Surviving Day By Day (Book 2): Fears, Flames, and Future

by Allensworth, Audra

  Beth listened to him and when she was sure that he was finished she did something that even shocked her but she had to do it to calm him down after all of the blood he had lost and the cauterizing act that Alden did. Beth was certain that if he would continue acting the way he was that he would go into shock. Slowly she leaned forward and softly pressed her lips against his forehead, then leaned back and continued, “Colt, first of all you did not expect that jerk to be hiding in the tent. You were merely checking for supplies and doing what Alden had instructed us to do. Secondly, about Jessica….honey you did what you could do to help her or at least you tried to help. Colt, you had no idea what was taking place and you were trying to do the right thing. That is the same thing every man would do for his Lady. Now finally, you did a damn good job protecting all of us and yourself during that barrage out there earlier. You did great with that!”

  Then Beth turned her head back toward where the enemy was laying behind the tent. “That guy just reacted the way anyone who would have acted if they had been caught hiding. I just am thankful that he shot you in the leg and not in the heart or head cause that I can’t fix. I can fix this, and get you as good as new. I will look at your shoulder once we are back at our own camp. So let’s just relax ok? Just hold my hand and you can talk about whatever you want to talk about, but I won’t let you feel sorry for yourself. If you start that, you’re right, you will get yourself and us killed.

  Colt smiled, “Guess I ain’t doing this right either” He flinched like he thought she would hit him, “Joking!”

  He looked around the camp and watched the others, Charlie was hurt and it looked like Ceara was favoring her side but he couldn’t tell for what. He wanted to sleep but knew Beth was worried about him going into shock so he looked back to her, “I’ve been thinking, what if some of these guys were out hunting or scouting. They could be back and come after us again.” He looked around again and smiled, “I can’t imagine them wanting to come after us again, after this” He leaned on to his good elbow, “I don’t know if staying where we are is a good idea or not, but I am going to let Alden make that call.”

  Ceara smiled as Tabitha grabbed the other horse, they tied them to one of the bumpers. “I am going to see if some of the livestock are around, if Alden wants us taking the horses back maybe we can find one of the cows or a chicken or two.”

  Tabitha laughed, “Yeah, Red good luck with that. I’ll go look for food or weapons.”

  Ceara made her way out to the woods then called back to Tabitha, “Let Charlie know where I went, OK?” Tabitha waved her off as if to say yeah, ok.

  Ceara pulled out her knife again and began looking around, she wasn’t about to have what happen to Colt happen to her. Part of her wanted to be happy he got shot, now he knew how Maximus felt, but she couldn’t bring herself to enjoy someone’s pain. She felt horrible that any of them got hurt. Looking down at her tattered shirt and her own injury, she knew looked bad and may scar but the truth was it was minor and it would heal. Ceara tucked the shirt back into her pants to keep it closed. Charlie had torn it all the way to the bra to get to the wound.

  “Note to self, punch Charlie for ruining one of my only shirts.” She shook her head and decided that once Beth helped Colt and Charlie then got some rest she would tell her about her side and get some cream or something.

  Chapter 2 – No Pain, No Gain

  Alden continued his search for weapons and he looked at his watch then turned, “TEN MINUTES AND WE’RE GONE, EVERYBODY FINISH IT UP.”

  He knew they had been there longer than he had wanted but at the same time the plunder they were gathering was worth it. He had seen the girls gather food and clothes and they had all found a lot of weapons. He looked in one more tent, where he found an old man who had been tied to the ground with stakes. He was a wanderer now, snarling and growling and foaming at the mouth. Alden stood and stared at the man for a moment trying to figure out what the deal was.

  Deciding it wasn’t worth the time or effort, he pulled his knife and put the poor, old gent out of his misery. He turned to go and noticed a bag in the corner. Grabbing it he looked in and smiled. Alden walked out and looked around.

  Beth was still sitting with Colt; and Tabitha was still searching for weapons. He heard a whistle and turned, seeing Ceara moving three head of cattle towards them with a chicken running around the cow’s legs. Charlie had moved in to help her. The two were laughing as they moved the cows then suddenly Ceara slapped Charlie in his good arm. Alden shook his head. “Kids,” he mumbled to himself. “Let’s wrap it up, come on you two.”

  Waving at Ceara and Charlie, then walking over he looked at Colt, “Beth we need to get him in the RV.” Beth looked up at him with tired eyes and nodded. She stood and swayed a bit and Alden reached out catching her. “Look, you go get in the RV, I’ll get Colt.”

  Beth staggered towards the RV as Colt looked to Alden, “She’s done man. I mean she is spent, wore out.”

  Alden turned and watched then looked back to Colt, “We all are son. We all are.” Alden squatted down, “You ready?” Colt nodded. With one swift smooth motion Alden picked him up under his one good arm, “Lean on me and we’ll get you up in there.”

  Colt looked at him as he got his balance, “I’m sorry Sir. I’m sorry about getting shot twice.”

  Alden grinned, “First off I ain’t no fucking SIR; secondly I’m fairly sure from all my experiences that you did not purposely step in front of either of those bullets. I could be wrong but that doesn’t happen often.”

  Colt smiled, leaning just a bit more on the man, “No, can’t say you are wrong about that one, Sir.. I mean Alden.” Alden got Colt up into the RV and Beth took over getting him to the first seat.

  Alden looked at her, “You think you can drive this rig?” Beth looked worried but then nodded, “Yeah it’s not like I have to dodge traffic or anything; I’ll just take it slow.”

  Alden climbed out and walked to Charlie. “Charlie you get up in the RV with Beth and help her with getting it back.” He turned to Tabitha and Ceara, “I haven’t herded cattle since I was twelve but I think I remember how.”

  The two girls looked at him with mouths open. Ceara swung up on one of the horses, she had tied the fourth horse’s reins on to her horse and rode over to Tabitha handing her a set of reins. “What about the chickens? I kind of like the idea of fresh eggs.”

  Alden smiled as he swung onto his horse, “You want to catch them and carry them, be my guest, but outside of that I don’t think they will follow us home.”

  Ceara smirked, “Well I want eggs!” She climbed back out of the saddle and started chasing a chicken; she switched which one she was chasing several times. She skidded to a stop and slapped her hands on her knees glaring at both Tabitha and Alden as they laughed at her, “You guys could help!”

  Tabitha tried to stop laughing but Alden smirked, “Ceara, you aren’t catching them. Give it up, we may be able to come back later with a cage or something.” Ceara tried one more time but finally gave up and climbed back in the saddle. “Fine, let’s go!”

  Tabitha quickly mounted her horse then looked over to Ceara. “Look when we get home we can all relax a little and get cleaned up.” Looking over at Charlie, Tabitha felt incredibly sorry for the little guy. Then she looked over at the carnage that lay around her and yet the six of them still survived.

  Even though they were bruised and battered along with being worn completely out, they made it!! “Beth will help us all with her knowledge and after that I say we cook up a nice dinner after we all get a little rest and patched up.”

  Ceara was a little irritated that she was not able to catch the chickens and she thought that if she could’ve had a little more time she would’ve caught at least a couple. Ceara glanced over to Tabitha, “Just wish I could’ve caught that damn chicken.”

  Tabitha giggled, “Ya well, let’s just chalk it up to the fact they must be a little flustered underneath their feathers! I mean with all of th
e firefighting going on. Let’s just say he doesn’t want to be dinner for anyone! But damn, KFC does sound good.”

  Ceara looked over to Tabitha and smiled, “Ya and their coleslaw is the bomb too, along with the mashed potatoes smothered in gravy. DAMN! How I miss that stuff!” Tabitha wanted it too but what she didn’t want was to see Ceara get irritated again so she piped up and asked, “Speaking of KFC, you know what KFC really stands for?”

  Ceara said, “Well other than Kentucky Fried Chicken I have no idea.”

  Tabitha smiled big and sat up straight on her horse, “Well it means the Colonels Fucking Cooking and sense we have no Colonel, so I guess he ain’t cooking!”

  For the first time Ceara busted up laughing and said, “Ya I imagine that his nuggets are fried too.”

  Tabitha returned the laughter, “Yeah and if he was around I don’t know if I would want his fucking gravy either!”

  Both girls continued for what seemed like hours laughing but actually it was only a few more minutes when Ceara broke in with a big yawn. Tabitha then yawned. “Damn girl did ya have to start that yawning shit!!?? That is probably more contagious than one of those damn Wanderers bites!”

  Ceara kicked the horse and followed Alden’s lead she started leading the cows through the woods. Each time any of them started to wander off, whoever was closest to it cut it off and forced it to rejoin the others. It was much easier that she thought it would be.

  Two hours later they were breaking through the tree line to their own cabins. Ceara was very happy to see them! “Hey Alden, now that we have them here what are we doing with them?”

  Alden swung down off his horse, “We stake them for now.” Ceara took a shocked breath, “We can’t kill them!!” Alden laughed a deep, throaty laugh, “No Ceara, I meant we put a stake in the ground and we tie the cows to them. We will think of what to do later.”

  Ceara got off her horse and tied the reins off on a branch, as she grabbed one of the harness’ on the first cow; Charlie came out the back door. “About time you guys got here! I just told Beth I was coming after you if you were gone ten more minutes.”

  Alden raised an eyebrow at him, “You think whatever can stop me, you can handle?”

  Charlie blushed, “Well, no but you may have needed help.” Charlie went to Ceara and gave her a kiss. When Ceara saw the bandage still on his arm, she furrowed her brow, “Why hasn’t Beth looked at your arm?”

  Charlie looked to his arm as if he forgot about it, “Well she is kind of busy with Colt, I think the bullet broke his collarbone. Besides, I’m ok.” Ceara rolled her eyes and looked to Tabitha and Alden, wanting one of them to help her out.

  Colt heard the group come back and looked to Beth, “I guess they made it back ok.” Beth handed him a glass of water as she held a needle in her other hand. “Yes, they are all fine, now stop worrying about them.”

  He drank the water but kept his eyes on the needle, “What is that?” Beth smiled, “I need to look at your shoulder and leg, to do that you need to be as relaxed as I can get you. This is a shot of morphine.”

  Colt shook his head, “Can’t do shots, I hate needles!”

  Beth cocked her head to the side, “You were not asked, I informed you what it was. I didn’t ask if you wanted it.” Colt tried to scoot away from her, “No shots.”

  Beth put her hand on her hip, “Do I need to call the men in here to hold you down? I thought you were worried about how you looked to Alden after the fight?” She knew that was a low way to get him to agree but she needed him to allow her to give him the shot.

  Colt’s jaw tightened as he spoke, “No, you don’t need to call them. Fine, just hurry up and do it! Where did you get morphine from?” Beth smiled and sat down with the syringe in her hand and began to talk calmly, “Look, I know what you’re talking about, not liking needles because I sure don’t like them either. It was in that surgical kit Charlie found, the leader must have kept all that for himself. Now, all I am going to do is give this to you and then after it’s injected into your bloodstream you will be on cloud nine. Hell, for that matter you will be past cloud nine, perhaps on cloud twenty and your shoulder won’t be bothering you at all.”

  Colt sat there with this confused dog look on his face but kind of raised his brows when he remembered what morphine does and liked the fact that he wouldn’t feel as horrible as he had. “Just make it quick and get it over with.”

  Beth looked at him and said, “Give me your arm please.” He hesitantly gave her his left arm and looked away. Usually she would have counted to three but instead she counted to herself and within seconds she hit it and pulled out the needle. Colt really didn’t feel the needle going in but when he felt the heat of the morphine he shouted, “FUCK, THAT’S HOT!!”

  That reaction caused Beth to giggle then when she looked at how Colt’s head began to sway back and forth. “How do you feel now?”

  Colt looked at her then smiled, “What a rush!!!” Beth smiled and got up then spoke, “Colt I need you to lay down. Let me help you.”

  Gently she went up to his torso and helped guide him down to the couch then assisted him with his legs. “First things first…. I got to get your pants off.”

  Colt had the biggest smile on his face, “Yeah, I always thought you wanted in my pants….” He started to giggle and tried unzip his zipper but was having a hard time. Beth laughed and batted his hands away and unzipped it herself. Working as carefully as she could, she managed to get his jeans off and then went over to the kitchen and grabbed a pitcher and basin out of the top of the cabinets that she had seen earlier in the week.

  Once the pitcher was full, she took them over and placed them on the floor then went back to grab several wash clothes. When she had everything she needed she squatted down and looked up to Colt, he had his one good arm underneath his head propping it up where he could see what Beth was doing. The smile on his face was still like a Cheshire cat. “What are you smiling at Colt?”

  He looked at her and without thinking he stated, “Like what ya see?” Beth raised her brow and asked with her face redder than an apple, “Seriously??”

  Colt laughed and said, “Ya babyyyyy”. Beth laughed and said, “You are so, not right!” Wasting no time, Beth got right to work cleaning the wound. He had lost a lot of blood, but when Alden had cauterized the wound it did stop the bleeding. Colt really didn’t need any stitches but she thought it did need to be bandaged and dressed accordingly.

  Beth reached in the medic kit and grabbed a roll of gauze, and some surgical tape. Just then she remembered that she thought she had picked up some antibiotic cream when she had been at that pharmacy. Quickly she got up and went to her room where she retrieved a very large tube of Bactroban. She knew it was a kick-ass antibiotic cream that one can only get with a prescription. When she got back into the room Colt was he was looking up at the ceiling. “You doing ok, Colt?”

  Colt looked over to her and answered, “Surprisingly, I am starving to death.” Beth got back to work on his wound and continued talking very softly, “Well that is a good sign but I think we are all hungry.”

  Once his leg was bandaged she looked up to Colt and reached over to the medic bag where she grabbed a pair of surgical scissors and proceeded to cut his shirt off. Colt just laid there continuing to smile while she worked and once she got his shirt off she could see the damage after she cleaned the wound. Seeing the displacement of the collar bone Beth knew that it was broken.

  Fortunately though, by her feeling the bones carefully, she could tell that it was a clean break and probably left no bone fragments from where the bullet had gone through. Firmly she placed both hands on each side of the bones and applied a generous amount of pressure and when she heard a profound pop and Colt’s reaction was that of wincing in pain as if it was a minor discomfort. After releasing the pressure Beth noticed that the bones did not bounce back and stayed where she had placed them.

  “Well that does it” she said with a smile on her face.


  Colt looked over and asked, “Does what?”

  Beth looked at him and continued, “Your collarbone is broke and I reset the bones. Now I will have to sew you up and we will have to make you a sling with whatever we can find. I think Alden and I can rig something up. In a few weeks after you are on the mend, we will start you off on some simple exercises to keep the muscle strength up but you’re not going to be using it for quite a while.”

  Beth wasted no time as she continued to get her surgical gear in place and worked even faster stitching the front of his shoulder, and when she was done she rolled him over on his side. She noticed that the bullet had definitely passed clean through.

  Colt was making several noises that were not uncommon from having that kind of an injury. In fact the noises began to come on more and more once she got him on his side. As she finished with the last few stitches Beth started talking to Colt to keep him focused on her voice, “Colt?” she asked.

  Colt with a bit of distress in his voice answered “Yes?”

  Beth continued, “Has anyone ever told you that you have an awesome body?” Colt chuckled then answered, “Aww shucks.”

  Beth snickered then replied, “I bet you never thought that I would get you down on a couch in a manner such as this. I mean taking your pants off and cutting your shirt off the way that I did. You know, if this here was a movie I would venture a guess that we went beyond the rating of PG.”

  Colt chimed in slowly and Beth could tell that he was in a lot of pain which made her close the wound even faster. “I just wish that things I different is all.”