AS Fanfiction:Chapter 7
Warning: this fic contains graphic descriptions of a gunshot wound, along with medical procedure. Don’t read unless that sort of thing is interesting to you.
Hannibal Heyes is gunned down by a dry-gulcher on his way back to his hotel room. He and the Kid stumble into a time portal and wind up in the present day, just in time to nearly be run over by a passing car.
Chapter 7
The Kid started from an unexpected doze and found his hand at his right hip. You’d think a man as worried as he was wouldn’t do something as stupid as nod off in a chair, no matter how long he’d been sitting there. When that doctor lady had told him Heyes was all right, something inside him he hadn’t known was tense had loosened up.
They’d taken him through those other doors then, into yet another waiting area. Heyes was in a room called “I See You,” and the doctor said Jed could only visit him if Heyes gave his permission. For that, he had to be awake, and the nurse at the desk said Heyes wasn’t really awake yet.
The damned deputy had been in though. Just like a lawman to push his way in before anybody else. They’d turned Heyes’ derringer over to Burton in the surgery waiting area, making Jed glad he hadn’t mentioned his own pistol. Burton said something about a license, and Jed knew he and Heyes didn’t have any such thing.
Jed had found a paper though, and it backed up his crazy theory way too well. The date on the paper said April 27, 2018. Somehow that … doorway had transported them into the future. For this was Blue River still, even if he didn’t recognize one brick in the city. Jed wasn’t sure how to break the news to his partner though, not with Heyes being injured this badly. Wasn’t shock supposed to be bad for an invalid?
The Kid tried to remember everything he knew about gunshot wounds. One thing was certain: if they’d been back in their own time, he was very, very afraid that his partner would not have survived such an injury. Even if they’d found a doctor to sew up the outside, Heyes might still have bled to death on the inside. And then there was the almost certain fever that followed a bad wound. No, a chest wound was nothing more than an extended death sentence.
The modern doctor seemed to think that a chest wound was nothing more than an inconvenience. She’d been talking about making sure he coughed to exercise his lungs, and letting him get out of bed in a few days. She’d said they were giving him medicine - he’d forgotten what she called it - to prevent infection, and they’d given him blood to replace what he’d lost. Jed had no idea how they’d ended up in 2018, but he was glad they had if medicine was this advanced in the future.
Heyes was a bad patient, of course. Jed would have bet money he would be. The man was just too damn stubborn to take whatever anybody tried to do to him. Evidently, as soon as the doors had closed on the ambulance machine, he’d started fighting the folks trying to treat him. They’d had to tie him to the bed to keep him from hurting himself. And there was something about pulling out “an ivy,” which Jed took to be some sort of medicine they were trying to inject into him.
“When you visit with him,” the doctor had said, “don’t be too upset at the restraints. I’ll probably order them removed once he’s coherent.”
One of the nurses - Jed was too embarrassed to read the name tags pinned to their bosoms, but she was the cute little blonde - opened the door to the waiting area and poked her head in.
“Mr. Smith has signed the consent form, Mr. Jones. Would you like to come back and visit for a while?”
Would he? Jed shoved out of the chair.
“He’s in Room 3,” the nurse said. “Right this way. Does he call you Kid?”
Jed’s stomach dropped instinctively. Then he realized something. This wasn’t the 1890’s. They weren’t wanted for anything in 2018. They wouldn’t even be alive in 2018 if it wasn’t for that damned time doorway.
“It’s a nickname,” he told the nurse with a grin.
The “I See You” rooms were arranged in a semi-circle around the nurse’s station, so the nurses could look into each room easily. Jed glanced into Rooms 1 and 2, then wished he hadn’t. The poor souls in those beds looked on death’s door, pale and listless. And they had tubes all over, going into their bodies and coming out again. There were more machines in the rooms, too, beeping and swishing and thumping.
The nurse knocked softly on the doorway to Room 3. “Mr. Smith, do you feel like a visit? The Kid’s here.”
“Kid?”
Jed’s stomach dropped again. Heyes sounded so weak, like he could barely talk. The Kid set his derby on the table at the doorway and moved to the bedside. Heyes looked as bad as he sounded, as bad as the people in the other rooms. His face was pale and drawn. He was obviously hurting. And he had tubes, too. Tubes going into his left hand. A tube leading from beneath the bandage on the side of his chest. And a tube coming from beneath the blankets - Jed didn’t know where that went, but he was pretty sure it was as uncomfortable as the rest of them.
“Kid,” Heyes said softly, that dimple creasing his cheek. He spoke slowly, still struggling for breath. “They just gave me some morphine or something. Give it a minute or two to kick in good.”
Morphine would explain Heyes calling him Kid right out in public, even though nobody in 2018 would even notice.
Jed noticed a chair in the corner of the room, pulled it up beside the head of the bed. “How’re you feeling other than the obvious?”
Heyes grimaced. “Thirsty. And the nurses won’t let me have anything except little chips of ice. Says the doctor has to approve me even getting a real drink.”
“I’ll see what I can do about that, partner. Do them tubes hurt as much as they look like?”
“Nah. They ain’t natural, but they don’t really hurt.” He raised his left hand a little, and Jed, even though he’d been warned, was startled to see his wrist fastened to the bed frame.
“I’m going to see about getting you untied, too,” he promised Heyes. That doctor had to be around here somewhere, if he could just find her. Maybe one of the nurses could go get her for them.
“Good,” Heyes muttered. “I was so groggy when I woke up I thought a bounty hunter had got me.”
“I wonder if that doesn’t explain that shot,” Jed mused aloud.
“Was thinking the same thing.” Heyes shifted slightly, turning more toward the Kid. He winced a bit, but not as much as Jed would expect from a wound that size.
“How long are they going to let you stay?” he asked. “You look like hell warmed over. You should get some sleep or something.”
As if she’d been called - and for all Jed knew, the nurses had some way of seeing and hearing everything that went on in the hospital - the Negro nurse appeared in the doorway.
“Mr. Jones,” she said. “You understand that you’re not to agitate Mr. Smith here, right? No trying to untie the restraints, either. And leave the equipment alone.”
“How long can I stay?”
She put her head on one side and looked him up and down. “We’ve got an open visitation policy here, but you look like crap. Why don’t we get you out of those bloody clothes? We can dig up some scrubs for you and you can clean up in the bathroom.”
Jed looked down at Heyes. His eyelids were half-closed. “Will you be all right if I go clean up a little, partner?” Jed asked.
Heyes made a visible effort and met his gaze. “Go on. You know where to find me.”
“Very funny. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
The nurse pointed towards a door in the far wall, “That’s the closest bathroom. Why don’t you head on in and I’ll send someone to get you some scrubs.”
She gave him another one of those glares. “You should probably try to sleep when your friend does, too. That chair reclines. It’s not too uncomfortable.”
Jed opened the door to the bathroom. He should have figured they’d have indoor plumbing, though he had no idea what some of the fixtures were for. He figured out the water faucet and started stripping off his now-dried shirt and jacket. His undershirt was soaked as well, so he took that off and added it to the pile in the sink.
Within minutes, there was a knock at the door. “You decent?” a male voice asked.
Whatever that meant. Jed held his undershirt in front of his chest as he opened the door. The man outside wore the strange colorful uniform all of the nurses and doctors seemed to. He held another uniform in his hands, this one a pale bluish-green.
“You looked like you were about my size,” the man said, handing the uniform to Jed. “Just get this back to Etta before you leave. Are those things dry clean only?”
He pointed to Jed’s suit and shirt. Jed answered honestly. “I got no idea.”
The man fingered the suit. “Probably wool. You got enough money to pay for dry cleaning?”
“Depends on how much it is.” Jed checked his wallet. “I’ve got about two hundred on me.”
“That’s plenty. Should be less than forty unless they charge extra for the blood stains. Why don’t you go ahead and hand me the pants, too. Looks like you’ve got a patch on your hip.”
Jed pulled off the rest of his clothing and handed everything to the man, who slipped back out the doorway before Jed could thank him. The Kid used some of the odd paper napkins to wash up in the sink, then put on the uniform. It was a little loose around the middle and the trousers were a bit short, but overall it was a good fit.
When he reappeared at the nurse’s station, the Negro lady - was she Etta? - looked him up and down once more.
“That’s better. Now when was the last time you ate, son?”
Jed shrugged. He barely remembered what they’d had for dinner before they’d started that long night of poker.
“Your friend’s sound asleep. You get yourself down to the cafeteria and find something for breakfast, you hear me?” She grabbed his arm and propelled him back to the waiting area. “There’s the elevator you want, Elevator G. You go down to the first floor and follow the orange line on the floor. That’ll take you right to the cafeteria.”
She put hands on hips then. “You got any money? All your friend had was that funny antique stuff.”
Jed’s stomach did a little flip. Maybe their money wasn’t good any longer. How could they pay for all this with no money? He pulled out his wallet.
“I thought so.” Etta sighed. “Let me get my purse. I’m going to buy one of those funny dollars off you so you can get something to eat. And then you’re going to come back up here and get some sleep. You look like you’re going to fall over.”
Jed took the bills Etta handed him. She plucked a ten dollar bill from his wallet - a souvenir, she said - then pushed him toward Elevator G.
The Kid did find the café on the first floor. At first, he waited for someone to seat him, then he noticed the rest of the patrons were lining up in front of a display table. He picked up one of the trays they all held and followed along. The table was somehow heated, for it had partitions holding more food than he’d ever seen in one place before: eggs, bacon, sausages, fried potatoes, even fresh fruit in a chilled bowl.
Jed took a little of everything and followed the line to another table, where he handed over one of his bills and was given some change. He wasn’t certain, but he thought he’d just been charged nearly ten dollars for a meal. He didn’t put up a fuss because nobody else seemed to think the price exorbitant. He and Heyes were going to go broke if they had to pay these prices for food though.
At least the food was good. Jed ate quickly, as was his habit. He watched the others and returned his tray and plate to the cleaning area. Thankfully, they didn’t have to wash their own dishes.
The Kid then followed the line on the floor back to Elevator G and found the “I See You” room again.
“He’s still asleep,” Etta told him. “You look better, but you could use a nap yourself. Go recline that chair and get some shut-eye.”
Jed had no idea how you “reclined” a chair. He noticed a handle on one side of the chair, however. Pulling on that made the chair actually change shape: the back went down and the foot came up, making it into what resembled a bed. He stretched out and within minutes, was asleep.
Hannibal Heyes is gunned down by a dry-gulcher on his way back to his hotel room. He and the Kid stumble into a time portal and wind up in the present day, just in time to nearly be run over by a passing car.
Chapter 7
The Kid started from an unexpected doze and found his hand at his right hip. You’d think a man as worried as he was wouldn’t do something as stupid as nod off in a chair, no matter how long he’d been sitting there. When that doctor lady had told him Heyes was all right, something inside him he hadn’t known was tense had loosened up.
They’d taken him through those other doors then, into yet another waiting area. Heyes was in a room called “I See You,” and the doctor said Jed could only visit him if Heyes gave his permission. For that, he had to be awake, and the nurse at the desk said Heyes wasn’t really awake yet.
The damned deputy had been in though. Just like a lawman to push his way in before anybody else. They’d turned Heyes’ derringer over to Burton in the surgery waiting area, making Jed glad he hadn’t mentioned his own pistol. Burton said something about a license, and Jed knew he and Heyes didn’t have any such thing.
Jed had found a paper though, and it backed up his crazy theory way too well. The date on the paper said April 27, 2018. Somehow that … doorway had transported them into the future. For this was Blue River still, even if he didn’t recognize one brick in the city. Jed wasn’t sure how to break the news to his partner though, not with Heyes being injured this badly. Wasn’t shock supposed to be bad for an invalid?
The Kid tried to remember everything he knew about gunshot wounds. One thing was certain: if they’d been back in their own time, he was very, very afraid that his partner would not have survived such an injury. Even if they’d found a doctor to sew up the outside, Heyes might still have bled to death on the inside. And then there was the almost certain fever that followed a bad wound. No, a chest wound was nothing more than an extended death sentence.
The modern doctor seemed to think that a chest wound was nothing more than an inconvenience. She’d been talking about making sure he coughed to exercise his lungs, and letting him get out of bed in a few days. She’d said they were giving him medicine - he’d forgotten what she called it - to prevent infection, and they’d given him blood to replace what he’d lost. Jed had no idea how they’d ended up in 2018, but he was glad they had if medicine was this advanced in the future.
Heyes was a bad patient, of course. Jed would have bet money he would be. The man was just too damn stubborn to take whatever anybody tried to do to him. Evidently, as soon as the doors had closed on the ambulance machine, he’d started fighting the folks trying to treat him. They’d had to tie him to the bed to keep him from hurting himself. And there was something about pulling out “an ivy,” which Jed took to be some sort of medicine they were trying to inject into him.
“When you visit with him,” the doctor had said, “don’t be too upset at the restraints. I’ll probably order them removed once he’s coherent.”
One of the nurses - Jed was too embarrassed to read the name tags pinned to their bosoms, but she was the cute little blonde - opened the door to the waiting area and poked her head in.
“Mr. Smith has signed the consent form, Mr. Jones. Would you like to come back and visit for a while?”
Would he? Jed shoved out of the chair.
“He’s in Room 3,” the nurse said. “Right this way. Does he call you Kid?”
Jed’s stomach dropped instinctively. Then he realized something. This wasn’t the 1890’s. They weren’t wanted for anything in 2018. They wouldn’t even be alive in 2018 if it wasn’t for that damned time doorway.
“It’s a nickname,” he told the nurse with a grin.
The “I See You” rooms were arranged in a semi-circle around the nurse’s station, so the nurses could look into each room easily. Jed glanced into Rooms 1 and 2, then wished he hadn’t. The poor souls in those beds looked on death’s door, pale and listless. And they had tubes all over, going into their bodies and coming out again. There were more machines in the rooms, too, beeping and swishing and thumping.
The nurse knocked softly on the doorway to Room 3. “Mr. Smith, do you feel like a visit? The Kid’s here.”
“Kid?”
Jed’s stomach dropped again. Heyes sounded so weak, like he could barely talk. The Kid set his derby on the table at the doorway and moved to the bedside. Heyes looked as bad as he sounded, as bad as the people in the other rooms. His face was pale and drawn. He was obviously hurting. And he had tubes, too. Tubes going into his left hand. A tube leading from beneath the bandage on the side of his chest. And a tube coming from beneath the blankets - Jed didn’t know where that went, but he was pretty sure it was as uncomfortable as the rest of them.
“Kid,” Heyes said softly, that dimple creasing his cheek. He spoke slowly, still struggling for breath. “They just gave me some morphine or something. Give it a minute or two to kick in good.”
Morphine would explain Heyes calling him Kid right out in public, even though nobody in 2018 would even notice.
Jed noticed a chair in the corner of the room, pulled it up beside the head of the bed. “How’re you feeling other than the obvious?”
Heyes grimaced. “Thirsty. And the nurses won’t let me have anything except little chips of ice. Says the doctor has to approve me even getting a real drink.”
“I’ll see what I can do about that, partner. Do them tubes hurt as much as they look like?”
“Nah. They ain’t natural, but they don’t really hurt.” He raised his left hand a little, and Jed, even though he’d been warned, was startled to see his wrist fastened to the bed frame.
“I’m going to see about getting you untied, too,” he promised Heyes. That doctor had to be around here somewhere, if he could just find her. Maybe one of the nurses could go get her for them.
“Good,” Heyes muttered. “I was so groggy when I woke up I thought a bounty hunter had got me.”
“I wonder if that doesn’t explain that shot,” Jed mused aloud.
“Was thinking the same thing.” Heyes shifted slightly, turning more toward the Kid. He winced a bit, but not as much as Jed would expect from a wound that size.
“How long are they going to let you stay?” he asked. “You look like hell warmed over. You should get some sleep or something.”
As if she’d been called - and for all Jed knew, the nurses had some way of seeing and hearing everything that went on in the hospital - the Negro nurse appeared in the doorway.
“Mr. Jones,” she said. “You understand that you’re not to agitate Mr. Smith here, right? No trying to untie the restraints, either. And leave the equipment alone.”
“How long can I stay?”
She put her head on one side and looked him up and down. “We’ve got an open visitation policy here, but you look like crap. Why don’t we get you out of those bloody clothes? We can dig up some scrubs for you and you can clean up in the bathroom.”
Jed looked down at Heyes. His eyelids were half-closed. “Will you be all right if I go clean up a little, partner?” Jed asked.
Heyes made a visible effort and met his gaze. “Go on. You know where to find me.”
“Very funny. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
The nurse pointed towards a door in the far wall, “That’s the closest bathroom. Why don’t you head on in and I’ll send someone to get you some scrubs.”
She gave him another one of those glares. “You should probably try to sleep when your friend does, too. That chair reclines. It’s not too uncomfortable.”
Jed opened the door to the bathroom. He should have figured they’d have indoor plumbing, though he had no idea what some of the fixtures were for. He figured out the water faucet and started stripping off his now-dried shirt and jacket. His undershirt was soaked as well, so he took that off and added it to the pile in the sink.
Within minutes, there was a knock at the door. “You decent?” a male voice asked.
Whatever that meant. Jed held his undershirt in front of his chest as he opened the door. The man outside wore the strange colorful uniform all of the nurses and doctors seemed to. He held another uniform in his hands, this one a pale bluish-green.
“You looked like you were about my size,” the man said, handing the uniform to Jed. “Just get this back to Etta before you leave. Are those things dry clean only?”
He pointed to Jed’s suit and shirt. Jed answered honestly. “I got no idea.”
The man fingered the suit. “Probably wool. You got enough money to pay for dry cleaning?”
“Depends on how much it is.” Jed checked his wallet. “I’ve got about two hundred on me.”
“That’s plenty. Should be less than forty unless they charge extra for the blood stains. Why don’t you go ahead and hand me the pants, too. Looks like you’ve got a patch on your hip.”
Jed pulled off the rest of his clothing and handed everything to the man, who slipped back out the doorway before Jed could thank him. The Kid used some of the odd paper napkins to wash up in the sink, then put on the uniform. It was a little loose around the middle and the trousers were a bit short, but overall it was a good fit.
When he reappeared at the nurse’s station, the Negro lady - was she Etta? - looked him up and down once more.
“That’s better. Now when was the last time you ate, son?”
Jed shrugged. He barely remembered what they’d had for dinner before they’d started that long night of poker.
“Your friend’s sound asleep. You get yourself down to the cafeteria and find something for breakfast, you hear me?” She grabbed his arm and propelled him back to the waiting area. “There’s the elevator you want, Elevator G. You go down to the first floor and follow the orange line on the floor. That’ll take you right to the cafeteria.”
She put hands on hips then. “You got any money? All your friend had was that funny antique stuff.”
Jed’s stomach did a little flip. Maybe their money wasn’t good any longer. How could they pay for all this with no money? He pulled out his wallet.
“I thought so.” Etta sighed. “Let me get my purse. I’m going to buy one of those funny dollars off you so you can get something to eat. And then you’re going to come back up here and get some sleep. You look like you’re going to fall over.”
Jed took the bills Etta handed him. She plucked a ten dollar bill from his wallet - a souvenir, she said - then pushed him toward Elevator G.
The Kid did find the café on the first floor. At first, he waited for someone to seat him, then he noticed the rest of the patrons were lining up in front of a display table. He picked up one of the trays they all held and followed along. The table was somehow heated, for it had partitions holding more food than he’d ever seen in one place before: eggs, bacon, sausages, fried potatoes, even fresh fruit in a chilled bowl.
Jed took a little of everything and followed the line to another table, where he handed over one of his bills and was given some change. He wasn’t certain, but he thought he’d just been charged nearly ten dollars for a meal. He didn’t put up a fuss because nobody else seemed to think the price exorbitant. He and Heyes were going to go broke if they had to pay these prices for food though.
At least the food was good. Jed ate quickly, as was his habit. He watched the others and returned his tray and plate to the cleaning area. Thankfully, they didn’t have to wash their own dishes.
The Kid then followed the line on the floor back to Elevator G and found the “I See You” room again.
“He’s still asleep,” Etta told him. “You look better, but you could use a nap yourself. Go recline that chair and get some shut-eye.”
Jed had no idea how you “reclined” a chair. He noticed a handle on one side of the chair, however. Pulling on that made the chair actually change shape: the back went down and the foot came up, making it into what resembled a bed. He stretched out and within minutes, was asleep.