Keoman Thunderwood clenched the pickup steering wheel in shock as the sensation stole over him. For weeks the spiritual rituals he attempted had fallen flat, the results beyond his grasp. He'd longed for the stir of touch from his ancestors ever since he woke from the coma three months ago, his abilities vanished and his confidence dwindling. It didn't take an Elder to conclude his lack of faith thwarted the ceremonies.
Yet now a small spiral of the missing awareness flickered deep inside.
He pulled over and turned off the engine. He'd been driving mindlessly, as he did at times lately. Now he sat on Harbor Drive, a residential street on the edge of Neris Lake, the small, lightly populated town located near the Ojibway casino.
Keoman glanced out the driver's side window through the falling snow. He didn't recognize the house across the street or the ones on either side of it. He knew quite a few of the townspeople, but nowhere near all. Still, he didn't think the sensation had originated there. On the other side of the truck, a brick walkway on a vacant lot crossed a drainage ditch over a creek. Following his instincts, Keoman got out of the truck and walked around it to look down the bank, beneath the walkway.
"No!" he cried, then frantically scanned the homes across the street. None looked occupied. Driveways were empty, garage doors closed, no lights on inside during this overcast day. He braced himself and slid down the steep bank toward where the tiny foot stuck out of a snow bank.
Heart pounding in both grief and anger, Keoman dug out the toddler's body. It was a tiny Native American girl wearing only a miniscule pair of panties. Tears blurred his eyes. What sort of monster could do this to a child? For an instant, the thought that he was disturbing a crime scene crossed his mind. The sheriff, Pete Hjak, wouldn't be happy with him. But Keoman brushed the little girl's hair back from her blue-lipped face, then shrugged out of his heavy jacket. He would not let her lie there naked.
He tenderly wrapped the child in his jacket, already shivering in the near zero temperature himself. As he cuddled her in his arms, he gasped. Had he felt a whisper of breath? Keoman pushed aside the jacket to examine her face again, but her eyes were closed, her features slack. Surging to his feet, he half-stumbled, half-crawled up the bank and jerked open the passenger door to lay the child on the seat. There was no hospital in town, but the local clinic was only three blocks away.
He raced around the pickup and into the driver's seat, hand reaching for the ignition key even as he slammed the door behind him. Instead of a reassuring roar of an engine engaging, the click-click of a starter on its last legs filled the air.
"Damn!" Keoman pounded the steering wheel with a fist. He'd known the starter was going bad, and he'd been meaning to stop by the auto parts for days now. He had a cell phone in the console, but he could be at the clinic long before help would arrive. Throwing the driver's door open, he gathered the small body into his arms.
~~~~
Snow fell in heavy, soggy flakes, already layered two inches thick on what had been a newly snow-blown parking lot when she walked across it a half-hour earlier. Dr. Channing Drury fumbled with the key lock as she hurried through the curtain of white toward her rented Mercedes. No welcome chirp sounded, and she transferred the keys to her left hand, gripped her right-hand glove fingers between her teeth, and pulled it loose. Bitter cold penetrated her fingers as she pushed the unlock button again, twice for good measure. Crap, the battery in the key lock must have died. She doubted there was a dealership here in the far northern regions of Minnesota, but at least the key would open the door. She'd report the problem when she turned the rental back in tomorrow.
Before she stuck the key in the door, though, Channing turned to gaze through the worsening snowfall at the small, one-story clinic building where she had arrived without a preliminary warning or appointment. It would do, she thought with a nod. It was nearly as far away from Texas as she could get, plus still stay in the United States and use her medical license. She had no family to worry about her, and certainly her ex-husband, Grant, wouldn't bother her when he learned about her decision to disappear from the radar of their ruined lives.
She only regretted leaving…no, she wasn't going there. She'd go back now and then. Maybe even…but that was also a decision for the future.
She jammed the key into the lock. Just as the tumblers disengaged, she noticed the tall Native American man racing toward the clinic's rear entrance. Is he coatless in this freezing weather? No, he carried his jacket wrapped around something in his arms. Something … or someone … small. A child?
Oh, god, no! Not a child….
But Channing's medical instincts kicked in, and she pushed the memories aside and strode back toward the clinic. The man beat her through the door, barely. She followed him down the hallway, to the front desk.
"I need help," the man demanded as he pushed back part of the jacket to expose a child's face, lips blue-tinged amidst dark bruises. Channing gasped in shock and pain, clasping an arm over her stomach where the nearly-healed ulcer flared. The man holding the child didn't even glance at her.
"I found her in a drainage ditch on one of the back streets," he went on, his voice a low growl of tenderness. "She's nearly gone. Get the doctor here. Now!"
"Dr. Silver's out," the receptionist began in a shaken voice, then noticed Channing. "Dr. Drury! I'm so glad you came back."
"Which exam room can I use?" Channing asked, steeling herself to reach out for the bundle in the man's arms.
"They're all empty," Daisy, the receptionist, informed her. "I was getting ready to close."
The man relinquished the jacket-covered bundle, and Channing felt the frail body inside. For an instant, she stared down at the tiny, blue-lipped face of a child barely three years old, and her heart lurched with agony. Dark hair, probably brown eyes, if they were open, since she was Native American. It could have been the man's own child.
Stifling her non-medical emotions, Channing headed for the closest exam room. "Where's Dr. Silver?" she called over her shoulder.
"Probably at the diner, but I'll call him on his cell," Daisy replied. "I'll also see if I can get Nurse PawPaw."
Channing laid the child on the exam table, shrugged off her heavy jacket and tossed it aside, then noticed the man had followed her. The poor child only wore a pair of panties, and the inane thought that she was potty trained flashed through Channing's mind. She didn't take time to remove the panties. Later would be sufficient for that part of the exam.
The jacket didn't hold any lingering warmth from the man. She didn't expect any from the child. Hypothermia patients lost the ability to generate heat. She needed to get the little girl warmed as soon as possible, but first….
"What can you tell me?" she asked him as she felt for injuries.
"Nothing more than I've already said. I found her in a drainage ditch, nearly covered with snow. I thought for sure she was dea-gone. But when I picked her up, I felt a bare hint of breath."
Not for long, Channing thought. Her experienced hands could feel no sign of life in the cold, still body. Yet she couldn't give up right away. At times, systemic hypothermia patients recovered in miraculous ways. Their body functions might appear nonexistent, but the will to live was strong. There could be a flicker down deep, dormant but still there.
"How long had she been there?" she asked, although as soon as the question left her mouth, she realized what the answer probably was.
"No idea," the man confirmed.
"Daisy!" Channing yelled, and the receptionist appeared immediately.
"Dr. Silver and Nurse PawPaw are both on the way," Daisy said. "What can I do?"
"Do you have any medical knowledge?"
"Some," the receptionist said, and Channing glanced at the robust woman gratefully.
"Do you know where anything is around here?" Channing's hands intuitively started the CPR compressions, two-fingered for the small body beneath her touch. "For one thing, a thermal warming blanket? For another, I need an IV set up. Five percent dextrose."
"I can handle both those." Daisy scurried away and returned a few seconds later, the requested blanket in her hands. The receptionist plugged it in and shook it out, wrapping it around the child as Channing pinched the cold nose and blew a breath into the lungs. When she drew back, the narrow little chest fell on the exhale, but didn't rise again.
"Stethoscope, please," she ordered as she replaced her fingers in compression mode on the small chest.
Channing ceased CPR long enough to listen to the child's heart, but could hear nothing. Still, she'd noticed a heart monitor in the corner of the room, and she asked Daisy to shove it over to the exam table and help her hook it up. As she began her ministrations again, despite the flat-line on the monitor, she asked Daisy, "Can you call for a medivac copter?"
"I already tried, while I was making the other phone calls," Daisy replied sadly. "Everyone's grounded until this storm passes. It's worse south of us, where the copters have to come from, and supposed to last until nearly morning."
Channing gritted her teeth in disappointment, although the news didn't surprise her. The wind pushing the snow in the parking lot had been fairly strong, far too strong for a helicopter to travel in.
"What other hypothermia equipment do you have?" Channing asked, dredging her memory for years-old lessons. Although she had seen freezing temperatures more than once in Texas, never had she treated hypothermia. What was that thing that delivered heated, humidified oxygen? "Do you have an ambu-bag?"
"I’m sorry. If we do have one of those, I don't know where. Or even what it is."
"That's all right. I'll bet you do know CPR."
"Yes. Oh, yes. I can spell you with that."
She and the receptionist worked over the little girl for what seemed like hours, but the clock confirmed was only an agonizing fifteen minutes, with no response from the child. Still, Channing adamantly refused to give up. As she labored, every miracle that she'd ever heard of about a patient recovering from what appeared to be death but was only severe hypothermia rang in her mind. Finally, Dr. Edward Silver, a kindly, gray-haired man she had only met in phone conversations, arrived, his nurse, PawPaw, right behind him.
"Channing Drury," Dr. Silver said as he and the nurse headed for the counter to pull on rubber gloves. "Daisy told me you were here when she called. What can I do?"
Channing updated him on the child's condition, her non-responsiveness, the fact that nothing so far had brought any sign of improvement. The fact that Channing was quickly losing hope that this would be one of the miracle systemic hypothermia patients.
"Well, we'll try the ambu-bag," Dr. Silver said, and his nurse scurried away without him having to give her any direct order.
Another fifteen minutes crawled by, and Channing refused the doctor's gentle suggestion that their ministrations were of no use. Finally, Dr. Silver took Channing's hands in his own, pulled her away from the child and forced her to look into his eyes. "She's gone, Channing. I'm so sorry, as I know you are. But we need to stop trying to revive her now."
"No! I—" Channing stared down at the tiny body. Tears dimmed her eyes, blurring the peaceful face, the blue lips, the hands curled into miniature fists. For a second, another miniscule face superimposed over the one on the table, and Channing choked on a sob. Then she jerked her hands free from Dr. Silver's grasp and angrily swiped her tears away.
"You're right, Edward," she said. She glanced at the clock on the wall that she'd been aware of all along, hoping that she wouldn't have to use it for this moment. Nearly forty-five minutes had passed since she'd carried the child into the exam room. "Time of death, four—"
"My god," breathed the doctor.
"What?" Channing asked.
"She…I saw her finger move."
Immediately, Channing and Dr. Silver flew back into action.
"PawPaw!" Dr. Silver called. "See if you can get any vitals at all this time!"
It was no use. Finally both doctors had to admit the finger moving had probably only been a muscle reaction. Nothing they did spiked the flat line on the monitor into that reassuring thump of a working heart. If possible, the second time she had to call time of death hurt Channing worse than the first, interrupted instance. After the necessary paperwork, she collapsed in a hard plastic chair set against the exam room wall.
Though this child was a year older — though the cause of death was extremely different —though she had forestalled her own agony during her treatment — it was difficult to dam the memories now. She needed to keep busy or she might not make it through this.
She stood and walked over to the table. After running a loving finger down the child's cold face, Channing lifted the sheet on the exam table to cover it.
"We need to call the sheriff," Dr. Silver said.
"I'll do it," the woman Channing now recognized as Nurse PawPaw replied.
Channing pulled herself together to add, "What about Social Services? That child was obviously beaten. Perhaps tortured. And…." She clenched her teeth. "…we need to check for molestation."
"I'll take care of the rest of it, Channing," Dr. Silver said.
"No." Channing faced him. "She started out as my patient. She's my responsibility. By the way…." She glanced around the room. "What happened to the man who brought her in? The sheriff will want to question him."
"Sheriff Hjak will know where to find Keoman," Daisy said.
Dr. Silver glowered at her. "That's who brought this child in?" he demanded.
Daisy backed a step away from the doctor's incensed expression. "Yes."
"No wonder that son of a bitch didn't hang around," Dr. Silver said. "Go call Hjak. And be sure and tell him how the child got here."
Even with the sheet, Channing couldn't block out the dead child's face and didn't pay too much attention to the interplay concerning the man who had carried her to the clinic. It was obvious the man was disliked by at least the doctor, but he had brought the child to the closest help available. And they had done each and every thing possible. She felt no guilt about that.
Now, though, she kept thinking of the next step.
"Do any of you know who she is?" she asked quietly. Her words brought a hush to the room, and she stared at the doctor and his nurse. "We have to notify her parents."
"We need to complete the exam first," Dr. Silver reminded her. "And I still think you should let me finish this up."
"No," Channing repeated. She pushed the lower part of the sheet up and reached for the miniscule panties they'd left on the child for modesty's sake.