Chapter Three

"You gave him some of the bouillon?"

Donovan tensed under the covers. The women were in the next room and probably couldn't see him, but he kept his eyes closed and remained still, just in case.

"Well, yes," said Carina in reasonable tones. "What would you have had me do? He shouldn't have solid food yet, so I couldn't use the dried meat. Should I have killed a chicken and made soup from it instead?"

"You cure chickens, you don’t kill them," said Amalia. "It's just that it's so hard to get bouillon. There's never any in town, so we have to be careful with it."

"I think I know that as well as you do. Don't worry, he'll be on solid food soon."

"I just wish it was someone else's food he was eating."

"He'll be a big help to us when he's well. You know we can't run this place alone. It was hard enough after Dad died. And now without Mom. . .” Her voice trailed off. "And there's no telling when Miles will be discharged, so we can use the help."

"Right now he's no help at all. He's just a drain on our food resources and a lot of extra work for you."

"I don't mind."

"Of course you don't," Amalia said. "But while you're in here giving this guy alcohol rubdowns for his fever, I'm out in the fields alone."

"It won't be forever. His fever was down today and I think he can help us soon with indoor things like cleaning and carding that wool I got from the Petersons. He can sort beans for cooking, he can make corn ristras, bundle herbs for drying. . ."

Amalia mumbled something that Donovan couldn't make out.

"Let's not argue," Carina said. "You agreed to help me with his bandages."

Donovan tried to mimic the deep regular breathing of sleep as the women entered the room, then he opened his eyes and smiled sleepily. "What time is it?"

"Time to change your bandages and move you around a bit," Carina said. She pulled off the sheet and helped him sit up. She ran her hands along his ribcage with a light, firm touch and seemed satisfied. "Any change to how you feel?"

Donovan shook his head.

"Let’s have you sit all the way up and put your feet on the floor. I can get a better look at this shoulder that way, and there's no reason for you not to move around if you're careful."

Sitting all the way up and turning around took more effort than just sitting up enough to eat. Donovan cringed and leaned heavily on Carina, but finally he was upright, feet planted on the floor. He would’ve sighed with relief if it hadn’t hurt so much.

Carina picked at the bandage on his shoulder, frowning at the amount of blood and fluid that had seeped through. With a few quick snips of her scissors, the bandage fell in ribbons to the floor and she squinted at the oozing hole in his shoulder. "How long ago were you shot?"

"About two weeks before I deserted."

"Amalia, hand me the little flashlight."

Donovan raised his eyebrows in surprise when he saw the flashlight. He had seen people beaten and robbed over working batteries.

"Do you know if they got the bullet out?"


"I think so. I bled a lot and passed out. When I woke up, I was bandaged up and lying in the ward. I assume they took it out."

"It isn’t healing well, if they did."

"Maybe it's just that he hasn't given the wound a chance to heal," Amalia suggested. "Deserting his base, running around the desert, stealing chickens, and getting dehydrated isn't exactly a recipe for quick recovery."

"I hope that's all it is," Carina agreed. She met Donovan’s eyes. "You've had your autoimmune vaccination, right? No exposure to any weird new diseases-- LVV, Toronto Flu, any of that?"

Donovan frowned and licked his lips as he tried to remember. "I’ve had the Emerging Virus series and the doctors say there’s been no new strains since 2039."

"The Guard hasn’t updated its vaccine regimen since the pandemic?"

"They give us our boosters. We don’t need anything else for domestic service."

Carina murmured skeptically and returned her attention to the open wound. "I hate to stitch this up when it's still draining, but. . .well, let's just clean it and cover it again and see what happens. If it doesn't look better tomorrow we may want to do a bit of exploratory."

Amalia handed her a bottle of fluid with a long thin straw at the top. "You better hold onto something," she told Donovan.

"It's just saline," Carina said. "Weak salt solution. It'll feel uncomfortable, but it won't hurt as bad as anything you've already been through."

Carina was right that the sensation was not so much painful as odd and uncomfortable. He tried not to squirm, although he found the sight of blood and pus running down his arm more disturbing than the actual procedure. Amalia wiped the dripping mess with a towel. "I don't like the look of this."

"Me either." Carina took the bloody towel and sniffed it, then wrinkled her nose in distaste. "This is going to require some aggressive action if it's not better by tomorrow."

Amalia handed her another wound-flushing bottle, this one filled with a brownish substance. Carina fixed Donovan with a steady look. "This one will hurt. I'm not kidding. But there's no way around it, so just do your best to be still and it'll be over in a few seconds."

"Hold my hand," Amalia told him.

Donovan did as he was told and gripped her hand so hard he wondered that her bones didn't crack. He closed his eyes, sucking in deep ragged breaths, too distracted by the pain in his shoulder to notice the duller pain in his ribs. But as Carina had promised, it was over quickly and then she was pressing a cloth against his shoulder. "We're done," she said. "I'm going to put some ointment on it now, and I promise it won't hurt. It's got some herbs in it that will numb the pain."

She took a little jar from Amalia as she talked and scooped out a bit of odd-smelling jelly, then rubbed it around and partly inside the bullet hole. As she had promised, it took the knife edge off the pain, leaving only a dull ache. Then Carina and Amalia bandaged him, one woman holding a thick pad over his shoulder while the other tied it in place with strips of cloth. Finally Carina stepped back and examined her work. "I wish I could be more optimistic about that shoulder. There were no red streaks, though, so maybe it's not as bad as it looks."

She turned to Amalia. "Let's wash up and do his leg now, then we can think about lunch."

The gash on the leg was long and deep, criss-crossed neatly with black stitches. Donovan was startled. "How did those get there?"

"You spent your first two days alternating between delirium and unconsciousness. Trust me, you didn't feel a thing."

Donovan pondered this as Carina examined the gash, cleaned the outside of it and slathered it with ointment. "It's pretty warm," she remarked as she reached for the roll of cotton bandaging. "I guess I need to keep a close watch on this one, too." Soon Carina had him bandaged again and she seemed relieved to be finished.

"Thank you," Donovan said. "I had no idea I would be so much trouble."

"Oh, it's no trouble," Carina said, but Amalia raised her eyebrows and began putting the medicines and instruments back onto a tray.

"I guess I'm lucky I ended up at a doctor's house."

Carina started. "I’m not a doctor. My husband is, though." When a flicker of worry crossed his face, she added, "I'm a veterinarian. Not quite the same, but I know what I'm doing." She pointed to the jars and bottles Amalia was gathering onto the tray. "Our mother was a very accomplished herbalist. She could cure almost anything."

"Except herself," Amalia said. She picked up the tray and headed out of the room. "Let's wash up and eat. I’m hungry and I’m sure you are, too."

Carina stared after her. "Mom caught a strange fever last winter," she explained. "Nothing we did seemed helped. It's been hard for my sister."

"It can't have been easy for you, either."

"No, but she has no one left but me, and at least I still have a husband. He was drafted a long time ago, but he'll come home some day and we have big plans." Carina shook herself a little. "But that's enough about me. We need to be thinking about lunch."

Donovan nodded and made motions as if he would lie down. Carina helped ease him onto the pillows. "We'll bring you something to eat in a few minutes."

She picked up the soiled bandages from the floor and made her way toward the door. Donovan's voice stopped her. "Carina?"

"Yes?"

"I'd like to help out a little." He tried to think how to say it without sounding like he had been listening to their earlier conversation. "If you've got any kind of work that a guy could do lying in bed, I'd be really privileged if you'd let me do it."

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