Robert Liparulo - The 13 th tribe

“Stop!” Jagger said, shaking his head. Beth should be there, he knew. To be with her son, to give Tyler comfort, to force Jagger to move. But he didn’t want her to see Tyler this way, bloody, barely holding on. It would rip her apart. “Beth… don’t…”

She didn’t slow but came full-on into his nightmare, tears already streaming down her face. She fell to her knees beside them. Her hands shot toward Tyler, stopped inches from him, hovered-wanting so much to touch him, but afraid her love would cause him pain, hurt him worse. Or was it, Jagger thought- scratch, scratch, scratch — that to her, physical contact and only that would make this horror real?

“Jag-What, what-?”

He heard the meaning behind each syllable. Tell me he’s fine! What do we do, what can we do?

She groaned, a mother’s agony. “Tyler-”

And what assaulted Jagger’s mind was everything Tyler ever had been-the wrinkled pink newborn, mad as a hive of bees at being extracted from the warm cocoon he had known; the five-year-old planting his entire face in his birthday cake and coming up a laughing abominable snowman-and as he was now, the boy whose love and joy was a sun that could burn away his parents’ gloomiest moods.

Beth’s torment broke Jagger’s paralysis.

“Give me your sweater,” he said. She stripped it off, and when he moved his hand from Tyler’s back to press the material against the wound, she caught a glimpse. She gasped as fresh tears poured down her face. She clamped a hand over her mouth. New energy surged through him, adrenaline and determination incited by the urgent distress of the woman he loved. In his weakest time she had become strong, willing and able to carry them both; now it was his turn.

“Keep this pressed over the wound,” he said.

She nodded and pressed her hands against the balled-up sweater.

Tyler’s legs were sprawled across Jagger’s, his bare feet canted at awkward angles on the stone terrace. Jagger shifted and got a foot under himself. He rocked forward and rose up, pulling Tyler into his arms.

“What are you going to do?” Beth asked.

“We need Ollie’s Jeep.”

“Help!” Beth screamed over her shoulder. “Someone! Help!” Jagger started to walk, Beth sidestepping with him, keeping her hands on the sweater. She said, “When I heard you and came out, I passed Father Jerome. He said they turned on the bells to call for help from the town. Someone should be coming.”

“Who?” Jagger said, shaking his head. There was a doctor in town who manned a little clinic. He’d met him once, to get a prescription for stronger painkillers when a persistent ache in his stump had kept him up three nights straight. The doc looked as old as the monastery and moved like he had glass shards in his joints. He doubted the guy had treated anything more severe than a few cuts and bruises from clumsy tourists, a stomach bug now and then. But he was a doctor; he’d have equipment, supplies. Jagger moved faster.

Before they’d crossed half the terrace, a stranger rushed up the stairs and pointed a gun at them.

Beth froze and Jagger turned, putting his body between the stranger and Tyler. The sweater fell away, hitting the terrace with a sickening plop. Frustration and anger made Jagger feel like a racehorse straining at the gate: he wanted to move, go crazy, stomp over anyone preventing him from getting help for his son. But giving in to that impulse would get him killed, and that wouldn’t be in Tyler’s best interest. So he held it in, waiting to explode.

“What?” he yelled, glaring over his shoulder at the man with the gun.

The man looked like a lumberjack: long-sleeved flannel shirt, worn workman boots, a shaggy mess of hair that flowed into an equally shaggy beard.

“ What do you want? ”

The man set the pistol on the terrace and kicked it away. “I’m sorry,” he said, walking forward. “I saw the destruction at the gate. I didn’t know who you were in the dark.”

“Stay away,” Jagger said.

The man stopped ten paces from them. He said, “I’m a doctor. I’m here to help.”

“You’re not from the clinic,” Jagger said.

“My name is Owen Letois. A man called me. He had a head injury, and the monks had taken him in.”

Jagger thought it through quickly and decided it made sense. If this Owen guy was one of the attackers, why would he come back? If the woman had meant them further harm, she’d had the opportunity and no doubt the constitution to do it herself. He turned around, and Owen hurried to him.

He dropped to his knees, reached into a pouch on his belt, and pulled out a penlight. He examined the wound. “No air. I don’t think the bullet struck a lung. Heavy blood flow, but it’s not pulsing out, so his major arteries are intact.”

“But there’s so much,” Jagger said.

Owen stood and offered a weak smile. “I’ve seen worse.”

Beth grabbed Owen’s arm. “So he’ll be okay?”

Owen frowned. “He could still bleed out, and I can’t know what organs may have been damaged.”

Beth covered her mouth again and shook her head.

To Jagger, Owen whispered, “What’s his name?”

Jagger told him.

The man leaned close to Tyler, took the boy’s head in his big hands, and gently turned it toward him. He ran his fingers over Tyler’s skin, along his forehead. “How are you feeling, Tyler? Sleepy?”

Tyler nodded.

Owen spread open Tyler’s eyelids and flashed the light into them. “I need you to stay awake, okay? Can you do that?”

Another nod.

“Do you feel sick, like you have to throw up?”

Tyler’s eyes drooped shut.

“Tyler?” Owen said, slapping his face lightly. “Wake up, son.”

“Thirsty,” Tyler said.

“We’ll get you some water soon.” Owen ripped open the boy’s khaki shirt. Buttons popped and tinked onto the terrace. He ran his hands over Tyler’s chest, stomach, neck, into his armpits and down each side. “No exit wound. The bullet’s still in there. If we move him too much it could do a lot of damage.” He turned to Beth. “Go get a bed, one of the little ones the monks use. Not the-”

Gheronda and two monks appeared at the top of the stairs. Owen snapped his head toward them.

“You?” Gheronda said.

“A bed!” Owen yelled. “I need a bed, just the board, not the mattress or frame. Now! ”

Gheronda spoke to the other monks, and they hurried down the stairs.

“And blankets!” Owen yelled after them. Gheronda repeated the call, then started toward them.

Owen said, “Do you have any saline or blood expanders-Hetastarch, Voluven, Pentaspan…?”

“No,” Gheronda said. He waved his arm. “Only the basics. Ointment, gauze-”

“Get them,” Owen said. “Meet us out front at my helicopter.”

“Helicopter?” Jagger said. “That was you… coming in?”

“I was in a hurry.” That seemed to remind him of something, and he looked back at the retreating monk. “Gheronda.” When the old man turned he said, “Creed called me. Is he-?”

Gheronda shook his head, then continued away. Owen lowered his face.

“What are we doing?” Jagger said. “We have to do something.”

Owen’s eyes snapped to his. “We need to stop the bleeding and get him on a board to keep him as immobile as possible.” He reached into his pouch. “I have a blood-clotting gauze…” He pulled out an empty wrapper, crumpled it, and tossed it away. “I did have it.” He shook his head, said, “It’s fine.” His hand went behind him and reappeared with a wallet. He flipped it open and pulled out a credit card, which he pressed against the hole in Tyler’s back. “This will form a better seal over the wound than a compress alone. Ma’am, could you push that material over this?”