by Beverly Bird
Jericho took three long steps and pulled it out of her hand. “No time for that.”
She scowled at him. “Generally I have all day and not much to do with it.”
“Not today. There’s a sick little boy out near Standing Rock. I need you to run over there with me and take a look at him.”
Her jaw dropped. “Me?”
“There’s nobody else here.”
She ignored that. “You want me to go treat this kid?”
“Don’t make more of it than it is. The kid’s sick, I have no license to practice, Ellen’s in Albuquerque. As it is, I’m probably going to have to twist arms to get his mom to let you look at him.”
“I’ll go.”
“Never doubted it.”
He waited while she threw together some items she thought she’d need. When they were in the Rover, hurtling down the road at his usual dangerous speed, she looked over at him.
“Did it kill you to ask me?”
He gave a very small grin. “Just about.”
“You could have just gone to him yourself. No one would have known, and I can’t imagine that you care much about the law.”
“I have a healthy respect for the law.” His face hardened. “Never considered it, actually. I’m thinking about the kid. I figure all those scholarships must have taught you something. Maybe you know something to do for him that wouldn’t occur to me.”
“Probably,” she answered, glad to take credit where it was due. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Cold. Maybe the flu.”
Catherine stiffened. “What kind of flu?”
“His head’s all stuffed up. Stomach cramps, throwing up. His mom caught up with me down on the Crownpoint road. She was headed to the clinic over there. I told her to go home and I’d find someone to come see him. The guy at Crownpoint is even worse than Kolkline, and I don’t know the Navajo working out of there. Different clan.”
He was being unusually talkative, but Catherine barely heard him. “Drive faster.”
He quirked a single brow at her. “I’m damned near going a hundred.”
“It sounds like it could be Tah honeesgai.”
He didn’t answer, but she felt a surge from the engine. She glanced at the speedometer. The needle inched up over a hundred.
“No,” he said finally. “It’s his head, Cat Eyes. I would have thought of that if she’d said his chest, that he was having trouble breathing.”
She shook her head frantically. “Patients do that all the time. They’re not trained to be specific. They’ll say head because they’re sneezing, but they’ll forget to mention that they’re coughing, too.”
“He’s throwing up. That hasn’t happened with Tah honeesgai before.”
“But it could. Cramps could cause it, especially in a kid.”
He swore darkly. The needle worked its way to a hundred and ten. The engine shuddered.
“How old is he?” Catherine asked finally.
“I don’t know. Ten or so, I’d guess. They’re clan, but they live so far out I don’t know them very well.”
She bit her lip. “He’s the youngest so far.”
“If it’s Tah honeesgai.”
But it was. Somehow she knew it was. She had managed to retain the dates from the other case files. The bug was gathering steam. It was striking more and more frequently.
She turned her thoughts grimly to saving the child. She hadn’t brought the portable oxygen tank, hadn’t thought she’d need it. She would do mouth-to-mouth if she had to. At least she had the things she would need for an IV.
“Where’s Standing Rock?” she asked.
“We’re just about there.”
“How far from Albuquerque?”
“Two hundred miles.”
She fought the urge to weep in frustration. As fast as Lisa had deteriorated, they’d never make it.
Think. “Do they live in a hogan or a trailer? Will they have a phone?” She had noticed one of the trailer conclaves outside of Shiprock and there had been telephone lines there. She could call for a helicopter again, she thought, but Jericho shook his head.
“Damn,” she said.
“There’s a hospital in Gallup. Thirty miles across the desert,” he said. “We’ll take him there.”
“Are they familiar with the Mystery Disease?”
“They’re going to be.”
Suddenly he swerved hard off the road. Their speed had them practically airborne when the Rover hit a rocky expanse of ground. Catherine knocked her head on the roof and grabbed the armrest.
The brakes screeched as they reached the hogan and Jericho careened to a stop. She was out almost before the Rover stopped sliding, but he was right beside her. A young woman in jeans and a calico shirt came running outside.
Her eyes flew over Catherine and sought Jericho. “He’s worse!” she cried. “What’s happening to him?”
Jericho took her arm as they moved back toward the hogan. Quietly, without alarming her too much, he tried to explain. Catherine hesitated, then raced past them.
Finally the woman acknowledged her. She wrenched free of Jericho to see where she was going.
“No!” she cried. “Who is she? Stop her!”
“She’s a doctor, Bessie. You’ve got to let her help him.”
“She’s Anglo. I want you.”
“I can’t do anything this time. I can’t always. You know that. That’s why I brought her.”
Catherine didn’t wait to hear any more. She ducked inside.
The boy was on a narrow bed pressed neatly against one wall. A man—presumably his father—stood beside him. He was too stricken to fight her presence. He moved aside and made room for her at the boy’s bedside.
Catherine knelt there and felt her heart stop. She had been right. It was happening again.
She fumbled in her bag for acetaminophen, because he was probably too young to take a chance on aspirin. Once again, she felt the fury of helplessness. She was only an extern. There was so little she could do.
She looked down at the little bottle in her hand. No. Damn it, no! She was not going to lose this child too because Kolkline didn’t give a damn, because this land was too big, because all the odds were stacked against them. She dropped the acetaminophen and rummaged for something stronger.
“Lanie.”
She didn’t hear him. She was too engrossed in what she was doing to pick up on a name that wasn’t hers.
“Lanie,” Jericho said again. His eyes narrowed when she didn’t respond, but he wasn’t surprised. “Lanie!”
She jumped. “What?”
“Are you allowed to do that?”
She met his eyes. “No.”
He studied her, then he shrugged. It was a choice between her career or the child’s life. She was going to save the child and even if he were inclined to, he knew suddenly that he wouldn’t be able to stop her.
“Get the truck ready,” she said. “Bring it up close to the door.”
“Right.”
He was gone before he had uttered the last of the syllable. Catherine got the IV hooked up, dripping precious fluid into the boy’s veins. Then she bent over him to give him air.
Jericho’s strong hand caught her shirt, pulling her back. “Don’t.”
She shot a wild glance at him and tried to pull away. “He needs help breathing.”
“Not yet he doesn’t. And Gallup’s not that far. Let’s get going.”
Her head swam, but then she understood. He wasn’t entirely ruling it out that Tah honeesgai was physically communicable.
She backed away from the bed, looking down at the child. Jericho was right. His breathing was labored, but he was still holding his own. It wasn’t necessary to risk her own life yet. She would sit beside him and monitor him carefully. She would not leave his side as she had done with Lisa. At the first hint that he wasn’t able to draw breath on his own, then she would take over.
Jericho lifted the child, blankets and all, into his
arms. Catherine held the IV aloft, then she let out a startled squeak.
“Just a deer mouse,” Jericho said. The tiny animal had scurried out of the bedding, startled when the boy’s warm body was moved. Catherine looked after it, then back at Jericho, shaking her head. Who else in her Tufts class was practicing under such conditions?
Bessie was obviously embarrassed. “There’s nothing I can do about them,” she muttered. “I clean and clean, but when the nights get cold they still come in.”
Catherine put a hand on her arm as they went outside. “It’s like that all over.” Of course, she thought, their passage was a good deal easier out here with no doors to impede their progress. But in the end, it was a tiny creature and could hardly do much harm. Lice and roaches would be far worse, but the place really was clean and there was no sign of either.
Jericho settled the boy in the Rover. His mother got in the front seat and Catherine slid in the back, half squatting on the floor beside him.
“Jericho, you need to call University right away, as soon as we get there. Have them send someone over who’s familiar with this thing.”
Jericho made a wordless sound of agreement.
“Bessie, it’s best if you go to the desk and fill out the paperwork. They’ll want some, even in this case.”
“Yes,” the woman agreed in a small voice.
“I’ll stay with him and tell the doctor what I’ve done so far.”
“You don’t have to do that,” snapped Jericho.
Catherine didn’t answer. He looked in the rearview mirror and saw her staring dully out the window, her hand protectively on the boy’s chest. She would do it, he realized. Not only was it in her patient’s best interest, but she was such a damned stickler for rules. But he knew she wouldn’t do it easily. Her expression was wrenching, pained.
He bit back a curse. He thought of her father and his booze money and the scholarships. She was going to throw everything away, and he realized that the prospect nearly strangled him.
The Rover jerked and lunged from side to side as they reached a road and climbed onto it. Catherine braced her weight against the boy to keep him from jolting off the seat. Finally, they pulled up in front of the emergency door of a hospital.
Jericho lifted the boy out of the backseat and Catherine struggled to take him from him. “You’ve got to call University,” she reminded him.
“He’s heavy.”
“Yeah, and I couldn’t shoot a gun, either,” she snapped.
He let her take the child, if only because something hard and breath-robbing had punched into his gut. In that moment, he finally knew that she wasn’t a broken bird at all.
He wanted to dwell on that, needed badly to mistrust it, but there was no time. Bessie was already at the desk and Lanie—or whoever the hell she was—was pushing through the swinging doors to the treatment rooms, staggering a little under her burden.
“Stretcher!” he shouted. Behind the desk, white-hatted heads snapped up. He pointed where Lanie and the boy had gone, then he went for the telephone.
Who was she? What was she, besides too selfless and stubborn for her own good?
He had to find out fast. Whoever she was, he was starting to care far too much about her. And the deeper he got, the more her secrets scared him.
Chapter 10
Catherine returned to the emergency lobby an hour later. She slumped in the seat beside his and rubbed a hand over the back of her neck, where a dull ache was starting.
“Ready to go?”
She looked at him, startled. There was something odd, something even tighter about his voice than usual.
“I want to see how this turns out,” she murmured.
“You can call from the clinic.”
“I could also wait here. Go ahead, if you’ve got somewhere to go. The CDC is here now. One of those guys can give me a ride back.”
“I don’t have to be anywhere,” he snapped.
Catherine scowled at him. Even he seemed to realize that his tone was unnecessarily harsh. He went on with deliberate control.
“You look like you’re ready to collapse.”
“I am, but I won’t. I just need some caffeine. Is there a cafeteria around here?” She pushed to her feet again, looking about at the signs and the red arrows on the walls.
“No doubt,” he answered, “but I wouldn’t count on french vanilla.”
She gave him a grimace that wasn’t quite a smile. “I can make do when I have to.”
They made their way down a long hallway leading to another part of the building. She must be weaving, Catherine thought, realizing that she hadn’t really slept in two nights. Her arm kept brushing Jericho’s, and warmth slid sweetly through her. Then she realized that he wasn’t moving away from the contact. Somewhere over the course of the past couple weeks, a sense of camaraderie had settled between them. She hadn’t realized how precious that was, how very much she’d wanted it, until it had happened.
He got them each a cup of coffee, snapping at her again when she started to dig in her jeans pocket to pay for her own.
“Since when does the IHS give salaries? Shadow said you were working for free.”
“Room and board,” she corrected.
“Keep your money.”
She looked at him curiously as they sat at a table. “Do you work?”
He scowled at her. “You know what I do.”
“I mean besides the sings.”
“The people pay me.”
“Yes, I know, but you don’t seem to do very many of them. Two since I’ve been here.”
“It’s more than singing in this day and age.” He hesitated, clearly struggling to explain to someone who wasn’t Navajo. “It’s...being there for people. It’s taking water to the elders who live alone and can’t get around, and trying to get kids to come back from the cities when they leave the Res and break their parents’ hearts. It’s picking Lance up when he passes out at the windmill. Sometimes the people give sheep or blankets or pieces of turquoise. Sometimes they’ve got money to spare. It doesn’t cost much to live out here.”
“I’ve noticed.” The truth was, she hadn’t felt the pinch of her drastically altered income at all. She was still doing fine with the money she had managed to squirrel away during those last horrible weeks with Victor, when the FBI was supposed to have been protecting her.
“Did you tell the doctor what you did with the medicine?” Jericho asked, changing the subject.
Catherine nodded slowly. The pained look came back to her eyes.
“So what happens now?” he asked.
She tried to shrug as if it were of no great import. “With any luck, I’ll just be written up. He’ll send a letter to the American Medical Association, and probably one to the Service, too. They’ll go in my file, then I’ll write one explaining the extenuating circumstances and that’ll go in, too.” She bit her lip. “It might affect my getting a residency. Then again, it might not. I’ll just have to wait and find out when I start applying.”
His eyes narrowed again. “Where’re you going to apply?”
Catherine sighed. In truth, she hadn’t given it any thought yet. Simply getting this externship had in itself been a minor miracle.
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
He scowled. “When do you apply?”
“When this post is over.”
“How much longer is that?”
He was shooting questions at her like an inquisitor. What was wrong with him this afternoon?
“Four weeks,” she answered, then she thought about it, surprised again at the way time flew here. “No, a little over two now, I guess,” she amended. About the same time Victor goes to trial. But that was another bridge she’d cross when she got to it.
Jericho stood, draining his coffee, tossing the cup into a nearby trash can. “Let’s go back to the desk and see how Louie’s doing.”
Catherine rose as well, carrying her cup. “Is that his name?”
“I think so. He’s got a brother, and I lose track of which is which.”
They went back down the corridor again, arms brushing, hips bumping, until he finally held open the opposite door for her. He wore another blue chambray shirt, the sleeves rolled up on his forearms. Apparently he had left his ever-present jacket in the truck. Catherine watched his muscles ripple as he stretched to step out of her way. She fought that damned instinctive urge to shiver again.
He went to the front door, staring out through the glass at the gathering twilight. Catherine went to the desk, but her eyes kept drifting back to him.
“Miss?”
“Oh—yes.” She jumped and turned back to the nurse who was trying to get her attention. “The Mystery Disease victim, the little boy, how’s he doing?”
“Are you a relative?”
“I’m an extern up on the Res. I brought him in.”
“Oh, of course. Well, I don’t have any new information except what you admitted him with.”
“Can I go check on him?”
“I don’t see why not.”
She looked back at Jericho. He was still standing at the doors. She shrugged. She would only be gone a minute.
She went to the examining rooms, but the one Louie had been in was empty now. Her heart constricted. She grabbed a resident as he made his way down the hallway.
“Do you know what happened to the little boy who was in there?”
“The CDC moved him to ICU quarantine. Fourth floor.”
She found an elevator and went up, repeating the whole process with a floor nurse. Worriedly, she glanced at her watch. She had been gone a lot longer than a minute, but she couldn’t imagine that Jericho would go anywhere without her. Then again, he had been acting more like a bear than usual this afternoon.
She was directed to Louie’s room. It was connected to the corridor by a little chamber where she hurriedly pulled on scrubs and a mask, then she slipped quietly inside. Three doctors were working on him, but they showed no urgency. Bessie was there, and she seemed calm under the circumstances.
“How is he?” she asked. One of the doctors looked back at her. “Richard!”