“Hey, Tag. Feeling’s mutual,” Ryder said, giving his hand a quick shake.
Taking positions on each end of the stretcher, they quickly loaded the patient inside the plane while Ryder filled him in on the details of the attack. Tag didn’t notice the problem until they’d secured the stretcher inside. That’s when the blanket shifted, and instead of fresh white dressing, he saw dingy gray-and-brown strips, almost like...
Peeling the blanket back farther, he found a mass of dirty, albeit neatly arranged, bandages. What in the world? Had they dropped him? If so, why hadn’t they cleaned him up?
“Why is he so dirty? These bandages are filthy.”
“Ally did that,” Jessie explained. “Native healing thing. She says the clay in Sullivan’s Spring contains antibiotic properties and helps stanch the bleeding.”
Tag was familiar with the small mineral hot spring. Most people didn’t even know it was there. It wasn’t large enough to draw visitors. There were no deep or colorful pools to attract attention, but he’d heard about its purported healing properties for most of his life.
“Who is Ally?” he asked, although his keen powers of deduction were telling him she had to be the only other female who wasn’t Jessie. Initially he’d assumed she was a teenager, maybe the injured kid’s sister or girlfriend, as she’d been holding his hand and talking to him right up until they’d loaded him inside the plane.
Ryder’s brows shot up. “Ally Mowak? You haven’t met her yet?”
“No. Why would I have?”
“She’s the new hospital liaison in Rankins. I guess, technically, she doesn’t start until tomorrow.”
Tag glanced over to where Ally was hurriedly stuffing gear into a backpack. Pretty, and like Jessie, she appeared to be of Native American descent, as did the two boys. She was petite and fit, her silky black hair tied back in a ponytail, and she wore no makeup. He supposed she might not be as young as he’d assumed.
“How old is she?”
“Young. Twenty...something. Early twenties. Old enough to have served in the Army, including a couple of combat tours. She was a medic and then came home to earn her paramedic certification.”
“Huh.” Because of his affiliation with the hospital, he knew a liaison had been hired. Flynn Ramsey, a doctor at the hospital, had told him because the position entailed overseeing medical transport, which meant Tag would occasionally be working with the new person. Up until now, the task had been tacked on to Flynn’s already demanding schedule.
Tag watched as Ally slung the pack over her shoulder. The two women exchanged a brief hug, and then Ally turned and jogged toward the plane.
“Hey, pilot, let’s go!” she called, a note of impatience infusing her tone, as if he was the one who’d been holding them up. Without waiting for a response, she waded into the water, climbed nimbly onto the pontoon and scrambled inside the plane.
Tag called out thanks to Ryder and Jessie and followed, even though he wasn’t sure of their destination yet. Anchorage and Juneau both had excellent trauma units. Either way, he needed to call and inform them they were en route.
Turning around, he asked, “Alaska Regional or Bartlett?”
“Rankins,” she answered without hesitation.
“Rankins?” Was she serious? The kid had been mauled by a bear. “Are you sure? It’s a small hospital, and Juneau has—”
“I know how big the hospital is,” she answered in a tone as crisp as an ice chip. “He’s my patient. It’s my call.”
Giving his head a stupefied shake, he turned to focus on the plane’s controls. The only thing that kept him from arguing was the fact that he didn’t want to waste any time. The patient could be airlifted from Rankins if necessary. Although, at some point in the very near future, he and Ms. Mowak were going to have a conversation about patient transport protocol when he and his company were involved.
* * *
AS LOUIS DRIFTED in and out of consciousness, Ally held his hand, touched his cheek, told him stories, all the while closely monitoring his condition: listening to his breathing, checking his pulse, scanning every inch of him from head to toe and back again. There was some oozing through the dressings but no serious bleeding. She wished she could check the injuries on his back.
What she really wished was that she’d been there to protect them.
Ally had been lingering behind on the trail taking photos when she heard the boys’ screams. She’d sprinted toward the commotion, but by the time she’d arrived at the scene the bear was gone and the damage done. Squeezing her eyes shut, she took a few seconds to appreciate how lucky Louis was to be alive. She still wasn’t sure why his injuries weren’t more severe. Ally was proud of him for keeping his head covered like he’d been taught, his scratched and raw forearms proof of the defensive move. A bear’s powerful jaws could remove a person’s entire face or crack the skull with a single bite, as easily as a nutcracker splitting an acorn.
Quinn said that in those few seconds of awareness before the attack he’d thought they were both dead. The boys had been standing maybe ten feet apart when they heard a noise in the brush behind them. They hadn’t had time to do more than turn before three-hundred-plus pounds of muscle, claws and teeth were charging toward them.
For whatever reason, the bear had gone for Louis first. As Quinn scrambled to retrieve his bear spray from the holster on his hip, the sow, seemingly distracted by something in the trees, had dropped Louis almost as quickly as she’d attacked and loped back into the brush. Probably her cubs, Ally theorized, as Quinn had seen two little ones scooting ahead of the bear’s retreating form.
It seemed like only a few minutes before the plane was descending toward the waters of the bay adjacent to the town of Rankins. After a smooth-as-glass landing, they were ferrying toward the dock. Red and blue lights from the waiting ambulance were a balm to the gnawing worry in her gut. She’d thoroughly assessed Louis’s injuries, but with the conditions and the limited resources in the field, she knew there was a chance she’d missed something.
With efficiency and care Ally approved of, the onshore team rushed Louis into the ambulance for the short ride to the hospital. She joined him inside and was soon handing her cousin off again, this time to a team of doctors and nurses.
Relief rushed through her when she saw Dr. Ramsey instead of Dr. Boyd. Like her, Flynn was new to Rankins Hospital but old to Alaska, meaning he’d grown up here, too. He was also sympathetic to traditional medical practices. He would understand the clay.
“IN THIS HOSPITAL, Ms. Mowak, we don’t treat patients with dirt.” Dr. Robert P. Boyd leveled his glacier-blue glare at Ally. He even looked like ice, she decided, with his white hair and snowy-smooth skin. The sharp edges of his shoulders and elbows jutted against his white jacket.
So much for her hope that Dr. Boyd wouldn’t get wind of her use of clay on Louis’s wounds. Poof went her plan to ease into a relationship with the chief physician at Rankins Hospital.
Ally already knew that an education, even one as extensive as a doctorate, didn’t guarantee wisdom. Knowledge, sure. Wisdom, not so much.
Her grandfather, Abe Mowak, had been using medicinal clays on patients ever since Ally could remember. Clay from Sullivan’s Spring was among his most valued. She’d collected some for him last time she’d visited Jessie, which was how she’d gotten the idea to use it on Louis.
“As an Army medic and a paramedic, I know you’re aware of the proper treatment for lacerations and punctures of this severity.”