Leaving Blythe River: A Novel (32 page)

Chapter Fifteen: Legs

One day after his father was found

Ethan felt himself blasted out of sleep by a sharp rapping on the door. He opened his eyes.

Just for a split second he entertained the thought—well, not even a thought exactly, but a sudden wash of possibility—that the whole rescue adventure might have been a vividly detailed dream. After all, here he was in bed. As usual.

He tried to sit up. And failed.

Every muscle in his body felt rigidly locked into place. Ethan could swear even the muscles in his forehead and ears hurt. But that might have been sunburn. Or sheer sleepy imagination.

“Just a minute!” he called. It hurt even to yell out words.

In tiny movements continually punctuated by the word “ow,” Ethan pulled on a clean pair of underwear and jeans, and a sweater, and limped his way stiffly to the door. Except he was limping on both sides. Which might not have qualified as limping at all. It might just have been . . . ruined. And pathetic.

He opened the door.

Jone stood on his welcome mat, a small brown paper bag in one hand, a larger paper grocery sack in the other. Her expansive white hair was clean and freshly braided, and she wore a long denim dress embroidered with flowers. Her face looked lighter and airier than he was used to seeing it. Ethan squinted at her, then past her into the light. Sam was waiting in the driver’s seat of his pickup.

“I wake you up?” she asked him. She sounded rested. And more than a little cheerful. It was more cheerfulness than Ethan knew how to process.

“Yeah. But it’s okay. What time is it?”

“Nearly nine.”

“Oh. Wow. I slept a long time.”

“Feel any better?”

“I had nowhere to go but up.”

“Here’s the stuff of yours you left in Dora’s saddle bags,” she said, handing him the paper grocery sack.

“Oh. Thanks.”

“Sam says to tell you he forgot your dad’s shotgun, but he’s still got it. He’ll get it to you next time he sees you. Your toothbrush is in there. You can brush your teeth now. And then we can go.”

“I need to grab something to eat.”

Jone held the smaller paper bag out and up, between them.

“I brought you a scrambled egg burrito. With black beans and salsa. It’s big. Made specially for day-after the-wilderness appetites. And I wrapped it in foil, so it’s still pretty warm.”

“Oh my God, that sounds incredible. Okay, let me just put on some shoes and let the dog out to pee, and then I’m ready to go.”

Just as they passed Sam’s house, Ethan shouted, “Wait!”

Sam slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop in the road.

Ethan had been stuck between the two of them on the bench seat. Probably because it was less embarrassing to have Ethan ride the gearshift.

“I’ll be right back,” Ethan said. Then, to Jone, “Will you hold this, please?”

It was hard to let go of the enormous burrito. It felt like a treasure he’d die without. But he handed it to her, and she stepped out to let him by.

Ethan eased his sore muscles down Sam’s driveway and carefully ducked through the boards of the fence. He limped his way along until he reached the fenced paddock that held all of Sam’s stock—the horses and mules.

“Dora!” he called, cupping his hands around his mouth. Even raising his arms that high felt shockingly painful.

Her head came up. She made a rumbly sound in her throat, and moved to the fence to meet him, all of which Ethan found almost more wonderful and more emotional than he could bear. His gut hadn’t had enough rest. Maybe there was no such thing as enough. He still felt scraped out and sore inside, unable to hold much weight without collapsing.

He wrapped his arms around the mule’s hairy head. She had a wonderful, horsey smell. Earthy and rich. It reminded him of being out riding the wilderness trails, though he hadn’t consciously registered the smell before that moment.

“Thank you for everything,” he said. He felt almost as though he could cry, but his eyes remained dry. Probably fresh out of moisture. “Especially for getting your foot caught in that fleece. And I’m sorry I kept kicking you up at the lake when I saw those bears. And I’m sorry my legs got tired and I kicked you every time I got on or off. I wasn’t a very good rider. But you were a very good mule. Thanks.”

He kissed the long, bony front of her face.

Then he made his way back to the truck and the burrito, looking once over his shoulder. Dora stood at the fence watching him go. As though she cared about Ethan, and where he went.

Jone climbed out to let Ethan back into the middle.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m ready. Let’s get this next part over with.”

He sat back in the narrow space and took a huge bite of the still slightly warm burrito. The salsa was mild, and there was a lot of it, and the cheddar cheese was melty, and the flavor combinations were perfect. Just perfect. But there was an added factor that sharpened Ethan’s enjoyment of it. It was that ravenous hunger that comes of using your body to the brink of utter exhaustion, and then surviving to enjoy that moment when it scrambles to resupply and repair.

He sighed deeply. Chewed slowly. Almost not wanting the bite of food to end in being swallowed.

“Wow, is this good,” he said.

“Isn’t it?” Sam said.

“Oh, you got one, too?”

“Yup. I’m lucky. The woman can cook on top of everything else.”

There was something in the statement, but Ethan couldn’t quite pin it down. Something akin to the cheeriness in Sam’s whistling and singing the previous morning. It lived in the whole truck cab, he realized. On either side of him. Not in Sam and Sam alone.

He looked up from his breakfast to Sam. Then to Jone. Then to Sam. Then back to Jone.

“Oh, just eat your burrito,” Jone said.

“I can take you in to see him now,” the doctor said. “Or I can tell you what we’ve learned about his condition first.”

The doctor was dark skinned, with short hair and a lilting accent that Ethan found oddly comforting. His face wore a light trace of smile that never seemed to fade.

The four of them stood near the long desk of a nurses’ station on the hospital’s second floor.

“Is he awake?” Ethan asked.

“Yes and no. He’s not unconscious, but he’s very groggy. He’s on a lot of powerful painkillers. He slips in and out.”

“Tell me about his condition first.”

“All right,” the doctor said. “He’s stable. We’ve upgraded him to stable. No guarantees, but we all feel positive about his situation. We have him hydrated, and his blood pressure is within a fairly normal range now. I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you when I tell you he was very close to death when he was brought in. I think we all feel hopeful that if he made it thr
o
ugh the last few hours, he can make it through the rest of his recovery. That’s the good news. His legs of course are another matter.”

“Right,” Ethan said. “His legs.”

“We may as well get that bad news over with, yes. The right patella is shattered. There’s no saving it. He’s lucky we live in an era of good prosthetic joints. We haven’t done that surgery yet, of course. We want him as strong as possible first.”

“The left one will be easier,” Ethan said. “Right? Because it’s just a break in a long bone?”

The doctor’s face lost what Ethan had thought was a perpetual smile, and his forehead was no longer without lines or creases.

“No, the open fracture is the greater problem, I’m afraid. He spent six or seven days outdoors, uncovered, with a wound that went all the way down to the bone. Down through the bone, in fact.”

“You’re worried about infection,” Ethan said. It wasn’t a question.

“We have infection already. We’re worried we won’t be able to get on top of it. He’s on intravenous antibiotics, but he’s weak and depleted, and the infection has a strong foothold. Last night he underwent an initial surgery to remove as much of the infected tissue as possible. Much of what was removed was muscle tissue, so he may not regain full use of that leg, even if he’s lucky and we can save it.”

“Oh,” Ethan said. Realizing for the first time the gravity of the sum of the doctor’s words. “And if not?” he asked. Part of him knew. It went without saying. Everybody knows the opposite of being saved. But Ethan was deeply tired, and he didn’t have access to all parts of himself. Especially on short notice.

“Then we may have to amputate his left leg a few inches below the hip joint.”

“Oh,” Ethan said again.

In the silence that followed, Ethan noted that he was blinking too much.

“But let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” the doctor said. “You should come in and see him. I’m sure it will help him to know that you’re here.” He glanced up at Sam and Jone. “Maybe just kin for now. You understand, I hope.”

Just before they stepped away from the nurses’ station, Ethan was struck with a sudden thought. More than struck, really. Leveled. He looked away from the doctor and looked to Jone and Sam, one after the other and in that order.

“I didn’t call my mother,” he said. “I can’t believe I forgot to call my mother.”

“If you want,” Jone said, “leave us with her number and we’ll call her. We’ll tell her what happened and say you’ll call later, when you can.”

“Yeah,” Ethan said. “Good. Okay. I can’t believe I forgot that.”

“You were pretty tired,” Sam said.

“I think I still am,” Ethan told him. “Anybody have something I can write with? And on?”

Ethan followed the doctor down the hall toward his father’s room, still favoring . . . well, everything. Wishing he could move without pain. Wishing he could keep up.

“I’ll walk more slowly,” the doctor said. “I can see you’ve not yet recovered from your experience. I heard about what you did. Everybody is talking about it. Everybody knows this is the man every person gave up on finding except his son. That was quite a remarkable thing you accomplished.”

“We had some luck,” Ethan said, vividly reliving the sensation of sitting on Dora’s saddle as she tried to kick her hind leg out of the fleece jacket.

“I think the point here,” the doctor said, “is that you stayed out there long enough for luck to find you.”