Two Black Eyes
Chapter 1
The knock on the door to the outer office wasn't startling, but it was annoying. Jarrod was finishing up a brief he needed to have in Judge Lansbury's hands by tomorrow morning, and he was alllmooost finished with it. But the knock continued insistently. "Yes, what?" Jarrod said loudly.
Esther opened the door and stuck her head in. "Sheriff Madden is here to see you. It looks urgent."
"Send him in," Jarrod said with a sigh.
Sheriff Madden came in as soon as Esther held the door open further. Then she closed it behind him and went back to her desk.
Jarrod looked up. The look on the sheriff's face was unhappy, and worried. "Sorry to bother you, but Nick was in town."
"I know, he signed some papers for me," Jarrod said. "What happened? Did he get into trouble?"
"He got into a fight at the Golden Eagle," the sheriff said, and quickly said, "I know, that's nothing new, but he took a pretty good slugging from that Emerson fellow who works for McCutcheon up Lodi way. I've got Emerson in jail. Nick's at Doc Merar's office and he's got two of the biggest black eyes I've ever seen. They were both already swollen and purple, and Jarrod, they're swollen shut. Both of them."
Jarrod stood up, startled. "Swollen shut? He can't see out of them at all?"
The sheriff shook his head. "The doc's looking at him now. He's checking to see if there's damage to either eye itself but even if there isn't, Nick isn't gonna be able to see a thing or get home by himself. The doc asked me to get you over there."
Jarrod digested that, and couldn't help thinking back only a couple months when Joshua Cunningham blew up his office, and he was blinded himself. He'd just managed to get his office reopened a week ago. Thinking Nick might be blinded too and unable to work –
"Thanks, Fred," Jarrod said and started throwing what he was working on into his briefcase. He moved so quickly he even beat Sheriff Madden out the door. "Esther, I'm gone for the day but I should be in tomorrow," he said as he hurried by.
Jarrod hustled down to Dr. Merar's office, not far away, and hurried in. He left his briefcase in the waiting area and since the door to the treatment room was open, he went right in.
Dr. Merar had Nick in the chair – the same one Jarrod had faced his own blindness in. Jarrod could see Nick's eyes were both black and blue, swollen shut, and Nick was looking both uncomfortable and peeved.
"Before you get too worried, Jarrod," Dr. Merar said quickly, "I've examined Nick. He can see fine with his eyes pried open – both of them seem to be uninjured – but right now there's no way he can keep them open without holding them open with his hands."
Jarrod immediately felt better, but still asked, "But he should be able to see all right once the swelling goes down?"
"Take him home, get some cold compresses on them, and maybe by tomorrow or the next day he'll be able to get one or both of them open without holding them open," Dr. Merar said. "And just make sure he doesn't hurt himself walking into something or tripping over something in the meantime."
"Believe me, Doctor, I know the drill," Jarrod said. "Well, Nick, did you at least win the fight?"
"I'm not in jail and Emerson is," Nick said. "That means I won, doesn't it?" He sounded pretty surly.
"Is your horse at the livery?" Jarrod asked.
"Yeah," Nick said.
"All right. I'll go get my buggy and hitch your horse to the back of it. Doc, I'll pull up at your back door – it'll be a shorter walk to the buggy if I do. We'll get home, Nick, and see if we can get that swelling down, but in the meantime, you're as blind as I was. You best be prepared for that."
"You weren't prepared," Nick said, grumbling.
"No, but I also didn't have the doctor's advice that I would be seeing again in a day or two," Jarrod said. "I learned you don't get around in the dark by yourself, especially if you're brand new at it. So let me help you and don't be stubborn about it, all right?"
"Doc," Nick said, "you're pretty sure I'll be able to see when this swelling goes down?"
"Yes, because you could see just fine when I pried your eyes open and nothing in either eye itself looks damaged," Dr. Merar said. "Just go home, rest for a couple days and don't go tripping over anything. Let your family help you around."
"And you can use my cane if you think you want to learn how to get around on your own," Jarrod said. "Doc, I'll go get the buggy and be around back in about ten minutes or so."
Jarrod left, and Nick could hear him go. "Doc," he said quietly once he was sure Jarrod was gone, "I don't think I ever really understood what Jarrod was up against until right now."
"There's no way you could have, Nick," Dr. Merar said. "Just keep remembering, you'll be fine in a day or two, so you don't have to be as frightened as he was."
"Except I have to be as frightened that I can fall and hurt myself."
"We'll get you to the buggy and he'll get you home, and Jarrod and the rest of your family will help you just as you helped him."
"I never did like being helpless."
"You're not helpless. You're just temporarily incapacitated. Think about it as a learning experience."
"I never did like learning, either," Nick grumbled. "But I suppose I always was one who had to learn the hard way because I wouldn't learn any other way."
Dr. Merar had to chuckle. He gave Nick a friendly rub on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Nick. You'll be fine."
Nick sat, trying to relax, kicking himself for being such an idiot as to get goaded into that fight. Finally they heard Jarrod pull into the alley. Nick started to get up, but Dr. Merar kept him down until Jarrod came into the room.
"All right," Jarrod said. "The buggy is right outside the door."
He and Dr. Merar reached to help Nick up, but Nick stood on his own, holding one eye open with his fingers. Dr. Merar immediately said, "Don't try to move around holding one eye open because if you trip and fall you could put your eye out for good."
"Yeah," Nick muttered, getting the idea, and he let the eye go and reached for guidance instead.
Jarrod got hold of him by the right hand and arm, while Dr. Merar took the left. He moved very slowly, very awkwardly, afraid of bumping into something even as they guided him. They kept giving him directions and pep talk as they took him to the back door. There was one step down into the alley they warned him of, but he still teetered a little. Nevertheless, the buggy was right there, only two steps away. They helped Nick into it and he sank into the seat like he was never so relieved to sit down in his life.
"Thank you, Doctor," Jarrod said.
The doctor looked at him understandingly. "Don't worry. He won't have to go through what you went through. I'll stop by tomorrow afternoon to see how he's coming along."
Jarrod gave him another nodding thanks, then went around to the other side of the buggy and climbed in beside Nick. "Try to relax and keep your hands away from your eyes. I'll try not to hit any bumps, but I make no promises."
Nick remembered how Jarrod held onto the buggy for dear life when they took him home after the explosion that took his eyesight for weeks. Jarrod had moved his right hand down to hold onto the bar beside the seat, and held onto the seat with his left hand. Nick did the same thing now and said, "Just drive."
Jarrod noticed they got a few stares as they rode out of town, but he didn't say anything about it. He didn't say anything at all, knowing that Nick would just get grumpier if he tried to cheer him up in any way.
Once they were out of town and on the road, Nick realized it. "It's cooler out here."
"Under the trees," Jarrod said. "It's less dusty than town, too."
"Yeah," Nick agreed. Then he hesitated before he said, "Listen, Jarrod – I don't want to act like a wet-nursed kid – "
"You don't need to say it, Nick," Jarrod said. "I know exactly how you feel right now, and then some. You've had a swollen black eye before and it cleared up just fine, and you know it, but now you've got two of them and you can't see a thing and it's scary. I won't tell you not to be scared, because you will be, but think about it this way. You won't have to see yourself in the mirror looking as bad as you do right now."
"It's really awful, isn't it?" Nick asked.
"Well, you're sure not going to attract any girls except Mother and Audra, and they'll cluck over you good, so enjoy the attention."
"Did you enjoy it when this happened to you?"
Jarrod grew more sober. "When it happened to me, Dr. Merar didn't say that I'd be fine in a couple days. I was – " He stopped. The memory was still very fresh.
"No, nevermind," Nick said. "I know it isn't the same and if I'm sorry about anything, I'm sorry me being like this is bringing back some nasty memories for you."
"You're not sorry you got into that fight?" Jarrod asked.
Nick had to think for a moment, but he said, "Yeah. I'm pretty sorry about that too."