Dark Reflection
Chapter 25
"Desperate Measures"
by Lilyjack
Many thanks to my own Doc, Ladybrit, for all the technical expertise and Adams Advice she provided on this chapter. Don't know what I'd do without you, LB.
ljljljljlj
"Quick, get her inside! There's no time to waste!" the elderly Doc dressed in cowboy gear gruffly ordered as he clambered down from the wagon, worn black leather bag in hand. "Charlie, lead the way with that lantern!"
Matt scooped Kitty's lifeless body into his arms, his overexerted muscles quivering and a sharp pain tearing through his lung. Ignoring his own unhealed injuries, he rushed behind Doc's jogging steps. Matt squinted in the shadows with his good eye as they navigated the short remaining brick-walled passage that connected to his cellar hideaway, holding Kitty pressed tightly against his chest. Ocie and Lafe were close on his heels.
"Put her there on your bed," Doc instructed as he dropped his bag and sweat-stained Stetson on a small table and quickly fished out his stethoscope from within. Placing the instrument in his ears, he unbuttoned the neck of Kitty's nightdress. Holding his breath, he placed the bell over her heart, squinting his eyes as he listened. Peering up sharply, he barked at the nervously fidgeting younger men, "Be still! I can't hear - don't move a muscle!"
He didn't have to warn Matt; the tall man wasn't so much as breathing as he waited in agonized silence for the old physician's next fateful words.
Doc stared into space as he held his stethoscope over Kitty's sallow-skinned breast, listening intently. Then his faded blue eyes blinked owlishly and darted up at Matt. "It's very faint and irregular, but I can detect a heartbeat."
Matt felt weak in the knees and reached for the wall to steady himself.
Doc's voice lowered sympathetically, "Sit down before you fall down, Dillon. You really shouldn't have gone out there tonight. Your injuries haven't healed." He pointed to a wooden slatted chair on the other side of the bed. "I reckon I'm gonna need your help, though, so stay close."
Matt, hurting too badly to argue but thankful he was being allowed to remain and help, sank into the too-small chair opposite Doc, scrubbing his hands over his exhausted features and beneath the black eyepatch.
The physician gestured to Ocie. "Light that lantern on the table over there and bring it closer, boy." He gingerly pried Kitty's eyelids apart. "Dilated pupils," he pronounced, speaking to no one in particular. He continued to efficiently examine her, murmuring as he proceeded, "Patient unresponsive, respiration irregular, extremely shallow…complexion ashen but has marks and bruises around her mouth, nose, neck…cold extremities, more bruises on wrists, arms…musculature in a state of extreme relaxation…"
Finally looking up, he penetrated Matt with a troubled gaze as he removed his stethoscope and placed it back in his bag. "Chester smuggled me a nearly empty bottle of a…a…Dr. Delacroix's patent medicine last week. It's what Blackthorne and his bunch of…marauders…have been regularly administering to this young lady to sedate her, to shut her up, Chester said. I examined the bottle and what little was left inside. It contained opioids, laudanum. Chester was worried that lately they'd been greatly increasing her dosage because Miss Russell refused to give up, continued to fight 'em tooth and nail." He scrubbed his mustache thoughtfully. "Matt, I've believe they've given her way too much…they've overdosed her."
Matt's eyes grew wide. "What does that mean? Can't you…help her, Doc?"
"I can try. I'll do my best, Matt, but as I've told you before, I can't promise anything."
Matt, feeling a cold, sick dread growing deep in the pit of his stomach, visibly started when Lafe spoke softly. He and Ocie still waited, forgotten, in the doorway. "Doc, what can we do t' help?"
The physician began giving orders while digging once more in his black bag. "Lafe, you and Ocie, make sure I've got plenty of clean water and basins, buckets, whatever you can lay hands on… and soap and towels down here."
The boys quickly answered, "Yessir," and rushed up the stairs to the main house to do his bidding.
Briskly, Doc inquired, "Charlie, is there a fire in the stove for heating some water?"
"Yes, Doctor Adams, but I'll make sure it's fully stoked and put water in the kettle immediately." Charlie Fitz's heavy footsteps quickly joined the boys'.
"And Matt," Doc continued as he uncorked a small bottle labeled "Syrup of Ipecac" and carefully poured some into a glass measuring cup, "I need you to sit your young lady up in bed and try and rouse her. We desperately need her to swallow this. We don't want it to go down the wrong pipe because she could aspirate it into her lungs. It needs to go into her stomach. First, where's your washbasin? Or maybe a bucket?"
Matt nervously reached behind him for the basin on the tiny washstand, grabbing his towel as an afterthought. His makeshift bedroom space was very cramped.
"Good thinking. With any luck, this ipecac will make her vomit any remaining opiates in her stomach before they're able to enter her bloodstream." He placed the bottle of medicine back on the small table, recorking it. "And hopefully save this young woman's life."
"How quickly…will it work, Doc?" Matt inquired anxiously, placing the enamel basin on Kitty's bedside and slipping an arm beneath her thin shoulders. He effortlessly lifted her to a sitting position, but her head hung lifeless. He threaded his fingers through the disheveled red hair falling over her face and placed his big hand on her wan cheek, stroking it insistently. "Wake up, Kitty," he urged. "You've gotta open your eyes for us."
"If it doesn't happen in twenty minutes or so, I'll administer more. Come on, Miss Russell. You've got to wake up now." Doc set the dose of ipecac aside, pushed up the sleeves of Kitty's nightdress and began vigorously rubbing her arms and patting her hands, attempting to get some circulation back into them.
The seconds seemed to crawl by like hours as Matt patted her face, and they both shook her and pleaded with her to wake up. Finally, she made a small noise and cracked her eyelids open a fraction.
Doc raised his voice, "Listen to me, Miss Russell. You've got to drink this."
Frowning, she answered in a faint but determined tone, "No…more…" and attempted to turn her head away.
Matt's thumb brushed her cheek and she flinched. He took care not to touch the tender marks on her face, marks which he now suspected for what they really were. He looked up at Doc, eyes wide with realization. "They forced it down…her throat, Doc. See all these bruises around…her mouth? She fought them, but they…held her down and forced it down her."
Doc's eyes glittered with anger at the truth of Matt's words, but Kitty was fast drifting away again. "Miss Russell! This isn't the same thing! Matt, shake her, wake her up!" Doc gently cupped Kitty's chin in his palm so that she would be forced to look at him. "I am not that monster Blackthorne. This is medicine to help you!"
Kitty closed her lids and gave a shuddering sigh, "No…more, dammit. So tired…"
Matt looked desperate. They would have to force it down her throat if need be, but he didn't want to do to her what they had done. She had been hurt enough. Then he looked at the pale, slowly dying girl in his arms and said the only thing he could think of that might help. "Kitty, Chester said he wanted…you to take this medicine because it would…make you well. Kitty? Did you hear me?"
Her head leaning heavily on his shoulder, she murmured a nearly unintelligible, "Ches'er?"
He and Doc locked eyes, and Matt continued, "Yeah, Chester is my friend…he trusts me to take care of you. Remember he said…he…would be here later to see you? But he really…needs you to take this medicine right now, honey."
Doc gently but firmly took Kitty's face in his hands. "Miss Russell, I'm a doctor. I'm trying to save your life. Open your eyes and look at me. You've got to drink this down. Chester would want you to drink this. If you don't, Miss Russell, you could die."
She opened her eyes a slit and tried to focus on the old physician in front of her. He grabbed the small glass measure from the table again and held it expectantly to her parched lips.
"Drink it, Kitty," Matt breathed. "Please, honey."
She sighed and opened her mouth.
Matt steadied her head as Doc carefully but swiftly turned the little glass up. He instructed her, "Swallow it, quick."
She coughed and choked, her pale features grimacing.
Doc muttered, "Water, we need some water!"
"Right here, Doc!" Lafe spoke up from the door, carrying two large buckets of water, one in each hand. Ocie followed, laden down with washbasins, towels, cups, and more items Charlie Fitz thought that Doc might require. "Charlie Fitz'll be down with hot water soon as it boils."
Doc grabbed an enamel dipper and cup from Ocie and filled it with water from Lafe's bucket, then held it to Kitty's lips. "Drink all of this, young lady, and then I want you to drink some more when you're done."
Kitty's eyes were streaming tears. She continued to sip cool water from the gray speckled cup Doc held to her mouth between her fits of coughing while she looked at him curiously.
"That's a good girl," he murmured. "Now you need to drink a little more. Come here with that water, Lafe… No, now you can't go back to sleep. You must stay awake… Matt, jostle her, talk to her. It's imperative that she be awake now that we've gotten that emetic down her."
Doc was sliding a hand under Kitty's knees to turn her to a sitting position on the bed with her feet on the floor, but he instructed, "Ocie, pile those things you've got on that table, but be careful of my bag. Boys, I need a bigger table in here to put all these supplies. Can you go up into the house and find something? Charlie Fitz will help you. Go upstairs and stay upstairs for a while. I need to tend to Miss Russell right now and I don't wanna be interrupted, you hear?"
As the boys pounded up the stairs, another familiar voice sounded from the door. "I 'spect that means you don't want me 'round neither." It was Deke, just catching up from tending the horses. His eyes gravitated to Matt who now sat on the tiny bed behind Kitty, her back flush against his chest. Deke's forehead creased in worry as he got his first real good look at their sick friend. "Doc," he asked softly, removing his hat. "Is she gonna be alright?"
Doc untied the dark bandanna from around his neck, slipped off his vest and threw them both over a nearby shelf full of wine. Then he began industriously rolling up his shirtsleeves as he answered in a voice only the rancher could hear, "Deke, I just don't know. But we're gonna do everything we possibly can to help her." Then more loudly, he requested, "Deke, could you go upstairs and make us some good strong coffee?"
"Sure, Doc," Deke replied quietly. His eyes gleamed at Matt when he said, "Take care of our girl, now, you hear?" before he nodded and headed up the stairs.
ljljljljlj
It couldn't have been five minutes from the time that Kitty swallowed the horrible-tasting emetic until she began moaning and feebly clutching her belly.
"Get ready," Doc warned him. "If it works, you'll have to support her. It's hard and fast."
Doc placed the basin in front of her, and Matt smoothed her hair back from her face as she emitted a quiet groan. Looking down, he noticed the blue bandanna still wound around his neck; unknotting it, he used it to tie her hair back.
Doc held her hand and said kindly to her, "Miss Russell, lemme explain somethin' to ya. I expect…I hope you'll be emptying the contents of your stomach soon…"
She opened her pained, glassy blue eyes and gazed at him, her breathing now coming more quickly as the emetic began to take effect. She remained resting with her back against Matt, unable to lift her head from his shoulder. Doc didn't want her lying down for fear of aspirating bodily fluids into her lungs.
The physician continued, "You've got to empty your stomach of any remaining opiates that Blackthorne may have given you. I hope this will help to save your life. But…this may also be hard on you, honey. I won't lie."
Her misery-filled eyes drifted shut again with another soft moan as a wave of nausea overtook her. Doc Adams patted her hand, settled down beside Matt Dillon while he held her gently, and together they waited.
tbc
ljljljljlj
