I had watched Mangrove’s and Sorbus’s platform shanty shear off the western end of Bough Seven. Somehow the devastation that would immediately follow on the boughs beneath hadn’t occurred to me.
The incendiary shanty had crashed into an uninhabited area on Bough Six and rapidly devoured the uncleared brush and the dryer needle litter protected from the rain. The upper limbs had weighed heavily upon the flame-weakened branch and snapped it off. Broken limbs gathered debris and more branches as they fell, so that by the time the wreckage landed on the western end of Bough Four, the mass was traveling with such velocity and weight that it was an unstoppable force.
The west end of Bough Three snapped under the combined weight and flames of the upper limbs and jettisoned its inhabitants. Those living on the bottom two boughs had no time to react. The debris smashed through Boughs One and Two, shearing the west ends clean away from the canopy, ripping away pathways, bridges, and humans, not stopping until it all crashed to earth thousands of feet below.
Outside of the clinic, I sorted patients by injury. People with minor scrapes and splinters, if they bothered to seek assistance, waited in the rain. Broken bones or wounds that required stitches leaned along the interior wall. Head injuries and heart pain were seen to immediately.
Inside, my mother wrapped a middle-aged woman’s burned arm. Michelia was fuming. I’d get an earful later, but my mother wouldn’t confront me in front of patients. She was too professional for that. I stepped to the basin, washed my hands and arms, and then set more water to boil. Michelia had already stacked the used instruments in a basin for sterilizing.
To the woman, she said, “Keep it covered and clean. Use this poultice twice a day to prevent infection and come back tomorrow for fresh dressings.”
To me she hissed so only I could hear, “It’s not enough that half the canopy has been destroyed in the storm, I’m supposed to worry about your antics, too?” And louder, “Dry yourself off—I don’t need you dripping needles and sap all over the clinic.”
I grabbed a rag and toweled off while she motioned for the next patient. A man, blood covering his face, carried a weeping boy to the examination table. A piece of wood jutted from the boy’s calf muscle.
“Ostrya, you treat the man. I’ll take care of his son.”
Anger billowed off Michelia like the smoke off of the smoldering shanties. After the night I’d had, I was too exhausted to care. I began cleaning the man’s headwound, a simple laceration, one stitch, no more. Because it was bleeding profusely, it looked worse than it was.
“A good cleaning, some antiseptic, and a stitch or two, and you’ll be good as new.”
He turned toward Michelia. “How’s my boy?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched my mother extract the large splinter from the preteen’s leg before placing pressure on the wound. “A puncture wound. You’ll have to watch for infection as it heals. Hot to the touch, spreading redness around the outside, pus. I’ll wrap it lightly at first. As with every wound, cleanliness is key. With his wound, air is essential.”
Wingnut’s booming voice cut through the noise of the waiting injured. “Coming through! Make room! I need to get to the clinic!”
He stomped into the small room. At more than six feet, Wingnut made me feel small and dainty, an unusual sensation for me—I’d resembled a young sapling almost from birth. Wingnut’s unshaven face, generally stretched in a wide, jovial grin, was drawn with worry. He carried the bleeding body of his unconscious boss, Maestro Gardener Hamamalis, over his uninjured shoulder.
My head wound patient hopped off the examination table to make room. I threw a clean cedar mat on the table and the man and I helped Wingnut lower his burden.
“Finish bandaging this wound,” ordered Michelia, patting her young patient on the shoulder before hurrying to examine Hamamalis. She pushed Wingnut away from the table.
“Is he going to be okay?” asked Wingnut, his deep voice quavering.
“That remains to be seen. Ostrya, grab me some antiseptic and spider fleece.”
I gathered a large supply of both from one of the corner shelves and brought them to my mother. I squeezed Wingnut’s elbow as I passed. He looked at me, startled. I gave him the hint of a smile—he looked like he needed reassurance—and his handsome face reddened.
On the other examination table, I tied off the bandage on the boy’s leg. His father sat beside his son and comforted the sniffling child while I cleaned the angry wound on the man’s forehead. He winced as I dabbed antiseptic on the cut.
When things were slow at the clinic, my mother forced me to practice my suturing on bits of animal flesh saved for the purpose. Some evenings we shared roasted meat stuck through with suture fibers. In the canopy, nothing went to waste. A situation like this—so many members of the community in need of stitches all at once—made all the sutures I’d picked from my teeth almost worth it.
I bent to my task. “Don’t worry. I’m actually quite good at this.” My patient closed his eyes and bit his lip. I listened to my mother and Wingnut, their conversation interrupted only by my patient’s occasional sharp intake of breath.
“Tell me what happened.” Michelia raised Hamamalis’s eyelids, listened to his pulse, and examined a nasty abrasion on his head.
“We were on Bough Four checking the crossing. We’re due to harvest the last of the crops and replant next week.”
“And you thought that, in the middle of this disaster, when we need all able bodies to help with the rescue effort on Boughs One and Two, you should waste time checking the garden bridge on Bough Four?”
“I … I’m the trainee. I do what my Maestro says.”
She sniffed. “Not all trainees do as they’re told. Mine sure doesn’t.”
“Ma’am?” Wingnut glanced at me.
I sighed and rolled my eyes. She was pushing for a fight. It would make her angry if I pretended not to hear and I was more than happy to oblige, so I ignored her.
“So the two of you were on Bough Four, and then what?”
“The bridge was still attached on the near side and Maestro Hamamalis wanted to secure it before its weight tore out the remaining bolts.”
“And?”
“We rigged up some ropes to lash around the bridge and anchor to the trunks. We thought we could loop it around one of the planks, but we couldn’t catch it from above. We tried and tried, but the rope wouldn’t stick, so Maestro thought he’d climb down to attach the rope to the bridge from below.”
“What are you saying?” My mother’s voice was rising to the level she reserved for me and Yew when we really messed up. “You let Hamamalis climb down a tree trunk? I know that’s not what I’m hearing.”
“We lashed a rope around him, and he repelled down to the bridge—”
“In the pouring rain?” Her voice was beginning to screech. “He’s, what? Sixty-five?”
“He’s not that old—”
“He’s sixty-five if he’s a day.”
“I should have gone, but I couldn’t. My shoulder.”
Wingnut was staring at his feet. My mother was in rare form, performing two examinations simultaneously: a physical exam on the Maestro and a cross examination of his trainee. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was mad at me but taking it out on Wingnut. And she was getting angrier and angrier. Once started, she couldn’t seem to stop. Like a snag leaning in the forest, she was going down, down, down. Fast and loud. “Why didn’t you stop him? Why did your Maestro at age sixty-five attach a rope to his waist and repel down a cliff in the pouring rain?”
Wingnut stammered, “He’s … he’s the Maestro …”
“Where is your common sense? You knew it was a bad idea. Maestro or no, you should have prevented it.”
I thought the screamy voice was for family only. In this, as in so much else, I was evidently wrong. My head wound patient and I both stared at her.
“Why didn’t you stop him!” She was totally losing it.
“Michelia,” I said.
I needed to distract her from Wingnut, get her anger on me, where it belonged. Wingnut didn’t know how to deal with her temper. It was me she was mad at, not him.
Wingnut’s eyes flickered up and he looked at his Maestro, lying pale and still on the table. Tears welled in his eyes and in his voice. “I tried. He wouldn’t listen.” It came out in a whisper.
I took Wingnut’s hand. “Tell us exactly what happened.”
He held my eyes with his own, moist and clear. “He was secured to the line. The wind grabbed the bridge and tossed it. I couldn’t really tell from above, but I think the bridge struck him in the head. I hauled him back up, but it took a long time with one arm. Too long.”
“Good thing you were with him, Wingnut. If he’d been alone, there would have been no one to help him, right Michelia?”
She was silent for a moment. Her eyes considered me.
“Hamamalis would have done it anyway. With or without Wingnut. If it hadn’t been for Wingnut—”
Michelia’s gaze softened. She rubbed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Maestro Hamamalis is a stubborn man. There’s no talking to him once he’s decided on something. Forgive me, Wingnut. It’s been a horrible day.”
“That’s an understatement,” mumbled my patient.
“I’m amazed you were able to carry Maestro Hamamalis here.” Michelia felt Wingnut’s shoulder. “Lucky that shoulder didn’t pop out again. You’ll be feeling it tomorrow. Have Ostrya show you where the smelling salts are. Let’s see if we can wake your Maestro. I’ll clean up his head abrasion, and then I’ll teach you to wrap and bandage. Ostrya and I need all the help we can get today.”
I smiled up at Wingnut and let go of his hand to point out the supplies he needed. The father and son lingered on the examination table. “If the bridges to the skygardens are out, how long until we run out of food?” he mumbled to no one in particular.