by Edie Claire
Mei Lin felt a tingle of anxiety sweep up her spine. The dog was happy to see her and would doubtless have been happy to see anybody. But something in his canine body language told her he was on a mission. An urgent one.
Not liking the images that popped into her head, she began to move faster. The dog took off again, doubling back periodically to make eye contact before tearing off into the weeds once more. Mei Lin checked her watch. She’d been walking half an hour already; Stanley Smith’s cabin had to be close.
The dog had been absent for some time when Mei Lin finally caught sight of a structure ahead. She broke into a jog and followed the trail to where it opened out into a large clearing. Centered in the open space was a weathered but solid-looking wooden cabin with both a stone chimney and a stovepipe emerging from its roof. Several smaller outbuildings also dotted the clearing, which was bordered on its far end by a shallow stream.
Mei Lin could see neither the dog nor his owner, but the cabin’s front door was ajar. She was apprehensive; the homestead was unexpectedly quiet. “Hello?” she called. “Mr. Smith? Are you here?”
The door moved a little, and the brown dog squeezed through the opening and stepped out onto the sheltered front porch. He looked at her, wagged his tail, and gave another understated woof.
Mei Lin felt a prickling on the nape of her neck. “Mr. Smith?” she called again, stepping closer. No sound came from inside the cabin. The dog remained on the porch, watching her. He pranced a bit, then dipped his head and crouched, almost as if he wanted her to play.
She suspected the dog wanted otherwise. She suspected he wanted her to come inside the cabin.
When she reached the porch steps and started up, the dog pushed his way inside the door and disappeared. She heard a snuffling noise, then a plaintive whine.
“I’m coming in now,” she called nervously. She reached the door and peered inside, but in the dim light beyond she could see nothing but wood-plank flooring.
Steeling herself, she grabbed the knob and pushed. The door moved only an inch, then hit something. The dog squirmed back out, bumping Mei Lin’s legs and stepping over her feet. She pushed again, but the door didn’t budge. Whatever was blocking it seemed to be at floor-level. It wasn’t the dog.
She turned sideways and attempted to squeeze through the opening, but it wasn’t wide enough. She backed up, braced her hands on the frame, and gave the door a solid butt-smack. Something heavy scooted along the floorboards, and the opening widened another three inches. She squeezed inside.
Her eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the dim light, but when the shape on the floor became visible, her stomach gave a lurch. “Mr. Smith!” she cried, dropping to her knees by the motionless figure. The older man was lying on the floor behind the door. Mei Lin reached a hand to his neck and felt for a pulse.
Thank God. “Mr. Smith!” she called again, patting his cheek. His pulse was rapid, his face flushed. She moved her hand to his forehead to confirm the obvious: he was burning up with fever.
She glanced around. His cabin consisted of a single room. Three of the walls had windows, but all of the curtains were pulled shut. She got to her feet and pulled them all back, letting in as much light as possible from the cloud-covered sky. The back wall had a large, open fireplace in which a black kettle hung over a nearly extinguished fire. A bed jutted out into the room, its sheets and blankets bedraggled and trailing onto the floor. Near where the man had fallen, a tin bucket lay on its side.
Mei Lin examined him as best she could and determined that although he was feverish and dehydrated, he was not in severe straits… yet. He was in a daze, but not unconscious. His breathing was regular and he showed no obvious signs of low blood pressure. His most immediate need was for water.
She rose and checked the kettle, figuring he must boil his water to sanitize it. The kettle was still warm to the touch, but bone dry. He must also keep a supply of cooled water… but where? She located a plastic water container near the woodstove, but a quick push of the spigot confirmed that the dispenser was empty.
Had the poor man been forced to drink warm water directly from the kettle? If his fever had come up quickly when his supplies were low, he could easily have gotten too weak too fast to replenish what he was drinking.
She headed to the porch, the dog prancing at her heels. In addition to having a stream nearby, the cabin was set up with a rainwater collection system. One large wooden rain barrel at the edge of the house was connected to a downspout, while another closer to the door was smaller and made of plastic. The near container was about half full, but Mei Lin had no way of knowing if its contents had been boiled already. Most likely they had not. Mr. Smith probably brought batches inside with the bucket and poured them in the kettle, then after boiling, used another bucket to refill the inside dispenser. He’d probably been heading outside for more water when he collapsed.
She removed her own, nearly full water bottle from her pack and walked back inside. She returned to her patient, got down on the floor, and attempted to prop him up and raise his head. He moaned slightly as she moved him.
“Hello, Mr. Smith,” she greeted calmly as she lifted her water bottle to his lips. “I brought some water for you. Do you think you can drink it?”
The process was slow and frustrating. The man’s mental state was bleary and he seemed unable to speak or even keep his eyes open. But at least he was conscious, and after some time and effort Mei Lin managed to get him to drink. Unfortunately, the water she had brought was not nearly enough.
She let him rest a minute while she took stock of the situation. Would it be quicker to boil water in the fireplace or on the stove? She touched the surface of the stove, found it cool, and decided on the fireplace. She filled up a bucket with water from the plastic container on the porch and poured it into the kettle. Then she brought in more firewood and kindling and revived the dying blaze.
“Now,” she said loudly, hoping that talk might help to revive him as well, “let’s get you a little more comfortable.” She found some small towels, wetted them with water from the rain barrel, and began to sponge off his face and limbs. He was frighteningly warm. Mei Lin had no thermometer, but experience suggested his fever was well over a hundred degrees. At the feel of the cool liquid on his skin, his eyes fluttered, and his limbs began to flail. “No, no. Just relax for now,” Mei Lin soothed. “No need to get up yet.” As he became more alert, she alternated sponging him off with helping him to drink. By the time her water bottle was empty he was able to open his eyes, but he still made no effort to speak.
“Do you think you can make it back up onto the bed, with some help?” she asked. From what she could see of his leg in the shadow of the door, the cut had indeed become infected. The entire line of stitches was swollen and puffed, and he flinched violently whenever his calf was touched or bumped. She couldn’t make out the wound’s color and was anxious to get him off the floor and into better light. His bed was in a brighter area and a propane lamp was mounted on the wall beside it.
His hazy eyes looked from Mei Lin to the mattress a few feet away. Then he nodded, seemingly understanding. She moved behind him and hooked her arms under his, then braced her feet and attempted to lift him. He was able to pull his feet under him and assist her, although he tensed whenever the infected leg bore weight. It was an awkward dance, but eventually they managed to move him over and up onto the mattress.
While the man rested from his exertion, eyes closed and breathing heavily, Mei Lin turned on the propane lamp and studied him more closely. His age was hard to determine. His gray hair and beard were thin, his skin was heavily weathered, and he sported an unusual number of healed scars. His muscle tone was still quite good, leading her to believe he was no older than his early seventies and up to now had been in reasonably good health. But the current condition of his wound was troubling. The tissue around the stitches was grossly swollen and discolored — bright red with a sickly yellowish tinge — and the lower end was drai
ning a small amount of pus.
“Your cut is infected,” Mei Lin told him as she straightened the sheets and arranged his limbs more comfortably. “You need medical attention, and immediately.” The man made no response. “Can you hear me?”
He nodded slowly, but declined to open his eyes. Mei Lin took his vitals again and felt an unfamiliar sense of professional panic. She had faced many clinical situations that were at least as dire as this man’s, and not once had she lost her cool. But never before had she been so completely alone, with no staff, no supervising MD, and no option of calling an ambulance.
She knew what needed to happen. He needed IV antibiotics and fluids, perhaps even surgical drainage of the wound — none of which she had the equipment to provide. She could run to the Torpins’ place right now and have Amanda call for help, but she feared what would happen in the hour or so he would be left alone. As bleary as the man was, he could burn himself with the heating water in the kettle or even stumble into the fireplace. She could put out the fire before she left and carry some water back with her from the Torpins' house, but she couldn’t carry much, and any delay on her part could be disastrous. With his fever raging and no clean water to drink, his condition could deteriorate rapidly.
She made a decision. He needed more water, and he needed it now. He also needed the antibiotics and acetaminophen that were in her jacket pocket, but he couldn’t swallow them until he was more alert. Her best course of action would be to boil up a supply of water as quickly as possible, rehydrate him to the best of her ability, and try to get a dose of medication in him. Then, and only then, could she leave him alone long enough to go for help.
She moved to the hearth and stoked the fire. Once upon a time, she thought she would enjoy working more independently. She had liked the thought of being a decision maker as well as an order taker, and immediately after nursing school she’d entered advanced training to become a nurse practitioner. She had envisioned herself as a Sandra Gruber type, providing care to geriatric patients in areas where MDs were scarce.
Texas had changed her mind.
Mr. Smith let out a mumbling sound and thrashed. “Don’t take them,” his rusty voice croaked. “Don’t. I can’t—”
Mei Lin left the fire, collected more cool rags, and pulled the only chair in the cabin up to his bedside. “Easy,” she said softly as she sponged off his forehead. “Lay still for now. No need to get up.”
In his delirium, he appeared oblivious. “My boys… No, please… I need… you can’t! No!” His agitation increased. His eyes remained closed, but his face was a mask of anguish. “My boys,” he repeated, rocking his frame restlessly from side to side. “No!”
Mei Lin felt a stab of pain in her heart. She watched helplessly, her cool cloths no match for his self-imposed nightmare. Whether he was remembering a past horror or fearing a future one, she had no idea. Either way, he was clearly suffering. “Your boys are here,” she soothed, knowing he would remember none of this later. “They’re fine, I promise. You rest now.”
His thrashing movement began to slow. Mei Lin looked anxiously toward the kettle. Had water ever boiled more slowly?
Her patient mumbled something else. She couldn’t understand him, but the look of agony on his face had been replaced with a small smile. “My boys,” he said clearly.
Then he lapsed back into sleep.
Chapter 7
“It’s smaller than I remember,” Thane said as he looked through the glass display case at the Mendenhall Glacier visitor’s center in Juneau.
“Yeah, well, you’re bigger than it remembers,” Dave Markov quipped beside him.
“No doubt,” Thane laughed. He had not been inside the visitor’s center for a very long time. The bear in the display was a taxidermist’s rendering of an animal that had been killed in a car accident in 1998. It had been preserved and mounted here because it was a “glacier bear,” a recessive color morph of the local subspecies of black bear. Glacier bears had “blue” coats, shades of silver and gray that glistened in the sunlight, and they were extremely rare.
“Sometime before I die, I’m going to see one,” Thane asserted.
Dave, a thin, nearly bald man in his late fifties, chuckled sadly. “Yeah, well, you’d better get working on that. As many bears as I see around the bay every year, you’d think I’d have run into one by now. But no. I’m beginning to think there are fewer glacier bears than there used to be. With the ice fields melting, the subspecies are mingling more. Eventually that’ll dilute the gene to nothing.”
Thane didn’t disagree, although he wished he could. He hated the thought of the glacier bears dying out. Some of his fondest memories from childhood were of the times his father and grandfather had taken him and his brother to Yakutat, a small fishing village on the coast between Juneau and Anchorage. Yakutat had the highest density of glacier bears in the region, and for Thane and Jason, the trip was like a pilgrimage. His grandfather had been telling stories of the legendary bears since their dad was a kid, and searching for a “blue bear” was a family obsession. They never saw one, on that trip or any other, but the quest was always fun.
“I remember the first time I saw this display,” Thane said as he reflected. “My dad had just died. I felt bad that he never had the chance to see it.”
Dave put a hand on Thane’s shoulder, as he’d been doing since Thane was a gangly boy of fourteen. Dave had had to reach up to do it, even back then. “I’m sure he’s seen plenty of them. What good is heaven without bears? Too boring.”
Thane smiled gratefully. The bear in the display was posed as if it were walking, its neck extended and nose in the air, sniffing the breeze. One front paw was raised, as if it had just smelled something and was about to stand up on its hind legs to see it. Its coat was a light silvery gray over the back and around the neck, its legs and head were dusky, and its paws and muzzle were brown. How many times had Thane’s father tucked him and Jason into bed with stories of hiking through the Alaskan bush and meeting up with a bear just like this one?
If Thane could move up here and work out of Juneau, he’d have at least some chance of seeing one someday. But Dave was right — it was a long shot. Even back when the blue-coated bears were supposedly more common, many people, including Thane’s grandfather, spent their whole lives in the area without ever coming across one. Today, naturalists and photographers came to Yakutat and Glacier Bay from all over the world to try their luck. But even on those rare occasions when a blue bear was spotted, the exact location of the animal was usually kept secret. The photographers were proprietary with their wares, and as for everyone else — well, the prospect of such a rare pelt inevitably attracted trophy hunters, and no one wanted that. Not even other trophy hunters.
“We’d better head out to the airport now,” Dave suggested.
Thane nodded, then reluctantly turned from the display. He hoped he would be back soon. His friend had gone over and above in assisting with Thane’s job hunt: they’d spent Sunday morning meeting Dave’s current coworkers with the National Park Service at Glacier Bay, Sunday night hanging out with his former coworkers from the state Fish and Game office in Juneau, and this morning meeting up with some of the local Forest Service rangers. Making a side trip to Mendenhall Glacier had been pure indulgence on Thane’s part, and Dave needed to drop him off at the airport and then fly home to Gustavus himself.
“Yep, let’s hit it,” Thane agreed. He tried to speak with the same cheerful, optimistic tone that had come so naturally to him all weekend. But as his return to Vancouver — and Vanessa — drew nearer, cheer was harder to come by.
***
Mei Lin looked at her watch, guiltily wishing for a storm to blow up at sea that would force Jesse Torpin to end his fishing trip early. Morning had turned to afternoon, and with each passing hour her internal debate over whether to stay or go for help had grown more difficult. Stanley Smith’s fever raged on. It took constant attention to get him to sip as much water as possible durin
g his lucid periods, and he still wasn’t cogent enough to safely swallow the pills he needed. Over and over she weighed the chances of getting him hydrated with oral fluids against the risk that more appropriate IV fluids, no matter how fast she ran through the woods, would take too long in coming.
She continued to replace the wet cloths on his face, arms, chest, and legs with cooler ones, and kept a close watch on his level of alertness. He had been dozing uncomfortably long now, and she was glad when his eyelids fluttered. “You need to wake up, Stanley,” she urged. She usually addressed her patients as Mr. or Ms. until she knew them better, a show of respect most people appreciated. But since he was delirious, she thought his first name might be more effective. “You need to drink more, all right?”
His head moved back and forth on the pillow, his eyes still half-lidded. “Don’t kill me,” he murmured. “Don’t shoot… I can’t save him. I can’t! Leave them alone!”
Mei Lin attempted to soothe him, but he only grew more agitated. “Bombs… the children! No, no more. Too much blood. Butchers! They don’t care… Can’t somebody… can’t anybody feed them?”
He had been babbling similar phrases for hours, and Mei Lin couldn’t help but be affected by the horrors he must be imagining. He spoke of violence that sounded like a war zone: destruction, disease, dismemberment, and death. He seemed particularly affected by the plight of nameless children and he became angry at any mention of food. He was old enough to have fought in the Vietnam War, but Mei Lin heard nothing specific to confirm that’s where his mind was. Once or twice he spoke of the heat, but he also mentioned sandstorms. Eventually she had given up any attempt to make sense of his ramblings and focused on getting him back to the present. Waking up feverish and miserable with a stranger in his house would not be pleasant, but with such scenes constantly playing out in his mind, the real world should be a comparative utopia.