When the Wind Blows - James Patterson [115]
Finally the sedan crashed into moss-covered boulders that lay seventy or eighty yards below the road. They must all be dead, I thought to myself.
I pulled myself out of the Land Rover. My vision tunneled. Everything was chaos inside my head. My legs were weak, but I struggled forward toward Max. I was afraid that I was too late.
She lay in a twisted heap at the base of the tree she’d struck. There was a huge gash in her chest. At least one wing looked broken.
“Max! Max!” Matthew was yelling, shrilling loudly as he flew toward her. He made a pitiful, wailing sound that was more like a young bird’s than a boy’s.
“Max, oh, Max!” I found that I was screaming, too.
Chapter 124
NEARLY TWO HOURS HAD PASSED, but it seemed only minutes. I was shaken, but it didn’t matter. I needed to perform at the top range of my capabilities, or maybe even beyond that.
Everything was a blur of urgent, rushing bodies inside Boulder Community Hospital. Kit was being operated on just two rooms away. I was with Max in the largest operating theater. She was conscious, moaning softly, but at least she was alive.
She had sustained severe damage to her chest and to both wings. There were deep cuts and lacerations, broken bones, possibly a collapsed lung. She’d lost a lot of blood, and that was a serious problem in her case. It was also a unique problem. Max’s blood type was nonhuman, nonavian. It was something in between. Matthew was a match. The twins were a match, and Peter and Wendy had donated what they could spare.
I was wearing a light blue mask and scrubs, and for the first time I was in a hospital operating room as a doctor. I was the only real bird authority near Boulder Community. I’d done scores of operations on injured birds that none of the surgeons here knew the first thing about. I was it, and I guess I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I didn’t want anyone else to work on Max.
Her pulse was thready. Not a good sign. A bad sign, in fact. I looked around the operating room at the solemn and frightened eyes looking back at me. None of them knew what to do here, what to make of me or any of this. They did know that Max was in extremely critical condition.
I sucked it in, and took charge as best I could. “Let’s go to work,” I said to the hastily assembled emergency team.
I chose isofluorine gas as an anesthetic because it was safer for birds, and I had no idea how sodium Pentothal would affect Max. Also, my long familiarity with isofluorine allowed me to calculate a safe dosage. One or two of the other doctors looked skeptical, but no one questioned me.
Following my instructions, the surgical team carefully wrapped Max’s wings to her body before masking her; if she panicked in the twilight of unconsciousness and beat the wings, she could do irreparable damage.
The gas hissed and Max struggled, as I knew she would. She was definitely a fighter. But then she finally went down. There were tears in my eyes and an OR nurse wiped them away. Not the time, not the place for emotions. “I’m right here, Max,” I whispered. “Trust me. I’m here, sweetie.”
“She’s a friend,” I explained to the surgical nurse on my right. “I’ll be all right.”
“I’m sure you will be,” the nurse whispered. “I’m right by your side.”
I shook off my emotions as best I could. I was in a hospital operating room as a doctor. I had a life to save—a human life—the life of someone I cared about. But I also knew that Max’s chances weren’t good.
The anesthesiologist nodded at me. We were ready. After making sure that Max was unconscious, I slowly unwrapped her myself. I examined the tears in her wings, and worse, the sucking wound in her breast. The sight of the dark, gaping hole was unnerving.
I couldn’t afford sentimentality or any other distractions as I plucked feathers from around the dangerous chest wound. I scrubbed the area and flushed out metal, wood, shards of glass, and more feathers. I was