by Susan Kelley
They bent their heads to their work and started cutting away the rough dressings. Vin worked faster than her, working the sopping cloth free and dropping it to the floor. Blood from Russ’ leg flooded the table. He pressed a wad of gauze to the back of the leg and immersed his hands in the gaping wound left by the trap’s jaws.
Emma looked up from her work from time to time to check Vin’s competence. He knew as least as much as she did. Despite her physician’s diploma, she’d never trained in this kind of surgery.
The next hour passed in a horror of blood, wet stitches, low curses and sweat dripping in Emma’s eyes. Vin finished before her, knotting his last stitch and then using bits of gauze to soak up the blood on Russ’ shin where she still worked to close the horrid wound. When she tied off the last dark thread, she wanted to wilt to the floor. Instead she checked Russ’ pulse and breathing rate. Weak pulse, uneven slow respiration and his pallor resembled the gauze more than the skin of a man who spent most of everyday in the sunshine.
Vin startled her when he flipped a blanket over Russ. “I think we need to keep him warm.”
“Of course.” Emma shook off the crippling worry spawned by friendship and took another bag of IV fluids from the cabinet. She hung it on the hook beside the nearly empty first bag.
Vin took another blanket off of a bed against the wall and spread it on top of Russ. After tucking it gently along Russ’ torso, Vin removed Russ’ rubber sandals. Without asking, he went to her small sink and searched underneath for a pail. He filled it with warm water while she gathered rolls of bandages. She needed all she had on hand to wrap his legs. After Vin bathed the blood from Russ’ feet, they finished covering him as best as they could.
Throughout their ministrations, Russ didn’t stir. He hadn’t flinched through their stitching or tossed about in pain. Not that Emma had much in the way of pain medication to give him, but she wished he’d step far enough away from death to at least groan or cry out.
“He would rest better on one of the beds, but I’m afraid to move him,” Emma muttered as much to herself as to Vin.
“It might be better to wait a few hours and see if the stitches hold. If he lives that long.”
Emma couldn’t protest the dour prediction. And Vin’s experience with such life threatening injures probably outnumbered hers. He’d certainly acted in a calmer manner. “Thank you for helping me.”
He carried the pail of bloody water to the sink, dumping it with care so as not to splash any on the floor. His reply seemed as measure. “I only did what anyone would do.”
She snorted and bent to gather up the discarded shirts that had served as bandages. “Not many can work in this,” she gestured toward Russ’ legs, “carnage. Not without passing out or losing their meal.”
Vin rinsed the pail and returned it to its place beneath the sink. “I’ve seen worse.” He looked for something to dry his hands on and then settled for wiping them down the sides of his coarse, gray shirt. He’d shed his jacket at some point and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt.
Emma had noticed his strong hands while he stitched but now the tightening and gliding of sinews and muscles in his forearms distracted her. Without his jacket, his lean physique drew her attention. He looked too thin as if recently ill. Or perhaps he’d served in a combat unit and still recovered from a wound. Though he didn’t move like a man suffering the lingering effects of an injury as he walked back to Russ’ side.
Emma joined him, refocusing on Russ. “I don’t know what to tell Jenny?” She pulled the scarf restraining her hair off and rubbed her temples.
“Jenny?” Vin asked but he stared at her hair.
Wondering how wild her curly mane looked after hours in the kitchen and with the stress sweat dampening the roots, Emma resisted reaching up to touch it. Instead she checked Russ’ weak pulse again. “Russ’ wife. How can I face her if he doesn’t make it?”
“Did you injure him?”
“What? Of course not!”
“And you’ve done everything you could here. Tell Jenny that.”
Emma’s outrage drained, leaving behind exhaustion and worry. “That’s small comfort to Jenny.”
Vin studied her hair for a moment longer and then switched his gaze to Russ. His expression went hard and distant. “They were married, had time to love and be together. What more can a man want?”
The man really knew how to hit nerves with the wrong thing to say. “They could want years and years together rather than months. Russ could want to live to see his child born. Jenny could want her husband at her side to help her raise their child.”
Vin stepped away from her and scooped up his jacket from one of the beds. He walked to the door and stopped with his hand on the knob and his back to her. “Some people never get a single day of warmth and love. Some people get only hours or days. Russ and Jenny have been blessed with more time than many others.”
He opened the door to the dark and the quiet murmur of voices. Every citizen of Hovel Port seemed to wait outside her door. The people parted in front of Vin, whatever they saw in his expression opening the path.
Jenny escaped Vannie’s grasp and raced in through the open door. She flicked one desperate glance at Emma and then hurried to Russ’ side. She keened as she reached a hesitant hand toward Russ’ face.
“Sorry, Emma, she got away from me.” Vannie entered and closed the door behind him.
“I was about to come out for her.” Emma gathered the used needles and the extra thread up with trembling fingers. She longed to climb the narrow stairs to her living quarters or fall into one of the beds along the wall but a long night of watching over her patient awaited her.
“What can I tell the town?” Vannie whispered as he followed her over to the sink.
Emma looked over her shoulder. Poor Jenny leaned as close to her husband’s head as her belly would allow. Only two months until the due date for the couple’s first child. Jenny mumbled words into Russ’ ear, stroking his hair and bathing his face with her tears.
Emma turned on the water to wash her hands and hide her words before answering. “Tell them he lives for now. Blood loss could take him by morning or infection in the next few days.”
“What of that stranger? Did he help you?”
Emma paused, recalling Vin’s last callus words, but also his fingers covered in Russ’ blood as he worked across from her. “Vin did as much for Russ as I did. Russ would have bled to death before I finished if Vin hadn’t been here to assist.”
“He’s a doctor, too?”
Emma shook her head and found a bottle of antiseptic to drop the stitching needles into. “He leaned his skills on the battlefield.”
“Well, we owe him, but I don’t like it. No reason for a soldier to come here.” Vannie and Moe worried about Emma’s secret more than she did.
“Everyone has a past. Perhaps he’d seen enough of death and wanted to retire from war.”
“You always think the best of people, Emma.” Vannie gave her a weak smile, tinged with worry. “That’s why we love you, lass, but I’ll be sending Vin on his way. He’s too young to be retired from the military.”
After Vannie left, Emma trudged through the cleaning of the surgery. Then she pulled a chair near the operating table for Jenny to rest.
She checked the bandages on Russ’ legs. No blood leaked through but was it because the stitches held tight or because so little remained in his body? Images of tanned, clever hands flashed before her as she tucked the blankets around Russ’ legs.
Had Vannie allowed Vin to spend the night within the walls? Usually Vannie or Moe would send strangers on their way before the daylight faded and the gates closed but dark had already fallen when Vin left the surgery. And the rains had arrived sometime in the last hour. Surely Vannie wouldn’t force Vin out into the wilderness in the wet. And dangerous wildlife roamed the forest.
Emma settled on one of the beds, sitting up so she wouldn’t fall into a deep sleep. She watched Jenny and Russ
but her thoughts turned again and again to Vin. Where did a man learn to act with such calm competence in a crisis? What experiences created his cool indifference? Why had he come to Hovel Port? Though none of it mattered. She’d likely never see him again.
Chapter Two
Vin watched the settlement stir into wakefulness. Not even the top of the line viewing equipment could see much through the driving rain. He’d been on planet for the last cyclical rain though under the cover of his ship.
Only a few people dared the wooden walkways connecting the buildings. They huddled inside long coats and beneath hoods of water resistant canvas. Vin stayed dry under a waterproof tarp, high in a thick-limbed tree growing part way up one of the steep slopes surrounding Hovel Port.
His perch provide a good scouting position and kept him above the reach of the larger predators roaming the forest below him. He’d mounted an electrified snake ring beneath this nest to keep out the half dozen viper species he’d encountered. The camouflaged tarp over his head hid him from the winged predators he’d fought off his first day of observing the settlement.
Today the gates of the village stayed closed in the rain but the walls wouldn’t keep him out if he wanted in. Did he?”
Vin didn’t like thinking about the injured man and his pregnant wife. Seeing Jenny’s protruding stomach the previous night had caused a pinch in Vin’s chest as if he’d been shot with a stun laser. For a moment he couldn’t find his breath. He fought back the pain of remembrance and sought the numbness of mission focus. He’d found his bait but would she draw his prey?
Emma wasn’t at all what he’d expected when he started his search for her. He should have checked deeper into her background. She was young to be educated as a doctor. Last night gave away her inexperience with wounds. Perhaps she’d only used her skills in the world of the pampered citizenship where she’d lived most of her life. Her compassion surprised him, especially considering her parentage, as did her modest living arrangements. He wouldn’t have thought a woman used to the luxuries her father’s evil had bought would hide in a place like Hovel Port.
Emma Jones didn’t resemble her father in any physical way. Her dark eyes contrasted with the golden curls that fought against restraints. The mass of hair looked too heavy for her petite form and delicate bones. How did her thin neck hold her head up with all that hair weighing on it? He hadn’t cared for his body’s shocking reaction when she freed the curls and ran her small hands through it. But those hands had darted with precision and strength as she stitched her friend’s torn flesh.
If he’d dreamed of those gifted hands moving on his body last night, he rationalize it down to long months of loneliness. But Recon Marines knew about being alone. His solitude sat comfortably with him in the tree. Even during the last months of travel among societies and large crowds of citizens, he’d been alone, more alone than ever in his life.
Since his earliest memories, his brothers had been beside him, fighting and dying. Only after the disaster on Crevan Four had he learned the true meaning of being alone. Recon Marines never looked beyond the current mission until Crevan Four where his brothers-in-arms had found a way to have a future. The others made plans for a life, a family and finding a way to live as real people. But not him. He had his mission, his revenge. When he finished with this last bastard…. He didn’t know what he would do. He had no hopes, no dreams and no desire to start a life somewhere.
The worst of the rain had passed and it would end abruptly an hour before sunset. The thirsty ground would soak it up and the towering mountains north of Hovel Port would fill the fill the streams the miners worked in. The men would pan and sift, hoping the rains carried bits of silver ore from the massive operation upstream. Vin didn’t understand how Hadrason’s Mining empire continued to operate when the owner languished in prison. The world of business was as foreign to a Recon Marine as breathing water.
Vin put his long viewers away and settled back into the hammock he slept in. He’d rise early and enter the town as soon as the miners departed for their work. The stream they worked lay half a mile from the gates, and they started their shift with the sunrise and ended it ten hours later. They eked out a living here on the edge of civilization and far from Galactic Law.
Why did Emma decide to hide here? Was it only to his inexperienced eyes that she didn’t blend in? The thought returned him to his contemplation of her person. He could lift her petite form with one arm. He shifted in his swinging bed, calling on years of discipline to put Emma Jones from his mind and seek sleep. Any good soldier could sleep and wake on demand even if he couldn’t control the dreams and nightmares waiting for him there.
* * * *
Emma rubbed her aching back. She resisted groaning as her muscles protested her movement but she didn’t want to wake Jenny. Her friend dozed on the bed only a few feet from where Russ lingered in the mercy of deep unconsciousness. He’d held on through a day and another night but had still to wake or stir. Infection had replaced blood loss as the main threat to him though she worried he’d fallen into a coma.
She hobbled to the refrigerator holding her limited medicines. Russ had already received the entire supply of her best antibiotics so the next dose would be a second tier of effectiveness. If Russ woke, he would suffer severe pain and what she had wouldn’t last him three days at best. She’d used most of it up on a woman who had burned her hand in an accident seven days ago. She’d lost track of how long ago the last shipment of supplies had reached Hovel Port. She leaned her head on the door, staring at the contents as if her wishes might answer her needs.
A rush of cool, damp air feathered across her back. Cold and wind always lingered the first two days after the rain. She turned, expecting the door had blown open.
Vin pushed it closed behind him. He carried a small package under one arm. He nodded at her and walked to Russ’ side.
Today Vin wore similar clothing as before, gray pants and a light blue shirt beneath his brown jacket. In the muted light created by the lone lamp over the sink, his eyes looked lighter than ever. He touched Russ’ cheek with the back of his hand. His gaze lifted toward Jenny and lingered there for a moment.
Emma thought he flinched before looking away but her exhaustion might be playing with her.
When Vin looked her way, his expression was his usual. “I think he’s starting a fever.”
Emma joined him at the bedside, keeping her voice as quiet as his. “Not unusual for a severe injury.” But she feared the same. She touched Vin’s hand where it rested on the table side. “Thank you again for your help.”
He stared at her hand resting on his for a moment and then removed his. He unwrapped the shiny material covering the package in his other hand. He pulled out a small bottle and held it toward her. “Give him this to fight the infection. Your medicinal supplies are pathetically inadequate.”
Emma considered herself an even tempered woman. But she was very tired. She pressed her lips together and gathered her patience before answering. “We’re so far from regular shipping lanes that we’re not even considered an outpost. We’re so far out they have no term for where we are. It makes supplying difficult and unpredictable.”
Vin spoke slowly. “You’re in the planetary system Merris on the fifth world. This region of space is called The Metal Belts.”
Emma snatched the bottle from his hand, unsure if he mocked her or tried to be funny. She was beyond amusement with worry and fatigue. Then her mind comprehended what her eyes saw on the bottle label. “Fusomycle! Is this real?”
Vin frowned and spoke slowly again. “This is a powerful antibiotic that has been in use in the military for almost two years.”
Heat climbed in Emma’s face. The lunkhead wasn’t mocking her. He thought she was a complete idiot. Lucky for him Jenny’s presence necessitated she control her temper. “I know what Fusomycle is but it’s impossible to get in any but the richest hospital wards. This little bottle is worth five measures of silver.”
&n
bsp; “Closer to ten.”
“How did you get it?”
Vin stepped back from the table. “It will fight any infection. You’ll probably only need two doses.”
Emma followed his retreat, aware of Jenny stirring on the other side of the room. “How did you come by this?”
“I had it with me.” Vin turned his back on her. “Treat your patient, Dr. Emma Jones.”
Emma bristled anew at his brusque order and avoidance of her question. Even though his odd accent drew her name out in a way that played across her nerves. Between his deep voice and pretty face, she could almost forgive his insulting treatment. But not quite. “You had it with you? Because you expected to encounter a man with his legs nearly cut off? Does that happen to you often?”
He turned back to her, something flickering in his eyes. He glanced at Russ and then back to her. “Yes.”
“Yes? Yes what?”
“Yes, I often see injuries like this and am always prepared.”
Emma saw no mockery in his clear, gray eyes. And she began to suspect the slight crease between his eyes might be confusion. Sympathy and shame filled her. Vin’s rudeness and brisk manner likely were a product of emotional trauma or perhaps one of the horrid head injuries that afflicted so many former soldiers. Though he looked too young to have served for long, Emma saw the bleakness of great loss behind his cold gaze. She’d seen the look many times before. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I’m sorry you had to see injuries like this one.” She reached out and touched his arm.
He jerked out of her reach this time. “It wasn’t your fault, and you have no reason to be sorry.” He stalked out, letting in another gust of cool air.
Emma looked at the small bottle in her hand. It could provide a miracle for Russ. Her friend would owe his life to Vin. She smiled at the closed door. The least she would do was save Vin in return.
* * * *
Vin entered the café next door to the surgery. Men occupied nearly all the tables. A rough lot of all ages, sitting in groups of three or four around the tiny tables and all staring at him. Conversation ceased as he closed the door behind him.
