Mark Gimenez - The Governor's wife

"I used illegal Mexicans." He held his serious expression a beat then smiled. "The residents volunteered their labor."

He had not taken his eyes off her. Lindsay felt her face blush like a teenage girl, so she broke eye contact, stepped over and placed the binder on the desk, then returned as the governor's wife.

"Dr. Rincon, the congressman says the residents here trust you. We need them to be counted for the census, so the state can get federal funds to help them."

"And do you think that will happen?"

"That we'll get federal funds?"

"That the state will help these people?"

"If you will help us."

"I will help you, but I will wait to see if the state will help them. Leave the forms here with Inez…" He glanced around. "Where is Inez now? Well, leave the forms on her desk, and she will help the people complete them."

"Thank you." She paused then said, "Doctor, may I ask you a question?"

"Certainly."

"Why did you come back? Does working here make you feel useful?"

"Useful? Yes, I suppose it does."

"He is a role model for the children," the congressman said.

The doctor shook his head. "No, Ernesto, I am no role model. The girls want to be madres, and the boys want to be soldados, making a thousand dollars a day with the fancy pickup trucks and young women on their arms. That is the life they want."

"A short life it is," the congressman said.

"Yes, but they would rather live one day as a king than fifty years as a peasant. But one day is often all they have."

The door behind them suddenly swung open, and two large Latino men burst in carrying an unconscious teenage boy and the harsh smell of sweat and gunpowder. The boy's head and limbs hung limp; blood soaked his white T-shirt. The bigger man carried a handgun in his waistband. The congressman pulled Lindsay back. The dog by the door stood.

"Stay, Pancho," the doctor said to the dog. To the men, he said in Spanish, "On the table."

"Mrs. Bonner," the congressman whispered in her ear, "we must leave. For your safety. These men, they are cartel soldados."

He tugged on her arm, but she held her ground. The adrenaline had kicked in.

"Gunshot?" the doctor asked.

" Si," the smaller man said.

The men lay the boy on the examining table. The doctor pulled on latex gloves then grabbed a pair of scissors and cut the boy's shirt down the center. He took a towel and wiped blood from the boy's chest. He spoke to the men in Spanish.

"What kind of gun?"

" Cuerno de chivo."

"An AK-47??Aqui? In the colonia? "

" No. Alli. Across the river."

The doctor did not look up from the boy.

"The federales shot this boy?"

" Si," the man without a gun said.

"That is a high-velocity projectile," the doctor said. "It usually causes severe internal damage. There is not much hope for this boy. Get that gun out of my clinic."

The big man glared at the doctor a moment then said, "Do not let him die, Doctor. It would not be good for any of us."

The doctor's eyes met his for a long moment, then the man turned and walked out the door without so much as a glance at Lindsay and the congressman. She inched closer to the examining table. The doctor checked the boy's breathing and listened to his heart with a stethoscope.

"You should have taken him to the hospital."

"You know we cannot take him there."

"How old is he?"

" Diecinueve. "

Nineteen.

"What is his name?"

"Jesus."

Hay-zeus.

"Is he your son?"

"No."

The doctor jerked his head at the door. "His?"

"No."

The doctor examined the boy's chest.

"Entry wound through the right chest wall…" He rolled the boy onto his left side and checked his back. "… but no exit wound. The bullet is still in him. I do not see any other entry or exit wounds."

The man nodded. " Uno. "

The doctor put his ear close to the boy's chest. With each breath, Lindsay could hear a sucking sound. A sucking chest wound, also known as a penetrating thoracic trauma. He needed a chest tube stat.

"I must insert a chest tube," the doctor said.

The boy coughed violently and spit up blood. The doctor put his finger in the entry wound. He pointed with his free hand to a nearby table.

"Hand me that scalpel."

The man glanced from the doctor to the table and then to his own bloody hands. He did not move.

"?Bisturi! " the doctor said again.

Lindsay stepped over, picked up the scalpel, and held it out to the doctor.

"I'll start IVs," she said.

The doctor gave her a puzzled look.

"I was an ER nurse in San Antonio. We had a lot of gunshot wounds."

"Coat and gloves."

He took the scalpel.

Bode Bonner held a giant pair of two-handed fake scissors with the blade open over a wide red ribbon stretched across the front entrance of an organic grocery store in north Austin. Thirty minutes after leaving the elementary school, cameras clicked and store employees applauded as Bode cut the grand opening ribbon. The governor of Texas reduced to opening a grocery store, like Michael Jordan doing underwear commercials. Why?

"Smile, Bode," Jim Bob whispered so close that Bode felt his hot breath in his ear. "They gave half a million bucks to your campaign."

Governor Bode Bonner smiled.

The adrenaline energized Lindsay Bonner's body. An emergency room offered a rush like no other nursing experience. She had been a certified trauma nurse. She had kept her license current, perhaps in the hope that one day she might again be a nurse. That she might again be useful.

"Mrs. Bonner," the congressman said, "all the blood…"

She removed her suit coat and tossed it to the congressman. He stood alone by the front desk with the dog; the doctor had sent the other man outside to wait. She grabbed a lab coat hanging on a rack and put it on. She pulled on latex gloves then checked the boy's pulse and took his blood pressure.

"Pulse is one-forty-two, blood pressure is seventy over forty. He's in shock from the bleeding."

She found two saline bags and attached them to a stand. She searched the shelves and found two sixteen-gauge needles and antiseptic. She wiped the boy's left wrist with antiseptic then inserted a needle into his vein. She connected the IV. The doctor opened the entry wound in the boy's right chest wall; blood spurted out.

"He is hemorrhaging. We must open him up."

"A thoracotomy, here? Without a CT first? To see what's inside him?"

"We must work blind. If we do not, he will surely die."

"Mrs. Bonner," the congressman said. "Please, I must take you back to Laredo."

The doctor looked at her.

"I'm staying," she said.

"Jesse, please," the congressman said.

"Ernesto, I cannot do this by myself. I need her help."

The congressman made the sign of the cross. The doctor turned back to the boy and performed an endotracheal intubation as if it were a daily routine. He walked over to a small refrigerator and removed yogurt and peanut butter and a blood bag.

"O-negative." He tossed the bag to the congressman. "Ernesto, please take this outside and hold it in the sun for a few minutes, to warm it up."

The congressman held the bag as if holding a live human heart. He disappeared through the door. Lindsay started another IV for the blood transfusion.

"Help me get him on his left side," the doctor said.

The doctor pushed and she pulled until the boy was propped up on his side. She held him while the doctor ran gray duct tape around the boy's waist and then around the table until he was securely in place. The doctor positioned the boy's right arm above his shoulder, then picked up a clean scalpel and leaned over the boy. He felt down the boy's side to locate the fourth and fifth ribs. He then placed the scalpel between the two ribs and slid it down the boy's side. Blood appeared along the the incision.