The Governor's Wife (8 page)

"Juanita," the doctor said, "look in that box and find a pair of shoes."

He lifted the child with her freshly bandaged foot down from the table. She wiped her eyes and limped over as if the bandage were a plaster cast and then leaned so far over she almost fell into the box. He glanced over at Lindsay and the congressman while the girl rummaged then emerged with a pair of pink sneakers and a broad smile.

"You like those?"

"
Sí.
"

The doctor hefted her onto the examining table again then slipped the shoes on her feet as if he were the prince putting the glass slipper on Cinderella.

"You must wear these always."

He lifted her down again then reached into his coat pocket and gave her a yellow sucker. The child grabbed a naked doll off the bed then gave the doctor a quick hug. Her mother said
gracias
many times. The girl limped toward the front door with her mother following but noticed Lindsay and stopped. She ran a hand across her snotty nose then turned her wet brown eyes up to Lindsay.

"
Qué bonito el cabello.
"

"
Gracias
."

She and her mother walked out the door past the dog. Lindsay turned back to the binder and a black-and-white photo from the
Laredo News
of the doctor standing outside the clinic. The caption read: "Dr. Jesse Rincón, 33, home from Harvard." The story was five years old. He wore a black T-shirt under a white lab coat over jeans and boots. His dark hair was long for a doctor and combed back, but strands fell onto his angular face. His smile was soft, his teeth brilliant white. He was Latino and—

"He is handsome, no?" the congressman said.

"He is … Yes."

Lindsay stared at the photograph a moment longer then looked up and found herself staring at the doctor himself—at his eyes just a few feet away. They were as blue as the sky.

"My father," the doctor said, answering her unasked question.

He peeled off the latex gloves and tossed them into the trash basket then removed his lab coat and hung it on a rack. He was again wearing a black T-shirt. He was lean and muscular with silky black hair. He appeared not to have aged since the photo five years before.

"He was American, my mother was Mexican. She fell hard for his blue eyes."

He spoke with a soft Latin accent, not as pronounced as the congressman's, but with the same formality of one for whom English was not his native tongue. He stuck a hand out to the congressman.

"So, Ernesto, what brings you to the
colonias
today?"

"The census."

The doctor grunted. "Good luck with that."

He looked Lindsay up and down.

"I see you have suffered the wind and the dirt."

Her cream linen suit now appeared gray.

"Jesse," the congressman said, "I would like to introduce the governor's wife. Mrs. Bonner, this is Dr. Jesse Rincón."

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Bonner."

He took her hand. She had shaken thousands of strangers' hands as the governor's wife, but never as a woman. He held her hand and stared into her green eyes. It had been a long time since a man had stared at her. The congressman broke the spell with a chuckle.

"Jesse can seduce money from misers, which would make him a very successful politician. We had a charity auction in Laredo, and a rich divorcée paid five thousand dollars for a date with him."

The doctor released her hand.

"I built a clinic in the Boca Chica
colonia
with that money."

"Five thousand dollars built a clinic?" Lindsay said.

"I used illegal Mexicans." He held his serious expression a beat then smiled. "The residents volunteered their labor."

He had not taken his eyes off her. Lindsay felt her face blush like a teenage girl, so she broke eye contact, stepped over and placed the binder on the desk, then returned as the governor's wife.

"Dr. Rincón, the congressman says the residents here trust you. We need them to be counted for the census, so the state can get federal funds to help them."

"And do you think that will happen?"

"That we'll get federal funds?"

"That the state will help these people?"

"If you will help us."

"I will help you, but I will wait to see if the state will help them. Leave the forms here with Inez …" He glanced around. "Where is Inez now? Well, leave the forms on her desk, and she will help the people complete them."

"Thank you." She paused then said, "Doctor, may I ask you a question?"

"Certainly."

"Why did you come back? Does working here make you feel useful?"

"Useful? Yes, I suppose it does."

"He is a role model for the children," the congressman said.

The doctor shook his head. "No, Ernesto, I am no role model. The girls want to be
madres
, and the boys want to be
soldados,
making a thousand dollars a day with the fancy pickup trucks and young women on their arms. That is the life they want."

"A short life it is," the congressman said.

"Yes, but they would rather live one day as a king than fifty years as a peasant. But one day is often all they have."

The door behind them suddenly swung open, and two large Latino men burst in carrying an unconscious teenage boy and the harsh smell of sweat and gunpowder. The boy's head and limbs hung limp; blood soaked his white T-shirt. The bigger man carried a handgun in his waistband. The congressman pulled Lindsay back. The dog by the door stood.

"Stay, Pancho," the doctor said to the dog. To the men, he said in Spanish, "On the table."

"Mrs. Bonner," the congressman whispered in her ear, "we must leave. For your safety. These men, they are cartel
soldados
."

He tugged on her arm, but she held her ground. The adrenaline had kicked in.

"Gunshot?" the doctor asked.

"
Sí
," the smaller man said.

The men lay the boy on the examining table. The doctor pulled on latex gloves then grabbed a pair of scissors and cut the boy's shirt down the center. He took a towel and wiped blood from the boy's chest. He spoke to the men in Spanish.

"What kind of gun?"

"
Cuerno de chivo
."

"An AK-47?
¿Aquí?
In the
colonia?
"

"
No
.
Allí
. Across the river."

The doctor did not look up from the boy.

"The
federales
shot this boy?"

"
Sí
," the man without a gun said.

"That is a high-velocity projectile," the doctor said. "It usually causes severe internal damage. There is not much hope for this boy. Get that gun out of my clinic."

The big man glared at the doctor a moment then said, "Do not let him die, Doctor. It would not be good for any of us."

The doctor's eyes met his for a long moment, then the man turned and walked out the door without so much as a glance at Lindsay and the congressman. She inched closer to the examining table. The doctor checked the boy's breathing and listened to his heart with a stethoscope.

"You should have taken him to the hospital."

"You know we cannot take him there."

"How old is he?"

"
Diecinueve.
"

Nineteen.

"What is his name?"

"Jesús."

Hay-zeus.

"Is he your son?"

"No."

The doctor jerked his head at the door. "His?"

"No."

The doctor examined the boy's chest.

"Entry wound through the right chest wall …" He rolled the boy onto his left side and checked his back. "… but no exit wound. The bullet is still in him. I do not see any other entry or exit wounds."

The man nodded. "
Uno.
"

The doctor put his ear close to the boy's chest. With each breath, Lindsay could hear a sucking sound. A sucking chest wound, also known as a penetrating thoracic trauma. He needed a chest tube stat.

"I must insert a chest tube," the doctor said.

The boy coughed violently and spit up blood. The doctor put his finger in the entry wound. He pointed with his free hand to a nearby table.

"Hand me that scalpel."

The man glanced from the doctor to the table and then to his own bloody hands. He did not move.

"
¡Bisturi!
" the doctor said again.

Lindsay stepped over, picked up the scalpel, and held it out to the doctor.

"I'll start IVs," she said.

The doctor gave her a puzzled look.

"I was an ER nurse in San Antonio. We had a lot of gunshot wounds."

"Coat and gloves."

He took the scalpel.

Bode Bonner held a giant pair of two-handed fake scissors with the blade open over a wide red ribbon stretched across the front entrance of an organic grocery store in north Austin. Thirty minutes after leaving the elementary school, cameras clicked and store employees applauded as Bode cut the grand opening ribbon. The governor of Texas reduced to opening a grocery store, like Michael Jordan doing underwear commercials. Why?

"Smile, Bode," Jim Bob whispered so close that Bode felt his hot breath in his ear. "They gave half a million bucks to your campaign."

Governor Bode Bonner smiled.

The adrenaline energized Lindsay Bonner's body. An emergency room offered a rush like no other nursing experience. She had been a certified trauma nurse. She had kept her license current, perhaps in the hope that one day she might again be a nurse. That she might again be useful.

"Mrs. Bonner," the congressman said, "all the blood …"

She removed her suit coat and tossed it to the congressman. He stood alone by the front desk with the dog; the doctor had sent the other man outside to wait. She grabbed a lab coat hanging on a rack and put it on. She pulled on latex gloves then checked the boy's pulse and took his blood pressure.

"Pulse is one-forty-two, blood pressure is seventy over forty. He's in shock from the bleeding."

She found two saline bags and attached them to a stand. She searched the shelves and found two sixteen-gauge needles and antiseptic. She wiped the boy's left wrist with antiseptic then inserted a needle into his vein. She connected the IV. The doctor opened the entry wound in the boy's right chest wall; blood spurted out.

"He is hemorrhaging. We must open him up."

"A thoracotomy, here? Without a CT first? To see what's inside him?"

"We must work blind. If we do not, he will surely die."

"Mrs. Bonner," the congressman said. "Please, I must take you back to Laredo."

The doctor looked at her.

"I'm staying," she said.

"Jesse, please," the congressman said.

"Ernesto, I cannot do this by myself. I need her help."

The congressman made the sign of the cross. The doctor turned back to the boy and performed an endotracheal intubation as if it were a daily routine. He walked over to a small refrigerator and removed yogurt and peanut butter and a blood bag.

"O-negative." He tossed the bag to the congressman. "Ernesto, please take this outside and hold it in the sun for a few minutes, to warm it up."

The congressman held the bag as if holding a live human heart. He disappeared through the door. Lindsay started another IV for the blood transfusion.

"Help me get him on his left side," the doctor said.

The doctor pushed and she pulled until the boy was propped up on his side. She held him while the doctor ran gray duct tape around the boy's waist and then around the table until he was securely in place. The doctor positioned the boy's right arm above his shoulder, then picked up a clean scalpel and leaned over the boy. He felt down the boy's side to locate the fourth and fifth ribs. He then placed the scalpel between the two ribs and slid it down the boy's side. Blood appeared along the the incision.

Blood gushed from the receiver's nose.

The scent of testosterone and the sound of large young men colliding with great force filled the bowl of the stadium. Grunts and groans, whistles and cheers, tubas and drums pounding a deep bass rhythm. The rhythm of football. And life.

At least for Bode Bonner.

The receiver tried to stand, but his legs wobbled like a newborn calf. The defensive back had tried to take his head off with a forearm across the face and had damn near succeeded. Two trainers ran over, wiped away the blood, and helped the player to his feet. His eyes were dazed and confused; he didn't have a clue. He had a concussion.

"A few more hits to the head," the Professor said, "and that boy will be drooling the rest of his life."