Doctor Right

“Careful. They’re all—” Maryann started, but she was too late. The women had broken rank and were rushing toward Alex, waving their hands in the air. There was only one thing to do, she decided, as she put her fingers to her lips and gave a shrill referee whistle.

There was a moment of absolute silence. Even Alex looked stunned.

Maryann gave a decisive nod. She had taken a self-defense class in high school and the whistle was all she had mastered, but today it was enough. “First, Mrs. Short, you take Johnny out on the porch. I’ll be out in a second to give him his lollipop—he likes lime, doesn’t he? We’ll set up a follow-up appointment. Everyone else sit back down, except for the doctor, of course.”

She was almost surprised when everyone obeyed her.

“These women say they need to see you.” Maryann waited for the Shorts to leave the room before raising her eyes to Alex. “For medical reasons.”

The doctor nodded and turned to the seated women. He looked stern enough to make Maryann glad she wasn’t one of the fancy women.

“I’m a pediatrician. You’ll have to go down the street to Dr. Logan’s office. He’s the general doctor in town.” And then, as though he wasn’t sure they understood, Alex added. “I only take children as patients.”

“I already told them that—” Maryann started, but she was ignored.

“My feet haven’t grown much since I was a girl.” Delilah stood up and moved a step closer to Alex, before taking his arm. “And it hurts to walk. Really, feet are feet. It doesn’t matter if I’m a child or not. Men always tell me I have such nice-looking ankles.”

Delilah stood on her toes so her ankles showed to their best advantage. “What do you think, Doctor?”

Maryann watched the thundercloud settle on Alex’s face. He didn’t say anything though.

The waif woman sitting in the corner looked up. “Dr. Logan’s office is closed this morning.” Her voice managed to sound pitiful and sultry at the same time. “There’s no place else to go. I need something for all these mosquito bites.”

Alex removed Delilah’s hands from his arm as he glanced over at the small pink dots on the other woman’s arm.

“Baking soda,” he said in a curt voice and then looked around. “Just to be sure, are any of you really injured? Or having a heart attack? Even an asthma attack? We’ll take an emergency, but that’s all. The rest of you will have to see Dr. Logan instead. If he’s not there, call later and make an appointment.”

The chatter started up. It was impossible to sort out what everyone was saying.

Alex turned and looked at Maryann. “Have them fill out medical forms just in case. And find out if that one woman is allergic to insect bites. Then come back to the exam room. We need to talk.”

“Yes, sir.” Maryann resisted the impulse to salute. She was in trouble enough as it was. He probably expected she should have locked the door when she saw the women coming.

Alex had no sooner turned to go back to the room when Maryann heard footsteps running up to the porch. She recognized a medical emergency when she heard one and wasn’t surprised when Alex turned around to face the door.

“Everybody sit down. Clear some space. We have a patient coming in.” Alex said as he headed toward the door. At times like this he blessed the workmen who had made the new doorway and the ramp outside both sturdy and wide.

He’d been through this drill often enough up here, he thought to himself. A siren never announced an emergency as it did back in Los Angeles; here it was the thump of the heavy boots the men wore. The faster the footsteps were coming up the steps to his porch, the worse the problem. The most serious injuries came by the steps and not the ramp; it was in recovery that the patient used a wheelchair. Alex had the door open before the men outside could touch it.

“It’s Timmy Fields,” the man standing in front said as he pushed his cap back on his forehead and looked behind him to where two other burly men in flannel shirts were carrying the boy. They were all breathing hard and the boy was moaning.

“Easy now,” Alex said when he saw how they were carrying his patient. Every spring he gave a first aid emergency course and showed people how to transport injured hikers, but it never seemed like the right people came. Next time he was going to go down to one of the bars and give his demonstration there. Oh—he stopped. He’d be gone by then. He’d have to leave a note for the next doctor. Or maybe Dr. Logan would do it, although people didn’t tend to bring him the emergency cases since he lived a mile from town and most problems seemed to happen after the clinics were closed.

“Lay him down here.” Alex put his hand on the gurney Maryann had just wheeled over to him.

“Thanks,” he said to her as she stepped back so the men would have enough room. Maryann always knew what to do without him telling her.

Together the men gently laid the boy down.

“What happened?” Alex asked the men as his hand reached out to take the boy’s pulse. It had been several weeks since he’d seen eight-year-old Timmy for that cough of his. The boy’s skin was clammy now, but Alex doubted it was from fever. It was pain making him sweat.

“We found him up on Chilkoot Pass. Fool kid shouldn’t have been up there alone. He said some tourists gave him a ride out of town to the base. They should be shot for leaving a kid like that there by himself. Don’t know what he was doing. He must have slipped on some rocks or something. We wouldn’t have found him if we hadn’t been out looking for that Lawson fellow—the one who’s been missing.”

Alex nodded. He’d been on the search team that had come upon Tucker Lawson’s crashed plane. They’d found some blood and his business card with a stake driven through it, but there was no one around. Searchers, under the direction of the sheriff, had been looking for the man, or his remains, since then. Surely the boy hadn’t been up there looking for Lawson, though. Timmy groaned.

“Easy now,” Alex said as the boy started to move. “Let me check you out first.”

“He’s got a lump on his head,” one of the men said.

“I see that,” Alex said as he ran his fingers over the rest of the boy’s scalp, then he turned to Maryann. “Flash—”

“Here.”

“Thanks.” She’d given him the flashlight before he’d even gotten the word out. Things like this were why he’d promised to write her a letter of recommendation and leave it for the next pediatrician that came here. She was an excellent nurse. She didn’t insist on being personal with him, either. His last nurse had wanted him to—well, he wasn’t sure what she had wanted. She’d resigned when he refused to have dinner with her one night after work.

Timmy opened one eye and stared.

“Don’t worry about focusing,” the doctor murmured to the boy before remembering to use simpler words. “Don’t worry about what you see. It might be fuzzy.”

“I see an angel choir,” Timmy said in quiet awe.

Alex choked back his chuckle as he looked over his shoulder. Children were so honest about their feelings. He saw that Maryann was doing the impossible and getting the fancy women to exit the room. All those women with their dyed blonde hair and sparkling gold might look like a band of angels because of the sun shining on their jewelry as they tiptoed past the gurney, especially when Maryann wore her white uniform to usher them out. No wonder Timmy saw angels.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s Nurse Jenner and some friends of hers.”

“They’re not my friends,” Maryann protested from the door as the men who’d carried Timmy down the mountain followed the last of the fancy women out of the clinic. Alex realized with a jolt that he was teasing Maryann. He’d never done that with any of his other nurses. He believed in professionalism in the clinic. But he liked the way her cheeks pinked up and her brown eyes sparked with indignation. She had dark, fringed bangs, and her hair shone as it floated around her head in the breeze from the open door.

“Is she an angel?” the boy asked.

“Some days,” Alex said. Then he forgot himself enough to grin at Maryann. He decided it would be okay to relax with her; he’d be gone before long, so what could it hurt?

Maryann tried to give him a stern look, but the blush on her face spoiled the effect. She shut the open door, but her hair still floated around her face.

“Does that mean I’m dead?” Timmy asked with some anticipation.

Alex looked down at the boy and smiled. “Not today you’re not.”

“Oh,” Timmy said, and with that, he closed his eyes.

Alex looked up at Maryann again, but she was one step ahead of him. She held out an ice pack she’d brought from the back room along with the gurney. He pressed that against Timmy’s face. “The cold will wake him up.”

“I’ll call his parents,” Maryann said.

“No.” Timmy opened his eyes in alarm. “You can’t call them.”

“You know we have to,” Alex said gently as he finished running his hands over the boy’s legs. “You took quite a fall. Does your leg hurt?”

Timmy winced and nodded. “They’ll kill me for sure.”