Free A Matter of Days by Amber Kizer Page B

this year’s must-have fashion for strays.
    When the water had boiled long enough I took it off the heat and measured some out into a bowl. I hoped it would draw the infection out, soften the wounds, and give me a chance to see what exactly was going on.
At least, that’s what the chapter on infected wounds says
. They were referring to humans and gangrene. Not exactly sure what that was, but if it was gangrene,then Dog was toast anyway because I wasn’t amputating his leg. Even I had my limits.
    “Rab, it’s time to try this.”
    “What do we do first?”
    “I need you to hold his head so he doesn’t bite either of us, okay?”
    “He won’t.”
    “Rab—”
    “Fine. Hold head, got it.”
    I looked Dog in the eye and explained, hoping he’d know instinctively we weren’t enemies. “Teotwawki, I am going to put one paw in this hot salty water and hold it there. It’s going to hurt, but it’ll help.”
    As I picked up his paw, he whined and tried to wag his tail, but other than increased tension in his frame, he didn’t move.
    I tried to be as gentle as I could. He pulled against me for a breath and then relaxed.
    “It’s okay, Twawki. It’s okay, boy.” Rab muttered nonsensicals and sweet nothings into the dog’s ears while stroking between his eyes and down his head.
    “Rabbit, I need you to reheat the pot of water and get me a roll of paper towels. Okay?”
    “Sure.” Rab scrambled up. “The ones from the rest stop?”
    “Doesn’t matter.” I needed something disposable to wipe the ooze and guck off. Bits of gravel clinked into the bowl and had long since changed the water from clear to pink frothy gunk like peppermint ice cream dropped on the ground and melted.
    Rab handed me wads of paper as I took Teotwawki’s paw out of the water. With my headlamp pointed at the wounds,I saw the shredded pads on his foot like open masses of hamburger. Spoiled hamburger. The smell gagged me.
    “Holy cow.” Rab backed away as if he too was appalled. “How’d he walk at all?”
    “Dump this out, wash it with the boiling water. Don’t use too much, okay? When we finish with this paw we have to do the other one.”
    “Should I see if he wants water?”
    “I don’t think he’s going to drink anything until we’re done, Rab.” These were feet I’d seen on those horrid medical reality-TV shows Mom watched with titles like
I Shouldn’t Have Lived
or
Superhuman Immune System Fought Off Slime Mold of the Toenail
.
    “There were glass shards in here.” Rab came running back with the clean bowl.
    “What?”
    “At the bottom of the bowl there were pieces of glass. I buried them so no one else would step on them. You want me to go get them?”
    “No, but we better make sure they’re all out. Hold his head again.”
    I smushed and pushed and wiped and cajoled. Used the tweezers to get two more long icicles of clear glass out of his foot. When I stopped, I wasn’t even done, but thought Twawki had taken enough torture on that paw.
    “How do you think it happened?” Rab asked.
    “I don’t know, maybe he walked on something.”
Maybe he had to break a window to get out of his house
. “I think there are probably more pieces in the other paw and maybe even in his skin or other places.”
    I rinsed the paw, hesitating when Teotwawki whined and lifted his head as if to lick his foot. “Don’t let him lick it, Rab, it could make him sicker.”
    “ ’Kay.”
    If I disinfected the wound with hand sanitizer it would hurt. I didn’t like it in a hangnail, I couldn’t imagine the pain of filling a wound with it. And I had no idea if it would help.
Plan B?
“Do we have any Neosporin?”
    “Yeah, I grabbed a couple of tubes.”
    Can we find more? Do we use it on the dog, or wait and use it on us if we need it?
    “I’ll get one.” Rab didn’t let me decide, but I had an uncomfortable moment where I was sure he read my mind.
    I filled the crevices with goo. Using more than I probably needed to get at