by Margaret Kay
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Lambchop said, slapping Cooper on the shoulder. “I’d be the one making the report and getting my nuts crunched by Shepherd.” The big man laughed and then climbed aboard the chopper.
When Elizabeth woke again, she felt rested and well, with none of the symptoms that had scared her. She rose from the cot and quietly approached the two exam tables and their sleeping patients. She closely examined each. They rested comfortably. She checked their wounds beneath the bandages. They looked clean and free of infection. She wondered when the last antibiotics had been administered. She checked her watch. How was it possible? She had slept ten hours!
Glancing around the cave, she found the stranger, the man named Alexander, seated on the floor with his back against his large pack. His eyes were closed. She approached him quietly. She stood less than a foot away, eyeing him to decide if he was asleep and if she should wake him. She needed to know what care had been given to her patients while she slept.
For the first time, she really looked at the face of this man who risked his own life to help with the two critically injured boys who slept on her exam tables. He was handsome in a rugged way. His face held sharp angles. He had a strong jaw that was covered in stubble. His cheekbones were chiseled and defined. His hair was shaved close, a very dark blonde with gray peppered in. He looked experienced and distinguished. She couldn’t keep her lips from curving into a small smile as she viewed this warrior, this hero.
“It’s rude to stare,” his voice quietly said as his eyes popped open. “And dangerous to sneak up on a sleeping man.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you,” Elizabeth stammered. “I slept for over ten hours,” she said, still surprised that had been the case. “The boys seem to be resting comfortably.”
Doc stretched, elongating his sore back. He was getting too old for this shit. Each mission that had him in primitive conditions wore on him worse than the last. “I’ve kept the pain meds consistent in them, which has kept them asleep. I’m giving regular doses of the IV antibiotics as well. I will need to bring them to consciousness sometime in the next few hours. Do you speak their language?” He pulled himself from the ground and stood, towering over the petite Sister. He stretched in a few different directions.
Elizabeth gazed up at the man, at least a foot taller than herself. Of course, she was used to most every other adult and many children surpassing her height. But there was something different about his height and how it affected her. She watched him raise his hands over his head as he stretched. He had removed his overshirt and wore only a t-shirt, which clung to his carved frame. His arms were muscular and defined, even his forearms.
Elizabeth pulled her thoughts from his form, inappropriate. “I don’t think so. The woman who brought them in said they had fled from another village that had been attacked. She didn’t think they spoke her tongue or the regional clan dialect in the village she was in. She was from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.”
“She was pretty damn far from home. What the hell was she doing way out here?” Doc asked.
“If I may ask, please, do not use curses when it’s unnecessary,” Elizabeth said softly.
A gut check hit Doc. Yeah; he probably shouldn’t swear in front of the Sister. “My bad, sorry. Habit. I’ll watch it Sister.”
“Really, just Elizabeth is fine,” she insisted. “Anyway, the woman was visiting her husband’s family’s village when the violence broke out and was stuck there. I’m glad she was evacuated with the others. Your group was God-sent!”
Doc’s lips pulled into a smirk, no, not God-sent, Captain Marscin from Camp Lemonnier-sent. He rummaged through his pack and pulled two more protein bars out. He handed one to the Sister. He knew there were local foods stockpiled in the other cave, mostly rice and other low nutrition foods. There were a few bananas, probably the only food that he deemed safe to eat. He would avoid the water that was in containers in the cave as well, even though Sister Elizabeth insisted it had gone through their water purifier and was safe. He had enough water on him to last him the few days he’d be there if he rationed it.
“God, thank you for this nutrition to maintain our bodies. Thank you for this man who brought this food and who continues to give professional care to these two young souls. I am grateful for so much. In Your name we pray, Amen.” Elizabeth glanced up into the man’s eyes after she completed the blessing. She saw warmth, but not an abiding faith. Prayers prior to a meal was not his way. No matter, she would continue to say a blessing aloud as long as he didn’t protest.
Doc flashed the Sister a pleasant grin and then tore open the packaging of his protein bar. He still couldn’t get past the fact that she looked like a teenager, so young, too young to be in this dangerous part of the world. He was intrigued though, that someone so young had dedicated herself to God in servitude as a Sister, to live in poverty and chastity.
“These bars taste good,” Elizabeth said. “I read the nutritional label. There are more grams of protein in one bar than many in this region ingest in a whole month.”
“They’re a special military grade,” Doc replied.
Elizabeth nodded. “I assumed so.”
“I have enough in my bag for us both for the next few days.”
“Once the boys are awake, I’d prefer my share go to them. I can make do with the bananas and rice in the cave.”
“I have enough for the boys as well, once they are able to eat,” Doc corrected his prior statement. He didn’t like the idea of her sacrificing her portion.
“Very good,” Elizabeth said. Conversation with this man was awkward. Of course, besides the topic of medicine, what did they have in common?
Charlie
Twenty-four more hours passed. Doc kept the boys stable, but the pain killers he administered whenever they cried, knocked them out too. Their wounds were healing but their vitals hadn’t gotten any stronger. Doc napped in between checking in with his team at the top of every hour. He was tired and needed more than a fifty-minute nap.
Elizabeth could tell this quiet man was growing weary. “Teach me to use your communications equipment and I can check in with your team while you sleep,” Elizabeth said. “We can take turns napping.”
“I don’t need to sleep. I’m fine,” he insisted stubbornly.
“You look exhausted. If you were my patient, I’d recommend sleep.”
Doc chuckled to himself. If he were her patient! Like he’d place himself in the care of a nurse who looked like she was a teenager. Never mind the fact too that she operated so far outside of her training, not that he didn’t respect her for what she had done to save the two boys. He did. He also discovered she was obstinate and frustrating. Their interactions over the past thirty some hours proved that.
“Sister, you’re far more tired than I am. I’m used to little sleep.”
She scoffed at that. “Do not let the fact that I wear a habit mislead you into thinking I am weak. I am anything but.”
Doc chuckled out loud. “Oh, Sister, trust me, I don’t think you are weak. I pity the poor man that goes up against you.”
She wasn’t sure if he was mocking her or not. “And just because I don’t seem as jaded or cynical as you, don’t assume I don’t know the circumstances of the world. I’ve seen hate and the disregard for human life. I’ve seen more than my years give me credit for. My education may not be formal, but it has been intensive, both in Seattle and here. I choose to see the good in the world and in people, but I also accept there is evil.”
“I never meant to insinuate you are naïve, Sister. If you mistook anything I said, I apologize.”
She evaluated his words, his tone of voice, and his facial expression. This man was hard to figure out. When, after a few quiet moments he flashed her a grin, she returned it. “If this goes on for several more days, at some point, you will need more than an hour of sleep at a time. I promise you, if anything happens while you sleep, I will wake you.”
Doc knew she was righ
t about that too, just as she had been right about the condition of these two boys. But he didn’t want to admit that to her. He checked the boys again. The bigger of the two, with the most serious chest wounds had stronger vitals than the other one. He reexamined the wound at the little one’s clavicle. The sutures held, and no infection was present. He checked his pulse in his femoral arteries since both legs were splinted. They too were there, weak, but there. He couldn’t figure out why this one was faring more poorly, unless he had lost more blood volume in relation to his size.
At the top of the hour, Elizabeth watched closely as Doc turned his comms on and initiated communication with his team. She paid close attention to the words he used. After the brief two-minute exchange with someone named Xena, hearing only his side of the conversation, she watched him turn the comms back off. Then he resettled in the corner, on the floor, with his back planted firmly against his pack where he had slept every time.
Forty-five minutes later, she gently deactivated the alarm on his wristwatch, which woke him every fifty minutes. She took the comms, which he wore loose around his neck, and after checking the motion detection feed on the tablet, and seeing there was no movement in the cave, she retreated into the passageway that led to the main cavern. She was careful to stay far within that cavern, far from the motion detector so she wouldn’t trip it.
At the top of the hour she turned the comms on and placed them in her ears. “Campground to Basecamp,” she said, just as he had.
A female voice replied. “This is Basecamp, Campground, you sound as though your nuts have been cut off.”
Elizabeth was surprised by this reply. “Just checking in. All is quiet at our twenty,” she said, as he had earlier.
“Who is this and where is Doc?” The female voice demanded.
“This is the Sister,” Elizabeth said. “And he’s sleeping. He’s done every check in. He was exhausted. But he’s okay.”
“Roger that. All is quiet, there is no activity near your Campground. Talk to you during the next check in. Basecamp out.”
Elizabeth pulled the comms out of her ear and turned them off. That was anti-climactic. The woman on the other end wasn’t as chatty with her as she normally was with Alexander. Elizabeth wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but she felt let down for some reason.
Elizabeth repeated the check in seven more times. She watched the boys, administered antibiotics and painkillers to them, and she watched Alexander sleep, proud she had found a way to help him despite himself. She knew he really needed it.
On the eighth check in, the woman on the other end of the radio was a bit friendlier and chattier. “You’ll need to wake Doc for the next check in,” she said. “We’re going to need to talk with him to plan your extraction.”
“I will,” Elizabeth said, guessing extraction meant getting them out. “I’m glad he was able to sleep this long. He hadn’t for days. Are you the one he’s called Xena?”
She heard a little laugh. “Yep, that’s me, but if you’re trying to envision me based on the iconic character, don’t, I look nothing like her.”
Elizabeth didn’t know what the iconic character looked like. She had never been into pop culture when she was a teen as she’d already been with the Sisters then. She spent her time on biblical and scholarly pursuits. As an eighth grader, she was more well-read than most adults. “I’ll keep that in mind,” Elizabeth said. “Will I meet you when we extract?” She was careful to use the correct language.
“Roger,” the woman replied. “We’ll meet. Before we sign off, give me a status on the comms power.”
Elizabeth removed the one side from her right ear and looked at the indicator. “It’s below a quarter,” she reported.
“Roger that. Tell Doc to make it one and a half rotations till next check in.”
“Will do.” Then Elizabeth signed off and powered the comms down. When she turned around to go back into the passageway that led into the cavern the others were in, she ran right into a solid form. She let out a surprised sound, not quite a scream.
“What the fuck?” Doc growled. He grabbed her by her upper arms. He pulled her through the narrow passageway and back into the little cavern they had been hunkered down in. Then he held her at arm’s length with fire in his eyes.
Elizabeth gazed fearfully into Alexander’s face. He looked mad but rested. She swallowed her fear. “You needed to sleep.”
“I was out for over eight hours,” his caustic voice enunciated. “Do you have any fucking clue how much danger you put us in?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I checked in with your team at the top of every hour and I monitored the motion detection equipment.”
Doc released her arms and grabbed the sides of his face while sighing out loud. “Elizabeth, you disabled my alarm on my watch.”
“You needed to sleep, Alexander. You were exhausted.”
“It wasn’t your place to make that decision,” he said, trying to calm himself.
“Everything remained quiet. I just got off the line with Xena, no one is in the vicinity. She’s been watching.” She gave him a moment. She could tell he was trying to calm his anger. “Battery power is under a quarter. She said to change the cycle to one and a half rotations, whatever that means. She told me to wake you for the next check in to plan our extraction.”
Doc scrubbed his hand over his face and sighed out loud again. “Okay,” he finally said. “But you don’t do that again. Do you understand me?”
Elizabeth nodded her head yes. “But don’t you feel better now that you’ve slept longer than an hour?”
Doc growled and stepped around her. He did, but he surely would not admit it to her. He grabbed his last bottle of water and two more protein bars from his pack. He handed one of the bars to her. He drank a quarter of the water, devoured the protein bar, and then checked the boys. Both had stronger vitals. Good, they could get out of there soon.
He checked his watch as he took a seat on the ground near his pack. It was just past zero-three hundred local time. A zero-four-thirty check in with Basecamp, and if it was all clear, they could be out of there by zero-six hundred. He set his alarm for zero-four-thirty. His anger softened. He gazed across the cavern at the young woman, perched on the edge of the cot, nibbling at her protein bar.
“Are you getting enough by just eating those?”
She smiled meekly, recognizing the olive branch he was extending. “I am. These are full of more nutrition than my body has had in one meal in years. I think I’ve adapted to the region and my body knows rice and bananas with very little meat is all it's going to get each day. I remember how hungry I felt when I first arrived, even after ingesting what is considered a meal around here.”
Doc nodded. “It’s appalling what over a quarter of the world is sustained on.”
“It’s even more appalling how ignorant many of the wealthy are. They do not understand what they have compared to the rest of the world.”
“Amen to that, Sister,” Doc agreed.
“When I first arrived and felt as though I was starving, I fed my soul with reading God’s word when I wasn’t ministering to those who sought refuge here.”
Doc smirked and nodded. He didn’t know many who could fend off a hungry belly by reading the Bible. He wondered how that worked for the little kids, like the ones on the exam tables. The continuous state of widespread hunger in this country was another reason he hated Somalia. Children starving to death depressed the hell out of him.
Elizabeth watched the thoughts play over Alexander’s face. She couldn’t make out what he was thinking. Nothing new. This man was an enigma to her. “So, what do you do to feed your soul?”
Doc gazed at her with a half-smirk, half-smile. No one talked that way, no one that he knew, anyway. His mother used to be a little on the poetic side, like that, when he was a little boy. His lips tipped into a full grin with thoughts about his mother. He hadn’t seen his family or his home in Houston in years. He made the obligatory call home
on major holidays and he usually kept those calls short. There were way too many unpleasant memories in Houston, memories he didn’t want to invade his conscious thought.
“Every chance I get, I go fishing, which isn’t often enough.”
“Fishing,” she repeated with a smile. “What is it about the act of fishing that you like?”
Doc sighed and stretched his legs out in front of him. “I don’t know, me alone with the beauty of nature. No inane chatter, not another soul within miles. It’s peaceful, quiet, and I can just be.”
Elizabeth smiled and nodded. “I can understand the attraction it holds for you. I imagine you have seen a few too many of man’s atrocities against each other.” She spoke from experience. “I’m from Seattle. While I, and after I earned my CNA, I worked in the Sisters of Mercy’s free clinic in South Park, which if you don’t know Seattle, is one of the worse parts of the city. The crime rate there is very high. Most live in extreme poverty. And there is a lot of gang activity. The Sisters turn no one away. I learned to dig bullets out of people from the doctor there, one of the Sisters.”
