’t know where.

The young man lifted Popeye in his arms and hoisted him up toward the dock, where I hooked my arms around his shoulders and dragged him away from the edge. He was heavier than I thought, made of wet, compact bone and muscle, and my bare feet slipped against the wood. “Careful!” exclaimed the young man, leaping up beside me, and he tore open Popeye’s shirt and checked his heart, his breath, because he’d stopped wheezing and now lay limp in my arms.

“The doctor’s on his way!” I gasped out. “I saw you from the window.”

“Ah, Jesus Mary. His arm.”

I looked at Popeye’s left arm, which was bent horribly, leaking blood.

“Here,” said the youth, “hold it steady while I lift him. Can you do that? One, two, three.”

I scrambled to my feet and bent to cradle Popeye’s elbow while the young man scooped him carefully upward, lifting that weathered old fellow like—I don’t know—like a knight would lift a damsel. Now I could see the bone sticking through the skin, through the wet plaid shirt, but I wasn’t going to be sick, oh no. I thought, the nurses in the war saw far worse, didn’t they? Some nurse maybe tended my father. They hadn’t flinched, and neither would I. I laid Popeye’s arm across his middle as best I could, and we started down the dock to the lawn. Popeye remained still. I prayed he wasn’t dead. The sun hit the side of my face as we loped up the slope of the lawn, past the boathouse and the tents, up the steps of the terrace and around back to the kitchen, where the maid was waving for us.

“Put him right here, Joseph! I cleared the kitchen table. Doctor’ll be a minute. Oh Jesus Mary!” she cried. “Look at him! What happened?”

Down he went on the table. Joseph checked his chest again and swore. Bent over his face and pinched his nose and laid his mouth on Popeye’s mouth, breathed the air of his own lungs into Popeye’s lungs while the maid ran for kitchen towels or something. I just stood there, holding Popeye’s arm together, not knowing what else to do. After a breath or two, Popeye started to heave, and Joseph rolled him quick on his side. Out came another quart or so of water, more sputtering, a groan of misery, and the doctor burst through the door right that second, dressing gown flapping around his legs, thank God.