True Valor

by Jax Hunter

Julie’s senses reeled. Nic’s cry of pain. Blood on the snow, running down his chest, on her sister’s pillow and the wall above her bed, on her mother’s face, on her father’s head, on the sheets. So much blood. And the man. All in black. A gun.

  Her breathing scraped against the silence engulfing her. Julie looked at her wrists, bared between her mittens and the cuffs of her coat. They stung with the bite of ice from putting her hands in the snow when she fell.

  A voice pleading. Nic. Gotta help Nic. Breathe. Help Nic. Focus.

  “I have to help you.”

  Nic just nodded, teeth gritted, his face pale.

  She looked from Nic to the doorway, seeing the cause of his pain. The device was something out of a movie. All she could see at this point was a two-by-four, apparently spring loaded to go off when the door opened. The nails, maybe a dozen of them, were spaced every inch or so and now dripped with blood.

  “Hurry up,” Nic croaked between gulps of air. “Help me get inside.”

  Julie helped him stand and tried to take some of his weight as they dragged themselves inside.

  By the time Julie got him into the chair beside the kitchen table, both his shirt and hers were soaked red. Remembrance threatened to stop her in her tracks, but she pushed it away, intent on the present. Nic’s breath came out in short gasps and he spoke only a word or two at a time. Julie left him for a moment to duck under the nasty-looking board and pull the door shut. She scurried around opening curtains to let in the limited light of approaching dusk. Even so, when she returned, he’d slid down another inch or two in the chair.

  “Let’s get you onto the bed before you pass out.”

  Again, she supported him, his left arm around her, his right hanging useless by his side. Fortunately, it wasn’t far. The cabin, though it had another bedroom up in the loft, was pretty much one big room.

  Nic gulped in raw gasps of air.

  “I gotcha.”

  She steadied him on the edge of the bed, reaching to pull off what was left of his shirt. Julie had never shied away from the sight of blood. Heck, she’d helped her dad gut deer and elk, but what she saw now nearly choked her. Angry, jagged rips laid his upper arm and chest open. Blood gushed from them.

  “Pressure.” The word came out in a groan as Nic reached for something with his one good arm. He grabbed his tattered shirt and pressed it hard against his right arm, sucking in his breath. Then, he sank back on the bed.

  “Nic!”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Nic!” Julie climbed on the bed beside him, shaking his shoulders. Still no answer but the rise and fall of his chest assured her he wasn’t dead. But, if she didn’t get the bleeding stopped soon, he would be. The fear of the moment crashed down on her, opening up the floodgates to let all the emotions from the last week crash down on her. She wept as she ran for the first-aid kit kept in the kitchen cabinet above the sink.

  Between her rush to get back to him and the tears clouding her vision, she managed to knock over a kitchen chair on her way back to the bed. It was getting dark and, before too long, she’d have to take a few minutes to get the lamps lit. Dad had always insisted that the lamps be filled before they left the cabin, so all they’d need was pumping and lighting. A fire would warm the place up quickly, once she had time to start one.

  Nic moaned when she sat beside him on the bed but he didn’t open his eyes. One hand holding his shirt on the wounds, Julie used her other to rummage through the first-aid kit. She knew what she was looking for.

  Goldenseal and myrrh powder.

  As long as she could remember, that was the remedy for anything that bled or was infected. She could almost see her father and Uncle Jess look at each other, a twinkle in their eyes, as friends and neighbors talked excitedly about stitches and doctors. This “secret” was one of the many things they’d brought back with them from Nam.

  Julie pulled the precious powder, enclosed in a zipper bag, from the assortment of home remedies in the box beside her. If ever this stuff was going to do its magic, stop the bleeding and prevent infection, now was the time.

  Gingerly, she pulled the shirt away from his arm and chest, grabbing the flashlight to get a better look. The bleeding had slowed a bit, but still came at a fast seep. She reached into the bag, scooped out a handful of the greenish powder, and began sprinkling it into the open wounds.

  Nic moaned.

  Julie had never known the stuff to sting, but she supposed that anything that she’d have done would hurt him. He’d begun to shiver violently. She hurried. Between loss of blood and the frigid temperature in the cabin, she needed to get his wounds dressed, him undressed and under the blankets and a fire started. The herbs worked, slowing the bleeding to an ooze and mixing with the blood to soak in. Bandages and tape finished the job for now.

  Getting him out of his wet jeans would be a bit harder unless she could wake him enough to help. And she’d have to be gentle moving him up into the bed so as not to reopen his chest and arm. She wasn’t sure she could do that at all. Nic was no small man. He was a good six inches taller than Julie and outweighed her by maybe eighty pounds. His dead weight might be more than she could handle. She tried to rouse him again, to no avail.

  Working as quickly as possible, she unbuckled his belt and unzipped his jeans. The jeans were only soaked from about his mid-thigh on down so she didn’t have to battle quite as hard as if they were completely wet to get them down over his hips. Releasing the damp denim’s hold on his legs was another fight. Sliding her hands between the fabric and his skin, though, assured her that she needed to hurry. His legs were cold to the touch.

  Once she had him down to his boxers—thank God, they weren’t wet—she was able to wake him enough that he could move into the bed. His dazed eyes met hers as she reassured him that he’d soon be warm. He smiled weakly, then closed his eyes and slept. She covered him with blankets and proceeded to get to work on light and heat.

  Lamps lit and the fire blazing in the wood stove, Julie realized the food they’d brought with them, still in the car, would freeze if left there overnight. The cabin, as she’d suspected, was well stocked with dried foods, but they’d brought meat and canned goods just in case it wasn’t. It was getting dark when she headed out the door. She ducked beneath the spiked wood and trudged to the car. It was full dark by the time she got back.

  She checked the thermometer that hung in the kitchen. Sixty-two degrees. It felt like an oven after being outside for almost an hour. She threw another log into the stove and closed the door. She’d have to bring in more wood in the morning, but, for now, there was enough. Nic would need nourishment and plenty to drink, so that was the next job. Fleetingly, she counted it a blessing that she needed to keep busy but acknowledged that keeping the feelings at bay would only be temporary.

  A hushed gasp caught Julie’s attention and she walked over to the bed. Nic still slept but his breathing was ragged and tears escaped the corners of his eyes. He mumbled unintelligible words. Julie’s heart ached for him, even as she wondered what demons he faced as he slept. She perched on the bed and touched his cheek, pausing to wipe away the tears, shushing him. His face was hot with fever. Good, his body was fighting. He quieted at her touch.

  Finally, when he was peaceful again, Julie escaped to the loft to check her secret place. There was nothing there.

  Nothing.

  They’d come here for nothing.

  Nic lay downstairs, fighting for his life. The man that had saved her. The man she owed her life to. The man she…

  Oh, God. All this. For nothing.

  With a sigh, she trudged back down the stairs. There was still work to be done.

  The regulator had to be hooked up outside and the pilots lit, before Julie could make soup.

  The cabin was set up with a propane stove, hooked by a hose that ran through a small hole in the wall to a hundred-pound tank that sat out on the back porch. There were, in fact, three tanks out back. To Patrick Galloway, running out of propane
was not acceptable. Memories of her father assaulted her as she did so.

  Once that was done, water would need to be pumped from a hand pump in the kitchen to fill the containers stored in the small pantry. She would also have to fill the thirty-gallon trash can, which was on wheels, that provided water for flushing.

  When it was time to eat, Nic was easier to wake. She helped him sit up, propped by pillows, and fed him the soup she’d made. He tried to feed himself, but she pulled the bowl away after the second spill.

  “You aren’t very coordinated with your left hand, are you?”

  “Uh-uh,” he grunted, his mouth full.

  It wasn’t long before his meager strength faded again, and he turned away from the proffered spoon. Julie coaxed him to drink half a glass of water before allowing him to lie back down and sleep. At least his shivering had stopped.

  Julie ate the rest of the soup, then rinsed the dishes. Her work done, she resigned herself to curl up in the big chair in front of the wood stove and let the tears come. She held in the sobs until her throat ached, not wanting to disturb Nic.

  Her family’s presence filled this place. They’d all had so many good times here. And now they were all gone. Julie allowed the memories of that night to come.

  On December twenty-third, Julie had driven home from Redding. Home to the house she’d grown up in. Jennifer had flown in from San Francisco earlier in the week. They greeted her with hugs and kisses and Christmas cookies which totally ruined her appetite for dinner.

  Jenn was terribly excited about the possibility of doing a cover for one of the top-three fashion magazines. That wasn’t surprising. Jenn had always been beautiful, always the one with perfect hair and makeup.

  Julie, on the other hand, had been content to be something of a tomboy, only recently going to a fancy salon for a good haircut and that just because Jenn had sent her a gift certificate. She’d insisted that the stylist not do anything that would take her more than five minutes to fix, and they’d settled on a blunt cut that fell just below the top of her shoulders and didn’t need more than a quick blow-dry. Jenn raved about it though, and that was enough. But, before the conversation ended, Jenn had, once again, elicited a promise from Julie that she could do a makeover. Mascara alone was simply not acceptable.

  After dinner, Mom had fixed hot chocolate and Dad had taken her aside to tell her he had a project for her that she’d love. When Julie pressed him about the details, he patted her hand and assured her that there was time tomorrow for all that.

  Tradition ruled the evening. Each of the girls was allowed to open one present. No surprise it had turned out to be Christmas pajamas. It was shortly after ten when they all went to bed.

  Julie didn’t look at the clock when she woke up with a start. Had she heard something? She tossed aside the covers, pulled on her fuzzy slippers and went out into the hallway. Jenn’s door was open. She glanced in as she passed. What she saw stopped her, but really didn’t sink in.

  A noise from her parents’ room kept her from rushing to Jenn’s side. She continued down the hall, coming to a stop at the doorway. A man stood at the foot of the bed, his back to her. Her sleepy mind struggled to make sense of what she saw. He was dressed in black and beyond him lay the bodies of her mom and dad, still in bed. Before she could react, he turned and looked at her, his eyes the only thing not covered by the knit ski mask he wore. His eyes registered surprise, then became hard, cold as he stepped toward her, gun in hand.

  The vision ended there. Julie hugged her knees, trying desperately to catch her breath, the pain in her chest nearly overwhelming. A small sob escaped and she lowered her head to her knees.

  Chapter Nine