She grinned. “I’m gonna give it a try. If you would stay just outside the door and listen for me?”
He nodded. “I will do that. You just call my name.”
He slipped through the door and closed it behind him. She used her left arm to push herself up into a sitting position. She took her time, pain flashing through her body with every movement. She peeled off her clothes and used the bed to help her move to the tub. The water was steaming. She looked at it, thinking how beautiful it was, how she never expected she would be doing this. She thought she was going to die. She had accepted her fate.
And then Mike had come and rescued her.
She lifted her bad leg and lowered it into the steaming water. It stung at first but she relished the feeling. She put her hands on both sides of the tub to balance herself so that she wouldn’t have to put any weight on her bad knee. She hopped into the tub, turned herself around, and lowered into the water, taking in a deep breath as she did so. Nothing had felt so good in her lifetime, she was sure of it. Nothing. The back of the tub was higher than the front and she laid her head back, closing her eyes.
Mike had set the tub so that she would be able to see the fireplace to one side and the door on the other. She didn’t have to worry about him coming in uninvited and could still see the fire blazing and warming the room.
Her knee ached terribly and she was terrified to put it in the water so she hung the leg outside the tub. Mike had placed a small cloth over one side of the tub and she used it to soak up the hot water and squeeze it out over her chest. She placed it against her neck and her cheeks. She covered her face with it and pressed it against her eyes.
Suddenly, she was overcome with the need to cry. She didn’t want Mike to hear her so she sobbed into the cloth as quietly as she could. The tears flowed from her like a waterfall, her shoulders shaking with force. She had made many mistakes in her life and this was the result of them. She had trusted the wrong person, loved a bad man, lost her mother, and was thrown down a ravine near the top of a huge mountain. Her body was badly damaged and she might have lost her child. What if it was the only child she would ever have? What if she would never again find a man who would love her and accept her and take care of her?
She was still young, as Mike had eloquently pointed out. However, she did not want to return to Wickenburg, though it was her birthplace and she owned the house and land there. She did not want to intrude on Mike and his private kingdom. It was unfair for her to expect anything from him. He had already given her so much. She couldn’t ask for more. She couldn’t expect more.
Her heart was broken. She felt like a fool. She wiped her face, dipping the cloth in the water and pressing it against her skin, her cheeks, and her eyes.
The kindness of a stranger, a hermit, had saved her life. The man who was supposed to love her more than anyone else on earth had threatened to kill her and his own child. A man she had never met before rescued her and gave her shelter.
She let out her tears until she felt like she had no more tears to shed. Then she sighed deeply, wiped her face once more, and began to wash herself. Mike had done a good job with what he could do. She used a bar of soap he had left there for her and scrubbed her body as much as she could, removing the grime and dried blood until her skin was smooth and shiny again. She couldn’t wash away the bruises and her arm and knee were still black and swollen. She felt refreshed, nonetheless, and strong enough to lift herself out of the tub when she was finished, dry off in front of the fire, after throwing a few more logs on it, and clearing her mind of everything. She put on a soft, clean yellow and white dress, pulled on some knee socks, folding the left one down so that it didn’t touch her wound, and lay down on the bed again.
Soon, she was asleep.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SARAH’S INFECTION
SARAH’S INFECTION
When Sarah woke up the next morning, she was drenched in sweat. Pain wafted through her body from the top of her head to her toes. Fear mixed in with the pain and she groaned. There was no sound coming from the other room. She tried to pull together the strength to call out for Mike but when she opened her mouth, her throat was dry and no sound came out.
She cleared her throat and swallowed several times to try to moisten her mouth. She called to him in her mind and struggled to get the words out. “Mike,” she breathed softly. “Mike.”
As if she had called out in her loudest voice, the door opened and Mike came in. He took one look at her and rushed to her bedside, concern etched in his face and burning in his eyes. He touched her forehead and grunted.
“Oh, no,” he said softly. Without a word, he pulled the blanket down and lifted the dress to expose her knee. She cried out when the fabric was pulled from the skin. “Not good.” Mike grumbled, looking up at her face. “This is not good, Sarah. It’s infected. I have a few remedies from when Rachel was here. She always knew what to do when something like this happened. I’ll be right back. You try to rest. I will do whatever I can to help you.”
“Don’t cut my leg off, Mike,” Sarah whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks. He shook his head.
“I’m not going to cut it off unless you will die if I don’t. I can’t let you die.”
Without saying another word, he left the room. She could hear him clanging pots around and going through cabinets. When he came back in, he was carrying a large tray. Small bottles, bowls, and cloths were piled up on it. He set it down on the table next to the bed and immediately dipped one of the cloths in a basin of water. He squeezed it out and laid it on her forehead.
The immediate cool comfort of the cloth made Sarah gasp. He put his hand under the back of her head and lifted it enough to give her some water to drink. She sipped at it, choked, and then drank some more. It tasted like he had mixed something in with it but she didn’t question it. She trusted that he would only give her what she needed. She didn’t need to wonder for long because Mike started talking, his voice gentle and kind.
“This is an herbal concoction Rachel put together once when I had a terrible infection from a cut I’d sustained while out chopping wood. I thought I would lose my hand when that happened, but I lived through it without losing a part of my body. It’s been boiled in the water to keep out any pollutants that might interfere with its healing effects. You have a fever and you will need to sleep as much as you can. I will make some soup later. Hopefully, you will keep it down because you are going to need as much nutrition as possible to fight this infection. Whatever you do, Sarah, I want you to fight against this. If you have the will to go on, everything will be easier for you. Do you hear what I’m saying?”
She nodded.
“Good.”
“My… my baby…”
Mike froze in place and stared at her. “You are with child?”
She nodded. “Very… early…”
“I can see that. I had no idea. I can’t make any promises, Sarah. You can’t think about that right now. You need to concentrate on sleeping and healing. Whatever happens, happens. Just don’t think about that right now.”
Sarah’s tears were coming full force. She sobbed almost uncontrollably. “My baby…”
“Stop thinking about it, Sarah.” Mike said in a demanding voice. “You are a strong woman and otherwise healthy. We will get rid of this infection and see what happens. I can take you to the doctor in Wickenburg when you are better so he can check on the baby. I don’t know anything about that kind of thing so there is nothing I can do to help you.”
She nodded. She wanted to force herself not to think about the baby, but it was prominent in her mind. It was as though she was not intended to have the child. So much had happened to her. It seemed Jason might get his way after all.
She tried to keep her tears in, but when he began taking the bandages off her knee and redressing it, the pain was nearly unbearable. She screamed when he peeled the bloody bandage away from it.
Mike stared at her knee, sickened by its condition
. Angry red lines streaked up and down her leg. The area around the wound was nearly black and a large bubble had risen where the skin was trying to close back together. He wondered if he should sew it together but he had no medical training and didn’t know how to do it. His natural survival instincts told him the skin needed to be closed somehow. He did not have the proper instruments to do what needed to be done and knew that Sarah would be in a tremendous amount of pain the entire time.
He stood up and left the room once more, going into the kitchen to retrieve a bottle of whiskey he kept for special occasions. Those occasions rarely happened so the bottle was nearly full. He took it back in the room and sat in the chair next to the bed.
“Drink this, Sarah. You need to relax and sleep. This will help with the pain.”
“Whiskey?” She raised her eyebrows. “That will help me?”
“It will dull your senses. You need to be less conscious of the pain because while I treat this wound, it’s going to hurt like hell.” He put his hand behind her head again and lifted it so that she could take several long swigs of the whiskey. It burned in her throat and she lost her breath several times.
“Good girl. Good girl.” He set the whiskey bottle down behind him and turned his attention back to her knee. He removed the old bandages, balling them up and tossing them into the wastebasket behind him. He picked up several new strips of cloth from the tray and used a small knife to spread a pasty substance on the surface. “This should help with the infection. It will draw out the bad and help it heal.”
“Rachel?” Was all Sarah could say. He nodded.
“She read a lot about this kind of thing. She said that if we were going to live out in the middle of the woods, we would need to know something about medicine and how to keep ourselves from dying out here.” He smiled. “She was very skeptical about it all. I trust the woods. I trust Mother Nature. But she was sensible and knew that unexpected things could happen and cause a lot of damage to the body.” His smile disappeared. “It’s ironic that she ended up being bitten by a snake and I couldn’t save her from the result.”
Sarah nodded. “I’m so sorry, Mike.”
He glanced up at her as he laid the cloth on her knee. “Thank you. This is going to hurt. Brace yourself.”
The whiskey had taken affect and Sarah closed her eyes. She was numb from her neck down. Her head was throbbing but otherwise, she felt almost nothing. The pain in her knee burned but she barely acknowledged it. She drifted in and out while he maneuvered her knee as gently as possible, wrapping it in the new bandage and cleaning the new blood and seeping puss that came from it as he worked.
She smelled something odd, something rank, and curled her nose. “Ew,” she slurred. Mike couldn’t help grinning.
“You are drunk,” he said in an amused tone. She opened just one eye and looked at him.
“I may be,” she said. “If I am, it is your fault.”
“I will take the blame, so long as your pain is not as intense. I know this has to hurt terribly.”
“I’m sure it does.”
He chuckled. “I take it you are not a drinking woman.”
“Not at all.”
“When was the last time you had a strong drink?”
She thought about it for a moment before replying, “I would have to say never.”
“You’ve never had a drink of whiskey or brandy or anything like that?” He sat back, tossing the dirty cloths into the wastebasket.
“No.”
“No wonder you are drunk. You won’t need any more for some time, I would think.”
“I don’t know. I might. Leave it with me just in case.”
Mike had to laugh. “You are amusing to say the least, my dear.”
“I’m in too much pain to be amusing, Mike.”
He shook his head. “I have bandaged your knee again. Let me look at the rest of you.” He peered at the cut on her forehead, which seemed to be healing well. Her elbow was no longer swollen, though it was still black on the inside and outside of her arm. He nodded in approval.
“I think the rest of you is healing well. We just need to keep an eye on this knee. If the infection spreads, it could kill you. We don’t want that.”
“I don’t want you to cut my leg off,” Sarah said again, as adamantly as she was able.
He nodded. “I know you don’t. That’s going to be a last resort, only if it is necessary to save your life.”
“I don’t want to live without my leg,” she said. “Just let me die.”
“What about your baby?”
She grunted. “You told me not to think about it and then you remind me,” she sighed. “Yes, you are right. Of course I can live without my leg if it means saving my baby. But I don’t even know if the baby is still savable. It could already be gone. A fall like that… this infection… it’s like God doesn’t want me to have it.”
“Don’t blame God,” Mike shook his head. “He didn’t throw you down that ravine. He didn’t cause your injuries. That is a human thing; that is the work of the devil. God is the one who kept you alive and why I found you. I’m certain of it.”
Sarah thought about it. She couldn’t help feeling that he was right. Jason was certainly not a man of God, had never attended church, and did not pray, at least not to her knowledge. She prayed on a much more consistent basis, mostly for help in dealing with him.
“A baby is a precious thing. But you are young and healthy, despite your injuries,” Mike said. “You will be able to have more if this one does not live.”
“Maybe,” she retorted. He frowned at her.
“You must think positive, my dear. You can’t think negative or you will cause negative things to happen.”
“Do you really believe that?” Sarah asked, feeling like her head was in a fog. She was sure she was not going to remember any of this conversation.
“I do. I really do.”
“You are very wise, Mike.” She lifted her hand and held it up for him to take. He wrapped his large fingers around her small ones and squeezed softly. “I am so glad you found me out there. I would be dead if you hadn’t.”
He nodded. “You would be dead, Sarah. But you aren’t. You are in my very comfortable bed, being fed, and taken care of. You must thank God for His blessings, even in the midst of trouble.”
“Yes. Yes, I will.”
“I’m going to make some soup now and some more herbal tea. Here,” he took the cloth from her forehead, patted her cheeks and chin with it, soaked it once again with water, and squeezed it out before replacing it on her head. “Drink some more tea and I will make some fresh. Can you manage?”
She shook her head. It was spinning and she would surely spill the tea all over herself if she attempted to do it on her own. He helped her drink some more before setting the tea cup on the tray. “I will be back. If you need me, try to call me. If you can’t call me, bang on the wall behind you. I will hear that.”
She nodded, doubting very seriously that she would have the strength to do either. She had never been drunk before and wasn’t sure she was enjoying it. Perhaps it was better when there was not so much pain involved. She watched as he stood up from the chair. He picked up the wastebasket with the bloody cloths in it and went to the door. Before he went through, he turned back and looked at her.
“I’m going to take care of you, Sarah. When you are well, we will decide what to do about your husband and baby. I don’t want you to think about it right now. I will do all the thinking for you for now. We’ll discuss it all later. Can you relax and try to heal for me?”
She nodded. “I may need more whiskey,” she joked.
He grinned. “You can have as much whiskey as you need, my dear.”
She felt a bit uplifted, hearing him laughing softly as he went through, leaving the door open so that he would hear her if she called.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MIKE CARES FOR SARAH
MIKE CARES FOR SARAH
For three days, Sar
ah was in and out of consciousness. Mike spent most of that time talking to her. She didn’t remember anything he said and she barely spoke back, but she could hear him. The words were sometimes jumbled and on several occasions, she was woken by him calling her name, wiping her face with a cold, wet cloth.
On the fourth day, she woke up to see him smiling down at her. She looked at him with curious eyes.
“What is it?” she asked, not realizing at first that she had spoken clearly and that her mind was not fogged over. The pain in her knee was still there but the rest of her body felt normal.
“Your fever broke last night,” Mike said, resting one hand on her arm. “You should be feeling better very soon.”
She swallowed and nodded slightly. “I do feel better. I feel better already. I’m…” she turned her eyes to him. “Thank you for taking care of me, Mike.”
He shook his head. “No need to thank me. You were in need and I was here to provide.”
“I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
He touched her cheek with the cloth, giving her a closed mouth grin. “I think you would have died, my dear. But you didn’t. You are here and you know what else?”
She raised her eyebrows. “What?”
“You got to keep your leg.”
She laughed, ignoring the slight pain that went through her when she did so. She coughed and he patted her on the arm.
“Rest easy. I’ll bring you some more soup.”
“I’ve had enough soup to last me the rest of my life.”
It was his turn to laugh. “You need to eat and soup is all you should be eating right now. No meats yet. You’ve lost a little weight, I think. But you can put it back on as you get stronger.”
An Uncivilized Romance Page 11