Warrior Heart

by Laura Kaighn

  His skin’s warmth around the bandage halted any lurid thoughts, however. “Damn. Infection’s setting in.” Fear rose in Dorinda’s gut, this time for the stranger’s life rather than for her own. An infection this size, coupled with his recent blood loss, could lead to gangrene and eventual death. An image of her dragging his limp, dead body out for burial in the woods stiffened Dorinda’s spine. She shivered. “No, it won’t come to that.” Michael won’t have company.

  Hurriedly Dorinda gathered the alcohol and bandages from her night stand. She sent Casey for another clean towel, and retrieved the rinse basin from under the kitchen sink. Next Dorinda carefully unwrapped the leg wound hissing in disapproval at the raw flesh and cream-like infection. “Florence Nightingale, I’m not,” Dorinda admitted aloud. With an apologetic grimace, she resigned to her task. She propped the basin under the man’s leg as best she could. Then, opening the alcohol bottle, Dorinda poured its contents directly into the wound.

  * * *

  Vesarius shuddered. His eyes burst open. With a primal growl, he sat up to snatch the cause of his hurt and squeezed. The woman’s wrist was crushed in his vise grip.

  Her face suspended in shock, she wailed and dropped the bottle. Tears tumbled along her cheeks as she tried to pry her hand away. “You’re hurting me,” she sobbed. “Please. Let go.”

  Vesarius blinked, focused on his foe. He saw the pain in her constricted gaze. Pain he understood, and the Vesar loosened his hold. In response, the woman scrambled back out of reach. She clutched her right arm against her chest. Sniffling quietly, the warrior’s savior leaned against the front door and nursed her injury with her left palm. She retreated no further.

  Blinking again, Vesarius slowly released his own held breath. His gaze drifted down to the spilled basin, the emptying bottle, and the soaking rug. “Either I have had an accident, or you were cleaning my wound.” Vesarius’ wide mouth twitched into a half smile.

  The woman caught a sob and blurted, “The latter.” She still cradled her injured wrist. Her emerald-gold eyes were wide with uncertainty.

  Vesarius flung away the blanket and crossed his legs to inspect his wound. “I will finish, if you do not object.” When he got no response from the woman, he regarded her stoically. “You are a brave human. I could have killed you.”

  “Why don’t you?” she challenged even as she shrank against the door.

  Vesarius mountained his brow at her. “Why would I kill the one who has saved my life? Green Eyes, I am indebted to you.” Vesarius glanced about at the collected first aid supplies. “I would offer you my hair, but I see no means of cutting it. Perhaps if you would get my knife.”

  “No!” The woman swiped her damp face and gathered her feet. After a moment she added more calmly, “I ... I like your hair where it is.”

  “Then it will honor you upon my head.” Vesarius bowed his chin. He watched her cautiously approach and kneel beside him. “I require a needle and thread.”

  She sniffled. “But your wound is infected. It’s got to be cleaned out first.”

  “I will do that while you find the suturing supplies. It would help greatly if the needle were curved not straight.”

  She nodded, nursing her wrist. “I have an upholstery needle in my sewing kit, but it may be too big.”

  Vesarius nodded. “It will do.” She rose, favoring her right arm. He reached for her elbow. “May I see it?” When she hesitated, he added more earnestly, “I will not hurt you again.” Taking her proffered limb gently in his hands, Vesarius rolled it over inspecting the darkening skin. “Your wrist may be fractured. I will splint it for you.” When the woman stifled another sob, Vesarius kissed her injury tenderly. “May I die a shpleep’s death should I hurt you again, Green Eyes,” he promised.

  Silently the auburn-haired woman pulled away and retreated to the bedroom to find her sewing kit. Meanwhile, Vesarius braced his hand against a nearby chair and rose awkwardly to his bare feet. Then, hobbling with the basin into the kitchen, Vesarius found its antique sink and turned on the hot water. When the basin was steaming, Vesarius turned to see the woman standing inside the doorway. “You may not want to watch. Perhaps you would feel more comfortable on your pvana.”

  “My what?” Her gemlike eyes creased in confusion.

  Raising his brow at her, the Vesar offered simply, “The outdoor living space. Off your kitchen? It would be best.” Vesarius lifted the dishpan out of the sink and set it roughly onto the floor. Seeing she was still stalled by the table, the sewing supplies, scissors and a half-empty bottle in hand, Vesarius added, “Please. Take your Kin with you. Animals are very empathic. I would not want her to feel my pain.”

  “No … of course not,” the woman mumbled. She thrust the sewing tools into his waiting hand. “Disinfectant,” she added with a poke at the bottle. “Use it.” Next she retrieved her eyeglasses from the spoiled table and robotically guided her collie out by the collar.

  Once they were gone, door closed behind them, Vesarius settled cross-legged on the floor. With the steaming basin beneath his bent knee, he emptied in the last of the alcohol. He then dipped in his hand to scoop out some liquid. Pouring it into the wound, he scoured the flesh with bony knuckles. Vesarius stifled a holler but grimly repeated the procedure several times. Once done, he was exhausted and queasy, but the wound was clean and ready for suturing.

  Vesarius regained his air while threading the upholstery needle with the white cotton thread the woman had provided. As he began his stitching, he caught her concerned and spectacled face in the window next to the food preserver unit. Forcing a smile, Vesarius nodded that he was okay. He waited for her to retreat then continued closing the wound grunting uncomfortably with each poke and tug. When the sixth and final stitch was knotted and clipped, Vesarius leaned back against the sink cabinet with an exhausted sigh. He promptly fainted in a puddle of bloody water.

  “Wake up. Are you all right?” Someone was talking to him.

  “Dr. Sheradon?” Vesarius opened his eyes. He drew in a deep, revitalizing breath and raised his gaze. Bright auburn hair framed high cheekbones, a slender nose and jade crystal orbs of distress. “Green Eyes. I am fine.” Straightening from his slouch, Vesarius felt the uncomfortable dampness around him. “And wet.”

  Her fine lips tilted into a diminutive grin. “This time, I think you did have an accident.”

  “Must have been the hot water.”

  She broke from his simmering stare. “Come on. Get up. You need a bath. And some clothes and a hot meal.” Handing him a towel to wrap around himself, the woman helped the Vesar to his feet with her good hand.

  Vesarius leaned atop her shoulder for support. “Must I receive them in that order? Can I not eat first?” The young woman smirked at the comment. Nodding in approval Vesarius pursued. “That smile befits your eyes. Especially without the frames.” Grunting and groaning in shared discomfort, the pair staggered through the house and into the bathroom.

  Vesarius tilted down onto the ledge while the woman filled the bathtub with warm water and suds. “Perhaps I could have breakfast in tub.”

  “Try supper,” she corrected flatly. “It’s seven o’clock in the evening.” She pulled two towels and a washcloth from the open linen closet. “Here. I’ll be in the kitchen cleaning up the mess. Keep that leg out of the water, and use this washcloth to clean around it.” She was still favoring her swollen wrist, and she hung by the door as if uncertain whether to leave him to climb into the tub without assistance. She would not look at him directly.

  “You are still afraid of me, Green Eyes,” Vesarius deduced standing from the tub ledge and leaning on his good leg.

  Eyes on the rippling, foamy water, the young woman hesitated a moment then murmured, “Yes.” She left shutting the door behind her.

  Jostling his sore body around, Vesarius dropped his towel. He tugged free his briefs and slid roughly into the steaming water. Vesarius had watched her use the spigot and now leaned forward to increase the tempera
ture for his comfort. He then shut it off. As the Vesar soaked in the cramped basin, his muscles unwound. Bruises throbbed. Healing ribs relaxed. In the quiet, Vesarius’ sensitive ears could discern the woman’s sobbing from the kitchen.

  He sighed in bafflement. When am I? On Earth, certainly, but not my time. The woman was terrified of him. Unfamiliar. She did not know him, his people. A Vesar earned two reactions from other sentients, he had learned: either hatred or acceptance with suspicion. This Earth woman was uncertain. If she fears me, why had she not left me to die?

  No. This was not his time. Vesarius was somewhere in the past, sometime before the Alliance, even before the Tloni relations. For if she knew of the Tloni, a Vesar would not be such a surprise. Vesar are not doglike, covered in fur, with purple eyes and meter long tails.

  There was a knock at the door. “I have some clothes out here for you and more bandages. I’ll be making us some supper.”

  “Thank you, Green Eyes,” Vesarius mumbled in reply. With a deep exhale, he allowed the heated water to numb some of the aching in his bewildered brain.

  * * *

  The woman flinched when Vesarius limped past her working at the kitchen counter. Apologetic he froze in mid-stride. “I … I have frightened you again.”

  “No,” she countered pivoting to place the two glasses of iced tea she had just poured onto the oblong dining table now cleared of her work. Her abandoned eyeglasses sat folded by her placemat. “It’s just that I’ve grown used to living alone. And that you looked like Michael just for a second.” Her wrist was wrapped snugly in a wet kitchen towel.

  Vesarius drew out a chair and sat with just a twinge of discomfort at the corner of his wide mouth. Awkwardly, he tugged down the rising hem of his borrowed, sleeveless sweatshirt. “Michael?” Stiffly the Vesar began to braid his wet ebony hair but grunted, his shoulder aching.

  “Here, let me do that,” the woman offered placing toast on the table and gathering Vesarius’ thick hair in her hands.

  “Your wrist is better?”

  “It hurts.” His savior’s voice quavered. “But it could use the exercise -”

  “No,” Vesarius countered. Reaching back he pulled her around to face him. She was trembling. “Please. Do not fear me,” he tried to reassure. “It was an accident, my coming here. I was injured, and you assisted me.” When she said nothing, he added gently, “Rest your hand. I will braid my own hair.” As he did so, the woman returned to her food preparations, filling two bowls from a fresh pot of vegetable soup.

  “Not knowing when you ate last, I figured your stomach could handle some soup and toast. Just don’t eat it too fast.”

  Vesarius’ dark eyes considered her stiff movements as she slid into a chair catty-corner to him. “You are a doctor?”

  “No,” she admitted still avoiding his eyes. “I’m a teacher, seventh grade literature. But I’ve had disaster paramedic training. And I’m certified in first aid.”

  “Then it is fortunate I threw my knife at your vehicle and not another’s.”

  That got her to glance up at him, but she again averted her eyes. They drifted back to her soup. Eating in silence for a few moments, she finally offered, “I live here. There aren’t many other drivers along the Uncas Road. Only maybe tourists, gone fishing up to Brown’s Tract Pond. They would have run from you ... or maybe killed you.”

  Vesarius’ heavy brows arched in added respect. “You are indeed a brave woman.” He was silent for a moment then pushed away his half-empty bowl. “Would you feel more comfortable if I shared myself with you? You must have many questions.”

  “You should finish your soup.” The woman did not look up from her pickings. “You need to regain your strength.”

  Vesarius ignored her and continued, “I am Vesar. All warriors of Vesar are called Vesarius. It is a title more than a name. I serve aboard the Galactic Alliance Vessel Pompeii as her first officer, navigator and tracker. I am the only Vesar aboard. My fellow crewmembers are human and Tloni. I once helmed my own ship. The Pvokx. But I am no longer-”

  The woman vaulted vertical. Her bowl was gripped in her hand, her food hardly touched. “I don’t want to know who you are,” she muttered. The woman spun toward the sink almost spilling her soup. The dish clattered into the steel basin, shattering. The woman clutched the counter edge with white knuckled hands. Her back was a plank of resistance. “I want …”

  “You desire my leave,” Vesarius voiced for her.

  Her head bowed over the basin, she uttered her honest answer. “I don’t know.” Then she threw up her arms. “What was I thinking? I wish I’d never found you, brought you here.” The woman spun on him her eyes reddened from past tears and the fresh ones welling. “My life was simple, Vesarius. Peaceful. I had my kids at school, my books here. I was making it through, day by day.” The woman gathered another shaky inhale. “Then bam! I find you, and my whole world blows up.” She leaned toward him shaking a forefinger. “You’re a ghost, Vesarius. A ghost from my past. Not even real.” With a wave of her hands, Vesarius’ savior promptly marched off into her bedroom. She slammed the door behind her. Not even the collie’s scratching persuaded the woman to come out.

  After a long moment of suspended silence, Vesarius rose from his chair to clean the mess from the sink. In vain he searched for the disposal shoot. A waste container stood alongside the counter, however, and he dropped the dish fragments into its maw. Next the Vesar warrior cleared the table. Lastly, he retreated to the pvana, with its serenade of late birdsong. The collie dog joined him, hopping through the door flap and flopping down beside his slant-seated chair.

  Vesarius inhaled the rich, fresh air of this place. Wilderness had always been where the warrior could gather his thoughts. Yet these were unfamiliar woods. From the pvana, the great forest seemed much less threatening than it had been the night before. But it was still lonely, quiet. Perhaps this peacefulness was what the woman sought. From what Vesarius had learned of this brother race of humanoids, however, it seemed odd that she would avoid her own kind.

  Conversely, Vesarius was surrounded by the sociable humans. Through his affiliations with the Pompeii’s crew, he had strived to counteract his people’s violent past, his own past. At least that had been his intention, to set a good example. Yet, while he attempted to co-exist peacefully with the humans, Vesarius just as often garnered enemies along the way. It seemed only Coty truly understood him. His tragedies. His curse.

  Among his own people, Vesarius’ liberties had been stripped. He was more than an expatriate. Vesarius was a pariah. While the Vesar people were proud and yielded to age-old traditions, he had been abandoned – left to explore the galaxy – apart from them. A forced extrovert, Vesarius stepped along a tightrope of contradictions. He lived within a pendular dichotomy from this woman, isolated in her woods.

  When night arrived with only the sounds of sleepy birds, chirping insects and night hunters beyond the screened pvana, Vesarius grew chilled. Restless, the warrior pushed himself from the slanted chair. Then, shimmying the sleeveless sweatshirt down over his waist, he scowled at the snug fit.

  If these clothes had belonged to another man, he had been shorter than the warrior, more slender. Vesarius jerked too at the rising legs of the constricting sweatpants he wore, resigning to the fact that they would not stay tucked into his rear-laced Vesar boots.

  The gentle lapping of water piqued Vesarius’ curiosity. Coupled with a need to work out the stiffness in his left leg, the warrior was induced to limp down the steps to the damp lawn. Casey followed his descent along the moonlit slope through a line of young blue spruce. There the Vesar hobbled to the sandy edge of a small, narrow lake.

  The warrior marveled at a world fortunate enough to contain such a bounty of liquid. His own world of origin was deficient in this vital resource. Vesar Prime was a desert globe of blowing sands and hot sun, dotted with the last remnants of ancient oases. In contrast, the world where Vesarius had been raised had a milder climate, draped in
mountains, forests and expansive grasslands. Vesahran-dani, or Vesar Colony One, was his people’s salvation, a hard won sanctuary long before the canine sentients, the Tloni, had come to dictate laws with their Galactic Alliance.

  Grunting, Vesarius lowered into a squat and waved his hand through the lake’s crystal coldness. He scooped its liquid diamonds. He tasted the mineral ice of its lifeforce and had to admit: it was peaceful here. Perhaps too much so.

  Standing again, Vesarius laid a friendly hand on the collie’s shoulder, suddenly missing Tundra immensely. Casey wagged her feathery tail at him as he shivered. “Let us return to the house.” Vesarius limped back up the slope to the little cottage in the woods.

  When the warrior entered the living room, the woman was there asleep on the couch. A large, hard-covered book was tucked under her arm. Though her eyelids were puffy from crying, her face was clean, and her shoes sat neatly on the floor beside her. Unsure how to proceed, Vesarius shuffled over and crouched. Gently he traced the woman’s fine cheekbone with a mahogany forefinger.

  Slowly she awoke, her breath deepening. The woman opened her eyes to focus on his face. Vesarius was grateful she was not startled to see him. Speaking softly he began, “If I have aggrieved or saddened you somehow, I ask your pardon.” Blinking at him, she remained calm and attentive. “If you bid me gone, I will leave. You need only point me in the direction from where you found me.”

  The Vesar had to lean away from her swinging legs as she twisted on the couch to sit up. “No, Vesarius. Stay.” Now he was the startled one, his raven brow rising over ebony eyes. She patted the seat cushion beside her.