Mystic Cowboy(79)

“I’ll be there in...” The static crackled and Clarence was gone.

Didn’t matter, she thought as she took another corner too fast. The Jeep fought for traction as she skidded, but then the tires gripped road again. Adrenaline poured into her system. Clarence was coming. She was going to need some backup.

Suddenly, she wished she knew where Rebel was, and it had nothing to do with her selfish wants and pitiful needs. She needed someone who could handle sick people, who knew his way around the clinic, who people trusted. Tara had always been a good third to Clarence’s second, but it was obvious she was way past that point right now. And, given how terrifyingly sick Tara had sounded, Madeline was afraid she might need someone to start praying.

She needed a medicine man. She needed Rebel.

She slowed down just enough to call Albert’s number. She’d never gotten around to deleting it off the phone, and now she was thankful for that. From what Rebel had said, Jesse was keeping the house. And Rebel had said there was always a floor there for him. Maybe she’d get lucky and both men would be there. Two birds with one call.

No one answered. Damn it all.

The dim light of the Quik-E Mart blinked in the distance. Not much else was around here, and the all-night convenience store stood out like a sore thumb. She looked past the fluorescent glow. Hopefully, someone in the house had been able to get a light on or a door open or something that would tell her she was at the right place.

There. A door was open, and it looked like someone was waving a flag or something. She breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing she wanted to do was waste time by busting in on non-sick strangers who just might have shotguns lying around.

The Jeep squealed to a stop. She grabbed her duffle as Mrs. Tall Trees called out to her. “Doctor, please hurry!”

“What happened?” The duffle weighed a ton, but right now it felt like nothing. She hauled it into the house in seconds flat.

Mrs. Tall Trees wavered until she made it to a chair. She was green around the edges, and the sickly sheen of sweat was only making her look worse. And she was the one who was up and moving.

Bad, bad, bad. Then Tara lurched into the small room, and Madeline realized just how bad it was. She made her mother look like the picture of health. Tara’s hair had vomit in it, and she was sobbing as she blindly groped for the couch. “Nelly...” she moaned, sounding far weaker than she had on the phone.

“Where?”

“Bathtub,” Tara managed to get out before she stuck her head between her legs.

She had no time to waste, but she couldn’t afford to be stupid. She snapped on a pair of gloves and a surgical mask. Whether or not it was the flu, she couldn’t afford to catch it. “Tara, Mrs. Tall Trees, get to the car. We’re going to the clinic.”

The women groaned as they began to move. Good. At least they were still ambulatory. She headed for the bathroom, steeling her mind for what was waiting for her.

God. She’d worked on people cut from auto wrecks, dug bullets out of abdominal cavities, and seen more than her fair share of bodily fluids. But nothing could prepare her for what she saw.

Nelly was in the tub, her eyes half closed as she shook under the steady trickle of water. She didn’t have any pants on, but Madeline could see that pants, at this point, would have been useless. The girl was covered in her own diarrhea and vomit. Black was smeared all over her legs and backside, and Madeline knew that meant one thing and one thing only. Nelly was bleeding internally. The stench was overwhelming, even through the mask.

Shit. Literally and figuratively. How long had Nelly been sick? Internal bleeding made plain old diarrhea look like a walk in the park. The flu wouldn’t do this, not this quickly.

For a painful second, Madeline wanted to crumple down next to the tub and cry as she tried to clean the child. This wasn’t just a patient, a collection of symptoms to be dissected and treated. This was Nelly, the beautiful, happy little girl who played with babies in the waiting room and practiced the alphabet by helping organize files. It physically hurt to see her like this.

But that second was short. Screw the past tense. Nelly is a beautiful, happy child, Madeline thought like she was picking a fight. Is. She could lose it later. Right now, she had to keep it together or she’d lose so much more than her composure. She felt Nelly’s forehead as she found a pulse. Nelly managed a small moan. She was hot, but her heartbeat wasn’t exactly moving at an even pace. Double shit. She was in shock. She’d lost too many fluids too fast.

“Nelly, honey, we’re going, okay? Just hold on, sweetie. We’re going in just a second.” She jerked the shower curtain off the rod and ran outside. Tara and her mother were leaning against the car, holding each other up. As far as Madeline could tell, they were just vomiting with great regularity. She flung open the back seat door and spread the shower curtain. “Tara, get in back.” What was her mother’s name? Terry. “Terry, you get in front.” She jammed the key in the ignition and rolled all the windows down. “Try not to throw up in the car. I’m going to get Nelly.”