snapped, “Don’t even try that bullshit, Sam. I’ve seen what you can do. You and I both know there’s no way a group of damn kids could have taken you, unless you let them. You’re lucky they didn’t kill you. Hell, they may have already gotten you halfway into the grave.”
“Gonna be … fine,” he moaned.
Sam was looking worse by the minute. He was struggling to talk and his breathing was getting shallow. Worried that we might lose him, I warned, “We’ve gotta get him to the doctor, Cyrus. He’s gonna bleed out if we don’t.”
“Let me tell Louise what’s going on and get the keys to the truck. He won’t go to the damn hospital, so we’ll carry him over to the clubhouse and let Mack have a look at him. He can stitch him up and get him back on his feet,” Cyrus explained. He looked over to Sam and said, “Not that you have a choice, but are you gonna be alright with that?”
“Yeah,” he agreed.
Once Cyrus returned with the keys to his truck, it took both of us to load Sam in the back seat of his extended cab pickup. For his size, he weighed more than either of us thought, but we managed to get him into the truck without causing him too much pain. Before we pulled out of the lot, Cyrus turned to me and asked, “You planning to give Hazel a heads-up about this? You know she’s got a soft spot for him.”
Sam groaned from the back of the truck and said, “No. Don’t. She will … worry.”
“Yeah. He’s right. Don’t want to worry her just yet. Let’s get him fixed up and then we’ll go from there.”
He nodded, then drove on to the clubhouse. Cyrus called ahead to let Mack know we were on the way so he’d have time to prepare. When we pulled through the gate, it was still early, so not many of the brothers were around. By the time he’d parked the truck, there was a man in his early thirties waiting for us at the front door. The guy looked like he’d just crawled out of bed with his wrinkled t-shirt and baggy jeans, but that didn’t stop him from rushing over to the truck to help us.
“Need a hand?” he asked.
Cyrus opened the truck door and started reaching for Sam as he said, “I think we got it, Mack.”
I helped Cyrus get him out of the back seat and then followed him to the back of the clubhouse to the infirmary. He’d already gotten everything set up, and when we walked in, Mack pointed over to the gurney and said, “Just lay him there.”
As I looked around, I noticed the room was similar to ours back home: two gurneys in the back, and L-shaped cabinets along the wall filled with gauze, medicine, and medical tools. It wasn’t much different than any other doctor’s office except for the lack of medical degree hanging on the wall. Sam looked up at him and said, “You’re just a kid.”
“Looks can be deceiving.” Mack smiled. “I’m going to need to take off your shirt and check your wounds.” Sam nodded and did his best to prop himself up long enough for us to get off his jacket and blood-soaked clothes. Once he laid back down, Mack winced when he saw the long, jagged cut that crossed Sam’s chest. “Damn, man. They got you good.” He leaned in closer and pressed his fingers against the cut as he said, “Fortunately, it’s just a deep graze. Doesn’t look like they got deep enough to hit any major arteries or organs, but you’re gonna need stitches. A lot of them.”
“What do you need us to do?” I asked.
“We need to get him cleaned up before I work on him,” Mack explained. “There’s betadine and gauze in the cabinet behind you.”
For someone who’d been living on the streets, he was much cleaner than I’d anticipated. Even though he was in a bad spot, he’d obviously tried his best to take care of himself. Once I found the betadine and gauze, I handed them over to Mack. It took him a while to disinfect the wound, but then he was ready to get to work. He looked down at Sam and, with concern in his voice, said, “Sam, I’m going to give you something for the pain. Couple of shots to numb you before I start stitching you up.” Sam nodded and then Mack