Do-Gooder by j. leigh bailey Read Free Book Online

and they did not roll easily. They had bulges and dips and were more than content to stay in one place. We pushed and it was like trying to push my mom’s Buick out of a snowbank. While it was in Park. With the parking brake on. I dug my toes into the packed dirt of the road and shoved with all my body weight. Twenty or so feet away, Henry did the same.
    I remembered something about motion and momentum. “Ease up, let it rock back for a second, and when it starts to roll forward again, push hard.”
    “Smart,” Henry said with a nod.
    We stopped our forward thrust, let the log do its thing and, when it rocked forward again, we pushed. Just like the time Mom and I freed her old Buick from a snowbank, the log started to move forward. It seemed to take forever, but after a long series of rocking and pushing, we reached the edge of the road.
    Henry sat on the ground and flexed his hands. “I’m going to be so sore tomorrow.” He shrugged his shoulders a couple of times while I stretched my back out. After a minute he stood. “Ready for the other one?”
    I looked at the second log. It wasn’t quite as thick as the first, maybe only a foot in diameter. “I guess we’d better. We’re not going to get any further without doing it.”
    We did the rock-and-roll thing with the second log, and it lined up with the first one with significantly less effort. When we were done, there was enough space to drive the Range Rover through. Barely.
    I headed back to the vehicle but stopped at the last second when Henry squatted to tie his boots. I wasn’t really prepared to stop so suddenly, and I tilted forward, windmilling my arms to keep from falling on top of him. In the process I knocked the insulin monitor off my belt. It landed in the bushes. I hissed at the stinging pain when gravity and the weight of the monitor pulled the pump’s needle and tubing out of my side.
    “Damn it.” I crouched down next to Henry and tried to find the monitor in the bushes in front of it. I caught the glint of blue plastic and reached for it.
    “ Stop !” Henry lurched next to me and covered my hand with his.
    “What the…?”
    It happened too quickly to stop. The snake struck, scoring Henry’s hand— the hand covering mine —with wicked sharp fangs. The long greenish-gray snake hissed, and I dove backward, pulling Henry along with me.
    “Are you okay?” Not the smartest thing to ask, probably. After all, the dude just got bit by a snake. It was all my panicked brain could come up with, though.
    Henry stared down at his hand, eyes wide, face pale. His breathing started to speed up, but he didn’t say anything.
    Crap. I shook his shoulder. “Henry. Is it poisonous?” When he didn’t answer, I grabbed his face between my hands and forced him to look at me. “Is it poisonous? What do we need to do?”
    “Green bush viper.” The words were soft, almost wondering.
    “What does that mean? Come on, Henry. I need you to tell me what to do. I’m freaking out a bit, and I really need you to tell me if it’s poisonous and how to handle it.”
    His wide eyes focused on me, and I could tell he was making the effort to slow his breathing. “It’s poisonous. Get the snakebite kit. It’s behind the driver’s-side seat in the big first-aid kit.”
    I jumped up and ran to the Range Rover. It took me a couple of tries to get the door open. When I did, I pushed the seat forward and tried to find something that looked like a first-aid kit. There were a couple of emergency packs, and I couldn’t quite focus. Then I saw the big red cross on the blue canvas bag and wanted to curse myself. Duh.
    I dashed back to Henry. He looked calm, calmer than I was, in fact. He was positively Zen, sitting there, quiet and still.
    “Should we move you to the truck?” I asked, even as I kneeled beside him. “I mean, what if it comes after you?”
    “It won’t. It’s more scared of us than we are of it,” he said.
    Yeah, somehow I doubted