Trace Their Shadows by Ann Cook

John had not come forward to help her. She could now see him, standing back near the doorway, silent. He’s angry, she thought. I’ve been gone too long. Switching off the engine, she picked up the flashlight again and reached overhead with the other hand, prepared to steady herself by holding to the cross beam.
    “Don’t,” John said, his voice low and strained. “Don’t move. Don’t touch anything.”
    Above her she heard a sickening, slithering sound.
    She froze, then shone the flashlight upward. Glistening in the shaft of light, she saw the long, fat body, the upraised head, and the gaping white jaws of a cottonmouth moccasin.

TEN  
    Facing her, the snake’s head swayed slightly, its eyes like steel drills. Brandy stifled a cry. John’s flashlight flicked on and froze on the heavy coils and the lifted, triangular head. The mouth yawned a fleshy white. “The warning posture,” he whispered. “Don’t make a sudden move. Going to try to knock it into the water.”
    She put one foot behind her and stepped slowly backward, grasping for the console, while John advanced, crouching, in one hand a long, narrow board. The black snake head turned. When he had almost reached the boat, he slammed the board up and sideways. But the cottonmouth was quicker. Like a bullet, its body uncoiled and shot forward. Brandy’s eyes widened. She screamed, “No!”
    At the same instant, the moccasin’s fangs sank into John’s hand. She gave a sob, sprang out of the boat, and rushed toward John as the moccasin drew back and slid over the edge of the pier into the water. John had dropped to his knees, supporting his wounded arm with the other hand.
    She tried to remember the snake bite first aid she once learned in a health class. “Lie down,” she said, “be absolutely still.” She turned back, lifted a boat cushion off the front seat, and kneeling beside him, helped him stretch out with his head raised on the cushion.
    “The kit,” he muttered. “Under the first seat.” In the dull light he was deathly pale. Perspiration beaded his face. “Hurts like hell.”
    She climbed back into the boat, pulled the first seat forward, and found a small plastic first aid kit. Kneeling once more beside him, she laid a hand on his clammy forehead. He squirmed. “Thirsty,” he said.
    Already the small round holes in the back of his hand were turning dusky. Brandy dampened a piece of gauze with disinfectant and gently wiped around the wound, then dried it as best she could with clean gauze. “A deputy should be here right away. He’ll call an emergency response team on his car radio. They’ll get you to a hospital in no time.”
    She felt the inside of his wrist and counted. His pulse rate was fast but weak. She had to protect him from shock. Standing up quickly, she pulled off her jacket and tucked it around him, then yanked up her shirt, stripped it off, and tore a wide strip out of the back, willing herself to stay calm.
    “Got to make a tourniquet,” she said. “Tie it above the wound and below the pulse.” She twisted the cotton strip into a band and knotted it loosely between the darkening holes and his wrist. Please, God, she thought, send the deputy now.
    John turned his head from side to side, his chest heaving, his teeth clinched. “Going to be sick.”
    “You mustn’t go into shock.” She found a bottle of aspirin in the kit, scrambled back onto the boat, and opened the Styrofoam cooler behind the captain’s chair. In a few seconds she knelt again beside him, holding a can in one hand and a fistful of ice in the other. Lifting his head slightly, she managed to get two tablets down his throat. His voice was faint. “Pop tastes good,” he mumbled. “So thirsty.”
    Wrapping the ice in another strip of cloth from her tattered shirt, she passed it across his cheeks and forehead and held it there. He’s got to have anti–venom, she thought, and soon. He stared up at her, silent, the muscles in his face tense with