Mike Mullin - Ashen Winter

Dr. McCarthy and his assistant, Belinda, were in one of the exam rooms working on patient files by the light of an oil lamp. Darla and I carried in our cannibal and heaved him on top of the examination table.

“Who’s this?” Dr. McCarthy said. “I don’t recognize him.”

“One of the guys who attacked our farm yesterday.”

The doctor picked up one of the bandit’s hands and looked at it for a moment, then held his fingers to the guy’s lips. “Lost a lot of blood. He needs a transfusion. We’ve got a donor system set up, but nobody’s going to want to donate to a bandit.”

“We need some information from him,” I said.

“I’ll do what I can, Hippocratic Oath and all, but-”

“I can pay. Two hundred kale seeds.”

Darla shot me a glance so heated I felt my face scorch. “Couldn’t you just wake him up? Give him some adrenaline or uppers or something?” she asked Dr. McCarthy.

“If I had any epinephrine or amphetamines, which I don’t, they wouldn’t work. He’s unconscious from blood loss. The only way to wake him up is to give him a transfusion and fluids.”

“So can we buy him a transfusion?” I asked.

“Yes. You don’t happen to know this guy’s blood type, do you?” Dr. McCarthy asked. “I’m out of test kits.”

“No idea.”

Dr. McCarthy turned to Belinda. “Who’s next on the O-neg list?”

She had already retrieved a single sheet of paper from the desk drawer. “Nylce Myers. But she gave 38 days ago.”

“And she can’t weigh 110 pounds dripping wet. Who’s after her?”

“Kyle Henthorn. He’s at twenty-nine days, though.”

“That’s okay, he’s a big guy. Will you go get him?” Dr. McCarthy held out a key ring. Belinda took the keys to his Studebaker, the only working car in Warren, and left.

Dr. McCarthy turned to me and Darla. “Help me move him onto the floor next to the exam table, would you?” As we lifted the bandit, I noticed his eyes were rolling around as if they were loose in his head. We put pillows under his feet to help treat him for shock and covered him with a blanket.

“You want me to take this bandage off?” I asked.

“No,” Dr. McCarthy said. “He might bleed more, which he can’t afford. Wait ’til after he’s had a transfusion.”

About twenty minutes later, a big, florid-faced guy burst into the exam room with Belinda trailing behind. “What’s this Belinda tells me about donating again, Doc? My last one wasn’t even a month ago.” He stopped in the middle of the room and stared at our bandit. “Who is this guy? You know I’m happy to help out neighbors, but I’ve never seen him.”

“This one pays, Kyle,” Dr. McCarthy replied. “A hundred kale seeds.”

“Damn. Bleed me ’til I faint.” Henthorn hopped up onto the exam table and rolled up his sleeve.

“Why do I feel like I just failed Medical Ethics 101?” Dr. McCarthy said.

“Because you did.” Belinda was glaring at him.

Dr. McCarthy shrugged and got to work. They set up a gravity-feed transfusion, straight from Henthorn’s arm into the bandit’s.

The transfusion had been going about five minutes when the bandit woke and started thrashing. I was pressed into service to keep him from ripping out the IV needle. Keeping his arms pinned to the floor was easy-he was feeble.

Dr. McCarthy cut off the transfusion after about ten minutes.

“You sure you don’t need any more?” Kyle asked. “I feel fine.”

“No, I don’t want to take any chances-I feel bad enough about this already,” Doc McCarthy replied. “I’ll bring by your kale seeds later. Belinda, would you get him something to eat and then drive him home? Keep him in the waiting room about fifteen minutes-I don’t want him to pass out.”

Belinda and Kyle left the exam room. Dr. McCarthy started unwrapping the Ace bandage from the bandit’s side. As the doctor gently pulled the packing out of the wound, the bandit screamed and started bucking.

“I wish I had some kind of sedative left,” Dr. McCarthy said.

“I could put pressure on his jugular, try to knock him out,” I offered.

“No, no. He’s already suffering from anemic hypoxia, that’d only make it worse. Just hold him.”

Dr. McCarthy cleaned and repacked the wound on the bandit’s belly. He passed out again while the doctor stitched him up. Then I had to roll him over so Doc could work on the entrance wound at his back.

“How long will he be out?” I asked when Dr. McCarthy finished.

“Can’t tell for sure. Could be an hour, could be he never wakes up. But he’ll probably sleep for three or four days and heal okay.”

“I want to go out to my uncle’s farm,” I said. “Can you keep him here until Darla and I get back?”

“You mean, restrain him?” Dr. McCarthy said. “No, I won’t do that. You could talk to the sheriff about it, though.”

“I guess we’ll stay here until he wakes up then?” I looked at Darla.

She nodded. “Is there someplace to sleep around here?”

“We have a cot in the other exam room-one of you can use the exam table.” Dr. McCarthy picked up the tray that held his instruments. “So long as you’re waiting for him to wake up, would you take the night shift for us? Belinda and I have been trading off for six months now-a couple of nights off would be great.”

“You sure?” I said. “What if a patient comes?”

“Yeah, you’ll be fine. I’ll show you where my house is. If you need me, one of you stay with the patients, the other run to get me.”

Somehow I got stuck on the exam table that night while Darla got the cot. Well, I knew how it happened-I offered her the cot and she said, “Sure, thanks,” when I was hoping she’d say, “No, you take it.” Anyway, the metal table was uncomfortable despite the sleeping bag I spread over it.

So I was awake to hear the moans emanating from the room next door when the bandit woke up. I rolled off the table and padded over there in my socks, trying not to wake Darla. In the hall we’d left a lantern, turned to its lowest possible setting, in case the guy woke up. I turned the lantern a little higher and carried it into his room.

He was rolling around under his blankets, moaning “’a’er, ’a’er” in a breathy voice. I figured out what he wanted and poured some water from the jug on the counter into a plastic cup.

His hands were shaking so badly, he couldn’t hold the cup. So I propped him up with one arm and poured the water slowly past his lips.

After he drank about half the cup, he started coughing. That went on for a while-a series of dry, rasping coughs that had to be painful with his fresh stitches. When his coughing subsided, he motioned at the water cup, and I helped him drink the rest of it.

As I turned to put the cup away, he said in a surprisingly clear voice, “Thank you.”

I put the cup down and came back to his bedside. “What’s your name?”

“Ralph.”

“You know where Bill got that shotgun?”

He grabbed my arm, clutching it tightly enough to hurt. “The bones, they’re burning. Burning. White ends turn brown and blacken in the fire.” He levered himself partway upright and stared into my eyes. “The flame eats, but it’s never satisfied. It eats all night, every night, but there aren’t enough bones.”

“What about the shotgun?” I pried his hand off my arm.

He moaned, then whispered, “There are too many bones.” Then, abruptly, he fell back to sleep.

Dr. McCarthy returned to the office early the next morning. He poked his head into the exam room, letting in a sliver of light. “You guys up?”

I groaned. I’d barely slept. “I am now.”

“Bring your breakfast into the office so we don’t have to light another lantern, would you?”