Chapter Fourteen

Lee and Jake walked slowly back to the hut Nelson lay in, anger and sadness lining their faces.

"I can't believe what he said is true," Lee said softly. "An American admiral running drugs and willing to kill anyone that gets in his way, even a friend? If you had told me that I wouldn't have believed it."

"I know. But right now we only have Kohler's word that what he said was true. We need Nelson to verify it."

"Yeah. If he lives," Lee said sadly.

"He'll live. He's too tough and too ornery to give up."

"I hope you're right, Jake. I really do," he said pausing outside the hut. "He just can't die. If he dies…I…I don't know what…"

"I know," Jake said clasping Crane on the shoulder as he saw the worry for Nelson flood his face. He knew what Nelson meant to Crane and he knew Nelson's death would leave a huge void in the man's life. "Come on, let's see if there's any change."

They walked through the door and stood outside the room that held Nelson and only heard Chip's soft voice.

"Admiral? You can't give up. You have to fight. Get better. A whole lot of people are relying on you. A whole lot of people care about what happens to you."

Lee gazed into the room and stared at Nelson who lay pale and lifeless on the mat on the floor. Chip wrung a cloth out in a bowl of water and patted it lightly on Nelson's brow and face, then to his chest.

"Stay with us, sir. Please. Fight to come back."

"Any change, Chip?" Lee asked as he came in the room and knelt by Nelson's side.

"Yeah. But not for the better. He's weaker. Delirious. Fever seems to be just as high as it was. We need another IV, Jake. This one's done," he said as he looked up into Jake's face.

"We only have enough for a few more days. Once that's done…"

"He's done," Lee finished.

"Since when do we count the admiral out?" Chip asked with a frown on his face.

"Sorry, Chip I just…he's so weak and it's so hard to watch him lying there so still."

"I know," Chip said looking down into Nelson's pale, haggard face. "But giving up on him isn't something we've done before and I'm sure not about to start."

"You're right," Lee said, a determined look on his face.

"Did you find out anything from Kohler?"

"Yeah. What Vicente said is true. He's been running drugs," Lee said quietly as he stared in anxiety at Nelson as he moaned in pain and mumbled in his delirium.

"Did he tell you who he was working with?"

"Yeah he did. Admiral Scott. Admiral Thomas Scott is behind this…all of this," Lee said in anguish. "He told Kohler to kill the admiral if he thought he knew what was going on. The admiral overheard Kohler setting up his purchase with Vicente's son and…he shot him, threw him over that cliff and watched him be taken by the troops. Then he ran."

The hut was filled with silence as the three men thought over what had occurred, the sheer enormity of the events hitting them like a freight train.

"Look, I need to walk around a bit. You two can take over nursing duties for a bit," Chip said after several minutes had passed. He rose stiffly from the floor, walked slowly to the doorway and disappeared.

Crane seated himself by Nelson's side and continued to dab his face with a cool rag, praying Chip and Jake were right and that Nelson had enough fight in him to recover.

The cover by the door opened and Daniela entered, carrying a bowl, some rags and a pitcher.

"I know you have your own medicines, senores, but we have ours. If you would permit me, I would like to continue with the treatments I was using before you got here," she said as she sat the tray on a low table.

Lee glanced to Jake who shrugged. "It can't hurt, Lee and right now he needs all the help he can get to get through this."

"Thank you, Daniela," Lee said as she placed the bowl on the floor by Nelson's side and unwrapped the dressing on his leg. She took some of the brown substance and laid it on the wound in the front of his calf, pushing some of it further into the hole in Nelson's leg, ignoring the moans Nelson made. Then she had Lee and Jake help her turn him over where she did the same with the wound on the back of his calf, before binding it again with some of Jake's bandages that he handed her. She repeated the actions with the chest wound.

When she was done, she took a cup and gently lifted Nelson's head, encouraging him softly to drink, smiling when he managed a few sips. "It is a tea made from herbs," she said when she saw them watching her in question. "It helps to ease his pain and fight the infection."

"And the brown stuff?" Lee asked.

"It is the boiled bark of a tree that grows near here. Also to fight infection," she said softly as she got Nelson to swallow more of the tea.

Sitting back on her heels, she stared down at Nelson's face in sadness for a moment, then placed a hand on his head and bent close, whispering to him, then gazed at the men about her. "I hope and pray your medicine and mine and our prayers will heal him. He must be a special man for you to come here and risk so much for him."

"He is," Lee assured her. "And we thank you for what you've done for him."

"I hope it is enough," she said as she rose.

"Before you go, what was it you said to him?" Lee asked.

"I simply said he was with friends that have come far to help him and that he must fight the fever and the dreams it brings and come back to you. That is all."

"Thank you, Daniela," Lee whispered as she nodded and left the men alone to their thoughts.