Chapter 33

Chapter 33
Neveah

Only a few feet into the cave, I’m relieved that it insulates us—slightly—from the sound of the gunfire. There is still a possibility of someone shooting straight into it if they were to crawl down here on their bellies like we did, but it feels a lot safer than being outside in the middle of it. I’m just starting to feel better about all this when I step into a foot of water.
“Hold up,” I tell Sam. Damn. I remember talking to my dad about the cave but forgot it’s part of an underground spring system. The further into the cave we go, the more water we’ll find, and it could get to a point where there’s no place to sit and tend to his gunshot wound. Still, dodging water is much better than dodging bullets. “We won’t be able to get much further in with the water in here, but we can find a place to rest. Here’s a good spot over here.”
I gesture toward a wide area of dry dirt that will hold us both. He follows me, dragging his wounded leg along… at least, he follows me until I pull out my phone and turn on the flashlight.
It startles me the way he quickly backs away, his eyes wide and full of fear. “What kind of witchcraft is this?” he asks, his voice quivering. 
“Witch—what?” I can’t believe his reaction. The guy looks absolutely terrified. “It’s just my cell.”
“What on earth is a cell?” 
He keeps backing away toward the cave entrance—where all the gunfire is—and if I don’t stop him, he’s going straight outside. I need to calm him down and remind him where we are, not to mention that I need to look at his leg, and the more blood that pumps through him, the more will escape through his untreated wound, which can take his condition from bad to life-threatening.
Now that I’ve shined the light on him, something in me shudders. His uniform looks authentic—too authentic, as though this guy hopped right out of the 1800s and landed here.
But that’s impossible. Right?
My physician’s training kicks in just as he’s about to back all the way out of the cave entrance. Pain and fear can do some unbelievable things to the brain, not to mention people’s emotions, causing them to act irrationally, even making their situation worse. I’ve worked with several patients experiencing this in my internship program, so I have an idea about how to calm him down. I’m not sure why he’s freaking out at a cell phone, but maybe his mind is playing tricks on him. 
“It’s just a light, see?” I stop shining it on him and point it toward the wall. I can see I have zero bars of service for some reason, even though I just had plenty at the visitor’s center, so a flashlight is really the only use for this phone right now anyway.
He stops in his tracks—thankfully—but stays where he’s at. 
“That’s it, Sam.” I try to speak softly and calmly. Using his first name should also keep him grounded. “I need to look at your leg right away. This is just a light that will help me see it in the dark.” After hesitating for a beat, he moves a bit closer to me, and I can breathe again. One foot out that cave entrance, I might have watched him meet his end. 
For some reason, he keeps looking at the phone like it’s some sort of demon. This is all so strange, but I think of an idea. “It’s a new type of medical device.” Not exactly… but the idea seems to calm him down more.
“If you’d like to hold it and look it over, you can,” I tell him. I hold it out for him, still keeping the flashlight trained on the cave wall. 
He reaches out, gingerly touching it and holding it for a second. “It appears to be harmless,” he says, but he still hands it back to me quickly as though he didn’t really want to touch it at all. 
“It is.” I gesture toward the wide dirt area again. “Please try to settle down here, against the wall. You should rest while I take a look at your gunshot wound, okay?”
He nods lightly and moves toward the area, awkwardly dragging himself across the smaller rocks between us. Since his leg is so badly damaged, I have to help him get situated, and I can see in his eyes that he’s getting weaker from the injury. He exhales slowly as he leans against the rocky cave wall, then winces at the pain from his position change. 
“Okay, just try to relax.” Shining the light on the wound, I can tell even with his pants in the way that it’s bad. He’s lost a lot of blood. His pant leg from his calf down is completely soaked through—explaining the strong smell of blood I’ve been noticing—mixed in with a lot of mud and tiny pebbles that cling to him. 
It’s amazing he’s still alive, honestly. 
“I’m fine,” he insists, though I can see in his face that he knows he isn’t. At least he’s talking now and not so afraid of the flashlight. 
Once again thankful for the deep pockets in this dress, I pull out my medical kit, though it’s probably not enough to handle an injury this bad. Still, I have to do what I can, and I look through to take out everything I’ll need. The pair of tweezers I have is larger than standard, but it’s hardly sufficient for pulling a bullet out. I just hope it isn’t in too deep, or that it just went all the way through. 
Before I waste my disinfectant on the tweezers or anything else I’ll use, I need to get a better look at his wound. “Okay, I need to cut your pants so I can see what we’re dealing with here.”  
He nods, still wincing, and I dread having to add to his pain by putting disinfectant on him. I don’t have any strong pain medications in my kit. But it can’t be helped. I have to clean it up before he gets an infection, if he hasn’t already. I get through the thick fabric of his pant leg with my tiny scissors, thankful I didn’t put my sterile gloves on yet since his pants are so filthy with mud, rocks, and blood—so much blood. 
The bullet hole is pretty easy to spot, though it’s oozing with blood. At least it’s in a good spot, all things considered. “Good. It missed your femoral artery and clearly missed the bone.” He would already be dead if it had hit that artery. “But I’m going to have to see the back side to see if it went all the way through. Do you think you can switch positions?”
He nods, but the look in his eyes tells me he knows how much this is going to hurt. Gritting his teeth, he adjusts his position and moves his leg just far enough for me to see the other side. 
“Okay, good. It went all the way through. Hold still right there.” Quickly, I slip on the gloves. “I have to sterilize the wound. This will sting–badly.”
He nods again and braces for it, and there’s nothing I can do but make it quick. I need to work fast anyway because he’s still losing blood until I can get this cleaned up and get a few quick stitches in it. He lets out a stifled cry as I pour on some disinfectant and clean around the wound, just enough to get a bandage on so I can get to the front wound. I don’t want him to put it back on the dirty floor, so I use a piece of plastic I keep in the kit to lay beneath his leg. 
“Okay, now I need to clean up the front, so move it back to how you were.” He readjusts faster this time, and I get the front wound cleaned up as quickly as I can. He doesn’t wince quite as bad at the disinfectant on the front, which worries me. “I’m going to stitch it up the best I can with this small suture kit.” He barely nods. I get to work stitching up the entry wound before moving myself this time to stitch up the exit wound. It’s not my best work, but it will help stop the bleeding. Once I’m done, I tell him the next step. “All right. I need you to move one more time, just enough so I can wrap a bandage around the whole thing. The bleeding should be stopped for the most part now, so you can rest. Okay?”
He nods weakly but manages to lift his leg enough for me to tie one of the CATs—Combat Application Tourniquets—from my kit around him, making sure it’s not too tight since he has the stitches. Then, I wrap a bandage around it.
“Okay, you can relax now.” I can see in his eyes that he’s relieved it’s over. “Do you want to stay sitting up or lie down?”
“I—” He starts to speak, but then he closes his eyes, and I can see him sink against the cave wall.
“And now you’ve passed out.” I feel his pulse, which is strong, so I swing his legs around and get him in a reasonably more comfortable position on the cave floor, careful to keep his wound on the plastic, even though it’s well cleaned and covered. 
Looking at his pants, it's pretty clear he’s lost enough blood that his life could be in danger. But there’s no way I can lift the man, and even if I could, I have no idea what the hell is going on out there. Gunfire keeps erupting now and then, followed by cries–or worse–silence. 
I turn the flashlight off and put my phone away, thinking I should save the battery. I also put what’s left of my kit back together and shove that in my pocket. “Where are you, Dad?” I whisper, settling against the wall across from Sam. I know there’s not much in this world that could keep him from coming to me if my life is in danger. As much as I try, I can’t help thinking the worst, though I try to get it out of my mind as soon as it comes to me. He had to duck, and I had fallen down the rock cliff, and there was no way he could get to me, I tell myself. He didn’t call for me so the shooter wouldn’t know I was there.
The more I think about it, the more it doesn’t make sense. My dad would move heaven and earth to get to me in a dangerous situation, especially since Mom died.
No, I won’t let myself think something bad has happened to him. 
But clearly, something strange is going on. Sam here has a real gunshot injury in something that’s supposed to be a reenactment. Whatever this is, it seems like more than one person is causing the chaos. Maybe a group of gunmen decided to shoot up Gettysburg for real. It’s far-fetched, but crazier things have happened. 
Regardless, leaving the cave doesn’t seem to be an option because I definitely don’t want to get myself shot. I pull out my phone and check for a signal again. Nothing. Maybe they jammed the cell tower. Who are these people?
I can’t stop myself from clicking on my photos and scrolling through a few of the most recent ones with Dad, especially the ones I took of him from the overlook. That seems like ages ago. I stop when I notice my phone battery is at eighty percent. “Better save that for later when the signal comes back… if it comes back.” I turn it all the way off for now. 
Sighing, I’m suddenly exhausted, so I move across the cave and settle into a spot next to Sam’s head so I can keep an eye on his pulse and his breathing. I lean against the dirty cave wall, inhaling and exhaling slowly, the way I often had when I got a few minutes of a  break in a crowded ER during my internship. Things had gotten better in my residency since I specialized in oncology, though the heartache of seeing families torn apart by cancer also led to more than a few moments when a good cry and some deep breathing exercises came in handy. 
With every gunshot that rings out in the night, I tense up. Whatever is going on out there, this is going to be a long night.
I just hope Sam survives until morning.