Chapter 2

Sand and scouring powder did for the tub. Eventually. The bathroom sink yielded up a porcelain surface. The toilet got a gallon of bleach and a quart of CLR after I plugged the outflow with a bundle of rags with a string around it. While the toilet soaked I scrubbed the outside and attacked the walls. I was soaked with sweat after all that, but it was worth it. It actually looked clean. I wrapped a rag around the tub, bathroom sink and kitchen sink nozzles and soaked all three with CLR. I could hear the sizzling in the quiet as the lime was eaten away. As that worked, I used my air force survival knife that I'd found cheap in a surplus shop and cut open the cans with no ends. I shaped them to the areas where the mouse holes were and hammered them into place with nails. I pulled two ground squirrel nests out of the furnace.

As I sat on the stoop watching the sunset I heard a coughing coming from under the trailer. My eyes opened as I thought over the possible sources. I gently pulled away the galvanized from near the door and saw two yellow eyes looking back at me.

At least it wasn't a snake. It was a big old yellow tabby cat.

He looked to be not much but skin and bones. I rose and went back inside to open a can of hash. Half went into a pie pan.

I carried it out and swiped a little on my finger. I held it out to him until I out-patienced him. He took a sniff and licked the finger clean. I pushed up the pan half way to him.

He crawled out on three feet. The fourth was leaving wet prints.

Be damned if he didn't crawl into my lap. I gently petted him.

I had my first patient. I lay my hand under his bad paw and looked at it. a curl of metal from a can opener had wrapped around his paw and buried itself deep between two pads. I carried him in and laid him down on a towel on the sink's drainboard. I put out a pan of water and swished his bad paw in it. I left him drinking as I got my kit. I took a small field medical kit, a pair of pliers, a pair of wire cutters and a pound jar of honey.

He just watched as I snipped the sharp metal clipping in half, then slowly worked it off his foot and out of his clevis. I refilled the water and swished his paw in it again. He licked that thing six ways from Sunday before he was happy. Then came the part I was worried about. I dipped my finger in the honey and held it under his nose. He sniffed it, then cleaned my finger. He was happily purring away. I used my finger to dab honey into the wound and covered it with gauze. I didn't use a fastener, I just knotted it gently. I held him up on my shoulder as I cleaned up with one hand. I ate half a can of cold hash for dinner and we went to bed on my pallet, my first customer a happy camper. I had a roommate.

Monday, dawn. I woke up and looked at the ceiling. I remember thinking that now I'd have to tackle the clinic. I rose, peed, cooked 2 eggs for the cat and 2 eggs for me. I let the cat outside, left it a full pan of water and took off on my morning run, this time in a different direction, up the road. The pines smelled wonderful in the early daylight but the sandy soil let me know that I'd be building better leg muscles fast. It was five miles, give or take. The cat was waiting for me on the stoop. I walked up to him and petted behind his ears. He bumped his haed against my chest.

It was good to care for a little one again. That cat was a lean, mean purring machine. I left it a full tray of water and walked "downtown" to face the music.

Ancient eyes followed him, missing nothing. This one looked like a keeper.

The clinic was in almost as bad a shape as the trailer had been. It hadn't been painted in years. The air smelled of mildew, so there was a hole in the roof. There were tracks worn in the paint of the floor revealing bare concrete The pharmacy was hopeless. Nothing was left but broken glass.

The surgical tools were rusty. The Autoclave had a rotted seal and was totally unusable. Mice had been in the gauze and sterile supplies. At least it had an air conditioner. I turned it on and the circuit breaker blew.

Sigh. What a mess.

I sat at the rickety desk on what once passed for a chair. There was an old princess phone on the wall. Dialtone! A phone call to Littlerock found his old advisor in his office.

"Ed, it's David Pilath. I need an instamatic camera and film packs. This clinic isn't even a place to come to to die. I need to find any hospitals or army units that sometimes give out care packages. I need to rebuild this place from the ground up."

"I'll raise a stink. They can't just dump you there."

"Yeah? They did. Now it's war. I'm sending pictures to the newspapers."

"Don't burn your bridges."

"Nope, I'm bringing out the kitten in the basket." I thought for a while.

"You've got internet. Can you find out who disposes of decommissioned goods from Desert Storm and later? Going to a government supplied clinic might get me pushed up on their list, especially with some photo evidence of what's here. This is truly NASTY."

"Can do. Don't touch a thing. I'll next-day-air a camera and film to you, with whatever I find. What's the phone number there?"

I looked on the phone, and gave him the number. "I'll have a fax online by the end of today."

"Keep your pecker up. You haven't even begun triage yet."

"Sigh. I know. Starvation is the least I've seen."

"Keep in touch."

"Later."

The secretary for the tribe was still at her desk.

"May I meet with the tribal council? I'd like to give them a review and analysis of what I've seen and what I'm doing."

"Sure. Council meets here at 8:00 first Tuesday of the month. That's tomorrow.

"Thanks. Bye."

I went shopping for food. I had two to feed. I bought infant vitamins, burger, neck bones, corn meal, hash, spuds, carrots, peanut butter, grape jelly and bread.

I started a small stew in a 5 pound coffee can after burning it out. I reserved a hamburger patty for lunch, a thumb-sized glob for the cat and a marrow-filled neck bone for a kitty toy. The cat took the meat even after dosed with vitamins. After lunch the cat sat in the sun worrying at the bone, purring like a carpet beater gone mad. The paw wasn't weeping any more. I spent the afternoon making a map of the village, with a number for every trailer. I walked around the village drawing streets and putting in trailer numbers. I got a better picture of the population at the post office. Some thirty individuals lived in shacks outside of town. The postmaster gave me a good idea of where each lived. He knew of two with Alzheimer's and four that got insulin tablets in the mail regularly. Not bad for a village of sixty, very few under 50. I stopped into the store before heading home.

"Hey. Got any cigarettes?"

"Sure. In the cage. What tickles your whatever?"

"Umm, Lucky Strikes, I guess."

"You guess? Not a very positive smoker, are you?"

"Nope. for the elders."

She nodded. "Old ways. Not bad for a new guy."

I grinned. "Want to hear the corn chant?"

Her grin faded away fast. "You know the old chants?"

"Yup. Planting chant, harvest chant, birthing chant, passing over chant, corn chant, greening chant, hunting chant, many-fish chant, easing chant, honor-to-grandmother chant, honor-to-grandfather chant,..."

She put a hand over my mouth, lunging across the counter.

"Shhh! You sing those as outsider we'll need a new doc.

When you going to see the elders?"

"Tomorrow at 8:00."

"I'll meet you there. You need an invitation. And a sponsor."

Wow. So I had a sponsor. The cat and I had stew that night. It needed spicing up, but that could wait too. I looked through my stuff and found no leather. I took the half-full stew can in a rag and went a-begging.

I knocked on my neighbor's door. A woman answered the door. No, not a woman, a grandmother. I kept my eyes down and begged forgiveness for disturbing her and offered a meal as a potlatch gift. She smiled and led me in by the arm.

"You will look rich offering food. Many have not. Offering to some and not others will make, um, " She made two fists and knocked them together.

"Oh, discord. Fight without blows."

"Yes."

"I go to be sponsored tomorrow. I will call potlatch and make a stew for all. But first, I need sponsoring gifts. I will offer tobacco, corn meal and salt, but I have no leather for bags. If you have leather we can trade, or I will buy. I have need."

"I saw you with the cat, our warrior. I have need."

She turned around and slipped her dress up to show her hip. It was deeply abscessed with reddened flaky tissue around it. The hair on my head stood on end. I swept her up and laid her on her bed, sore up.

"Wait. I must get supplies next door."

I ran out, picked up an M17 pack and the open jar of honey.

As I entered her door I called out "have you any warm water?"

"On the stove."

I carried it with a rag into her bedroom. I shifted her onto a towel.

"This could be messy. There could be a worm in there. I need to look."

She groaned as I searched the wound with a light. I could find no parasite. I patted her ribs as I finished. "No more of that. Now let's pack that hole."

I filled it with almost four ounces of honey, then taped a piece of plastic over the wound to make it air-tight.

"Honey pulls moisture out. Honey kills germs, bacteria and fungus.

The Greeks used honey on wounds as do villages in central and South America today. Do you hurt?"

"Some. I can sleep."

"Let's us eat together and I'll give you a few pills. Take two every four hours or when it hurts. You must let me change the dressing tomorrow and the next day and the next, until the graininess is gone, the skin is soft and it begins to heal.

It should never smell bad again."

She smiled as I fed her stew and wiped her chin like a child.

I gave her 200mg Ibuprofen tablets and went home. I felt like a hero. I never did get the damned leather.

Tuesday morning. It was chilly but not bad. I ran again, this time with my staff. It seemed to be about six miles.

I stopped at the store after my run.

"Hi. I need you to order me fourteen cafeteria tables and seventy folding chairs with padded seats. Then find me ten checker sets, ten Chinese checker sets, ten Yahtzee sets, thirty poker decks, thirty euchre decks and two forty gallon kettles. Now for food, I'll need a flat of canned beans, a flat of canned tomatoes, twenty pounds of potatoes, a fistful of hot peppers, a flat of canned corn, twenty pounds of boneless pork ribs, you know-country ribs, five pounds of bread, three pounds of butter and enough koolaid for seventy. Oh, make that four kettles, so we can make the koolaid. We need sugar for the koolaid, paper towels, plastic bowls, spoons, knives and cups for all. Next weekend. Put out the word. Potlatch next Saturday noon at the village hall. Singer needs drummer. Oh, and would you please get me some boullion cubes and bay leaves? my stew sucks without 'em."

She sat there looking at me as if I'd grown horns.

"Are you fucking for real?"

I held out my arm. "Here. pinch test."

She grinned and pinched me. "Well, at least I'm not asleep."

She replied "Wanna get married?"

I got serious fast. "Let me tell you a really bad story some day."

I walked home fast. I sat and pet the cat for a while until I felt better. I went next door with a jar of honey and some supplies.

I'm glad that I had a wound irrigation syringe. I knocked on the door.

"Come in!"

There before me on the table lay three of the nicest little leather bags you could have asked for. I kissed her cheek. "Payment in full. Thank you. Now, let's change your dressing. I need a pan of warm water again.

We're going to make a mess with it and clean out your abscess to the ground floor, then re-pack it with fresh honey. After a week of this, things should get better real fast. I'll be challenging you to a run by October."

She grinned as I drenched the wound and repacked it. I didn't let her see the six small worms that came out with the irrigation.

The camera and film came in before 11:00. I took pictures of everything I could think of in that clinic, including the chewed up wiring in the air conditioner.

I had a PB & J for dinner. The cat got a half can of hash again. I had a fan. He lay on my belly and licked my chin as he purred. When he bit my chin and purred my eyeballs bounced up and down.

As it got dark I changed into my good clothes, took the filled gift bags with me as well as my bo and headed for the village hall. Jane from the store met me. She kept looking at me like she knew something was wrong. I kept looking ahead.

I was introduced to the elders. I bowed and made my gifts. I said my piece about the clinic and told them I would bring the place into the world kicking and screaming or die trying. Jane sponsored me into the tribe, saying I was a doctor, medicine man and singer. The elders thought she was nuts. Jane asked me to sing. I remembered an old, old chant. It was slow and low. It lamented the empty tent and missing children. It spoke of the treaties that lied and of the crops that would never grow straight again. It was one of the forbidden chants of the oklahoma tribes. I was weeping. I then started in on the sun dance chant, hammering away at the floor with my staff, wailing away for all I was worth.

"No! No! No! Do not call that chant! We cannot afford the lives that costs!"

I stood before them weeping, trembling. I turned and left. The doors boomed before me and behind me. I sat on a bench before the building, counting stars, trying to stop crying.

Someone sat beside me. A hoarse old voice talked to me.

"Great pain can bear witness to great wisdom, but it is hard, hard.

What makes you rise each day?"

I sat there looking out at the village of raped elders. Something came from deep within me.

"I protect. I heal. I will not stop. I cannot stop. I will walk over those in my way."

The elder beside me sighed. "We are not strong. We are old people here.

We live on our social security checks once a month. The gangs come and steal our money and beat the ones that do not give. Several are crippled from the beatings. You watch. The checks came today, first Tuesday.

Come Thursday or Friday they will come. They will come.

I whispered "potlatch Saturday. Count the heads on sticks."

I had something to live for.

The old man sat on the bench, silently weeping. War was coming.

War was coming again. The People always were caught in the middle, always lost. What could they lose now? There was nothing left.

I started doing katas as I walked home. I was home and these were my people. If a single one got hurt there would be retribution. I remembered the old testament stories from the religion classes long, long ago. Oh yes, there would be retribution. A cross was such an easy thing to make.

The next day, Wednesday, I spent the morning at the clinic, composing letters to places like newspapers, the Mayo clinic, the U.S.Army department of procurement and disposition, state teaching hospitals throughout the midwest and Canada, the office of the Governor and the state comptroller. I also sent a packet to the Catholic Diocese of St. Paul. I sent pictures of my neighbor's hip, the conditions of the village trailers, the full suite of photos from the clinic and a budget analysis with a minimum stocking level request that I worked up for the clinic, considering the population's average age and starvation conditions. There was a new Native American U.S. Senator from Oklahoma. He got the full suite, too. I pummeled the Chicago newspapers, Milwaukee papers, Madison papers, Davenport papers, Hell, I had to buy more film and Ed sent me ten packs of twelve.