Chapter 25
She’d done everything she could for Bart, and the animals needed attention.
She put out food and water for Bear and Shadow.
Bear had been lying obediently near Bart.
He took a break to eat and drink, after which he returned to his master.
Molly fed and watered both mules and unloaded Buddy, setting supplies on the small front porch. She moved both mules to fresh grass.
Hungry, tired, and stressed, she paused to gather her wits.
Taking deep, meditative breaths, she slowly turned a full circle.
Bart’s retreat was amazing. The ambiance was a mystical hideout deep in the wilderness.
The cabin was tucked into the furthest corner of the valley up against steep rock walls that rose dramatically above and in a clump of magnificent old trees.
It was dark, cozy, and cool. The forest floor was moss and soft pine needles. All was quiet, very quiet.
A huge mound of recently split firewood was piled next to a couple dozen uncut rounds waiting to be split.
An axe was driven into the chopping block.
An outhouse was visible a short distance away.
She guessed a nearby pile of rocks was the Chinese oven where he baked bread.
Next to the woodpile was a fire pit with two wood chairs, one weathered, one new.
Had he made a chair in anticipation of her visit?
That felt good. She was pretty sure he hadn’t had other visitors.
She trusted Bart. He’d told her no one knew about the place except her.
She liked that. He’d trusted her with this information, and it was why she declined bringing others for the rescue.
Behind the cabin was the large woodshed Bart had described and a natural spring.
The spring was the likely reason he’d built the cabin here.
She studied the spring, fresh water bubbling out of the ground.
It appeared to be an underground stream that surfaced here to become an above ground creek.
Bart had created a pool where water collected before moving into the creek.
Several buckets sat on the edge of the pool.
Looking at the cabin, she understood the water system.
Four outdoor steps against the cabin led to a holding tank.
She walked up the stairs and looked down, seeing two bins, one supporting a gravity feed water flow to the kitchen sink, the other for an outdoor shower.
Both tanks were almost empty, so she filled them using the buckets. She went under the tank and turned on the cold water shower. She decided to warm up some water, add it to the tank, and take a lukewarm shower before bed.
She walked into the woodshed and admired the firewood supply, the smell of fresh cut pine and fir permeating the space. In the back of the woodshed was his workshop. Under construction was a double bed. Okay, then, Bart was preparing for her visit.
A door led from the woodshed into the cabin.
A swinging flap was cut into the bottom of the door for Bear.
Molly entered the cabin. She guessed it was twenty feet long by half that distance wide, a rectangular single room.
The logs served as walls inside and out.
A high roof was peaked down the middle, the steep pitch designed to shed snow outside and create the effect of a larger space inside.
Everything was efficiently laid out, clean, tidy, and well-organized, like everything about Bart.
The kitchen had a small table with two chairs, one weathered, one new.
The sink was wood. A single spigot produced the water she’d dumped in the bin.
A round cylinder top loading wood stove with a flat surface doubled for heating and cooking.
Against one wall was his office, a laptop sitting on a rustic wood table.
Facing the stove was a wood arm chair with cushions, his reading and relaxing place.
Several small windows let in natural light, but it was dark and cozy inside.
Two lamps, one oil, one battery, sat on handmade wooden tables.
A bearskin was on the floor in front of the stove and another hung on the wall next to several racks of antlers, a pair of snowshoes, and a gun rack holding half a dozen rifles.
A mountain man’s rustic cabin in a deep dark forest.
Molly settled next to Bart with Bear and Shadow lying on the floor.
She didn’t know how long it would take for the IV to kick in.
She took a third set of vitals and was disappointed to see no change.
She tried to prepare herself for a long wait, but her sickness was returning.
She’d been relieved to find him alive, and had congratulated herself on getting the IV set up.
But now what? Wait? What if he took a turn for the worse?
What was she to do? A sense of helplessness was settling in.
She turned her attention to the medical manual. It would really help if she knew what the problem was. Why was he unconscious, unresponsive, feverish, dehydrated? Something was going on in his body to make him sick. But what?
The manual had a diagnostic program using a question answer format.
Questions in the first section focused on Bart: age, height, weight, gender, ethnicity, socio economic status, preexisting conditions, diet, nutrition, and general health.
She entered what she knew, noting that he lived in a wilderness setting far removed from civilization.
The second section focused on symptoms. She downloaded the vitals, the results of the body inspection, dehydration observations, and vague guesstimates about duration.
The third section asked about specific medical conditions like diabetes, epilepsy, depression, strokes, tumors, and alcohol and drug use.
Molly answered the questions the best she could.
The fourth section sought follow up on responses she’d entered.
The wilderness setting raised issues about water quality, possible contact with poisonous plants, snakes, or insect bites.
Molly had tasted the water and found it clear, crisp, and delicious.
She doubted it was a water quality issue and downloaded her observation.
She searched the kitchen for plants that could be poisonous and didn’t find anything.
She entered more specific data about the bite and rash on Bart’s neck.
Her data about the insect bite produced eight photos of various bites and rashes.
She studied Bart’s neck with a magnifying glass provided in Reed’s kit and compared it with the photos in the manual.
What she was seeing was a perfect match with the fifth photo.
She entered that data and the manual toggled to tick bites.
Oh my God. She actually knew something about tick bites from her veterinary tech training.
They commonly attacked animals and humans and were frightfully deadly.
Who’d think a tiny insect could be so powerful?
Then she remembered the plagues inflicted by malaria mosquitoes.
The manual was now providing diagnosis and treatment for tick bites.
Molly leaned forward, intense on her phone.
Most tick bites were relatively harmless, producing a mild bite mark and a light rash, not unlike a mosquito.
But, some ticks cause serious illness, including Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
In particular, the Deer Tick, sometimes referred to as the Bear Tick, is common to forested regions in the west, and can infect animals and humans with a bacteria that causes Lyme Disease.
Lyme Disease is transmitted to humans through the bite of infected blacklegged ticks.
Symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue, and a skin rash.
If left untreated, it can spread to joints, the heart, and the nervous system.
Treatment is typically antibiotics administered as early as possible.
Molly studied every word in the manual. Lyme Disease was first discovered and diagnosed in Lyme, Connecticut and had become a serious illness inflicting over 300,000 people a year in the U.S.
She didn’t know that she had the correct diagnosis, but the manual had led her directly to it.
A remote mountain setting. Bart had an insect bite on his neck with a rash that matched the photo for tick bites.
Some ticks carry bacteria that attacks the heart and nervous system.
She knew tick bites to be very dangerous and sometimes lethal.
She turned her attention to the antibiotics recommended for Lyme Disease and the medicines Reed had included in the kit.
There wasn’t a perfect match, but she decided to switch to an antibiotic recommended for bacterial-based infections.
Reed had included four bags of IV fluid and the first was still half full, but she wanted to make the switch.
She replaced the existing bag with a fresh one and injected the new antibiotic into it, saving the partial bag for later.
She checked vitals once more and was disappointed to find no improvement.
It was early evening, and the cool night air was setting in.
She started a fire in the stove, unpacked her personal supplies, transferred food to the kitchen, and started moving into Bart’s cabin.
She decided to lay her sleeping bag and pad next to Bart’s cot.
She wanted to sleep with him and hold him, but the cot was too narrow.
She put a pot of water on the wood stove to heat for her shower.
She lit the oil lamp, not wanting to use battery power.
She wondered where Bart’s solar station was.
She’d worry about that tomorrow. Her phone still had power, and she hadn’t used her chargers yet.
For dinner, she decided to heat up a mushroom and barley soup that Evelyn had packed.