Whose crazy damned arm is that? he thought.
Somehow his brain wanted him to laugh, to slap the comic twisted arm, lying in front of his eyes. The laughter was in his mouth and through his teeth and he raised his good hand.
"Oh, Lord," he said, suddenly sober and feeling the blinding pain. He caught his good hand around a broken metal shaft, and the pain drew tears to his eyes.
I think I'll just go to sleep and die right now, he thought, wondering vaguely where his will and his strength had gone. Did they bleed out? he thought. Did they fall out when the man struck him? Did the woman draw them out last night, like a vampire draws out blood?
Good night, he thought, dimly, dropping his hand from the shaft. Good-by. He closed his eyes.
He was screaming, he knew, and somewhere he heard a man's voice say, "The gauze. The gauze." It was a grating sound, like a metal wheel turning over gravel. He opened his eyes, and Fairchild was wrapping the gauze around his broken arm, splinted from a part of the cabin panelling.
Fairchild looked at him. There was a thick growth of gray whiskers, stubbling the man's chin and cheeks, Caine noticed, and the man's eyes were not sad any more. They appeared to burn, like his wife's. He grinned at Caine and it was a humorless grin, his teeth set tightly together. "You're lucky, Caine," he said. "I set it instead of cutting it off."
Caine watched the grinning stubbled face. He felt a shudder trembling through his body, and the sweat on his face turned cold. I'm not Nic Caine, he thought. Surely not. I'm just a frightened, chilled man with no guts or reason. I am a rubber puppet, that's who I am. Pull the strings, Mr. Puppet Master.
"Get up," said Fairchild.
"That's right," Caine mumbled, smiling crazily.