They continued their ascent. This time without incident. Progress was slow, but steady. They eventually reached the top and took only a moment to rest. Then they gathered up their belongings and exited the cave. Just outside the entrance, they stopped again.

Vincent was in poor condition and Ezra honestly wasn't much better off. He'd had more than his fair share of injuries. They just hadn't been quite as life threatening as Vincent's. As if that weren't enough, he was also carrying extra weight now, since Vincent could barely manage to carry himself.

Ezra studied Vincent as they sat recouping their energy. He was less than encouraged by Vincent's condition. He was pallid and sickly. Ezra scanned the horizon and noted that they were getting off to a late start.

Currently, they still had an opportunity to make it back to camp in time, but with each passing moment, the window of opportunity closed further than the moment before. He wanted to rush down, but he could tell Vincent needed more time to recover. And he knew he needed to inspect Vincent's bandages again.

"Let me have a look at your leg." He said.

"We don't have time for that." Vincent retorted, looking out over the horizon. "We need to get moving."

"Normally I would agree, but you got mauled by a bear for cryin' out loud. This isn't a flesh wound you can just shrug off."

"I should be able to. Pa would have shrugged it off. He could shrug of just about anything." Vincent said adamantly.

"And look where that got him." Ezra said.

Vincent shot him a look that told him he was on dangerous ground.

"God rest his soul." Ezra interjected. Attempting to repair the damage.

Vincent didn't respond. Ezra grew uncomfortable in the silence and searched for some way to dissolve the tension.

"He was a tough old badger, I'll give him that, but I think we'd all appreciate if you stuck around a while longer than your Pa did."

Vincent's expression changed and Ezra knew he'd hit a nerve. He appeared to have gotten through to him.

"Ok," he said. Stretching out his leg with a wince. "Let's hurry and get it over with." Ezra was relieved Vincent had acquiesced.

He suppressed a smile, as he wasn't sure if it would be interpreted as intended at the moment.

Vincent probably would have protested further, had he been able to muster the energy, ever the stubborn old mule. As it was, he said nothing. Ezra sat down next to Vincent and began carefully peeling back the bandages to inspect the wound. His eyes widened as he lifted the bandage revealing a gory mess.

He'd forgotten just how severe it had been. Ezra quickly forced his expression to return to normal. He didn't want to cause Vincent any undue worry. He decided it would be best not to reveal the severity of his wounds. He was having a hard enough go of it already and the last thing he needed was to be robbed of his optimism.

"How does it look?" Vincent asked warily.

Ezra forced a smile. "It's doing just fine, brother."

Vincent sighed with relief. "That's good to hear."

Ezra nodded. "You'll outlive your old man yet." As soon as he'd said it, he regretted bringing it back up and felt the tension return. He spoke again quickly, in an effort to move past the awkward moment.

"Just give me a minute to triage and then we can get on with it."

Ezra carefully unraveled the old bandages and methodically cleaned the wounds as best he could. Then tore up more linen to create new bandages. He glanced at Vincent momentarily as he worked.

"The good news is the bleeding has slowed down a lot. It's beginning to heal, but it's still very tender."

"What does that mean?" Vincent asked.

"It means that it's still in the early stages of healing and can easily be reopened if we're not careful. So don't try to shrug it off like some tough guy and end up ripping it open again. You're going to have to nurse it carefully for a while."

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"How long is a while?"

"A lot longer than you want it to be. You're going to have to be very patient with it."

Vincent took a deep breath. Ezra could tell this was difficult for him to hear. In many ways, he was an incredibly patient man. But he was the type that became stir crazy if he didn't have something to do. He needed to keep his body and mind working or he would quickly descend into misery. The challenge of waiting would be more difficult for him than the pain itself.

Ezra worked very carefully not to undo the progress Vincent's body had made in repairing the torn flesh. Unfortunately, it was taking far longer than either of them would have liked. Ezra could sense Vincent becoming restless.

"This is taking too long. We need to get moving or we're not going to make it. Let's just hurry and finish this off so we can get going."

"We can't rush this. It has to be done right."

"We don't have that luxury right now. We'll have to make do with good enough."

Ezra was still committed to keeping Vincent from worrying about his condition, but sometimes he just wouldn't listen to reason.

"Look Vincent, you've lost a lot of blood. I don't want to worry you, but we need to take this seriously."

"I am taking it seriously. The problem is time is wasting and that puts us both in danger. I'd rather take the risk on myself than put us both in jeopardy."

This took Ezra off guard. He wasn't sure how to respond.

"Okay, it's settled then," Vincent said as he attempted to stand.

"Whoa hold on there partner." Ezra said, finding his voice. "The problem with that logic is that I've already taken up a lot of time to get this right. If I finish haphazardly, it would be time wasted and at this point, would put us in a worse position."

"How do you figure?"

"If you tear your wound again, you might bleed out. And even if you don't, it would severely slow us down and then there'd be no chance for us to make it back in time. It's best we just finish it up properly and then we can be on our way."

Vincent couldn't find a way to argue with that point. He sighed, summoning as much patience as he could muster. Ezra continued his work, focusing intently on the task. His actions were smooth and methodical until triage was completed.

"There, that wasn't so bad, was it?" Ezra said, standing.

"Depends on what you mean by that. I would agree, except that it's nearly noon. I don't know if we can make it."

Ezra pulled off his hat and nervously ran his fingers through his hair. "We did lose a lot of time, but it is the middle of summer. That gives us more time than we would've had otherwise."

Vincent considered this. He did have a point, but neither of them could deny that time was fast becoming their enemy. "True," Vincent said as he struggled to his feet.

Ezra placed his hat back on his head and adjusted it into place with a look of determination. "Well, no sense in standing around worrying about lost time. We need to get moving."

"I agree, Vincent said. But we should stock up on water before we get too excited."

"That's a good idea." Ezra said.

They made their way to the nearest water source and drank their fill. Then replenished all of the water containers. It felt good to know they had sufficient water supply, but it added to their already considerable burden in terms of weight.

Neither of them could help scrutinizing the hot sun. The giant time-keeping mechanism in the sky, constantly reminded them of their dilemma. The threat of darkness was ever looming and only increasing with each passing moment. Ezra studied Vincent, careful to use his peripheral vision because he didn't want Vincent to catch on to his anxiety.

As he watched Vincent shambling slowly, Ezra noted he was beginning to look more and more like a walking corpse. Vincent-- stoic as ever-- did his best to ignore just how much he was suffering. Despite his efforts, his ghoulish appearance gave him away. Vincent glanced up at the sun again and turned to Ezra, deep worry lines marring his face.

"We’ll make it back, right brother?"

"Of course, Ezra said," a little too quickly.

Vincent beamed. Ezra smiled back weakly. He held his smile for as long as he could, not wanting to give himself away. Vincent didn’t seem to notice. He had always been an optimist and while Ezra feigned the same, he was beginning to lose hope. Though he was not considered old -- in fact he was considered to be in his prime-- Ezra had seen much in his time.

In times such as these, one could not afford to neglect the development of one's sense of instinct. He had naturally honed this skill. In truth, it was more than a skill. It was a sixth sense. It had become quite keen over the years and was very rarely wrong. He'd learned to trust it, which had saved his life countless times. His instinct was sharper now more than ever.

He recognized it in the pit of his stomach and in the beat of his heart. It was speaking loud and clear. It said if something didn't change...

He was a dead man.