by Amy Vastine
Tag watched as Ally slung the pack over her shoulder. The two women exchanged a brief hug, and then Ally turned and jogged toward the plane.
“Hey, pilot, let’s go!” she called, a note of impatience infusing her tone, as if he was the one who’d been holding them up. Without waiting for a response, she waded into the water, climbed nimbly onto the pontoon and scrambled inside the plane.
Tag called out thanks to Ryder and Jessie and followed, even though he wasn’t sure of their destination yet. Anchorage and Juneau both had excellent trauma units. Either way, he needed to call and inform them they were en route.
Turning around, he asked, “Alaska Regional or Bartlett?”
“Rankins,” she answered without hesitation.
“Rankins?” Was she serious? The kid had been mauled by a bear. “Are you sure? It’s a small hospital, and Juneau has—”
“I know how big the hospital is,” she answered in a tone as crisp as an ice chip. “He’s my patient. It’s my call.”
Giving his head a stupefied shake, he turned to focus on the plane’s controls. The only thing that kept him from arguing was the fact that he didn’t want to waste any time. The patient could be airlifted from Rankins if necessary. Although, at some point in the very near future, he and Ms. Mowak were going to have a conversation about patient transport protocol when he and his company were involved.
* * *
AS LOUIS DRIFTED in and out of consciousness, Ally held his hand, touched his cheek, told him stories, all the while closely monitoring his condition: listening to his breathing, checking his pulse, scanning every inch of him from head to toe and back again. There was some oozing through the dressings but no serious bleeding. She wished she could check the injuries on his back.
What she really wished was that she’d been there to protect them.
Ally had been lingering behind on the trail taking photos when she heard the boys’ screams. She’d sprinted toward the commotion, but by the time she’d arrived at the scene the bear was gone and the damage done. Squeezing her eyes shut, she took a few seconds to appreciate how lucky Louis was to be alive. She still wasn’t sure why his injuries weren’t more severe. Ally was proud of him for keeping his head covered like he’d been taught, his scratched and raw forearms proof of the defensive move. A bear’s powerful jaws could remove a person’s entire face or crack the skull with a single bite, as easily as a nutcracker splitting an acorn.
Quinn said that in those few seconds of awareness before the attack he’d thought they were both dead. The boys had been standing maybe ten feet apart when they heard a noise in the brush behind them. They hadn’t had time to do more than turn before three-hundred-plus pounds of muscle, claws and teeth were charging toward them.
For whatever reason, the bear had gone for Louis first. As Quinn scrambled to retrieve his bear spray from the holster on his hip, the sow, seemingly distracted by something in the trees, had dropped Louis almost as quickly as she’d attacked and loped back into the brush. Probably her cubs, Ally theorized, as Quinn had seen two little ones scooting ahead of the bear’s retreating form.
It seemed like only a few minutes before the plane was descending toward the waters of the bay adjacent to the town of Rankins. After a smooth-as-glass landing, they were ferrying toward the dock. Red and blue lights from the waiting ambulance were a balm to the gnawing worry in her gut. She’d thoroughly assessed Louis’s injuries, but with the conditions and the limited resources in the field, she knew there was a chance she’d missed something.
With efficiency and care Ally approved of, the onshore team rushed Louis into the ambulance for the short ride to the hospital. She joined him inside and was soon handing her cousin off again, this time to a team of doctors and nurses.
Relief rushed through her when she saw Dr. Ramsey instead of Dr. Boyd. Like her, Flynn was new to Rankins Hospital but old to Alaska, meaning he’d grown up here, too. He was also sympathetic to traditional medical practices. He would understand the clay.
Copyright © 2018 by Carol Ross
ISBN-13: 9781488085000
Love Songs and Lullabies
Copyright © 2018 by Amy Vastine
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