The Target

shoulder. He prayed he didn't look as bad as the wound looked when he said, turning slowly, "Hi, sweetheart. I'm sorry I woke you up. I just had to check my leg. It isn't bad, just swelled a bit, and warm, but nothing scary. I'm just being really careful. Now, let me bandage it up again."

    She carefully took a thick pad of gauze, then waited. With both hands, he pushed the flesh tightly together on the exit wound, then nodded to her. She laid the gauze over it. Then she pulled out a length of tape, laid it over the gauze and his flesh, and pulled it taut. Then she flattened it down with her palm. He couldn't have done it better himself.

    "Maybe you're going to be a doctor," he said, wanting to howl from the pain. He felt sticky sweat on his face, imagined he was as gray as one of his old nightshirts. He took several quick deep breaths. "Thanks, sweetheart. I'm okay, really. Let me get some more tape over this to make sure it holds." He pressed down four more strips.

    She stood back, but kept her hand on his shoulder. Every once in a while, she patted him. He appreciated it.

    When it was done, he pulled his sweats back up again. "I'd say tomorrow night my leg's going to be all black and blue. Hopefully the swelling will go down a bit by then. Now, let me take some more aspirin." He took three this time.

    "You want to go back to bed now?"

    She shook her head.

    "Me either. You want me to read you a story?"

    She shook her head, then mimicked talking.

    "You want me to tell you a story?"

    She nodded, then, to his delight, she took his hand. He stretched out on the sofa, with her beside him on top of the blanket that covered him, and pulled two more blankets and the afghan over them. The pistol was right beside him on the floor. He settled her against him, feeling the warmth of her against his side, her cheek against his neck. "Once upon a time there was a little princess named Sonya who knew how to fly kites better than anyone in her father's kingdom. One year, her father decided that he would have a contest. He knew no one could beat her. She had a special kite, you see, a dragon-tailed kite that could fly higher and make more figures than an ice-skater. There was just one competitor her father worried about. It was Prince Luther from a neighboring kingdom. But he knew she could beat anyone, even Luther, who was a bully and a loudmouth. Do you know what happened at the contest?"

    She was lightly snoring. He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. He realized that he'd forgotten all about his damned thigh. He also realized that to this point, his story was pretty bad, probably because he was so tired, his brain woozy. It was lucky she'd fallen back asleep or he would have bored her into yawns.

    HE tried to stay off his leg throughout the next day. He stuck to the cabin, sitting by the front window, scanning, forever scanning the meadow and the forest that crept up to the edge. He saw nothing out of the ordinary, and no one.

    He was going to lay low today, let himself get stronger, then he'd decide what to do.

    He knew she was frightened. He knew it and couldn't do a thing about it. He told her half a dozen stories, and none of them too bad, about the little princess named Sonya who beat the nasty little boy, Luther, in the kite-flying contest, then went on to save her father's life, and cook excellent mushrooms and... well, he wouldn't think ahead to the next story. He found it was better if he just opened his mouth and let the story come out unrehearsed.

    She sat on the floor next to his chair by the window, drawing with one of his pencils. The afternoon shadows were lengthening. He looked down to see a stick woman with curly hair holding a kite, a little stick girl standing next

    to her, holding a kite the same size as she was. A curved-up line was the woman's smile; there was a curved-up line for the little girl as well.

    Her mother had taught her to fly a kite. He praised the drawings. Perhaps, just perhaps, he could get her to draw him pictures of the man or men who'd taken her and where they'd taken her, what they'd done to her. But he balked at that. He wasn't a shrink. The last thing he wanted to do was make things worse.

    "It's time to make dinner. You hungry, kiddo?"

    She nodded enthusiastically and gathered up her pages and the three pencils he'd given her. She laid them carefully on the coffee table, lining up the pages neatly. He realized he did the same thing. Then she held out her hand