Shoving that thought away with intense concern for his friend and colleague, he moved closer, only to have her hand him Brass' open cell phone.
"Here — tell the 9-1-1 dispatcher where we are," she said, oblivious to the gun pointing not even two feet from her head. Her eyes were focused on the empty air between them before her head swiveled away from him. "Tell them to send a helicopter if it's far away. Time is critical."
As he took the phone confusedly, she scooted away from Brass to grab the thing that had snagged her attention. Her labored breathing loud enough for even Grissom's ears, she stood up slowly, holding a twitching yard-long rattlesnake firmly by the back of the head with one hand, the rattle end by the other hand, examining it intently. Its skull was crushed, bits of sand embedded in the moist blood. Below the rattle, white and black bands encircled its tail. With the bright morning sunlight blinding his nocturnally adjusted eyes, Grissom could not discern the slight color difference between a Western Diamond Back or a Mojave Green — both highly venomous vipers. The crushed skull obliterated the characteristic difference in hood pattern, and being rusty on his herpetology he couldn't remember which rattle pattern had wider stripes. He now noticed the two ugly purple puncture wounds on his colleague's ankle and the beginnings of vertical poison streaks emanating from the wound area.
Instantly, Grissom grasped the entire situation and did exactly as she had bidden, adding his own instructions for the paramedics, after officially identifying himself as well as the patient and the suspected culprit. He knew that Mojave Green rattlesnake venom was both a neurotoxin and hemotoxin — affecting both the nervous system and blood. If caught in time, just two or three days in hospital should suffice. If not, it was quite deadly.
The woman gazed at the snake with regret and pity plainly in her eyes, gently coiling it on the ground a safe distance away from Brass. "They might want to see the species of snake, I suppose." She then sank heavily to the ground next to Brass, placing her hand over his with a soft squeeze. "How're you doing, there?"
His eyes had been squeezed shut with pain, but he opened them again at her touch. "I'll live," he grunted with all the words he could muster, but managing a weak smile. He never liked being vulnerable himself, so he tried to shrug it off with gruff humor.
The morning heat finally reminded Grissom to remove the jacket he'd worn through the night's chilly work; he passed it over to the woman so she could cover her exposed skin. She took the proffered clothing without comment, sliding the sleeves up to her elbows and snapping just the middle three buttons shut. No hint of embarrassment. Her breathing had calmed considerably.
"So, you say you don't know where you are? How did you get here?" asked Grissom.
"No, I don't know — and I think I'd have a better idea where I am if I did know how I got here. From the looks of the vegetation, I'd guess somewhere near Four Corners," her mouth now twisted into a smile, "but you don't look like Joe Leaphorn, nor does he," her lips twisted peculiarly towards Brass, "look like Jim..." She continued holding the detective's hand gently, speaking softly as if to keep him calm. Only Grissom could see the occasional wild looks she darted out at the surrounding scrubland, as if trying to discern from the landscape what had happened to her.
"I am Jim," Brass corrected, cracking a weak smile through the pain.
"Surely not Sergeant Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police," she said with a twinkle in her eye. "Then I'd know I was dreaming!"
"No, Captain Jim Brass, Clark County Homicide. Who's Joe Leaphorn?" he asked.
"Lieutenant Leaphorn — y'know, Tony Hillerman? The author?" she asked looking at both of them in turn, failing to find any spark of recognition. "Nevermind. You probably don't have much time to read what amateurs have to say about your profession..." she turned towards Grissom, abruptly dropping the subject "You wouldn't happen to have any first aid supplies there in that case, would you?" she asked, nodding over to the evidence kit Grissom had dropped.
Grissom walked back to pick it up. "Yeah, I think there are some things we could use until the ambulance gets here. Luckily, the emergency center back at Searchlight has anti-venom available, snakebites being more common out here." He turned to Brass, "they'll probably transfer you up to Desert Palms for a few days after that." He rummaged around in his kit for alcohol and gauze to clean the wound area.
"You should probably go back to the road soon to guide the EMT's," Brass suggested through gritted teeth as the alcohol burned his broken skin.
Grissom's eyes flickered worriedly over the woman not wanting to leave her alone with his gravely injured friend, so he suggested to her, "Perhaps you should go while I finish here?" He examined the shirt tied at calf-level, impressed by the firm tightness that slowed progress of the poison — tight enough to keep the poison in check, but not tourniquet tight that might kill the limb. He wished he had a blood pressure cuff to use for more precise control, but this temporary remedy would do well enough until the ambulance arrived.
"Sure," she assented easily, but then hesitated. "Um, where's the road?"
"You don't know?"
She shook her head, no. "I came from over there, where the dead body — woman — is." She pointed through the steep hill that bore the heel marks of her hurried slide down to help Brass.
"Were you there when she died?" Grissom asked cautiously, not wanting to accuse her of murder until he'd had a chance to collect and examine the evidence.
"I doubt it." To Grissom's raised eyebrow, she elaborated, "I think I'd be a lot thirstier than I am if I'd been around."
Gauging by the woman's cracked lips and dry skin, Grissom wondered how long the body had been exposed to the elements.
Brass nodded as if confirming her account, but added meaningfully, "Before the snake bit me, she described the body as slightly desiccated." From his long professional relationship with Brass, Grissom understood that the detective was pointing out the significant choice of words. Average citizens would say 'dried out' instead of 'desiccated.'
"And I was walking for a while before I saw it — her," the woman continued.
"Walking? From where?" Grissom prompted, momentarily forgetting the impending ambulance arrival. He noted the woman's internal conflict between talking neutrally about "it" or placing "her" in a human context. Green recruits to the gritty side of law enforcement, filled with objective book theory but new to the actual experience of messy crime scenes, often displayed this same conflict. The use of the neutral term first, though, increased the likelihood that the body was long dead when she found it, thereby backing up her story.
"Not sure. It was all automatic-pilot — like I wasn't really aware what was going on — until I saw her. She was lying there, and I checked to see if she was alright and..." she paused with the expression of relived horror/disbelief so commonly seen on witnesses' faces. "I was trying to figure out what to do next, having climbed that hill," she pointed to where Brass had found her, "and seen nowhere to go. And then Jim here walked by... So, where's the road?"
Remembering that he had turned quite a few corners, picking his way through the prickly brush (and just now wondering how Grissom figured out where he'd gone), Brass suggested to the scientist, "Why don't you go back and show them the way. She'll keep me company. I've got bottled water and an extra t-shirt in the trunk of my car. That coat's gotta be too hot, and you'll be wanting it back for work tonight." He dragged his keys out of his pocket to hand over to Grissom. They'd need to drive his car back for him, too.
After Grissom left, Brass eyed his rescuer through half-closed lids. Through searing agony, he toughed it out, refusing to allow the groan in his throat to voice itself. Involuntarily, he gripped her fingers that curled over his hand into his palm, when a spasm of pain threatened his composure. For a moment his mind flashed back to a time before his marriage went sour, when his ex-wife had held his hand like that briefly at the breakfast table. He welcomed that feeling of old comfort.
"It'll be all right. You just need to lie still and the ambulance will be here. I can hear the sirens getting closer," she murmured soothingly. "Say, what do you do to calm down after a hard day at work?"
"J&B doubles," he admitted, realizing she was trying to keep him occupied and awake, and knowing from his emergency training that it would be better for him to allow the distraction. Besides, he liked the lopsided smile on her face.
"On the rocks?"
"No, straight."
"Here," she said, reaching over holding an imaginary tumbler. "Drink this. It should keep your heart rate down and help you stay still." He took the invisible drink and tipped it back, feeling the numbing burn of his favorite drink, even if it wasn't real. She was right — it did calm him down. Made it easier to cope.