Free Whispers on the Wind by Judy Griffith Gill

hard-muscled shoulder. His skin was resilient, the form it sheathed, solid. He was real enough.
    But cold, terribly cold. She slipped off her floatpad rose up on her knees over him. Oh, Lord, was he dead?
    No. His chest still moved up and down slowly as he breathed. As if in response to her touch, he rolled his head toward her, revealing a scalp gash crusted with blood. He moaned. His bent leg was swelled even worse than it had been in her dream, the skin hard and shiny from ankle to knee except where the unnatural whiteness of a broken bone protruded through an ugly wound halfway up his calf. His foot still stuck out at an unnatural angle.
    Lenore stared at him. Where in the hell had he come from? What’s more, where in hell had he been? Or was there something wrong with her eyes, as well as with her head? She blinked them, squeezed them shut, then opened them again. He was still there.
    She slid forward and stepped off the ledge, circling in front of him. With gentle fingers, touched his leg just above the ankle, felt, in contrast to the clammy cold of the rest of his flesh, a terrible heat of infection pulsating from it. He winced and emitted a soft moan. He must be real if he could feel pain.
    She flicked a glance at his face. His lashes, long, dark, with tips of gold, fluttered on the taut skin under his eyes, but did not open. She remembered the blood that she’d seen in the dream seeping from under his side. It was still there, a dark stain but dry, she realized, touching it, glad not to have to risk rolling him over to examine the injury from which it had issued.
    A wisp of wind, resin-laden with the scent of evergreens, wafted in, chilling the sudden beads of sweat on her face.
    Goose bumps dotted the man’s skin. He needed treatment, and he needed it fast. But there was no way, no way on earth she could move someone of his mass. Still, she had to do something for him. He must be near the point of hypothermia, if not already in its clutches, in the cool, dry air of the cave. Hypothermia. Shock. She tried to review what she’d learned of outdoor survival with the various hiking groups she’d belonged to over the years. None of it seemed adequate now.
    She fumbled with the Velcro at the base of her pack, dragged her sleeping bag out of its case, opened it and gently spread it over him, careful not to let it touch his injured leg. She considered trying to move him onto her floatpad, but knew it wasn’t feasible. Still, the warmth of the bag should help. She turned its control to high.
    He murmured something, tried again to open his eyes and then sank back into what appeared to be unconsciousness. She pulled a small stove from her pack, activated its cell and set it on the floor of the cave just below their ledge, hoping the heat would rise and envelop him.
    With shaking hands, she opened her first aid kit and withdrew a packet containing a pad saturated with antiseptic. She cleaned her hands with the first one, opened another and bent toward his head.
    He stirred and shifted, moaned as the wet cleansing tissue touched the open wound. “Shh,” she said, carefully flicking out flakes of grit. “Lie still. Let me help you.”
    She finished cleaning his wound and the thick hair surrounding it, considered wrapping a bandage around his head, but decided against it. Better to let the air get at the gash, though it must be kept clean. After stuffing a heavy sweatshirt into her sleeping bag case, she carefully slid one hand beneath his head. As she lifted him, she felt the silky thickness of his hair against her palm, flowing over her wrist. She slipped the makeshift pillow under his head, smoothing it on the rock before lowering him onto it.
    Her first-aid kit was only a basic one, with no inflatable splints, which meant she would need to cut sticks to immobilize his leg before she lifted it onto the ledge, she decided, but in the meantime, as long as he remained unconscious, he wasn’t moving it. It could wait until