The slow drive to the homestead was a hard one for Eliot. The fever had taken hold a day or two previously, and this, combined with a weakened frame brought on by a combination of blood loss from the wound in his side, dehydration and the impact of a truck on his beleaguered body, was making him fade in and out of consciousness. What made it worse were the vague dreams and images that came to haunt him, and a woman's face swam in and out of his vision.
She was kind, though, and when the images in his mind became too hard to take … too bloody and vicious and Moreau, and his nemesis smiled and smiled and smiled, all teeth and dark eyes and deadliness, while Eliot did his bidding and evil ruled and he became nothing … she was there.
And the wickedness abated a little and he muttered and snarled and tried to protect this kind lady and her man, the wiry one with the face like a bloodhound. He would have to save them. When his arm flailed protectively and he tried to put himself between them and him, she told Eliot she was safe and he was sick, and Eliot sighed brokenly and shivered with a chill that he couldn't seem to shake off because it was in his bones and in what was left of his rotten heart.
But after what seemed like a lifetime the jolting and steady movement ceased, and Eliot heard voices and the truck door opened and then slammed shut.
"Where … what …" he murmured, his whole body aching and his vision blurred and distant.
"Shhh … we're home, boy … you'll be warm and safe very soon …" the woman said softly, her hand on his chest, anchoring him.
And that was when Eliot finally closed his eyes, gave in to his damaged body and passed out.
"Charlie! CHARLIE! We need a hand here!" yelled Soapy as he ran around to the tailgate and opened it, dropping it down to look at Jo sitting beside the young American bundled up in a tarp to try and keep him warm.
The lights from the house veranda came on and a slightly-built man emerged from the front door followed by a small, dumpy woman who stood and watched with hands on her hips.
"Hey, Soapy – what's up?" Charlie Jakkamarra hurried through the veranda screen door and went down the steps two at a time. He came to a halt beside Soapy, who eased up onto the tailgate and waved at the aborigine to help.
"I need a hand, mate. We picked this bloke up on the way home –"
"We hit him with the ute, Soapy!" Jo said testily, even as she gently rested a hand on Eliot's hot brow.
Charlie's dark eyes widened.
"Bloody hell! Is he okay?"
"He's hurt and we have to get him inside, so stop asking daft questions and help me, will ya?" Soapy answered, now a little embarrassed.
Charlie, who was well used to Soapy's occasional tetchy moments, quirked a grin and then helped the pastoralist gently ease the lax body of this unknown young man out of the ute, Jo fussing all the way as Eliot was lifted in the two men's arms.
Soapy, slinging Eliot's good arm around his shoulder, glanced up at the woman on the veranda.
"Effie? Get the spare room ready, please!" he bawled. "And we'll need hot water and the first aid kit!"
The dumpy old woman scowled.
"You bringing home waifs and strays now? Bugger it … " she growled, but then she sighed and turned back into the house, muttering to herself. The light went on in the room beside the front door.
"Easy with him, Charlie … he's a bit knocked about and he's pretty sick," Jo cautioned, hovering and fussing, and Charlie helped Soapy support Eliot, being as careful as he could as they gently carried Eliot up the veranda steps and through the screen door.
And then they were inside the low-slung house, lights burning in the darkness of a star-ridden sky and with the scent of jasmine redolent in the soft night air, and Eliot was consumed by the warmth and care of the Munro home.
"He's a ruddy mess," Jo muttered as she began to ease Eliot out of his shirt as he lay supine on the comfortable bed in this spartan but homely room. "Oh, dear me …"
She was shocked at Eliot's condition, and she sucked in a breath as she studied the dappling of heavy bruising on his chest and side. She suspected these were a few days old, unlike the bruises on his shoulder and back, caused by the glancing impact of the ute.
Once the shirt was off, she looked up at Charlie, who laid the big household medical kit on the bedside table. The young man ran his fingers through a mop of curly hair as black as a raven's wing and he frowned.
"How is he?" he asked.
"Skinny as a rake," Jo answered, worried. Slipping on a pair of nitrile gloves, she dug out the scissors from the kit and snipped through the dirty, heavy bandaging around Eliot's ribcage. She gasped as she carefully pulled it to one side. " … and now we know why you're so sick, my lad," she added, studying the long, badly-infected gash along his ribs. Eliot moaned and stirred.
"Crikey!" Charlie said, wincing. "Where the hell did he get that?"
"Looks like a knife to me," Effie grumbled as she stumped into the room with a bowl of hot water. She was about five feet tall and four feet wide, and wore a grey dress covered by an incongruous flowery apron. Her eyes were small, annoyed and the colour of dirty water, and her grey hair was tied back in a bun. "He's bloody lucky he's not carked* it," she added with a hint of morbid relish.
"Yes, well, he's still breathing Effie, so if you don't mind, a cuppa and some cake would be nice once we've got Eliot cleaned up." Jo said as she took the bowl from Effie and pulled out gauze and dressings from the kit. "Could you tell Soapy I'll need a hand when he's finished bringing everything in from the ute?"
"Mister M sez he's a Yank," Effie continued, ignoring the request. "What's a Yank doing out here? Going walkabout? I don't think so," she muttered darkly.
"Ain't … ain't a Yank …" a voice came from the bed. " … m'from Oklahoma …" Eliot groused, now semi-conscious, hurting and with the fever rippling through him and making every nerve in his body throb with pain. He had no idea where he was, but he was freezing, and his chest and sides were bare and the bandage he had wrapped around his wounded side three days ago was gone.
Effie snorted.
"Still a bloody Yank," she reiterated testily. "And you, Mister Yank, shut your gob and let the Missus patch you up, hear?"
"You … you're just friggin' rude …" Eliot mumbled, trying to sit up and being pushed back onto the bed by an annoyed Jo. "M' cold … so cold …" He shivered.
"Lie still, young man," she scolded softly. "You'll be warm soon, I promise. But I have to clean this cut, sweetie. It's not going to be nice, I'm afraid. I can't stitch it … it's too late for that … but I have to clean up the infection." Jo thought for a moment. "Eliot … are you allergic to penicillin or streptomycin?"
Eliot, trying to remember who this woman was who insisted on trying to keep him alive, shook his head.
"No … m'okay with 'em …" he gasped as Jo very carefully began to wipe away pus and blood from the crusted, swollen gash that ran for a good nine inches or so along his ribs. It was deep and it was dirty and it was a mass of infection, and Eliot knew it.
Effie studied the injured man and nodded.
"He looks a tough bastard, at least. He'll do alright," she said to herself.
And then she shuffled out of the room, presumably to make tea.
Charlie pulled up a chair and sat beside Eliot, laying a cool hand on the man's bare shoulder.
"Let me know if you need me to … y'know … hold him down," he said quietly to Jo. Then he noticed the gleam of blue as Eliot's eyes shuttered open, hazy and glazed with pain and fever. Charlie smiled, and Eliot blinked, confused, as Charlie introduced himself. "Hello there … Charlie Jakkamarra … station manager and the only one around here who does any bloody work."
"El … Eliot Spencer … from Oklahoma …" And Eliot flinched as Jo began to increase the pressure on his side, cleaning out foul matter clinically and efficiently.
"Rough day, mate?" Charlie asked good-humouredly.
"Y … yeah …" Eliot hissed, clenching his teeth. "Feel like shit …"
Charlie had to agree that Eliot had every right to feel shitty.
"Keep talking, Charlie … I'm getting to the worst of it and he could do with the distraction …" Jo muttered, soaking gauze in antiseptic-laced hot water and doggedly cleaning up the now-bloody gash.
Charlie nodded, concerned at the amount of blood Jo was now mopping up from Eliot's side and which trickled down to the towelling she had placed underneath him.
"Um … I take it you Yanks have horses in Oklahoma?"
Eliot let out a grunt of agony as Jo worked, and coughed, the shivering increasing even as his fever heightened.
"Not a –"
"Yeah, yeah," Charlie sighed theatrically, "you're not a Yank. Got it. Anyway … Oklahoma. Cow country, right? So … horses. Know anything about horses?"
Eliot nodded feebly.
"A bit. You … you still use 'em here?"
"Too right!" Charlie said, almost insulted. "They go places in the bush ATVs and helicopters can't go. You ride?"
Eliot had to close his eyes and hold his breath for a bit as Jo moved to the worst part of the gash, but then he opened them again and set his gaze on Charlie as though the young man and his chatty conversation would keep him sane and steady.
"Yeah … I ride."
Charlie was delighted.
"Good-oh! I've got an old brown mare that's pretty dopey and easy to handle. I know you're a bit stuffed** right now, but when you're up and about, how about tryin' her out?"
Eliot sucked in a deep breath and grunted against the pain, but he fought against the all-consuming confusion of the fever and sickness clouding his mind and nodded.
"Deal …" he ground out, and thought how long it had been since he had ridden a horse. Almost a lifetime ago.
Jo was nearly done, and she pressed a dressing against the now-cleaned wound to stop the bleeding, which made Eliot shudder with the rawness of it, but he stood it anyway and swore under his breath.
"Just about over," Charlie murmured sympathetically, "I know, mate … it's a bit of a bugger, but it'll stop the fever getting any worse." He hoped.
Jo eased off and swathed the gash with antiseptic ointment before taping a thick dressing over the injury.
"There. All done," she said. "Now … let's get those cuts on your face seen to and then I'll strap up your arm to keep your shoulder from moving too much." She paused and thought about something. "I don't think I can do much for your knee other than try and take the swelling down, but you'll be in this bed for a day or two anyway, so no worries."
Eliot blinked wearily, and tried to control his shivering but failed. He felt as though he was in an ice-box.
"Charlie … would you mind asking Soapy to fetch me the pen-and-strep bottle from the vet cupboard, please?" Jo asked, and when Charlie headed off to find Soapy, Jo began to clean the cuts on Eliot's brow and lip. "I'll try to stop these scarring, my lad, so your good looks aren't ruined."
Eliot could hear the smile in the woman's voice, and dammit if he could remember who she was … but he did know she was kind. He hadn't had anybody be kind to him in what seemed like a lifetime. So he just lay there, freezing to death, and put up with Jo placing a thermometer in his mouth while she worked on the cuts.
Soapy arrived ten minutes later with a small clear glass bottle of an off-white liquid suspension and a syringe.
"Here you are, old girl," he said. "Charlie's putting the ute away, so I thought I'd take my turn with helping out. I brought some orange juice as well … Eliot should try and drink some of it, maybe?"
"Good thinking," Jo said as she finished cleaning the cuts on Eliot's face and pulled a light blanket over him, just to warm him up until he could be settled properly into the bed. "He has a temperature of 103.4 … we need to bring that down as soon as we can, Soapy. He's in for a hard couple of days, poor love, and the more fluid we can get in him the better." Jo sighed. "Well," she continued, "I suppose we should get these antibiotics into him."
She leaned over Eliot and tapped his cheek, rousing him from his feverish doze. His face was white, with only a flush of colour at his cheekbones, and his eyes were unfocused.
"Eliot, I'm going to give you some broad-spectrum antibiotics. Alright? This should knock the infection on the head over the next three days or so, but you'll not feel very great until your temperature goes down. Sorry, son, but that's the way it is. You're going to have a tough few days, but I'll do all I can to make you as comfortable as possible. Do you understand?"
Eliot nodded vaguely, hurt and ill and not too sure how he had deserved to be helped like this.
Jo showed him the syringe filled with the antibiotic.
"This stuff is the one we use for the cattle and horses, but it's just as good for humans, so it should help no end. The only problem is that I'm going to have to stick a needle in your backside once a day for three days, maybe a couple more if your fever doesn't respond as quickly as I'd like. You'll live with it though, won't you?"
Shivering under the blanket, Eliot really didn't care what this woman did because he was too friggin' cold to worry about it, and all he wanted to do was sink into oblivion, and he didn't give a damn if he lived through it or not.
"'Kay," he stammered, his teeth beginning to chatter.
So Jo took a deep breath, ran her fingers through Eliot's sweat-damp hair to calm him, and with Soapy's help got her charge settled for a long and difficult night.
Eliot dreamt.
He dreamt that he couldn't breath and the water being poured over his face was choking … choking … and the scream of questions and the beatings and the electrodes and the shaking horror of it had him yelling in the night, hoarse and hurting and numbing, until the touch of a hand on his brow or the swallow of sweet orange juice calmed him, and a voice would tell him he was safe and it wasn't real.
And as Jo sat with him in the deep of the night, she listened to Eliot Spencer suffer and rant and yell, and all she could do was talk to him and try and get fluids into his ravaged body.
Soapy tried to tell her to go to bed and rest and he would tend to the young man, but Jo wouldn't have it. Eliot was her responsibility, she said, and she would make sure he knew he wasn't alone.
But in the morning dawn his fever didn't subside, and the nightmares became more difficult to dispel. Eliot's temperature soared to over 104 degrees, and his fever took him apart at the seams. He roared abuse at Jo, telling her he was a nasty sonofabitch and she shouldn't waste her time on him, and that he could cut her throat in the night and she would never know about it until the blood spilled from her veins. And he would do it without a thought.
Jo soothed him and spoke soft words of such kindness that Eliot, even in his delirium, shook with the shame of it, and as Jo helped him drink the cool, sweet juice from the orange trees in their little orchard, she wept silently at the horror this man still endured.
As the second night began with more horrors and even worse nightmares, Jo knew Eliot needed to be able to breathe and feel the world around him, and she summoned Soapy and Charlie. Eliot had to be outside, she said. Take him out onto the veranda, she ordered, where the night air would help him settle and he wouldn't feel so trapped. So Soapy and Charlie, worried about Jo being so exhausted, lifted Eliot from his bed and laid him gently on a fold-down bed on the veranda, where the cool, scented night air helped him breathe more freely and the warm blankets cradled him and kept him safe.
Jo sat beside him, looking through the fly screens at the moonless starlit night, and lifting her cup of tea she settled down to wait and see if Eliot Spencer would decide to live.
To be continued …
Author's notes:
* 'Carked it' – dead as a doornail.
** 'stuffed' – wrecked.