CHAPTER 22
A Long Night
Oops
Words With Eddie
When To Duck
PALE lamplight hinted at white walls, cabinets full of medical instruments and small dark bottles. Gideon listened to the stillness around him with the distinct feeling he had fallen asleep and was now listening for the second or third time. No matter his aches, remaining in that room was not an option. With stiff, swollen fingers he freed himself from the blanket, dropped a leg over the edge of the unfamiliar bed and rolled painfully onto his side.
“Cad ata’ ar siu’l agat?”
It was a man’s voice and it suggested whatever Gideon was doing he had better not being doing. Slumped over, one arm pinned beneath himself, Gideon tried to sit up.
“Ni feidir liom fanacht,” he tried to explain.
“You can’t stay?” Connell echoed, in a surprised whisper. “You can and you will, boy. Now hush, you’ll wake Lee.”
Connell hadn’t realized he had used his native language and was doubly shocked to hear himself likewise answered. Where on earth had this boy learned Irish? He guided Gideon back down and tucked the blanket neatly in place.
“Mo chapall. . . ” Gideon’s plea was more shape than sound.
A horse. Knocked galley west and it’s his horse he’s thinking of. Forever amused and amazed at the things his patients found vital, Connell assured Gideon his horse was taken care of and, in case Gideon’s thoughts leaned towards riding that horse, he repeated his injunction to be still. The doctor pulled his chair around and willed his patient back to blissful unconsciousness where, hopefully, his dreams would be better than his day had been.
Alone with his thoughts, as he had been on many a vigil, Connell pondered over why Gideon should be so set on getting up when all good sense said to acknowledge the advice of his own body and rest? What drove him so?
He wondered too about what he had seen whilst wrapping those bruised ribs. Did Amos know? Or Aspen? The long scars across Gideon’s back were old, but wounds like that had a way of imprinting themselves on the soul, remaining imbedded long after the body has healed.
Connell was in a position to know. He had seen his share of troubles. As a doctor, he had seen more than his share of other people’s troubles too. He did his best to lessen the burden, to throw his weight into the balance and he hoped, in some way, his efforts amounted to something.
With a steadfast will, Connell held to his greatest medical discovery: humor. As far as he was concerned, when he lost his sense of humor they could close the lid. The thought came to him of himself laid out in a silk lined coffin, and him tapping on the inside of the lid, scaring the bejeezers out of the assembled mourners. Dark, but funny.
Gideon slept fitfully, sure that every breath he took and movement he made woke him. The slightest twitch brought Lee or Connell to keep him abed. It wasn’t that Gideon actually felt like riding, he just couldn’t shake feeling the need. Staying put didn’t get his promise kept.
S’pose Tarlston. . .
The grim thought shied away and mitigated itself to the notion that leaving would be safer for everyone concerned.