Chapter 8

I was surprised to wake before sunrise, or at least I thought it was before sunrise. My watch said it was five and I figured it had to be AM. I got out of bed anyway, pissed, dressed, and started a pot of coffee. Then I went to the door with my day/night binoculars to take a look.

As best I could tell I was in the exact same spot as before and I thought I could see the bullet holes in the big tree I'd used to give my demonstration to Frenchy. It wasn't a surprise since it was what I expected. It gave me at least the impression of being somewhere familiar.

I scanned around the verge and thought I saw a group of Indians, apparently just waking up. After a few seconds I recognized the first brave I'd worked on.

As I walked toward them he saw me and started my way. My first thought was that I'd been stupid by not getting Doctor Jorgenson or even Meka to teach me a few words of the language. I could have at least learned enough to say hello.

I gave him the palm forward How that had worked last time and then we nodded at each other. He motioned toward someone that was lying on the ground; it was the youngest boy I'd treated the first time. I knelt beside him, and checked his forehead with the back of my hand.

He had fever. His makeshift bed had some type of animal fur covering him, I pulled it back, and the problem was easy to see. His wound was suppurated, and swelling slightly. It looked like it had begun healing over and then broken open again from the pressure to drain.

I pulled the bedding completely away from him and motioned for the brave to come with me, then stopped, pointing to my chest and saying my name. The brave looked at me and then repeated it, getting John in one.

He then pointed to his chest and said his name; Jahedo was as close as I could come and he smiled slightly when I said it, and then nodded. I led him into the house and we went over to the new gurneys.

I figured out the release, raised the bed, and then pushed it toward the door, indicating with gestures that he should take the end that required walking backward. I know it might have been mean of me, but dammit, I hated to have that end of anything.

We rolled it right up beside the boy, I lowered it, and with Jahedo's help the boy was loaded and up to waist high, ready to roll, in seconds. We pushed him back near the door but I didn't take him inside. I wanted the additional light from outside while I worked.

Digging around in the new medicine, I saw that Bob, or someone, had put extra labels on some of the new things in my stash. Such as, local anesthetic, on the bottle of Xylocaine. I fished it and a small disposable syringe out along with some alcohol and cotton swabs. I noticed a box of rubber gloves, they were new arrivals, and I decided that now would be a good time to try them.

I was looking around for a table or something else to put the things I needed on, so they'd be close to hand, and spied a tray that looked like nothing more than a stainless steel version of the old trays that car hops formerly used to bring your food out, at the drive-in. They'd hang the tray on your lowered window. You do remember carhops, don't you?

Armed with this, I put the supplies on it and took it out to the gurney. There was a special place to attach it, on either side, and in a minute I was in business.

I cleaned the area with alcohol and the swabs first, and then did it again. When I was satisfied, I used an aerosol antiseptic too. After giving that a couple of minutes to work, I injected the local several places around the wound. I could remember seeing a doctor do this very thing before he sewed up a nasty slice I'd installed on my own arm. In fact, it had been Doctor James.

Next, the old stitches came out and then I opened the healed over parts again with a scalpel, trying to go only deep enough to release the pus. The little guy was being brave about it, but I could tell he had some pain, local or no. He soldiered on though and after about ten minutes I figured I'd done all I could with this.

I used another needle to see if he was good and numb yet. He seemed to be, so I got the attachment for hanging an IV bag out of the house and put it on the gurney in it's holder. Next was actually putting a bag of saline solution up.

I'd found some small, soft nylon bristled sterile brushes - they looked exactly like a very small scrub brush - and I opened one and a bottle of Phisohex, cut the end off the saline solution's tube to use it as wash water and went to town.

This was more of the treatment I'd received for the, self-inflicted, slashed arm I mentioned. It made my stomach queasy then and it did now but I did it anyway. I used the Phisohex soap to scrub his wound. The parts that were open again bled a little, and as the blood mixed with the soap bubbles it gave me a nice red foam.

After rinsing and repeating I figured I'd done all I could on this end. I let it dry for a couple of minutes and then gave it a good spraying of Granulex. I finished with and injection of the mixed Penicillin G Procaine and Liquamycin La-zoo George had ordered.

Jahedo and I wheeled him inside after that and managed to raise the back of the gurney so he could recline a little instead of lying flat. I fetched him a big bottle of Gatorade and microwaved a couple of cornbread muffins for him.

He liked the Gatorade right off the bat and the cornbread disappeared promptly too. After ten minutes or so to let it settle, I gave him an aspirin and a two-milligram Valium.

Back outside, I realized that there were more Indians here this time than there had been before. I was looking them over when I saw the other boy I'd treated before and went over to examine him.

His wound looked fine, it was coming along nicely. Ditto for the older woman who came right up when she saw that I was checking on my patients. I gave Jahedo a look after that and he was also in good shape.

Deciding that I should look over all the rest, just in case, I made Jahedo understand what I wanted, and they were soon queued up. There were about thirty or so of them here now and Jahedo managed the line for me. The only other thing I ran across was a nasty scrape on a boy I thought to be around ten, and I had it cleaned up and bandaged in a few minutes.

Jahedo and another brave came with me when I motioned, but when Jahedo realized I was heading for the freezer again, he stopped and made me understand that he'd be providing the food today.

I don't guess it was Jahedo in person who did it, I don't think his arm was up to that yet, but a couple of hours later there was a good sized ring of stones in my yard and a fire going. I went back in the house to look at the boy, gave him another coat of Granulex, and then sat at my desk reading thorough my new medical info.

My neck was tired after an hour and a half or so, and I'd come to the conclusion that we needed a real Paramedic at the ranch if this kind of trip kept coming up. I was happy when Jahedo interrupted me by calling my name from just outside the door.

When I reached him and saw what he had in mind, I went back for the new camera and then headed outside to record this shindig for Ethel and the others. We were having the Indian equivalent of a cook out, but I guess they always cooked out.

I got good shots of the real meal deal though, and then took a break for some fresh, really fresh, venison. So fresh that I could still see a sixteen or so year old boy scraping the hide that had just come off the venison. With the first bite I thought of Meka and hoped she'd already learned this recipe.

There were a couple of other dishes too. The venison was just sort of handed out and you had to bite off part of your share, a mouthful at a time. They had two types of vegetables, some type of bean and roasted corn the beans were in a type of rudimentary ceramic bowl of obvious Caddo manufacture.

The surprise to me was the fry bread. Hell, I didn't know Indians had any kind of bread. I guess it wasn't a big surprise though. There was probably a hell of a lot I didn't know about them.

We'd rolled the boy out for his meal and he seemed to be doing better already. No doubt the aspirin had a lot to do with that, so I gave him another one after he finished eating and I left him outside for a while.

I was glad that we'd replenished my supply of cutlery, because I intended to pass out more knives this time. Right now, I went back in the house and brought out the sharpening steels I'd had George order, both the rough and fine models, so I could try to show them how to do it.

Jahedo surrendered his knife after a few seconds of gestures and I tested the edge with my thumb, making sure they were watching. After having him do the same thing, I gave it several swipes across the fine steel and it was back in shape. I knew he'd cut his thumb when he tested it this time and he didn't disappoint me, but it wasn't very deep. He smiled over it.

All of them wanted their knives sharpened after that, and Jahedo's woman was the first in line. I tested her blade and found it in even worse shape, so I showed her how to tell the difference between the coarse and fine steel and the let her do it, with all the assistance and advice I could give.

She got the hang of it faster than I'd thought she would, and after a few licks with the coarse steel, I tested the edge and switched her to the fine one after I let her test the edge. She was proficient with both the steels and the process after thirty minutes, and I had her do the knife for the next in line. She could teach the others later if I got her trained, after all, she could talk to them.

While they were at it I went back to the house to get more knives. These were still kitchen knives and I felt stupid for not thinking of some more traditional hunting types. I'd have some if I came back again, and I was sure I'd be back either here or somewhere else.

Ethel, or whoever, had bought the knives in complete sets and since I had four more sets this time, I now had five cleavers. They made me think of hatchets and hatchets made me remember axes and then shovels too, for some reason. I had a round point and a square point shovel in the barn, and a double bit axe. I went for them and then headed back to the crowd.

I gave a short demonstration of the new equipment and they were amazed most by the shovels, and even more surprised when they realized I was making them gifts. Soon they were producing anything they could think of to return the favor.

Of course I was glad to take anything they had made but I tried not to take anything they might not be able to replace easily. I declined anything that seemed it would be hard to make or had a ceremonial look. I tried to give the impression that the things I didn't take were too fine for what I was trading. I'm not sure if I got the notion over successfully.

I had to relax my rule after a while though. I wanted them to have all the knives and cleavers, plus the axe, and both shovels. They began balking after I'd refused too many of their trade items. Besides, they brought out some really nice ceramics and I knew both Doctor Jorge and Ethel would be thrilled with them.

As they were getting revved up for another meal, I got the feeling that I would be leaving tonight. The boy would probably be fine now, but I had no way to make sure. Finally I went inside and looked through the medicine. I thought I'd seen some penicillin tablets and I had.

I put twelve in one of my old medicine bottles and then took them out to try an explanation. It was a job, but Jahedo's woman seemed to catch on. I pointed to the sun first, and then pointed to where it rose and then showed her one tablet and pointed it at the boy.

I repeated the process for sundown, with one pill, and then pointed to the boy again. Then I took out two pills and shook my head, putting one back into the bottle and nodding. I think she understood.

I gave him one more coat of Granulex and then soaked a gauze bandage with it before putting it on him. Using cotton swabs, I cleaned the excess from around the wound and then covered it, with gauze and then real Elasticon this time.

With hand signals again, I hope I made Jahedo's woman understand that she was to take the bandage off, gently, after four days.

We helped the boy out of the gurney then and he seemed like he was ready to cut loose and make up for lost time. I was able to settle him down with the help of the woman by shaking my head at his antics.

I tried for the biggest leap yet by holding up five fingers, one at a time, and shaking my head then pantomiming the whole sweep of the sun. Hoping that they understood they were to keep him down to a dull roar for five days. It was the best I could do.

It was nearly sunset before they left, and I'll admit I worried about them wandering around in the dark. I know it was stupid, they'd been doing it for centuries, but there you go.

I went in the house to get ready for bed. I was just toeing my boots off when I heard some noise from outside. I opened the door to look out, thinking it was probably an Indian coming back for some reason. It wasn't, it was a black bear and the biggest damned one I'd ever seen. Of course I'd only seen them in zoos.

It must have seen the light from my open door, because it looked directly at me and then headed my way, slowly thank God. If I hadn't been so surprised, I might have just closed the door and let him do what he would, then again, he might have smelled the horses and been able to get into the barn, even though it was closed.

I didn't take the time to think it through though, the Marlin was right by the door, and there was plenty of moonlight for iron sights. I picked it up and walked out a step so he could see me. He went up onto his hind legs, standing almost like a man and I fired, aiming at where I hoped his heart was.

The shot staggered the bear but it was still standing. It tried to roar a complaint but more blood than sound came out of its mouth. I knew then that it must be a fatal wound, but I wanted it to die now, so I shot again, a couple of inches lower.

This one knocked it over. It tried to get up but couldn't manage; finally it slumped as if deflated. In a way, I guess it was.

I wasn't sure it was dead, yet, but I knew it wouldn't be getting any better. I went back into the house, put two more rounds into the Marlin and stood it up beside the doorframe again. After undressing the rest of the way I crawled into bed and dropped right off to sleep.

At sunrise I woke, and as I came out of the bathroom I could hear George's truck coming down the road. I just had time to dress and pull on my boots before he knocked.

"Come on in, it's unlocked," I said, heading toward the kitchen to start some coffee.

"Daddy!" Meka shouted as she came in.

I turned toward her and opened my arms; she hopped up into them and hugged my neck.

"I happy see you," she said, still speaking precisely.