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they had a motel room nearby for the night. She just smiled and settled into her chair even more
firmly. They gave up eventually and left her.
* * *
IN THE WEE HOURS OF THE morning, a veteran nurse spotted her sitting there. Cane Kirk was at a
critical stage. The nurse had seen many cases like his, concussions that went suddenly wrong,
tragically wrong. Cane was slipping.
She approached Bodie and smiled. How s it going?
Bodie noted the floral pattern of the woman s shirt and the stethoscope she wore around her neck. A
nurse, she decided. Not so good, she replied and forced a smile. I m worried about my& friend, in
ICU.
Would you like to sit with him for a little while? the nurse asked.
Bodie blinked. I thought that wasn t allowed that we could only see him every few hours, and just
briefly& ?
The nurse smiled. We make exceptions sometimes. Come on. I ll clear it with my supervisor.
It took a lot of convincing, but the older woman knew, as her nurse did, that the patient wasn t
responding the way she would have liked. She d already phoned the attending physician and asked
him to stop by the room when he was free. So she understood the urgency of the nurse s request, and
the reason for it. The young woman was pale and drawn, obviously involved somehow with the
patient lying so still in the cubicle. The woman thought they were allowing the visit for her sake, but
they were really doing it for the patient, to give him every chance to pull through.
All right, the supervisor said after a minute. But you must be very quiet and not get in the way of
my nurses. And only for a few minutes.
Bodie nodded. I ll be like a mouse. Honest. Thanks, she stammered nervously.
The supervisor smiled. Had she ever been that young? You re welcome.
The nurse, relieved, ushered Bodie into Cane s cubicle.
Bodie curled up in a chair beside the bed, in her blue jeans. She noted that Cane had lost color, and
he looked really bad. The nurse did her observations, charted them and glanced at Bodie.
There s always hope, she told the younger woman gently.
Bodie nodded again.
When she was alone with Cane, she moved the chair carefully closer to the bed and curled up in it
again, looking small and very vulnerable to the nurse monitoring the cubicles at the central desk. She
reached out and slid her fingers around Cane s big, warm hand, holding it tight. The IV needle and
tube were taped to a board around the hand, to hold it steady so that he didn t upset the drip.
Her fingers moved gently over his. So many arguments, she said softly. You always win them,
because I never know how to fight back. And I ve wished terrible things on you. But I never meant
them. I think you know. I think you always knew.
He didn t stir. She knew he couldn t hear her. He wasn t responding at all.
Her fingers curled tighter around his. You have to fight, Cane, she whispered brokenly. So a
woman turned you down because you lost an arm. You were a hero. You sacrificed yourself to save
your men. That should count for something! Even with a stupid woman who couldn t see past the
prosthesis....
She had to stop. She was choking on emotion. She hated the thought of Cane with other women, she
hated it! But he d already made sure that she knew she had no place in his life or his future. She, with
her tarnished ideals and stubborn illusions, was so different from him.
You can meet nice women, she said, hurting as she said the words. You just don t find them in
bars, mostly. You could go to cattlemen s meetings. Lots of nice women there who love the land and
animals, who could love you.... Of course, you don t want that, do you? You don t want to be loved.
You just want& women from time to time.
She swallowed. She stared at his hand, lying so still with her small fingers curled around it. It s
your life. I had no right to say things, to judge you. If I d been through what you have, maybe I d be
the same. She hesitated. Well, no, I wouldn t. You think I m old-fashioned and out of step with the
world, and I guess I am. But some people have to be conventional, to keep society solvent, you know.
It s order, faith, duty, that keep us from reverting to savagery. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
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