1632 by Eric Flint Read Free Book Online Page B

checking upstairs. You go help the doctor.”
    Outside, Mike found Nichols working on the farmer. The doctor, having apparently gone through all the bandages in the first-aid kit, had removed his suit jacket and was tearing his shirt into strips. He was now bare from the waist up. For all that Nichols was in late middle age, there was almost no fat on his wiry musculature. The hard black flesh, covered with a thin film of sweat, gleamed in the sunlight.
    Mike looked around. Darryl was tending to Harry Lefferts. Lefferts also had his shirt off, and was goggling at the wound in his side. It was quite spectacular—his entire thigh and hip were soaked with blood, along with his ribs—but Mike didn’t think it was really serious. The wound was already bound with a bandage roll. The bandage was bloodstained, but Mike thought the bleeding had stopped.
    “It’s just a flesh wound,” he heard Nichols say. Mike turned. The doctor had cocked his head toward him. “I treated Harry first thing. He’ll have a truly amazing scar to boast to his grandkids about, but the bullet just traveled along one rib before passing out. No internal bleeding, so far as I can tell.”
    Nichols’ head jerked toward the woman. She had rolled over onto her side, her hands covering her face. Her knees were drawn up to her chest, in fetal position. She was sobbing quietly and steadily. Her shabby dress had been pulled back down over her legs and two jackets were covering her further. The miners who had contributed those jackets—Don Richards and Larry Masaniello—were squatting nearby. Their expressions were confused and distressed. Beyond what they’d done, they obviously had no idea what other help they could give her.
    “She’ll be all right,” murmured Nichols. His face tightened. “As much as any gang-rape victim, anyway.” He looked back down at the farmer. “But this guy might not make it. There are no major arteries severed, but he’s lost an enormous amount of blood.”
    Mike squatted by the doctor. “How can I help, James?” He saw that Nichols had bound up all of the farmer’s wounds. But blood was already soaking through the cloth. The doctor was tearing more strips from his ruined shirt, ready to add new bandages.
    “Give me your tuxedo jacket, for starters. See if there are any blankets inside. Anything to keep him warm. He’s in shock.”
    Mike took off his jacket and handed it to the doctor, who spread it over the farmer. Then Nichols blew out his cheeks. “Get me an ambulance, so we can take this poor guy to a hospital. Short of that, I’ve done all I can here without medical supplies and facilities.”
    The doctor raised his head and slowly studied the surrounding area. “But somehow I’ve got a bad feeling that ambulances and hospitals are going to be hard to come by.”
    His eyes met Mike’s. “Where the hell are we, anyway?” He managed a smile. “Please don’t tell me this is what West Virginia’s really like. My daughter’s been pushing me to move my practice here.” Again, his eyes ranged about. “Not even that movie Deliverance was this crazy. And that was somewhere in the backwoods, if I remember right. We’re only an hour and a half from Pittsburgh.”
    Mike copied the doctor’s examination of the surrounding area. Softly: “I don’t think we’re in West Virginia anymore, Toto.” Nichols chuckled. “Nothing’s right, James—not the landscape, not the trees, not the people, not—” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing to the farmhouse which loomed behind them. “There’s nothing like this in West Virginia, I’ll tell you that. For all the poverty of this place, the farmhouse itself is no rickety shack. Anything that big and well-built and old would have been declared a historical monument fifty years ago.”
    He leaned over and seized one of the thugs’ guns, still leaning against the