by Kate Morris
“See here?” he asks, pointing with a surgical tool. “The ulna is broken. I don’t see fragmented pieces, which is good. But it is, indeed, snapped. We’ll need to set this and close. A wrist brace will help, too. She’s in for a long road to recovery with physical therapy.”
“That’s terrible,” Sam remarks as she blots blood away from the wound’s opening.
They get straight to work. She helps by holding the light and handing Simon the correct tools to get the job done. Then she sews her up, closing the wound while Simon dashes to another room when her uncle calls for him. One of their volunteers comes in to help her. By the time Simon returns, she has closed and just finished swabbing down the area to keep it clean of debris, dirt, and dried blood. She then applies a good healing salve that she and her uncle are now making just like Grandpa and Simon do over at the farm. Simon covers the wound with a clean cloth, tapes it, and they splint the wrist and wrap it.
“She’s ready to be moved,” Simon calls out to the others, who rush in to help. As the men are helping her since she is still muddle-headed, Simon tells them, “Bring in our next patient.”
They both share the sink and scrub up so as to not cross-contaminate their patients with germs or blood-borne pathogens. Their next patient is a man who was struck by one of the highwaymen’s bullets in the shoulder.
“Passed through,” Simon tells her as she holds the light.
“Yes,” she agrees as she, too, looks closely.
The man refuses painkiller and tells them to save it for the women and children as she and Simon irrigate and then sew the wound closed and cover. Their next patient is another woman who was injured by debris as she made her escape on foot out of her small hut on the farm compound and was cut on metal. Dave phoned in to let them know they were helping people on a small farm who were hit. It makes Sam angry, these lecherous men who would victimize people like this woman. Her leg wound requires twenty-seven stitches. Sam knows because she does it by herself by the light of a lantern and having the woman hold the flashlight while Simon is called to a patient that has become more critical. By the time she has finished, Simon returns and helps another man carry the woman with the leg wound out to join her group again. He returns leading a man carrying a small girl. She has a laceration on her head.
“Shrapnel, we think,” the man says.
“Are you her father?” Sam asks, to which he shakes his head and lowers his eyes. She assumes the girl’s father is dead by this. The girl must be seven or eight at the most. “What’s your name, honey?”
“Tildy,” she answers with frightened, wide brown eyes.
“Everything’s going to be just fine, Tildy,” Sam reassures her and begins the process of pulling on fresh gloves again. Beside her, Simon is doing the same. “Dr. Murphy’s a wonderful doctor. We’re going to get you fixed right up.”
“Like Mommy,” she says.
“Your mommy?” Sam asks.
“Yes, Mommy’s a doctor, too,” she answers and clings to her baby doll that only has one arm and black, charred hair.
Sam cautiously asks, “Where is she? Is your mommy here?”
“No, she’s with the bad people now,” Tildy answers. “They took her.”
Simon’s head snaps up, and he regards her and then the other man, who has stuck around to keep watch over and help with the young girl.
“We think she was taken by them a few days ago,” he explains. “We aren’t sure, but her mother was working at the next farm over taking care of some people there who were sick, and they were attacked. Dr. Brown wasn’t anywhere to be seen. When we got there, she was just gone, not among the dead or the living. One of the survivors said they saw a few of the men in that highwaymen group take her.”
“Oh, dear,” she says, worried they’ll do the same with Reagan or Grandpa or even Simon if they catch wind that they have doctors within their group.
“Let’s take a look,” Simon orders, trying to change up the topic in front of the little one.
“When we found Tildy, she was unconscious,” her guardian tells them. “I don’t know what happened. Think she might’ve been close to a grenade or something and took some of the compression from the blast. That’s what we figured.”
Simon nods, has the man hold the flashlight, and gets to work with Sam. Her scalp is sliced open on the crown of her head and is bleeding pretty badly.
“Stitches ought to do the trick,” he says. “Do you want to prep the site, Sam?”
She nods and sanitizes the girl’s head. Then she presses her dark, curly hair flat so that they have access to the laceration more easily. Simon gives her a smaller dose of the narcotic, which is the only thing they have to dull pain. Morphine is reserved now for their most deeply injured patients who require surgery. Just the other day, they had a patient die from appendicitis. Her uncle hadn’t the ability to perform the surgery, and by the time the soldier of Dave’s had come to them, it was too late because he’d ignored it for nearly a full day. Her uncle said he figured the appendix had already ruptured, which would’ve spread gangrene throughout his abdominal cavity. They are planning a meeting to discuss such procedures with Grandpa and Reagan in Pleasant View. They need a plan of action to handle these sorts of emergency surgeries.
Once they have Tildy sewn back together, Simon proceeds to re-check her vitals and motor skills for signs of concussion or brain damage. Other than the laceration and momentary lack of consciousness, she seems like she will heal just fine, minus the care of a mother.
The sun begins its morning crest over the hill behind the cabin and canvasses the fall forest and brilliant foliage in shades of golds, reds, and oranges. Every patient has been treated. Men who tried to blow them off were also tended to, their wounds treated with the same care and attention to sanitizing against the threat of infection as those who had needed stitches. Her uncle lost another patient, a teenage boy of fifteen who’d bled out from a gunshot wound to the abdomen. Uncle Scott was torn up about it and had immediately left their clinic for a walk as soon as they’d tended to the last patient. Being a pediatrician was the one thing he’d loved so much before the fall. This is not how he’d planned to spend his life in medicine and has confessed that fact to Sam a few times.
“All finished, you two?” Cory asks from the doorway.
“Almost,” Simon tells him as he wipes down the counter.
Their tools will be taken to the side yard and boiled in a cast iron pot over the open campfire.
“Cool,” he returns. “Dave’s wife is sending food out here. Plus, we gotta figure out what to do with these people. They can’t stay here. Dave said he doesn’t have the room for them at the farm. Their farm is gone. Nothing left, burnt to the ground.”
“That’s so terrible,” Sam says with a sad nod of sympathy for those people.
“Hey, little sister,” Cory says and comes over to hug her. Sam basks in the comfort of his warm embrace and lingers there a moment.
When she pulls back, she asks Cory, “How many are there?”
“Forty-seven including the injured ones we brought tonight.”
“What about splitting them up?” Simon suggests. “Half could go to Pleasant View, half to Hendersonville. Dave’s group watches over Hendersonville. We keep an eye on Pleasant View.”
“But they probably don’t want to be separated, Simon,” Sam berates. “These are families we’re talking about here. Friends. Relatives.”
“Oh, yeah, you’re probably right,” he agrees with a nod and hands the canvas bag of soiled tools and another of rags to the two women from Henry’s compound who have come to collect them for the sanitation process.
“Well, come on out when you’re done,” Cory tells them. “Food will be here in a minute, and Dave wants a pow-wow.”
“Of course, you’ll be there. Food’s involved,” Simon teases.
“Hell, yeah,” he says with a laugh. “I missed dinner before we left yesterday.”
“No, you didn’t,” S
imon corrects him.
“I could have. That’s what I meant,” Cory jokes and turns to leave them, making Sam smile.
“Let me take a look at your wound,” Simon halts him.
“Nah, Dr. Scott took care of it. Just a graze,” he says.
“What? Were you shot?” Sam exclaims with worry and goes to him. “Where?”
“No biggie, baby sis,” he says and clasps her hands in his. Then he presses a kiss to her forehead.
“You were whining about it like you were dying,” Simon chides.
“Simon!” Sam scolds angrily.
“Yeah, that was unnecessarily mean, Simon,” Cory says with a sad expression that Sam knows is fake. “You hurt my feelings.”
“Like a little girl,” Simon adds.
“Simon, stop! And you, too,” she says, turning her wrath on Cory, who raises both eyebrows as if he is innocent. “Joking around about wounds is not funny.”
“See ya’ in five,” Cory says and leaves with a wink and an awfully ornery grin. She loves her big brother and would die if something happened to him.
With renewed vigor, she scrubs down the patient table again, knowing their cleanup crew will do it at least one more time. There are six women in their compound who kindly take care of the medical clinic for them and keep them stocked in fresh, clean linens and tend to the sanitizing of their clinic, as well.
“So,” Simon starts but stops. She turns to look up at him. Simon doesn’t make eye contact, though. “So, are you and your uncle living here now?”
“Yep,” she answers with pluck. “It’s great. It’s nice to have our own space finally.”
“But what about safety?”
“We’re safe. It’s not far from the compound. We have a path there now. Men take turns staying here with us so that we…”
“Who? Who’s sleeping here with you?” he asks, all pretense at small talk gone.
“Just the men from the compound, soldiers.”
“Which ones?”
Sam frowns and says, “Why? What’s it matter?”
“Henry?”
“Sometimes,” she admits.
She watches as his lower jaw flexes with unconcealed anger and suspicion. Then he turns his back to her and washes his hands. Sam ignores his fit of temper and joins him at the sink to scrub her own hands. The men added two solar panels on the roof, which power the well pump. Then they’d added in some fixtures and new faucets since there was just a hand pump at the sink. It was a hunting cabin before, meant for a rustic, weekend retreat. Now it’s livable and cozy. Dave’s wife sent the men to find fresh bedding from department stores in Nashville while they were out scouting for other supplies. They also brought back a whole lot more than just that. They’d confiscated bedding, new mattresses, a dresser for each of them, bedside lamps, a wall clock, and supplies for the open loft where the soldiers sleep when they are with them like additional mattresses and bedding, lamps, and tubs for their clothing. They never complain and are always ready and willing to join them for a few days at a time at the cabin-clinic. She definitely sleeps better knowing they are keeping watch, and none of them has ever hit on her or made her feel as if she was in danger from them being there with her. Most of the time they are older men, probably hand-picked by Dave to keep an eye on the place.
“I just think you should reconsider moving back to the farm,” he suggests as he’s drying his hands on a towel and leaning back against the counter to stare directly at her.
Sam murmurs, “This is my home now. My family’s here. I’m not leaving.”
“The McClanes are your family, too,” he says. “Your uncle could move there with you.”
“And leave nobody here to take care of Dave’s compound and the people in Hendersonville? That’s a terribly selfish thing to say, Simon,” Sam corrects him with a scowl. “Stop worrying all the time. I’m safe.”
She leaves him in mid retort and heads out to the meal that has awakened her taste buds by smell alone. Dave’s wife is now overseeing the compound’s greenhouse, and they have many new herbal starts thanks to the McClane family. Venison seasoned with bay leaves and thyme and rosemary is better than venison seasoned with nothing.
She joins a group of people sitting under a tree after she has gone through the food line and taken a plate of hot breakfast items that range from grits, which they make themselves on Henry’s farm, fresh sausage, and scrambled eggs. The weary group from the town are thankful for the meal and express their appreciation many times. They also take turns thanking her and Simon for their medical assistance. She notices that he has chosen to sit on the front porch floor with his legs dangling over it right next to Cory, who is laughing and hamming it up with a group of women from the compound who have come to offer help and serve the meal. It’s nothing new. Cory is charming even in the aftermath of a night of bloody battle and a sustained injury.
Henry is standing nearby with a group of his men talking about their next move. She can hear just bits and pieces of the conversation. They are planning on going south to hunt for more of the highwaymen. It causes the taste of the food to become bland and dry in her mouth. She just wants this to all end already. Enough people have been hurt.
She listens to their conversation as the people around her talk to her about their ordeal, their former farm community that was starting to sprout into an actual, thriving village, and the regret of its loss. They were good people, kind and giving. Now they will have to start over again. It is probably not going to be the first time for most of them.
“Sam,” Cory says, startling her. She looks up to regard him being haloed in the morning sunlight. “They’re ready.”
She cranes her neck around him to see what he means and finds that the men are finished with breakfast and convening at the picnic table beside the cabin, another item built by the men and brought over for her and her uncle’s use. Sam looks at the small boy next to her, not much more than a skinny, scrawny waif that reminds her of a child from a Charles Dickens novel trying to convey with words the sheer desperation and the terrible living conditions of orphaned children in England during the early 1800s. It is enough to make her scrape her leftover food onto his plate. He regards her with wide, hopeful eyes that nearly spill over with tears of gratitude. She pats the top of his head and leaves.
She joins the men at the picnic table and is immediately offered a seat by one of Dave’s men who quickly rises to surrender it. Knowing that refusing is futile, Sam accepts with a nod of thanks.
Dave is in the middle of discussing the relocation of the new people from the destroyed village. “I don’t think there are enough open houses in our village in town,” he says, referring to Hendersonville. “We’d have to expand again, and we aren’t in the position to do that until spring. With going into late fall, winter’s gonna set in. We can’t afford to start a big project like expansion and prepping for winter at the same time. We need to put these people somewhere. They obviously can’t go back to their farm compound.”
“Right,” Cory says.
“What about Coopertown?” Simon suggests as he leans his back against a nearby tree.
“Coopertown?” Dave asks. “I thought that place was a ghost town the last time you guys hit it.”
“It was,” Simon answers. “But at least the highwaymen won’t be interested in it. If the people stay in the empty houses there, Pleasant View could supply them with some food and firewood until they get back on their feet. It would be beneficial if we could get them a radio…”
“We have one,” an older man says as he cautiously approaches them. “Or, at least, I do. I have a ham radio. I’m licensed. I know how to use it. They didn’t raze my hut. That’s where it was if someone can take me back to get it.”
“Great,” Cory comments.
“Right,” Simon jumps back in. “If they could be our eyes to the north, it would help. You’re here near Hendersonville. You have friends east of here and south of Nashville. We’re over in Pleasant View, and
these people could take the empty homes in Coopertown and lay low until spring when they can wall up their own town. The more allies we build with communities, the better chance that someone sees something and reports it.”
“Agreed,” Dave says. “I’ll send a few men today to check it out. If it seems like a safe fit, then we’ll move them over there ourselves.”
“We could help,” Simon offers.
“Nah, I’m sure you and Cory want to get back,” he says with a wave.
Sam notices that Simon’s eyes dart to hers and then away again. Cory thanks Dave with appreciation. They all look tired from being up for two days straight.
She excuses herself and heads back inside the cabin for her backpack with the intention of hiking out and looking for her uncle. He’s been gone a long time. As she is coming down the stairs from her bedroom, Sam runs into Simon coming up.
“Where are you going?” he asks with concern etching his features.
“To find my uncle and go for a walk,” she tells him honestly. “I need the exercise. Last night was stressful.”
“Oh, well, I’ll go with you,” he volunteers, although he looks ready to drop.
“No, thank you,” Sam says as kindly as she can muster. She hates to hold anger in her heart, but she is so mad at him.
“I don’t think you should just go traipsing off into the forest around here by yourself, not with the highwaymen everywhere,” he says with less patience.
“Then I won’t. There are plenty of soldiers out there who could take me.”
“You mean Henry?” he asks and places a balled fist on his hip.
“Sure. Henry. Anyone. Just not you, Simon. Go home. Go home to the McClane farm and get some rest.”
“Actually, I wanted to talk to you…”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she says and pushes past him.
“Sam, wait,” Simon calls at her back as she opens the front door again.
Henry is there about to come inside. “Hey, Sam.”
“Hi, Henry. Walk with me?”
“Sure,” he says and looks over her head at Simon with narrowing eyes.
