Wings for Nurse Bennett

by Adeline McElfresh

  "While the long southwestern leg of the triangle is skirted, roughly, and in part, by the Alaska Highway, it encompasses some of Alaska's and Yukon Territory's most thinly populated areas. Lynx City, on the Donjek River, is in the heart of the area. Snow there was reported to have reached twenty inches, and there are doubts that, even if passengers and crew were abandoned, they could have survived the storm."

  "Aboard the plane when it vanished—"

  Fletch Minsen turned him off. He knew who was on the plane.

  Jeez— For the first time in his life, words he'd heard and not whisky made him want to puke, and he bolted for the dark that already was settling outside the shack.

  That same darkness was touching the mountains that ringed the tiny valley, sifting down through the spruces, creeping into the cabins that by now were as cozy as igloos. Yawning, Sarah rose from the spruce boughs that upholstered the chair they had improvised by placing a suitcase against the wall and piling soft, springy, needled boughs on it.

  "I'm as bad as Andrea," she said to Jan-Doreen. "I almost went to sleep."

  "Andrea has." Dark eyes caressed the baby lying at her side.

  The baby was on her regular nursing schedule now and Sarah prayed that Jan-Doreen's milk would remain plentiful. Although how it could on a diet of tough mutton, with sometimes a rabbit— She put the worry from her. They had enough for now, for as long as Old Ram lasted, and she had heard Al and Mac McDavie talking about rigging a trap.

  She snatched the frown in time. Jan-Doreen mustn't see her concern.

  Now, more than ever, Jan-Doreen needed a balanced diet and plenty of it, and mutton, rabbit, fish— It was a miracle their stomachs didn't rebel, she thought.

  "Mr. Jefferson's temperature?" Jan-Doreen asked when she opened the medical bag.

  "Yes."

  "He's better, isn't he?"

  Sarah said, "I think so—I hope so, Jan-Doreen. But his temperature isn't going down as it should if the infection is lessening."

  It had dropped to 99.9 and remained there, as steadfastly as earlier it had hovered at a hundred and one, and if the leukocytosis were decreasing there should be a resultant drop in temperature.

  Since there wasn't—

  "I'm going to be awfully glad when he's in a hospital, Jan-Doreen."

  "I should say so!"

  She dropped the thermometer case into her jacket pocket.

  "I expect Andy and Mrs. Emlyn will be over with supper in a few minutes."

  Jan-Doreen made a face. "Ugh. Is there a substitute for salt, Sarah?"

  "Yes. But we don't have it either."

  "That's the first thing I'm going to ask for."

  Thinking that Jan-Doreen at least was hopeful, Sarah went outside. There would be a moon tonight, and already there were stars.

  A good flying night, Al had said a while ago, when they were building up the signal fire which now was throwing long shadows across the snow. A plane would have to be close to see their fire, though. Almost as close as it would have to be to read the SOS they had tramped out in the snow, huge letters filled in with spruce boughs to make them easier seen. They had done that this afternoon, after that high-flying plane had trailed its vaporous trail across the sky. After all, if there had been one plane there might be another…

  It was a straw, but they had grasped it.

  How desperately she didn't like to think. Paul and John Norstead had been gone four days now.

  And four days in this snow, without food and only their lighters and that mouse's nest Paul had shoved into a pocket— Oh, God! Sarah thought, pushing open the cabin door. Let them get through!

  A savory, tantalizing smell that couldn't possibly emanate from that tough old ram drew her inside. "It certainly smells yummy in here."

  "Wait till you try to get your teeth into it," McDavie warned, and Sarah laughed.

  "I'm ready to try."

  McDavie grinned. "Mrs. Emlyn says if we can get another one we'll pound him up and make pemmican. At least we'll be able to chew it."

  He unfolded from the Indian squat in which he had been sitting on the floor in front of the fire. "Ready to take the pot off now?" he asked Mrs. Emlyn, who had been poking at its contents with the butcher knife Sarah had brought from the plane's galley.

  "Please, Mr. McDavie." She stepped back, not quite as sprightly as she had been four days ago, Sarah couldn't help thinking. And no wonder!

  Using his grimy, worn gloves as a potholder, Mac McDavie lifted the kettle carefully from the fireplace crane. They had been cooking over here since Jan-Doreen's confinement, and although Sarah still didn't like the looks of that bellying-down ceiling, it was better, she admitted. Jan-Doreen could rest, and without the constant coming and going there wouldn't be nearly the chance of the baby taking cold. Or pneumonia.

  And pneumonia, here—

  "Jan-Doreen said you were over here," Al said, coming into the cabin behind her. "Starved out?"

  "You know what she came for," George Jefferson grumbled, but good-naturedly. "To shove that infernal thermometer down my throat."

  Sarah laughed at him. "You know you like it."

  "I'd like it better if you didn't have to."

  "So would I," Sarah said, inserting the thermometer in the little pocket beneath his obedient tongue.

  Watching the sweeping second hand on her watch she asked Al, "Is Andy with Jan-Doreen?"

  "And about to bust his buttons. He put a finger to Andrea's palm and she took right hold. If you don't believe it, ask him," with a grin.

  George Jefferson mumbled something and Sarah shushed him. "No more of that or we'll start over."

  The second hand marched steadily three times around the tiny Roman numerals before Sarah said, "Now you can say it," as she retrieved the thermometer.

  "I said, just wait till it's your turn."

  For the first time Sarah was grateful for the flickering firelight that made it next to impossible to read the thermometer without bending almost into the fireplace. Warmth rushed upward from her throat, her face must be flaming, and for Heaven's sake, why should it?

  None of them, not even Al and certainly not George Jefferson, knew how she felt—

  101.1?

  It couldn't be!

  Why, he'd been 99.9 yesterday— Carefully she held the thermometer to the light again, turned it until the thin column of mercury glinted. 101.1.

  "What is it?" Mr. Jefferson must have sensed her concern.

  Sarah told him.

  "Could it be the fire?"

  Oh, for a lab test!

  She answered, "Not that quickly." And then, "How do you feel? Any more tender?"

  "No."

  "Not even any twinges?"

  He didn't hesitate. "Oh, sure. Once in a while. But none of your twisting scalpels." He eyed the meat Mrs. Emlyn and Mac McDavie were slicing and putting on the birch bark plates. "I suppose a hundred one point one means I get broth again."

  It wasn't a question. He knew that he would… as he did not know, Sarah thought, that she doubted he should have anything. If he were in a hospital he wouldn't.

  But then, she reminded herself, if he were in a hospital he wouldn't still have that appendix. And the man did have to eat something to keep his strength up…

  Old Ram tasted as delicious as he had smelled, cooking—even if she did have to chew and chew and then swallow the bite practically whole. Sarah and Mrs. Emlyn ate with Al, Mac McDavie and Mr. Jefferson, more to give Jan-Doreen and Andy Stevanic a few precious minutes alone than anything else, although it did give Sarah the opportunity to observe Mr. Jefferson when he was off-guard. He was in good spirits, she thought, and he seemed to be in no particular pain. Not even from the twinges he admitted having.

  If he were having any now he certainly didn't allow them to show in his face—and they would, if they even approached those "twisting scalpels," she told herself.

  If it wasn't for that fever—

  Her gaze lost itself in the fire. A hundred one
point one wasn't much fever—in almost anything but appendicitis it wouldn't be enough to worry about.

  But—

  "Stop worrying about me, Miss Bennett," George Jefferson read her preoccupation. "I'm not the first man who got his appendix in a sling in the middle of nowhere."

  "You're the first one who's been my responsibility."

  He studied his tin cup, almost empty now of the broth he'd been nursing along.

  "It does seem like Sannikov Island, sometimes, doesn't it? Or Ultima Thule?"

  Mrs. Emlyn bristled. "George Jefferson, you know there's no such places in Alaska!"

  "I know Ultima Thule. 'Remote place,'" Sarah translated. "But I'm like you, Mrs. Emlyn. I never heard of Sannikov Island."

  A teasing triumph embroidered Mr. Jefferson's grin. "It was on the maps for years. Some Russian named Sannikov claimed to have discovered it in 1810 up north of the New Siberian Islands and named it for himself, charted it and everything. Some Russian icebreaker went looking for it, 1937 or '38, I think it was, and proved what had been suspected for a long time. Sannikov Island never had been anywhere except in Mr. Sannikov's mind."

  "That must have hurt," Mac McDavie remarked.

  Mrs. Emlyn looked as if she didn't believe it, Sarah thought with a smile that was strictly for herself, and in a way she didn't blame her. George Jefferson was a surprising sort of person… but he wasn't the fool that Mrs. Emlyn had christened him on the plane.

  He knew at least a little about a lot of things—and they knew next to nothing about him.

  The realization struck her with shocking suddenness. He was George Jefferson of Seattle, who had business interests in Fairbanks. He had suffered a mild attack of appendicitis a month ago and his doctor's name was Alexander—

  Shaking her head when Mac McDavie asked if she wanted the last bite in the pot, she rose from the upended log stool.

  "Good night… Coming, Mrs. Emlyn?"

  "I should say I am!" crisply, but laughingly. "You're not going to leave me on that island!"

  Into the laughter Al said, "I'll see the girls home."

  He followed them into the beginning-to-be-moonlit darkness. "What's the matter, Sarah?"

  The question was low-voiced, sober, demanding an answer.

  "Nothing."

  "I know you better than that."

  That was the trouble, Sarah thought. He did.

  He had, from the moment she'd stepped off that plane in Juneau—was it only a week ago?

  From that instant there had been an—an affinity— her mind fumbled the expression—a something shared between them. "I—was thinking about Mr. Jefferson."

  It wasn't a lie, it—just wasn't the truth, she told herself. And she wasn't ready, not yet, to discuss the truth even with Al. After all, lots of people didn't talk about themselves. Not even when they were thrown together like this and talking about familiar things sometimes helped. Maybe it didn't help Mr. Jefferson, and—and—

  Al accepted it and a few minutes later had returned to the other cabin, accompanied by Andy Stevanic. Mrs. Emlyn lay down on her side of the spruce-bough pallet she and Sarah shared, while Sarah sat on the edge of Jan-Doreen's bed, beside the baby.

  "You're going to be a regular Dresden doll, Andrea Stevanic," she told the blissfully asleep face. "Of course," judiciously, "you are still a mite red."

  "She's a Dresden Indian," Jan-Doreen said contentedly. And then, "Ohhhhh, Sarah, I'm so happy!"

  "And proud of yourself, I'll bet."

  "Well—" Jan-Doreen hugged her full breasts—"a little."

  Sarah smiled at that, remembering what Al had said about Andy being "about to bust his buttons." She sniffed. "Something tells me we need a fresh diaper."

  Jan-Doreen wailed, "But Andy just changed her!"

  Diapers were going to be a problem, Sarah warned herself as she changed the baby. They had only a dozen linen napkins, and a dozen diapers for a newborn baby—especially with no laundry facilities—

  Of course, there were the turkish towels— She was still mulling the problem when she dropped off to sleep…

  Suddenly she was awake.

  Wide awake, in that quick-waking way that nurses have, but without knowing what it was that had alerted her.

  She sat up. Mrs. Emlyn was sleeping quietly. So was Jan-Doreen—so, a quick check showed her, was the baby. And she wasn't cold. She'd been up a little after midnight to replenish the fire, and the cabin was still cozily warm… She strained to hear the sound again, for it must have been a sound. Al, she thought, or perhaps Mac McDavie, going to build up the signal fire.

  She couldn't see it from the window—beyond the small square there was only moonlight, cold and brilliant on the snow, only the mountains rising in forbidding silent wrath to hem them in.

  She closed her eyes—

  "Sarah?"

  "Yes, Al—"

  "It's Jefferson. He's—I think you'd better come, Sarah." Fear was controlled in Al's voice, but it was there, underlying, interwoven. "He's in a bad way."

  Chapter 12

  "Looks—as if—you—were—right, Miss—Bennett."

  Each word was hard-bitten, encased in its own sterile capsule as if to inure it against the pain that must be a stabbing, twisting lancet in his abdomen.

  "I'm not—chronic."

  The twin to the lancet that was gyrating in George Jefferson's abdomen writhed behind Sarah's sternum.

  Oh, God—

  But her voice was as calm as if he were a patient being readied for Dr. Cal's o. r. "When did you start feeling like this, Mr. Jefferson?"

  "An—hour— Hell, I don't know, Miss—Bennett!" with a wincing grimace. "I thought it—must be—almost daylight, but Al says it's—only—two."

  "A quarter after," Sarah told him.

  She inserted the thermometer beneath his tongue and tried not to think of the blood smears that at this minute should be being rushed to the lab for counts of the neutrophilic granulocytes and leukocytes, of the sedimentation rate test, of the X-rays that should be taken.

  And she had a fever thermometer and a stethoscope and what she could learn by observation and questioning. Mr. Jefferson's Dr. Alexander should have done as Mrs. Stevanic's obstetrician had done and given him a medical history—

  The thought nudged into her consciousness and went flitting, as quickly as that.

  She removed the thermometer, turned it in the firelight to catch the elusive glint of mercury.

  103.7!

  It couldn't be—and yet it was.

  A jump of 2.6 degrees in—how long had it been since she'd taken his temperature?

  Eight hours? Nine?

  Which ever, it was not long enough for such a rise unless there was a massive increase in inflammation.

  As of course there was, her surgical nurse's knowledge told her. The fecalith, or whatever the obstruction, finally had blocked the tract and pus and poison were piling up behind and around it—the appendix might even be gangrenous. From some pigeon-hole her mind shuffled the fact that in gangrenous appendicitis the pain and the tenderness sometimes lessen for a time but the fever remains.

  Oh, God! she thought.

  Was that the reason for that drop in temperature, that lessening of pain, and she hadn't even suspected?

  Aware that they were watching her, waiting for her to speak, she drew a deep breath that steadied the tremor pulsing in her throat.

  "One oh three point seven, Mr. Jefferson," she said quietly.

  A spruce log snapped, the sound shot-loud in the silence.

  George Jefferson seemed a long time saying, "That's not—good, is it?"

  Sarah shook her head.

  One pudgy hand gingerly explored his abdomen, coming to rest on the tenderness that seemed centered around McBurney's point.

  At least that was an indication that the appendix wasn't deep in the pelvis, or even somewhere else than one of the normal locations, as it might be if there was any malrotation of the colon, Sarah knew… The tooth t
hat had begun nibbling at a corner of her lower lip released its prey.

  If only Dr. Cal were here!

  Or even Ralph, she thought. Surely even Ralph could do an appendectomy if a man's life depended on it!

  "Al," she said.

  He was at her side instantly and, at her instruction, helping Mr. Jefferson with his trousers, unbuttoning the "long johns" that Jenny had warned Sarah were almost a must in Alaska in winter, even for women, if they were going to be out of doors.

  "I feel like a damn fool," Jefferson groaned as Sarah's fingers touched his flesh and began gently to palpate the area.

  "You should have brought your Dr. Alexander along."

  He grunted, and winced. "Easy, Miss Bennett."

  The reassuring smile sat uneasily upon her mouth. She could feel a mass, soft, small—but it shouldn't be there.

  It hadn't been when she had palpated his abdomen when the attack first began…

  Telling herself that, she adjusted the stethoscope in her ears, moved the listening bell lightly, slowly, over his abdomen.

  There was only a whisper of intestinal activity, thank God.

  If he had eaten more than that cup of broth, even a few mouthfuls of tough Old Ram— She was aware of Andy Stevanic slipping out the door, of Mac McDavie crouched beside the fire, of Al leaning against the log wall near the foot of the crude bed… of George Jefferson's eyes never leaving her face, as if he could read the answer from her expression.

  Why did people always watch doctors and nurses like that? One of the ruggedest parts of her training, Sarah often had thought, had been steeling herself to hide what she felt, to be sympathetic and understanding without letting a patient know what her observations were telling her. That was information for the doctor—for Dr. Alexander, a thousand miles away, in Seattle, she thought.

  Removing the stethoscope from her ears she said, "Only a few wee rumbles."

  "I—take it that's—good?"

  "Well, it's better than if you'd eaten a big supper."

  Especially since she didn't have a Miller-Abbott tube— A suspicion nudged her. "You haven't had anything since we all ate, have you?"