The Patient
by Mary Ellen Snodgrass
Swollen lids crusted with blood and dust struggled to open. At the first movement, the doctor's hands felt for fever and counted the throat pulse. The patient's eyelids fluttered. "Am I here?" he moaned. "Here."
Lips moved at the edge of his right ear. "It's Dr. Mike, Sully. Don't worry. You're safe at the homeplace. You're in my bed." She smoothed the patterned quilt across his torso and turned down the wick on the bedside lamp, but remained at hand's reach to her patient. Throughout the dark hours, she stirred to listen to his labored breathing, to check for signs of concussion, and to touch his skin for evidence of fever or sweating.
Until dawn, Sully slid in and out of consciousness from the effects of a severe beating. He slitted his lids to examine the planking overhead. His cabin. His home. Safe.
Michaela shuddered at sight of her landlord's face, which was barely recognizable beneath angry bruised flesh and severe swelling of the right eye. To rehydrate his battered body, she spooned water into his mouth.
"Dr. Mike," he breathed, licking his split lip and reaching for a shadow. "Heartsong."
Dr. Quinn was accustomed to the personal babblings of patients. She lifted his right eyelid and looked at the vessels crushed by a fist. A red blot showed seepage from a damaged vein.
"Follow the candle," she ordered, moving a lighted taper to test his vision. She sighed a thankful "yes" to the function in his eye. He sank back into a stupor. "My heartsong," he muttered.
After another hour's sleep, Sully groaned unfamiliar words. One sounded like "Michaela," but she couldn't be sure. He had never called her by her first name. Always Dr. Mike.
"Are you thirsty? Try a spoonful of apple juice and honey," she urged. She fed him sweet mouthfuls bit at a time and blotted dribbles from his beard. "That should give you strength."
He pursed his lips at the fruity taste. As the pain seized him once more, he nodded distractedly, and lapsed once more into troubled sleep. "Ahhh," he uttered when he tried to stir. "Hurts when I breathe," he mumbled, his first full sentence. At least his brain was not damaged.
"This will help. A spoonful of laudanum," she identified the painkiller. "It will be bitter."
He nodded and gulped down the cloudy liquid. His breathing eased as he lapsed once more into uneasy sleep punctuated by mumbled, angry epithets in Cheyenne and fisting of his left hand.
*****
When the patient opened his eyes, early morning light flooded the walls from the east. He struggled to change position. "Wolf," he summoned his pet. "Here, Wolf."
Michaela's hands pressed him back to the pillow and massaged his tense neck muscles.
"Wolf is with Brian. He's safe." She stroked at the matting in the patient's hair. "Now that you're awake, I'm going to examine your wounds. Cloud Dancing will help me hold you still."
"Wounds?" he asked, trying to focus on the two who hovered over him. "Cloud Dancing?"
"The medicine man found you at the bottom of a ravine," she informed him. "Your ribs may be broken. There's swelling over your right eye and a bloody contusion on your lower back. Your hips and legs will be numb until the swelling goes down."
"Numb?" he queried. "Can't walk."
"You're healthy. Don't worry. You'll heal quickly." She opened her bag and began her work. The bell of her stethoscope eased right from the center of his chest to his left side. "Lungs are clear," she spoke to Cloud Dancing with a look of relief. "I need to feel for broken bones."
The local healer lifted his old friend with a skill he learned from his father during battles and after treatment of the sick. "It will be well, my friend," he coaxed. "The spirits have spoken. I will search for herbs to make the pain end soon."
"Ohhh," the patient flinched as Michaela's fingertips searched sinew and tendon for tears and bones and joints for dislocation or breaks. He listened to the peaceful chanting of his old friend's prayers.
"Spirits, heal my friend. Spirits, give him rest and health," Cloud Dancing sang in the Cheyenne language. His song ended with thanks that Sully survived the attack.
Firm fingerpads crept up the patient's side to the worst spot, where a splintered left rib endangered his lung. She looked up. "This is the source of Sully's restlessness and misery. It needs immediate binding."
She was accustomed to consulting with Cloud Dancing, who followed the trail of her search and located raw ends of bone. "It is a bad break," he agreed.
She turned to her patient and spoke honestly, but gently of his suffering. "You have a bruised right torso and badly swollen right hand. I'm going to wrap your chest to immobilize the broken rib on your left side. It will be snug, but you can move and reach more easily with it bandaged."
The patient said nothing, but relaxed at the end of her probing.
With a gesture to Cloud Dancing, Michaela eased Sully to his right side and made five rounds with cloth strips, which she knotted firmly at the center of his chest. As he leaned against the pillow, she saw blood spots in his hairline, the result of a jagged cut.
"Can you stand a bit more treatment?" she whispered at his ear. The caress of her lips quieted him.
He nodded with effort, "Yes."
With a sudsy cloth, she soaked and softened the clotted wound on his lower back. As the crust dissolved, she could see a heel mark over his left kidney.
"You were kicked in the back, Sully," she muttered. "A cruel blow. I can see the shape of the boot on your skin."
"Ahhhh," he moaned as he pushed her hands away.
"Rest," she signed with a caress on his upper arms. "I'll finish washing you later."
*****
Sully awakened stiff and aching. His fist throbbed, his head was numb on one side from the blow of a rifle butt. "Noon," he sighed after studying the height of the sunbeam on the wall.
"Don't be alarmed, Sully" Michaela said. "You won't be able to move your legs until the swelling goes down on your spine."
"I'm paralyzed?" he gasped, reaching down to stolid thighs and knees. "I can't feel anything."
Michaela shushed his terror and injected morphine into his thigh. She held a tin cup to his mouth. "This is coffee with cream and honey. Can you sip?"
Sully gulped the welcome liquid and reached for the container. "Another cup," he asked. "Thirsty."
She reheated the cup with more coffee from the stove and added cream and sweetener. "Good. You are making excellent progress. I'll leave you with your drink."
His fingers trembled with the effort to grasp and tilt. "Tastes good," he sighed as he rested between drinks.
As she snapped her medical bag shut and strode toward the door, he glanced after her, grateful for her skill and self-assurance.
"Dr. Mike, can I help?" Cloud Dancing appeared at the porch as though magically summoned to the bedside. He nodded to Sully and waited for Michaela's instructions.
"You're just in time. I need to sponge him down and replace the sheets. It will be tiring, but he must be clean. I can't have that contusion getting infected from ground-in dirt and sweat."
Cloud Dancing handed her yarrow from the meadow. "This will speed the healing."
She lifted curious eyes. "He is saying a strange word. Why would he mumble 'heartsong'? I've never heard the term."
"It's like your word 'sweetheart,'" he explained.
"Perhaps he is thinking about his wife. I think he is still grieving for her."
Cloud Dancing concealed his private opinion and nodded.
The Cheyenne healer lifted Sully's head and shoulders as Michaela began wiping him clean with lemony soap and hot water. When her hair tickled his shoulder, he leaned into the coppery tresses and inhaled a clean citrus aroma. "Thanks, Dr. Mike," he managed, then flexed his lower arms to test the extent of his injury.
As she blotted Sully's skin with a towel, she whispered, "I'm going to slide this sheet out and pull on a clean one. Let us do the work. Just lie still."
More groans issued from Sully's chest as Michaela completed the bathing and changing of linens. "Now, lie back and snooze. I'll serve you some solid food."
Cloud Dancing spoke friendly words in Cheyenne. "You're looking much better, my friend. I think Dr. Mike will soon have you sitting up."
"Not so sure," Sully groused. "Never hurt like this before."
"You took quite a beating," Cloud Dancing stated. "You were defending my people against the buffalo hunters."
Michaela returned to the bedside with a lap board and plate. "I made potatoes and gravy. There are ham bits in the peas." She handed him a spoon. "Can you manage?"
Sully nodded and touched her wrist in thanks. He began feeding himself somewhat clumsily, but gained control of the spoon as nourishment flooded his stomach. "Good," he sighed after a sip of milk. "Good lunch."
Michaela removed his plate and placed a dessert dish on the tray. "I made spiced apples, your favorite."
The smell of butter and cinnamon brought the first hint of a smile. "You take good care of me." He cleaned his dish and sipped at his milk. Within minutes he completed his first whole meal and lapsed back into a lengthy nap, this time without laudanum.
*****
Sully opened his eyes on westerly sun that sparkled over Brian and Colleen at the checkerboard.
"Ma," Brian trilled, "he's awake."
"Hey, Sully," Colleen smiled. "Glad to see you feelin better."
Michaela, ever watchful of changes in her patient, sank carefully onto the bedside and checked his vital signs with cool, dry hands.
"Matthew is planning a surprise for you." She tied on a clean pinafore and checked out the window for the wagon.
"What kind of surprise?" Sully showed more interest than he had over the last 24 hours, but the effort cost him in flinches and gasps.
"He's bringing Loren's hip tub. I want you to sit upright for a half hour and soak in steamy water. I'll add epsom salts to the tub to ease some of the muscle ache."
To Sully's raised eyebrow, she added, "Colleen and I have an errand in the barn. I'll leave you to the boys' care."
"I'd like that." Sully was grateful for Michaela's concern for his modesty. Having a woman bathe him and dress his wounds was hard on his manhood. The jingle of harness preceded Matthew with the tub and the most pleasant half hour Sully had enjoyed since his injury.
*****
In two weeks' time, Sully regained use of his legs and shuffled from bed to chamber pot without help. His color returned as the bruises faded.
As the children worked at their homework, Michaela built up the fire and slid a straight chair alongside the rocker. "I want you to sit up a little each day until you are comfortable out of bed as well as in it. I don't want you getting stiff." She padded the rocker with a folded quilt and placed a pillow on the footstool. Matthew and Brian guided Sully to the patient chair and helped him settle.
"I never felt so weak." He grasped Michaela's hand and scooted into the padding until he found a way to ease his back.
"Pain does that to people," she explained. "When that heel mark disappears from your back, you will move more easily."
He kept her hand in his and and stretched toes and heels toward the fire. "You are takin' too much of your time carin for me," he began. "I can rest for a while at Cloud Dancin's tepee. You can get back to the clinic."
"You're not ready for any kind of travel. That could set you back—return the numbness in your legs and the throb to your head. You're staying right here." She clasped his fingers. "Your grip has improved."
Sully touched their joined hands with his free hand and looked into her eyes. "You are the best doctor I could have."
"I realized during your troubled sleep that you still grieve for your wife," she said.
He frowned at the personal comment. "I'll always miss her."
"It's common for unconscious people to speak deep longings and sorrows. You called her your 'heartsong.'"
They sat in companionable silence while Sully pondered Michaela's glimpse into the private thoughts he hoped were hidden.
"I wasn't talkin 'bout Abigail," he confessed.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to pry into your private life," Michaela colored and withdrew her hand.
"You didn't."
A quick thought flitted across her mind as to who had replaced Abigail in Sully's heart. Perhaps a Cheyenne woman. She picked up Brian's ragged blue sock and began drawing the tattered edges together with a needle and cotton thread.
"The Cheyenne believe that strong feelins should be spoken," he began. "So there's no misunderstandins."
"They are wise in matters of the heart," she observed. "People's emotions manage to surface, however deeply they are buried."
"I think of you as my heartsong," he stated simply, his head inclined toward her face.
Flushed to the neck, Michaela snipped off the thread and chose a stouter needle for repairing denim. "I don't know what to say," she murmured. "I'm flattered."
"Just say you're not insulted," he stroked her forearm with bold fingers. "Say you're not mad."
"Oh, no," she smiled. "I'm . . ." No word came to her mind at the moment. "I'm . . ."
"Good," he beamed. "That's what I hoped you'd say."
As the two basked in the heat of the fireplace, heartsong to heartsong, words faded to nothing.