AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Howdy, pardners! I'm so excited that this story now has over 100 reviews - the most of any of my stories! I appreciate all of them and wish to acknowledge the commenters on my previous chapter: lovesgod12, MMM, StoryMaker7, Kairocksrainbow, FirstFandomFangirl, Naruby7, and MasterOfCupcakes!
As several of you know, I subscribe to the YouTube channel of Stephanie Brown, who creates wonderful videos of Ninjago episode clips set to great music. It's hard to choose a single favorite video, but one I am partial to is "We are the Brave," using music by Veridia. In fact, I rather regard this song as the theme song of my two cowboy stories! Anyway, I encourage you to check out her channel when you get a chance!
In the chapter below, we move on to the following day. We first focus upon the severely injured cowboy and then focus briefly upon the new cowgirl at Garmadon Ranch…
Chapter 22 - June 25th
Zane opened his eyes. He opened his right eye, at least. His left eye was stuck shut by a bandage.
His last memories before losing consciousness rushed back to him...blood everywhere...Cole's worried voice urging him to hang in there...the incredible pain on the left side of his face.
He still felt pain on his face, but taking in his unfamiliar surroundings temporarily distracted him from his discomfort.
He gently turned his head to the right. The sun was streaming through the window on the far side of the large room, telling him it was daytime. He could see a long row of beds. The one right next to him was empty, but some of the others were occupied. The smell of disinfectant permeated the air.
I must be in a hospital, he thought.
Then a nurse came into his line of sight to tend to the patient two beds away from him.
Zane watched the slender young woman as she interacted with the sick person. She was certainly a vision of loveliness. Though much of her hair was tucked up in her nurse's cap, the curly ringlets that dangled freely were the color of milk chocolate. Her lips reminded him of the color of the wild raspberries that grew along the trail between Garmadon Ranch and Ninjago Town.
And when she smiled at her patient...oh, how Zane wanted her to smile at him, too.
As the nurse tended to the man in the other bed, her eyes darted over to the platinum-haired cowboy for a brief second, and then they widened as she realized he was awake. She then seemed to speed up her actions, and as soon as she was finished with that patient, she rushed over to Zane and sat in the bedside chair. The cowboy detected a whiff of mint - one of his favorite scents.
"Corporal Falk, you are awake, finally," she said with a melodious accent as she held his hand. The touch of her hand was like silk. And Zane got his wish - she smiled her beautiful smile at him.
Zane attempted to reply, but his bandages prevented his jaw from moving.
"Oh, I am so sorry. I did not warn you that you should not try to talk. Your cheek must remain still for several weeks." She let go of him and reached over him for something that he could not see at first, because it was on the small table next to the bed, on his left side. However, when she pulled back to straighten up again, he saw that she held a slate board, a piece of chalk, and a rag.
"You can use this to communicate while your face heals," she said, handing him the slate and chalk and placing the rag within his reach.
He took the slate and chalk and immediately wrote, "Where am I and how did I get here?" He flipped the slate toward her so she could see what he wrote.
She read the words and nodded in understanding as to why he would ask. "You are in the Ninjago National Military Hospital in Sasnak City," she replied with her exotic accent. "You arrived here yesterday morning on a transport wagon from the field hospital down near Jamanakai Village. I heard you were injured three days ago by the sword of a Purple soldier. I also heard that the Purple soldier tried to get away but he was captured."
Zane vaguely remembered hearing Cole urge Kai to "Go after him!" The corporal decided against asking the nurse for any details about the capture, such as if Kai were involved, for he doubted she would know. He'd find out later somehow from an officer.
Right now he had a more pressing question. In the remaining blank space of the slate, he wrote, "What is your name?"
She smiled that brilliant smile once more. "Je suis Celeste. I mean, I am Celeste. Please pardon me if I sometimes use words from my native language."
Celeste giggled. To Zane, the sound was like music from Heaven.
He erased the words on the slate with the rag and wrote new ones. "Are you from the country of Cefran? Your accent sounds like you are."
She nodded. "Oui! I mean, yes! I came to Ninjago from Cefran about two years ago. I came with my brother and his wife, for they wished to establish themselves in a new country, and I wished to attend the Sasnak City Training School for Nurses to learn to be a nurse. And see more of the world as well. I will finish my studies at the end of the year."
Zane was very interested in learning about Celeste's background and wanted to know more about her time in Cefran. "Did you see the great Eileff Tower in the city of Sirap?" he wrote after cleaning the slate.
"Yes, I saw it many times as a little girl! I grew up in Sirap," she announced excitedly, clasping her hands together.
Zane quickly wrote, "I wish to visit Sirap someday. I hear it is a city rich in history and culture."
"It is very nice," she responded. "I will be returning there to work as a nurse when my studies are finished. Even though I am - how do you Ninjagoans say it? - homesick, I know it will be only a few more months until I once again see ma mere and mon pere. I mean, my mother and father. "
Erasing the slate once more using just the side of his fist, Zane wrote, "Feel free to use your native language around me. I want to learn it."
"Merci. Thank you," Celeste smiled, patting his hand. "I guess that since you will be in this hospital for a while, there will be plenty of time to learn. Vous désirez manger? Do you wish to eat?"
Zane began to nod his head before the discomfort reminded him to keep his head still. Instead, he scrawled a hasty "Yes" on the slate.
Celeste rose from the bedside chair, and the gentle movement of air caused another whiff of mint to reach Zane once more. "Then I will bring you something," she announced. "I hope you like gruel. Because it is a light, bland food, you will need to have it fed to you for a while."
As long as Celeste would be feeding him, Zane didn't care what he ate.
Late in the afternoon, outside the back door of the Garmadon Ranch main house, bedsheets hung from a tree to provide privacy as Sam lowered herself into the tin bathtub of hot water. Her muscles, sore from riding her horse Blossom all day, seemed to cry out in gratefulness for the opportunity to soak. She hoped to rid herself of the aches, as well as the smell of cattle manure, by the time she exited the bath.
She certainly had new appreciation for what her husband Kai and the other cowboys did for a living.
As she washed herself, she could smell the supper that Miss Gayle and the other ladies were preparing. Either it was going to be an exceptionally tasty meal, or she was simply starving.
She mentally went over what she planned to do before she climbed into bed later.
After supper she would help wash the dishes and tidy up the kitchen.
Then she would do whatever project Miss Gayle wanted her to do. The housekeeper needed her help, and the young woman was bound and determined to provide it.
Sam surmised that tonight's project would involve packing a steamer trunk for Mr. Wu. This morning, after he and Bo had showed her a few things about cow herding this morning, the ranch owner rode to Ninjago Town and picked up the expected telegram from Captain Noonan. Zane was on his way to Sasnak City, and the cowboy's boss was going to board the stagecoach in Ninjago Town tomorrow morning to go see his ranch hand.
Another project might be to prepare the first-floor guest room, the one she and Bansha shared last year, for Bo was going to temporarily stay at the main house. Mr. Wu asked him to do so during the ranch owner's journey to Sasnak City, to make sure no trouble from strangers befell the ladies.
Sam also wanted to pen a get-well message to Zane for Mr. Wu to personally deliver, as well as write a brief letter to Kai that the ladies could mail tomorrow when they brought Mr. Wu to Ninjago Town and did the weekly town errands. Sam knew that Brooke was also planning to visit Doc Julien.
Sam did not plan to tell Kai about her cow herding activities in her letter to him. She knew he would feel bad that his absence from the ranch was causing hardship to his boss.
One thing Sam did plan to include in the letter, however, was a hairpin from her jewelry box. Not just any hairpin, however. It was the one that had fallen out of her hair in the desert as she struggled to escape Morro's clutches, on that awful day Kai had been left alone to die. The cowboy had found the hair accessory on the dry desert ground, though. He told her later that it gave him renewed strength to carry on in a bad situation.
Maybe it could do that a second time, too.
ANOTHER AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Chapter 23 of The Fire Within a Ninjago Cowboy narrates the story of the hairpin.
I chose the name Celeste for Zane's love interest because I wanted to give her a nineteenth century name, but I also wanted her name to contain a syllable which sounds like "sull", which is similar to the sound of the second syllable of Pixal.
As Celeste might say, au revoir pour l'instant! Goodbye for now!
