Solemn Oath

by Hannah Alexander

  Lukas and Lauren stepped out of the room while the tech shot the films, and from the hallway they could see the bustle and activity of a suddenly full waiting room and ambulance bay. As Claudia had said, a group of casually dressed people stood in a circle in the corner of the waiting room and held hands, heads bowed.

  The EMT from the Collinses’ ambulance passed by them in the broad hallway, saw Lukas and stopped. “They brought in the drunk driver who hit everybody, Dr. Bower. He’s crying, talking to everybody who walks by, but nobody knows what he’s saying. Sounds like he’s speaking Spanish. The police are here, and they’re itching to haul him in. They’re really ticked.”

  Lukas shook his head. “They can’t have him until we’ve checked him out, and that’ll be a few minutes. We’ll need an interpreter. I’ll ask Judy to call one in.” He turned to Lauren. “Repeat Alma’s morphine dose, two milligrams every five minutes, and let me know if her pressure drops or if she develops depressed respirations. And tell her Arthur is okay.”

  Lauren nodded. “I’ll reassure her.”

  The tech left the room, pushing the portable X-ray machine.

  As Lauren went back in to recheck Alma, Lukas walked to the central desk. “Judy, would you please call a Spanish interpreter?”

  “Did it already,” Judy said without looking up from her keyboard.

  He reached into a drawer and drew out a consent form for Arthur to sign so they could transfer Alma. “Has the chopper called yet?’

  Judy’s fingers still didn’t break stride. “No, but I should hear from them any time.”

  “When they call, let them know her vitals are stable, but she has a class-one limb threat to her right lower extremity.”

  No answer. The sound of the clattering keyboard stilled suddenly.

  He glanced up to find the secretary staring toward the entrance, and when he looked, he saw Jacob Casey—Cowboy to most of the citizens of Knolls—come stumbling through the glass doors, aided by an older man in bib overalls. Somewhere, Cowboy had lost his hat.

  “Oh no, not again,” Judy said softly.

  Lanky, weathered Cowboy was such a frequent visitor in this E.R., Lukas wondered how the forty-three-year-old man had survived his occupation. He’d been kicked, gouged, bitten and knocked senseless on that exotic animal ranch of his—he believed in personal contact with his bison, zebras, lions and whatever else he raised on his three hundred acres of reinforced paddocks. Scars on several areas of his hard-bodied frame attested to his dedication.

  Today blood covered Cowboy’s upper right arm and splattered his chest and back. The left arm of his long-sleeved denim shirt had been ripped off and tied over his upper right arm in a crude attempt at a pressure dressing.

  Lukas pushed back from the desk and got up to help. “Cowboy, what happened this time?” He took a closer look at what appeared, surprisingly, to be a bullet wound. “Has Leonardo started bearing arms?” Everybody knew the rancher wouldn’t touch a gun.

  Cowboy shook his head as he allowed his helper to transfer his leaning weight to Lukas.

  “The neighbor shot him,” the farmer said. “He chased Cowboy clear out of the woods into my field with a rifle. I saw it myself. Didn’t take the time to call the sheriff. Guess we oughta call him now, huh, Doc?”

  “No need, the police are already here doing an accident report. Would you please go tell them about this? They’ll want to check it out and take your statement.”

  The man nodded, then patted Cowboy on his bare good arm. “Don’t you worry, Jake, I’ll take care of it.”

  Lukas helped Cowboy to exam room five. “How many times did the guy shoot you?”

  “Once.” Cowboy grunted as Lukas lowered him to sit on the bed. “Lost some blood. The guy’s crazy.”

  “Is that the one who moved onto that farm next to yours, then started complaining about the smell of the animals? I heard about him.” Lukas removed his patient’s shirt and then helped him lie back. “How much blood do you think you lost?”

  “Maybe a pint.” Cowboy’s deep voice thickened with pain as the shirt came off. “No time to measure.”

  Lukas stepped out into the hallway and called for a nurse, then returned to the bedside. He made a quick check of airway, breathing and circulation, then listened to Cowboy’s heart. Not bad, a little fast, but understandable under the circumstances. The left wrist had a strong pulse, and the fingers were warm and healthy.

  When the relief nurse from upstairs stepped into the room, Lukas gave immediate orders for an IV and a trauma panel, then repeated his check on Cowboy, this time on the arm that had been shot. To his relief, it looked good. “Okay, Jake, I’ll regret this, but give my hand a firm squeeze.” He braced himself for the man’s well-known iron grip, but it didn’t come.

  Cowboy grimaced again, the lines of his face deepening as his color faded. “Hurts to squeeze. Is it bad?”

  “Not as bad as it could have been.” Lukas pulled on a pair of sterile gloves and reached for a packet of 4x4s. He removed the makeshift bandage and saw no active bleeding. He found the entrance and exit wounds. “What did he shoot you with?”

  “Looked like a .22 rifle, almost point-blank. Just up and shot me in cold blood, the same way he did—”

  A young steel-faced policeman pulled back the curtain and stepped into the room. “Dr. Bower? Do you mind if we interrupt? The sooner we talk to Cowboy, the faster we’ll be on the guy’s trail.”

  Judy came in behind the policeman. “Dr. Bower, we just got a call from the fire department. They’re bringing in two more patients.”

  Lukas shook his head in frustration. The day was exploding like popcorn in a microwave. Why did everything have to happen at once?

  The secretary continued, “The nurse with Air Care just radioed us, and they’ll be here in a few minutes to pick up Mrs. Collins.”

  “Thanks, Judy.” Lukas ripped open one of the sterile packs of 4x4s and a roll of elastic gauze, then regloved and dressed the wound. He looked over at the policeman. “Officer, you can do your interview now. Looks like I’ll have my hands full.” He turned and followed the secretary out of the room. “Judy, I need a right shoulder X-ray in five, and he’s going to need a surgical consult. Is Dr. Wong on call? He usually is when Cowboy gets hurt.”

  “Yes, Dr. Wong’s the lucky guy today.” Judy grinned at him. “Cowboy won’t want a surgeon, he never does. Dr. Mercy will be here soon.” Her expression turned serious. “One of the patients they’re bringing in is our part-time EMT, Buck Oppenheimer. He got hurt in a fire.”

  “Buck! How bad?”

  “Haven’t heard yet. There was an explosion at the Pride of Knolls out by P Highway, and his buddies are bringing him in so he won’t have to wait for an ambulance. I sure hope he’s okay, and I hope his wife doesn’t kill him when she finds out he played hero again.”

  Lukas nodded, then went in to check on Alma again and read her X-rays. There were no pneumothorax or rib or pelvic fractures, but the X-ray of her right tib-fib confirmed his worst fears. Both bones of the lower leg were shattered. If the blood vessels and nerves were as badly damaged as the bone, they would be doing an amputation in Springfield instead of a vascular and orthopedic repair.

  Someone cried out in Spanish in one of the rooms, and Lukas hoped the interpreter would arrive soon. That patient was the one who reportedly had driven the car into Arthur and Alma’s tour group.

  One of the most frustrating things in emergency medicine was treating those responsible for the pain and suffering of others—and one of the most difficult things to do was to have compassion for everyone involved.

  Lord, give me strength and wisdom. Give Alma and Arthur Your peace, and use me as a vessel of healing. And, Lord, would You please slow things down a little?

  Chapter Two

  If this was another disaster drill, Mercy Richmond was going to make someone pay dearly. She kept her white lab coat on to protect the pink-and-blue bunny scrubs she wore underneath—her family practice c
onsisted mostly of women and children. After apologizing to the six long-suffering patients in her waiting room, she marched out the front door and down the block toward the hospital.

  Mercy’s stomach growled. Monday afternoon was the worst time to get called out. There’d been no time for lunch. Everyone in this town of ten thousand must have developed strep, flu or pneumonia over the weekend. She shouldn’t have agreed to be E.R. backup today. Her patient volume had increased to the point that she was going to have to stop seeing new patients or start keeping the office open an extra day a week.

  This spring she might have considered that possibility, but she’d won custody of her eleven-year-old daughter a few months ago, and she wanted to spend more time at home with Tedi. Since she no longer had to make two house payments, two car payments, and cover the bills her ex-husband had run up, she didn’t need the income she made from E.R. shifts. She hoped Theo never got out of that detox unit in Springfield. Her life was going so well with him out of the way…and with Dr. Lukas Bower taking more of an interest in her and in Tedi. Everything was looking good.

  As she stepped across the parking-lot curb and strode toward the E.R. entrance, the distant, thrusting rhythm of a helicopter in flight reached her for the first time. She noticed that the landing pad on the parking lot had been cleared of cars.

  Okay, so this time it probably wasn’t a drill.

  She looked down. That probably wasn’t fake blood on the concrete, either. In the back rooms of her clinic, she had never been able to hear the ambulances when they pulled into the E.R. Always before, she had considered that to be a good thing. Today, though, she could have used a little warning.

  She rushed through the sliding glass doors to find the waiting room filled with people in various stages of fluster. A patient with a splinted arm was being helped inside by a friend. The buzz of voices and the aura of worry greeted her like a familiar coworker. A group of three middle-aged women and two elderly men stood in the west corner by the vending machines with their hands clasped, praying.

  That happened a lot around here. It didn’t matter what you thought about God the rest of the time, when you faced life and death in the emergency room, you begged Him to give you another chance. Mercy had done it herself when her own daughter nearly died from a life-threatening allergic reaction to a bee sting—she who had always prided herself on her self-reliance. She’d even considered herself an agnostic until Lukas Bower exploded into her life last spring with his gentle humor, strong compassion for others and his vibrant faith. Nothing in her life had been the same since.

  A moan and a tormented shout reached her from one of the exam rooms, but she couldn’t understand the words. The mingled scents of antiseptic, body odor and diesel exhaust from the ambulance bay drifted through the room.

  “Thank goodness, Dr. Mercy,” Judy called from the emergency desk. She pulled off her reading glasses and picked up a clipboard with a T-sheet already attached. Her short salt-and-pepper hair spiked out on the right side, where she’d been keeping her ink pen tucked behind her ear. “Dr. Bower’s in Trauma One trying to save the leg of a lady who got hit by a car. Her husband’s in Trauma Two in stable condition, and the guy who hit everybody is in exam room three.” She shoved the clipboard across the desk. “There’s lots more, but Dr. Bower wanted you to see about the man in Two. Name’s Arthur Collins, and he’s really upset about his wife. They just took him off the backboard. Nice guy. Never complains about his own pain. Wish my husband treated me like that.”

  Mercy took the chart, then paused as the patient in Three—or so she presumed—shouted something again. The words were slurred, and they sounded Spanish. She raised a brow at Judy. “Who did you say that was?”

  Judy waved a dismissive hand. “That’s the drunk driver who hit them. He drove right up onto the courthouse lawn and mowed over a bunch of people from a tour group. He doesn’t even speak English.”

  “Has he been checked?”

  “Dr. Bower ordered some tests and a trauma panel, but they’ve been busy with the other patients, and nobody’s gotten to him yet except to put him on oxygen.”

  “Get to him.”

  Judy shrugged. “Okay, but I hope we can find somebody who can speak Spanish. So far the translator hasn’t come in.”

  The thumping of the helicopter rotors grew louder as the Air Care helicopter descended to the landing spot outside, the loud whomp-whomp-whomp of the rotors vibrating the windows.

  “Oh, good, they’re here for Alma Collins,” Judy said.

  “How many patients do we have, and how many more are coming?” Mercy asked, glancing at the T-sheet.

  “We’ve got six in and two more coming that I know about, but Dr. Wong’s on his way over to take care of our favorite exotic-animal rancher.”

  “Cowboy’s hurt again?”

  “He sure is. His neighbor shot him.”

  Mercy wasn’t sure she’d heard the secretary correctly. “Shot him!”

  Judy shook her head. “Nobody’s going to tell me human beings aren’t meaner than any other mammal. Looks like we’ll all be busy for a while.”

  Mercy suppressed a sigh. “Call my office, then. Tell Josie to do a triage and find out who really needs to see me today. Let her know what’s going on here. She’ll have to send some people home.”

  “Don’t worry, Dr. Mercy. They’ll come in here looking for you if they have to.”

  Mercy carried her clipboard into Trauma Room two, where Claudia Zebert, a stout fifty-year-old RN with twenty-five years of E.R. experience, took the blood pressure of a slender forty-seven-year-old man in a pressure turban. The view box on the wall held two shots of a dislocated right shoulder. Not broken. That made things a lot easier.

  Mercy stepped up to the exam bed. “Mr. Collins? I’m Dr. Mercy Richmond. My patients call me Dr. Mercy, and you just became one of my patients.”

  He looked up at her with troubled hazel eyes. “Dr. Mercy…that’s a good name for a doctor.”

  “My father was a physician, and he named me. When I got my license, our shared last name confused patients, so we both started using our first names. We were Dr. Cliff and Dr. Mercy.” Were. Dad was dead now.

  “You can call me Arthur. You’ll have to excuse me. I’m so worried about my wife that I’m not very good company.”

  “I understand, Arthur. Your wife is in good hands. Dr. Bower is one of the best.”

  Claudia reached down and squeezed his left arm. “See there, Arthur, I told you Dr. Bower will take good care of Alma.” The nurse’s brisk, familiar manner almost always calmed frightened patients. She gestured toward the turban. “We need to get this fixed up and get that shoulder back in shape so you can be there for Alma. The helicopter’s here now to pick her up and take her to the trauma center in Springfield.”

  Arthur caught his breath and reached up toward the side of the bed, as if he might try to get out. “I don’t want her to go alone.”

  “There’s no room in the helicopter for any passengers, but she won’t be alone once she gets up there,” Claudia soothed. “I saw half your tour group climbing into one of the vans to drive up and meet her there. The rest are staying here to pray for you. They seem like good people.” She squeezed his arm once more before leaving the room to check another patient.

  Mercy read Claudia’s notes on Arthur, then did her own assessment. He was a little tachycardic from blood loss, but IV fluids were already running into his uninjured left arm, and his pressure was already rising. Good sign. His heart would slow down naturally.

  Another shout reached them from the next room, and Arthur laid his head back against his pillow and sighed. “That poor man’s sure hurting. Can you do something for him?”

  Mercy frowned. She had heard the drunk driver had no obvious injuries. “Someone will be getting to him as soon as possible.”

  “He’s not drunk, you know.”

  Mercy looked up from her chart and studied Arthur’s green-gold eyes. “How can you tell?”r />
  “I speak Spanish. Alma and I are missionaries in Mexico. He’s making some sense. He’s saying over and over again how sorry he is, and that he doesn’t drink, doesn’t do drugs.”

  Mercy didn’t comment. She heard that a lot.

  “He’s also confused and hurting,” Arthur added.

  “Isn’t he the man who hit you and your wife?”

  Arthur nodded, then worry marred the fine features of his face once again. “My wife…I wish I could be with her.”

  A light, warm baritone voice reached them from the doorway. “I came over to give you an update, Arthur.”

  Mercy silently caught her breath and let the calm strength of that familiar voice settle over her like a blanket. She and Arthur both looked up at the same time to see Lukas Bower walking in to join them, his trauma shield in place over his gray framed glasses. His short brown hair was disheveled as usual. Lukas stood a couple of inches taller than Mercy’s five feet eight. In her eyes he had grown at least a foot since she had first met him last spring. Her gaze met his, and she smiled. The smile he returned was only for her, and the brilliance of it heated her cheeks. One of the nurses had told her once that when she entered the E.R., Dr. Bower’s face looked as if he’d just received a special gift.

  He stepped up to the bed, his blue eyes calm and reassuring behind the glare of glasses and shield. “Arthur, your wife is awake and talking, and she’s worried about you. I told her you’d be fine.”

  Arthur raised a hand toward him. “Will you let me see her before they take her away? Please. I want to talk to her a second. I just want to tell her I love her.”

  Lukas looked at Mercy, then looked back at Arthur and nodded. “I think we can do that. They’ll be wheeling her out in just a moment, and we’ll roll you into the hallway and let you rendezvous with her there. No, don’t try to get up. We don’t want you bleeding on us again before Dr. Mercy can get you stitched and get that shoulder fixed.” He gestured to Mercy and laid a hand on her arm briefly. She released the brake on the exam bed, and together they rolled the bed out into the open space as the flight nurse and paramedic wheeled Alma past.