“Chemicals in the hospital,” he sniffed and flashed another not quite smile, “they give me allergies.”
I didn’t buy that for a moment. “Oh.” But there’s some things you just don’t call a guy out on. Catching him maybe a little misty equaled one of them.
When a fair bit of time had passed just in silence, enough so’s I started to doze a bit, Kabe rousted me with. “Joe…”
“What?” I cracked one eye open. Lord, I hadn’t felt this drowsy since the time I pulled a triple shift during a blizzard.
He’d settled back into his chair, although I think he might have moved it up closer to the head of the bed. “When did you,” he paused, frittering away a little nervous energy by picking at the edge of my sheets, “put me down as your emergency contact, you know, at your job?”
Hadn’t told him about that, just hadn’t crossed my mind to. “How you figure that out?” Took me a moment to even remember why I had… a couple months or so back one of the folks from the county HR department had come around. Couldn’t puzzle out why exact, maybe new hires or something at the jail, but he’d pestered about updating information. Didn’t remember exactly doing it, but I kinda figured I had.
“Ah, let’s see,” his hand landed on my right arm and his fingers stroked my skin with these tiny, make-sure-I-ain’t-died touches. “I’m sitting in the waiting area while they’re taking you in, to try and figure out what broke, and my cell phone rings. It’s your department telling me you’ve been in an accident.”
“Oh, well, made that switch a while back.” I started to shrug like it didn’t matter none. That caused me a world of hurt more than the movement was worth. Managed to spit out, “Didn’t think you’d mind,” through gritted teeth. It also started me coughing again…too many words at one go.
Jumping back up, Kabe insisted, “No, I don’t mind.” He fussed at righting my pillows, guess trying to help some. “I’m just a little surprised.”
When I managed to catch my breath, I asked, “Why?” My wits seemed to be sharpening up, at ‘bout the same rate as the edge of the pain slipped from muted fuzz to dull, but relentless. Maybe the drugs were wearing off some.
“Ah, I, well…” He hemmed and hawed a bit. “It’s kind of a big step. Didn’t think you would do something like that.”
It was my turn for hesitation, “Well, I just figured…I don’t know, it felt right.” At the time it seemed reasonable, I guess. My folks off in Russia and my sister didn’t live nowhere nearby. Something told me I’d also put him as my healthcare proxy. If’n he didn’t bug about that then I guess the situation hadn’t been so dire that they’d needed to pull it out of my medical file.
“Wow.” His upper lip got all tight and his eyes went kinda skittish. “‘kay.”
Lord we were heading towards a discussion I was no more ready to have than I was ready to walk on water…or just walk for that matter. “What’s the damage?” I took my usual tack and moved the conversation someplace with fewer minefields.
Kabe blinked. “Huh?”
“I know where I hurt.” A coughing spell grabbed me again. After I rode it out, I finished my thought. “But what they say is wrong with me?”
“Oh, ah…” Kabe ran one hand up to the top of his skull and hooked the thumb of the other in his back pocket. “Broke your nose and two fingers on your left hand. Screwed up your knee, most likely, ‘cause it was already swelling when you came in.” Chewing on his bottom lip, he seemed to try and remember everything. “X-rays show you didn’t break it, but they want to wait for the swelling to go down just a little so they can get a clear MRI.” With a huff, he dropped back into the bedside chair and let his hands dangle between his legs. “The doctor figures you’ll probably have some neck issues, other sprains, but they needed you awake to tell them that.” Nodding, he finished with, “You’ve got some pretty badass bruises going on.”
“Why does it hurt to breathe?” Maybe I’d cracked a rib or something. “Everything tastes like I’ve been sucking on a fire extinguisher.” Out of all of it, that I didn’t understand. “Like my nose is filled up with it.”
A worried, or a more worried, look blew over his face. Kabe hustled around the bed and stuck his head out the door. “Nurse,” he called out to someone down the hall, “Joe says he’s having trouble breathing.” He stepped back into the room. Seconds later the sound of sneakers on linoleum heralded the arrival of a woman in a purplish smock and tightly bound blond hair. Kabe turned to me and asked, “That right?”
“Yeah.” I started to nod and thought better of it. “Hey, Carla.” Recognized her from years of being in and out of Garfield County’s only hospital. “It’s like I can’t quite get a lung full and then I start coughing.”
She pulled a stethoscope off from around her neck and leaned over me. “Do you know how long he was in the vehicle?” Her questions came as she tugged down the neck of my hospital gown and slid a too cold bit of metal underneath. “After the accident?”
Tried to think on that, and couldn’t quite remember. “Ah, I, ah…”
“Not asking you.” Carla chided. “You breathe in and out with deep breaths.” Turning her face towards Kabe she asked again, “Do you have any idea, anybody tell you?”
“Took us a good twenty, thirty minutes to get him out.” Kabe jammed his hands under his pits and kinda shrugged. “Took us maybe another fifteen between call out and getting on scene. Tropic Fire got there a little ahead of us.”
“You were on scene?” Carla sounded downright suspicious, like he pulled her leg or something.
“Yeah, ah,” Kabe seemed all nervous, like he weren’t quite sure of himself, “I’ve been riding with Panguitch Fire some.” Maybe ‘cause he wasn’t official or nothing. “The call came in as pretty bad, somewhere halfway between the departments so we all rolled.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t know you were one of the volunteers on the fire department.” ‘Cept for the forestry service, all the fire departments ‘round these parts were volunteer.
“I’m not, not really,” Kabe explained. “Working on my full EMT card.” Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, he added, “Joe convinced them to let me ride along some. For my hours requirement.”
“Ah.” That one syllable carried a whole bucketful of meaning, mostly it kinda said,
you’re one of us.
“Were the windows closed?” Then, like she realized they’d switched gears a bit, “I mean in his patrol vehicle, when you arrived.” As she spoke, Carla moved the stethoscope around on my chest. Even talking to Kabe, I could tell her attention mostly focused on what she was hearing in my lungs.
“Yeah.” Kabe nodded. “Mostly. Things were spider-webbed but the glass held.”
Carla took the stethoscope off my chest and out of her ears. “It’s probably irritation from the cornstarch or, more likely, talc in the airbag packing.” She looped the instrument around the back of her neck and moved towards the wall where my chart hung. “You,” finally she was talking to me instead of about me, “might be sensitive to the propellant, but we’d see more respiratory distress from that.” She noted some things on the paper. “I’ll let your doctor know, but the wheezing doesn’t sound too bad.” She looked up at one of the monitors to the side of me. “Blood oxygen levels look fine. It should resolve in another day, but we’ll keep an eye on it. How’s your pain?”
Grumpy, uncomfortable, I growled, “Compared to what?” Cain’t say I was in the best mood ever. I mean, I knew I was lucky to be in as good of shape as I was, but still, I wished I was someplace else.
Carla didn’t seem to pay my lousy mood no mind. “Okay, one to ten…one being almost no pain to ten, having your leg sawed off without anesthetic.” She grinned. “Where would you say you fall?”
I had to chuckle a bit. “I’m on some pretty good medication.” ‘Course that got me coughing up my lungs again. When I could talk, I added, “When it wears off more I’ll let you know, but right now I could enjoy a good train wreck.”
“Well, Joe, that lets us know it’s working.” She noted that down, hopefully cleaning it up a bit. “I’m going to ask you a couple of questions, okay? They may seem a little stupid, but I see that you were blacked out for awhile so I want to see that you’re alright. What’s your name?”
I teased, “Ain’t that in your little chart?” When she glared, in that way that only nurses can, I answered. “Joseph Price Peterson.”
“Who’s the Sheriff in this county, deputy?” Her tone added a bit more rebuke.
“Myron Simple.” Even when I was serious, I had to josh a bit. “And he’s going to tan my hide for tearing up the newest patrol vehicle we have.”
She grinned. “Your birthday?”
“April twenty-fifth and I will be thirty-three this coming spring.” I didn’t want to get short, but I was pretty wrung out and worn. “You got enough to know I didn’t scramble my brains?”
One of those almost patronizing, but still sympathetic grimaces flashed across her face. “Tired?” As she spoke, she jotted the last of it on my chart and then hung it on the wall near my bed.
“Kinda.” I huffed it out. I was beyond tired…exhausted deep through my bones might have come close to how I felt.
“Look,” Carla fluffed my pillow and adjusted some things on the monitor next to me…I mean I had one of those little finger cuffs on my left middle finger and a drip line of something into my left arm, but there weren’t nothing major strapped to me. “Take it easy, sleep if you can.” Patting my arm, she added, “You’re going to be here overnight.”
“Is he that bad?” The hollow echo in Kabe’s voice told me he was darn scared. Maybe if he was I ought to be… Right then, however, I figured I’d let him worry for the both of us.
“No.” She reached across me to touch Kabe’s nose. “He was obviously in a car wreck, but he’ll come out okay.” I don’t think I’d ever seen Carla that familiar with anyone. ‘Course, I didn’t usually stick around for this part of things. “We only do releases in the morning.” Carla turned her face and smiled down at me, “Okay, Joe, does one of my favorite deputies need anything?”
Managed to mumble out, “I’m kinda thirsty.” Actually, I was more than kinda thirsty, but I didn’t want to come off too needy to Carla.
“I’ll get you some ice chips.” She patted my chest. I guess I was like a puppy to her right then…pet ‘em so they don’t whine. “Once the doctor checks you out and signs off on it, I’ll get you some juice. You should be cleared to have a decent dinner tonight. I’ll let Carlos, in the kitchen, know you’re here. He always treats you guys special.”
“You guys?” Kabe sounded unsure of what she meant.
“Law enforcement and other first responders.” Carla sort of shrugged, like it should make sense to him. “Family.”
I knew, even as drugged up as I was, what she meant. I managed to add, “Kabe’s got to learn that.”
Carla laughed a little, with one of those quiet, nurse type laughs. Then she headed out the door. Just before she walked out, Carla paused and sorta turned to stare back at us both. “You know,” she hesitated just a moment before rushing out, “one of our nurses’ aides is going out on maternity leave in a couple of months, it’s temporary, but…you should apply.” With an encouraging smile, she added, “Hospital work looks good on a resume when you’re trying to land EMT gigs.”
Kabe, who’d gone back to stroking my thumb with his own, muttered, “I’ll think about it.”
A clap of his hands signaled Dr. Snow’s arrival in the room. “Hey, Joe!” Tucker Snow and I went to high school together. Obviously, he’d gone a bit of a different direction than me. Still we both ended up right back in Panguitch. Just took him a few years longer than it did me to come on home.
I eased into my shirt. “Doc Snow, how you doing?” Wasn’t all that easy with a hand all bandaged up. Kabe started bothering, trying to help, and I jerked away a bit. Then I realized I actually needed him. It’d been easier getting my pants on, so long as I moved slow, ‘cause I could take the brace off my leg. Then Carla showed me and Kabe how to fasten it back up before she went off to grab a wheelchair.
Even with all Kabe’s fussing over me, Dr. Snow didn’t do much more than just raise an eyebrow. “I work in the best place in the world.” He tipped up my chin and looked over my face, kinda touching the bruising around my left eye and the bridge of my nose. “The sun is shining and I delivered three babies this morning. I’m doing great.” Nodding, he stepped back. “Well, everything looks about as good as it can right now. Ready to go home?”
Went to button up my shirt and realized that this one handed thing was going to be a major pain in the rear. “And how.” I could do it, it just weren’t easy. Kabe reached over to help. I might have glared, but I didn’t stop him.
Realized I’d missed something Dr. Snow said while I was messing with my shirt. “So you should follow up,” he didn’t seem to notice, “with your regular doctor sometime tomorrow.”
“Ah, yeah.” I huffed out a breath. “I don’t got one right now.”
That stopped him. He kinda looked at me funny. “I thought your family always saw Dr. Prestwick.”
“Yeah.” I’d been going to him since I was knee high to a grasshopper. “He don’t seem to have many open appointments these days.” Least ways, for me that is. Everyone else I knew seemed to be able to get into see him right quick.
“Really?” Dr. Snow’s eyes went a little wide as what I meant must have hit him. “Okay, well,” he pulled a card out of his shirt pocket and handed it over, “I see private patients two days a week. Call up my wife, Cindy, and make an appointment. Probably going to have to refer you down to Cedar City for an orthopedist, send you in for an MRI there too.”
“Thanks.” I winced as I reached back to shove the card in my jeans’ pocket. “How’s our boy Alex doing?” Carla’d already told me he had a room just down the hall.
“Considering everything,” Dr. Snow crossed his arms over his chest. “He came away lucky to be alive. He’s going to be here for a while.”
“But you’re fine with sending Joe on home, injured.” All morning Kabe’d insisted he didn’t think I was ready to be released just yet. Guess he needed to get in another dig.
“Joe’s banged up.” Kabe got a grin. “But he’ll be more comfortable at home.” Carla came in with the wheelchair at that point and Dr. Snow moved out of her way. “That boy’s in traction.”