Page 24 of What is Found
“You tied myh-hairtogether?”Struggling to sit, Davila winced then dropped back onto the squeaky cot with rusted springs on which he lay. The cot’s springs complained in creaky squeals. There had been no mattress, so John had first draped Parviz’s sleeping bag over the bare springs and then stuffed Davila into a second bag to keep him as warm as he could. “Just...ouch.” Wincing, Davila sucked in a breath. “Just give me a c-couple seconds.”
“You having a hard time catching your breath?” John pulled his stethoscope out of a pocket. “Let me take a listen again.”
“N-no.” Davila warded him off with his good arm. “Side hurts, that’s all.”
“Bone pain, probably.”I hope.Huddled in his sleeping bag, he watched Davila, silently timing the intervals between the other man’s breaths, a task made easier by the deep chill of the shippingcontainer in which they sheltered. Every exhalation plumed in small, gray-white clouds. Davila was moving air relatively well but also splinting on his left side, holding himself as still and stiff as he could. Common after a rib injury, but John would have to keep an eye on that. “Bullet might have cracked that rib.”
“Uh-huh,” Davila grunted, the sound rising on a smoking breath. “Next time you’re going to make like Clayton Kershaw…give me a little warning. Anyway.” Davila made a keep-it-rolling gesture with his right forefinger. “Go on. I bashed my head and tore my scalp open and…?”
“Like I said, I closed that up. Could’ve used glue but that would mean shaving your head around that area. Given the shape of the wound, that would’ve been hard. This way, there’s nothing to take out. You just can’t go digging around when you wash your hair…which you also can’t do for two weeks.”
“S.O.P. in the field. Remind me to thank Helen for bugging me to let my hair grow out. What about my arm?” Davila studied the thick bandage around his left biceps. “Bullet’s gone, right? You dug it out while I was unconscious?” When he nodded, Davila said, “So what aren’t you t-telling me? Why the look on your face?”
“What do you mean? How am I looking?”
“Grim.”
Because things are grim, my friend.Aloud, he said, “Me? Pshaw. This is just my concerned face. I’ll haveyou know that patients find my bedside manner very reassuring.” He paused then said, “Of course, they’re also in the OR and unconscious.”
“The more you joke, the worse I know it is.” Davila’s chin took on a hard jut. “Tell me.”
Davila, we are screwed in so many different ways, I can’t count them all.Instead, he said, “Okay, listen, you’re really lucky. I’m not talking about just being alive, but that your arm still works. Yeah, your side hurts, but that’s from where the bullet ricocheted off the rib before burrowing into your arm. The good news is that your pulse in that hand is strong, the bone’s not broken, and you can move your fingers.”
“Meaning the bullet missed the”—Davila sucked in air then winced on the exhale— “artery.”
“And didn’t damage the nerves.”
“But?”
“But...a couple things.”
“Tell me.”
“The bullet.”
“What about it?”
“Well, there wasn’t an exit wound. Hitting the rib slowed it down. Lucky thing it wasn’t in pieces, and I felt it just under the skin, so I was able to make an incision while you were in la-la land and pop it out. In fact,” he said, pulling a wadded gauze from a pocket, “I saved it for your brag shelf. Most patients get gallstones. A bullet’s definitely a step up.”
“Hunh.” Davila studied the dull, brassy, inch-long spear of a bullet. The point was slightly flattened onone side. “Reminds me of a Hog’s Tooth. You know, those 50-cal rounds they give out in Marine sniper school?” When John nodded, Davila said, “Dinged up from smacking into my rib?”
“Yup. You are luckier than hell that it didn’t punch through into your chest and wasn’t in pieces.” Or snugged up against an artery and acting as a plug. He’d been in operating rooms when a surgeon had simply plucked out a bullet without first checking and been rewarded with jets of the red stuff. “Then I irrigated the wound. Cleaned it out best I could.”
“With what?”
“Bottled water in a syringe and then…” He inclined his head toward an empty vodka bottle “100-proof. Figured it was a step up from beer.”
“B-beer?” Davila shook his head. “No, don’t tell me. I don’t know if I even want the details ofthatstory. And I didn’t wake up?”
“I sure thought you might. Mostly, you moaned.”
“So, if I’m hearing you right, the bullet’s gone, and I woke up and, my skull’s only bashed instead of bashedin. So, why do you still look so worried?”
“Because a bullet’s dirtier than hell.”
“So? They leave in shrapnel.”
“True, but not because they want to. Some guys who get fragged, they leave the shrapnel in because it’s better than hunting for it all. Do more damage than it’s worth. But those guys also get IV antibiotics. I don’t have anything like that. I can give you abroad-spectrum antibiotic by mouth, but that’s no guarantee.”