“No, I don’t,” he insisted stubbornly. His voice was stronger now, and he made a move as if to lever himself up on one elbow. Only Lisa’s hand on the side of his neck kept him prone.
“Listen,” she said between her teeth, her patience having suddenly deserted her. As she spoke she lowered her face so that it was just inches from his. “Your wound has opened up again and you’re bleeding like a stuck pig. You must have known it! But like a stubborn, mule-headed fool you just had to keep going, didn’t you? But now you’re going to lie still and let me bandage that bullet wound up again, or I swear I’ll—I’ll take the butt end of that pistol to your head! Do you understand me?”
Lisa was almost spitting with temper by the time she had finished speaking. Sam said nothing, only stared at her bemusedly for a moment. Then, to her surprise and relief, a slight smile crooked the corners of his mouth.
“You’re scaring me to death,” he murmured mockingly. “You wouldn’t really hit me over the head with something, would you?”
Lisa relaxed a little. Maybe he wasn’t going to be difficult after all. But there was still a trace of belligerence in her voice as she answered.
“Yes, I would. So you’d better behave!”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said meekly. Lisa gave him a stern look, suspecting him of making fun of her. His answering look was bland. With a disdainful sniff, she went back to easing his shirt off his injured shoulder. The bandage, she saw, was dangling by a single piece of tape, apparently a casualty of the rain. The white gauze was stained dark brown in places from blood. Dark crimson ooze crept from the wound to cover most of the left side of his back.
“How bad does it look?” he asked, sounding not terribly interested.
“Awful,” she answered in a choked voice. She had no thought of sparing him the gory details. He would have to know the worst in order to tell her what to do for him. Surely he knew more about how to treat bullet wounds than she did. He certainly couldn’t know less!
“What is ‘awful’?” he questioned patiently, turning his head as if to see the wound for himself. It was impossible, of course, no matter how he craned his neck.
“It’s all swollen, and there’s a huge black and yellow bruise over the whole upper part of your shoulder and down almost to the middle of your back on the left. Plus the wound itself is bleeding—not too badly, but the blood looks kind of thick and it’s coming in little spurts. It must hurt like crazy. Can you move your arm at all?”
Sam tried, and managed to move his left arm forward and then back. As he did, his face turned even whiter than before and he sucked in his breath sharply. Lisa, watching blood spurt with fresh enthusiasm from the hole in his back, cried out to him to stop. He did. His eyes closed, and sweat popped out along his forehead. For a moment, Lisa was afraid that he might have fainted again.
“Sam?”
“I’m okay.”
It was obvious from the strained quality of his voice that he wasn’t. Lisa looked down at him anxiously. He was such a big man, so muscular and strong, and yet he looked so helpless curled on his side, his face resting against the dusty rushes covering the floor.
“What should I do?” she asked humbly, hovering over him. “Do you want me to bandage it up again?”
“How steady are your hands?”
Lisa blinked down at him uncomprehendingly, then looked down at her long, slim fingers resting lightly against the bare skin at the back of his waist. They had been shaking earlier, when she had unbuttoned his shirt.
“Not—not too steady,” she admitted. He made an impatient sound. His eyes were still closed, and he was as white as a marble statue.
“Then you’ll have to do something to steady them. Look in the bottom of the pack. There should be a bottle of whiskey. Take a swig, and then pass it to me.”
“Why?” Lisa asked faintly, horror in her face and in her voice. She was very much afraid that she already knew. . . .
“Because you’re going to have to cut that bullet out of me and then sew the hole up. There’ll be a needle and thread in the pack, too.”
Lisa was appalled.
“I—I can’t,” she stammered, sinking back on her heels and staring aghast at his broad back.
“You have to,” he said. “My arm’s stiffening up. By tomorrow I won’t be able to use it at all. I can feel the damned thing in there, rubbing against the bone. Every time I move, it hurts like hell. It’s got to come out, and you’ve got to do it. There’s no one else.”
“No . . .” Lisa said faintly.
Sam went on, his voice inexorable. “After you get the bullet out—it shouldn’t be too hard to find, just follow the tunnel it made going in—I want you to pour disinfectant in the wound, then sew the edges together, just like you would a piece of cloth. Just be sure to soak everything you use, including the thread, in antiseptic first. I’d hate to end up with my shoulder infected—I’d be in worse shape than I’m in now. Got it?”
Lisa sat frozen, staring down at him. She couldn’t do it. . . . The mere sight of blood had always been enough to make her sick to her stomach. And yet she had cleaned away the gore from that awful hole earlier, and then bandaged it up, without turning a hair.
“Sam, are you sure you want me to do this?” she asked finally, feeling numb. “What if I—hurt you?”
He rolled onto his stomach, cradling his head in his good arm. His face was turned away from her, but she thought she saw a faint, wry smile tilt his mouth.
“Don’t worry, honey, there’s nothing vital in the immediate vicinity—you couldn’t kill me if you tried. And if you don’t try, I’m not going to be able to move my arm at all, and then we’ll have a hell of a time getting out of here. Go on, do like I said—get the whiskey. After that, I’ll tell you what to do next.”
Reluctantly obedient, Lisa crawled across to where she had left the combat pack earlier. Rummaging through it, she found a nearly full bottle of whiskey. Her hand shook as she pulled it out. The more she thought about what Sam wanted her to do, the more certain she felt that she couldn’t do it.
Instead of trying to find what she would need right then, she dragged the combat pack with her as she crawled back to Sam’s side. Looking at him as he lay on his stomach in the shadows, with only the flashlight she held in her hand to light a tiny area of his back, she felt a quiver of hope.
“I can’t do it—there’s not enough light. We’ll have to at least wait until morning.”
“There’s some rope in the pack—string it up over one of those poles supporting the roof and tie the flashlight to the end. That should do it. I don’t want to wait until morning—the sooner we get it done, the sooner we can be on our way.”
“But, Sam . . .” Lisa started to protest, then gave it up. If he could so calmly contemplate her performing makeshift surgery on him, then he must think that it needed to be done. Because he knew as well as she did that it was going to cause him a lot of pain. . . .
She had to weight the rope down with a rock before she could throw it over one of the poles, but at last she managed to get the light arranged as Sam had instructed. When finally she had the flashlight adjusted so that it hung about a foot above Sam’s back, he turned his head to regard her handywork and gave her a thumbs-up sign. She herself was impressed with the efficient way the light illuminated his whole left-shoulder area. At least she would be able to see what she was doing—if she didn’t faint right in the middle, that is.
“Now what?” she asked with trepidation when the light was adjusted to both her and Sam’s satisfaction.
“Find the needle and thread it. You shouldn’t need much—probably about a foot.” He lay quietly while Lisa did as he told her. It took a little while, because her hands weren’t quite steady as she guided the thread through the tiny needle’s eye, but at last it was done.
“All right,” she said.
“Don’t forget to soak it in the antiseptic before you use it,” he cautioned. She nodded silently. He continued, “
Now get the knife out of my boot. You know where it is.”
Lisa did indeed. She moved down his body to reach the knife he kept in a leather sheath inside his right boot. It was a wicked-looking thing, she thought as she held it in her hands, with a crooked blade and a razor-sharp point. Sam had told her previously that the Africans called it a kris. . . . She blanched as she contemplated using it to cut into Sam’s hard brown flesh.
“I don’t think I can do this.” She gulped, crawling back up to sit beside him and staring down at the gleaming knife as if she had never seen it before.
“Yes, you can.” She wished she felt as confident as he sounded, she thought nervously. Then he added, “You have to,” and Lisa knew she had no choice.
Lisa stared at the knife a moment longer, then resolutely squared her shoulders. She had to. For herself and for Sam.
At Sam’s instructions, she got out gauze and antiseptic and tape. Then there seemed nothing else to do.
“Ready?” Sam asked when it became obvious that she was merely puttering for the sake of delaying the inevitable for as long as she could.
“I—guess.” If she sounded doubtful, there was a very good reason: she felt doubtful.
“Okay. Take a swallow of whiskey and then pass it here. I think I might need it.”
“Don’t you dare get drunk on me,” Lisa warned shrilly, assailed by a horrible vision of him crazy drunk and not able to help her should she need it.
“With you holding that knife? Not a chance,” he said with a grimace. “Now come on. Get some whiskey down you. You’re probably going to need it more than I will.”
Lisa had never drunk raw liquor before in her life, but Sam was right—she needed a drink badly. She uncapped the bottle, put it to her lips, and swallowed a huge mouthful. It burned like liquid Drano all the way down. Coughing and spluttering, she gasped for air. But she had to admit, when her shocked system had settled down a little, that she did feel warmer—and, marginally, braver.
“Here.” She passed the bottle to Sam, who took it in his good hand and tilted his head so that he could drink. As he guzzled, a quantity of amber liquid missed his mouth to pool on the floor beneath his head, but enough hit its target to faintly alarm Lisa.
“You promised you wouldn’t get drunk,” she reminded him reproachfully when at last he took the bottle from his lips.
He gave her a derisive look. “Honey, that little bit of whiskey barely gives me a buzz,” he said scornfully. Lisa, looking down at the bottle which was now just about a fourth full, hoped he was right.
“Sam, are you sure you want to go through with this?” She gave him one last chance to change his mind.
“I’m sure,” he said, handing the bottle back to her and closing his eyes. Then, as Lisa set the whiskey aside and leaned over him, the knife poised uncertainly, he flicked a look up at her.
“Think you can get my belt loose?” he asked unexpectedly, reaching down to undo the buckle as he spoke. Lisa’s hands slid around his hard middle, brushing his aside, grappling with the buckle. In just a moment she had pulled the belt free.
“What do you want me to do with it?” she asked dubiously, visions of using the thick leather strap as some sort of a torniquet dancing in her brain.
“Give it to me,” he directed. She did so. He very carefully folded the belt in half.
“What are you going to do with it?”
He slanted a look up at her. “You ever heard of biting the bullet?” To Lisa’s horrified astonishment, he demonstrated putting the folded belt between his teeth. “This is the approximate equivalent.”
Lisa made a small, strangled sound deep in her throat. She couldn’t do it! She could not. . . . Sam must have read her sudden decision in her face, because he reached around and caught her hand in his. His skin enfolding hers felt very warm and hard. . . .
“It’s all right,” he said steadily. “I’ve been hurt a lot more than you’re going to be able to do to me here. And you don’t have a choice—you have to do it. Okay?”
Lisa looked down, met those blue eyes that were even now darkened with pain, and swallowed. Then she nodded, feebly.
“Good girl.” He gave her hand a bracing squeeze, then released it. “Now let’s get this over with.”
He turned his head away from her, closing his eyes and putting the folded belt between his teeth. Lisa just sat there staring at him. She couldn’t just start digging the knife into his poor shoulder. . . .
Finally he took the belt from between his teeth, and looked around at her. “Well?”
“I—don’t know what to do.”
He sighed, and repeated the instructions he had given her one more time. He made her say them back to him, and when at last he was satisfied that she knew what to do, he put the belt back between his teeth and lay waiting.
Lisa poured antiseptic liberally over her hands and the knife as Sam had instructed. Then there was nothing left to do but begin to cut. She risked a quick glance up at Sam’s face. It was tense, with all his muscles tightened in expectation of the pain she had no choice but to inflict on him. His white teeth bit into the leather belt, and his fists were clenched. Looking at him, registering him as the man she had slept with and argued with and depended on for the last few weeks, she felt butterflies in her stomach. Resolutely she tore her eyes away from his face, dropping them to his shoulder instead, willing herself to think of him as something inanimate, like the frog she had once dissected in biology class.
It worked. After a few minutes her stomach settled down. Then she began.
By the time the knife was imbedded about two inches into Sam’s shoulder, Lisa was biting her lower lip so hard that blood was filling her mouth. More blood, thick scarlet waves of it, rolled from the deepening hole in Sam’s shoulder. Lisa made no effort to wipe it away, and soon it was everywhere, on her hands, the knife, smeared across Sam’s back and the back of his pants. As she probed ever deeper, Sam made one sudden, abortive movement, which he controlled almost at once. Lisa flicked a quick, anguished glance at his face. It was white and clammy, with beads of perspiration rolling down his forehead and across his cheeks. His eyes were clenched as tightly shut as his fists; his teeth had bitten almost halfway through the doubled leather of the belt. Lisa felt tears spring to her eyes. She blinked them away, but immediately they were replaced by more until they ran down her face unchecked. She tried to tell herself that she didn’t mind hurting him, and deliberately thought back over all the times he had humiliated her. He deserved to hurt a little—but even as Lisa tried to convince herself of that, she knew it was a waste of time. Whatever he was, whatever he had done, she could not bear to see him suffer. She realized with a sense of shock that she would gladly have borne the pain of this impromptu operation herself, to spare him. It was illogical, crazy really, considering that she had spent most of the time she’d known him hating his guts, but it was the way she felt. Lisa was conscious of a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as she was forced to entertain the suspicion that she had perhaps grown fonder of him than it was wise to be.
Her tears practically blinded her, but it made no difference, because she couldn’t see into the wound anyway with all the blood welling from it. She had to rely on her sense of touch alone as she probed, slowly and carefully, deeper into his shoulder. She was just beginning to despair when the tip of the knife struck something with a small, metallic-sounding chink.
“I think I’ve found it,” she said to herself as much as to Sam. The thankfulness in her voice made the words sound like a prayer. Sam, of course, didn’t reply, but she thought his facial muscles relaxed slightly.
Working as quickly as she could, remembering Sam’s instructions, Lisa poured antiseptic over long tweezers from the first-aid kit and worked them down into the bloody path carved out by the knife. Cautiously nudging aside sections of skin and muscle, she reached the bullet with the tweezers in an amazingly short period of time, especially considering how long it had taken her to locate it in
the first place. Then it took merely a couple of seconds to grasp the bullet between the ends of the tweezers and lift it from the wound. Staring down at the blood-covered bit of metal, she felt so relieved that she wanted to sing.
“I’ve got it, Sam, I’ve got it!” she said joyfully.
He winced when she poured antiseptic directly into the open wound, and winced again when she started to close the jagged edges with careful, though inexpert, stitches. But she felt that some of the tenseness had left his muscles, and knew that he was as glad to have this ordeal over as she was.
By the time she had finished cleaning the blood from his back and covering the wound with sterile gauze, she felt as limp and wrung out as a used dishrag. Blinking, she sat back on her heels, wiping her hands on Sam’s shirt and looking down at him. He lay sprawled on his stomach, his eyes closed, his skin paper white except where it was streaked by blood or perspiration. Lisa gently removed the nearly bitten-through belt from between his teeth. Then, wetting a small square of gauze, she began to wipe his face.
“Are you okay?” she asked huskily after a moment, when he had made no gesture acknowledging her action. He didn’t answer; Lisa chewed her lower lip anxiously, fearing that he had fainted again. Which she could certainly understand, she thought. She was amazed that he had been able to endure as long as he had. Picturing Jeff in similar circumstances, Lisa knew that he would have been screaming with pain and fear from the very first instant the bullet had entered his flesh.
Then, to her overwhelming relief, Sam’s clenched fists slowly straightened out, and his eyes opened.
“I’m okay,” he said on a long, indrawn breath. “You did a good job, Dr. Collins. I’m proud of you—and you can be proud of yourself.”
“Th-thank you.” Ridiculously, her voice was wobbly. Sam heard the quivery note, and laboriously turned over onto his uninjured side. To her dismay, he pushed himself into a sitting position, propping his right shoulder back against the wall, ignoring her hands outstretched to stop him.
“Sam, you shouldn’t . . .”
To Love a Man Page 16