“Set me down right by the door!” Righty bellowed, as Harold closed in on the house precipitously from several hundred feet above.
Harold swooped right down next to the door, and Righty jumped off before Harold’s talons had even touched terra firma. He flung open the door like a zealous sheriff serving a warrant on an infamous villain and went charging headlong into the house.
Only a low moan served to guide him in his quest, but he followed it with all the acuity of a bloodhound.
“Janie!!!”
She looked deathly ill. Her face was pale white, she appeared only semi-conscious, and the sheet she had wrapped around her showed signs of having absorbed a significant amount of lost fluid, no small amount of which appeared to be blood.
“Richie . . . that you?” a soft voice asked, which sounded as disbelieving as a semi-delirious patient speaking to a long-deceased relative.
“Shhhhh,” Righty said softly, touching her head, which felt little different than a hot pot of coffee.
“Our baby decided to come a little early,” she said, attempting a small chuckle.
“Tell me where to take you!” Righty said, feeling like a fish out of water.
“To Sally’s . . . the botanist’s home. She’s also a midwife.”
“Where does she live?”
Janie’s face bore the expression of a person who has just realized some horrible truth.
“She’s a mile outside of town . . . northwest. Oh, Richie, I don’t think I can make it,” Janie said sobbing.
Righty knew what house she was talking about. He had passed it many times far overhead en route to his ranch.
“Shhhh, now you just relax, honey. You’re a little delirious, so you’re gonna see some things that aren’t really happening quite the way you think they are, so no matter what you see you just relax because I’m going to take you over there really comfortably on a nice, soft bed, you hear?”
“Okay, Richie,” she said.
He then scooped her up as if she were lighter than a feather. Harold, intuitive creature and of acute hearing that he was, waited patiently outside the door, body as low to the ground as possible. He had already heard enough to know the exact destination, and no sooner had Righty mounted Harold’s back with Janie firmly in his arms did he take off quickly, yet smoothly, towards the house in question.
Five minutes later, Harold swooped down right to the side of the botanist’s home, and Righty hopped off quickly with Janie in his arms and began pounding on the door.
“It’s Mr. Simmers! Janie needs your help! Please!!”
A light turned on, and a small curtain lifted slightly on the front door, revealing a pair of distrustful eyes that quickly widened in horror and recognition. The door flung open, and Sally stepped outside.
“Please, Mrs. Redelmin, I’ve got no one else to turn to.”
“Bring her inside, Mr. Simmers,” she said with a look of grave anxiety on her face.
She directed Righty to a bed, where Righty lay his wife down. No sooner had her back touched the surface of the bed than she let out a horrible scream, and Righty thought he could see some more blood join the already large stain on Janie’s dress.
“Kasani!” Sally exclaimed as she examined the area. “This is beyond my expertise. You’ve got to get your wife to a surgeon sometime tonight or—”
She stopped abruptly and gulped.
“Who and where?!” Righty barked.
“Well, the best surgeon in all of Sivingdel is Dr. Ridemern, but it will be awfully dangerous transporting her on horseback.”
Righty could tell by the look on her face there was something else in that statement left unspoken: And she’ll never make it anyhow.
“Where does he live?”
Sally looked at Righty for a moment like he was crazy, as it just then dawned upon her he wasn’t merely considering making the trip but would do so as soon as she stopped dillydallying and told him where to go.
“Well, I don’t have his address handy, but he lives about three blocks south of Comfort Hospital.”
“Do you have a map?!” Righty asked, with clear desperation in his voice.
Sally began fumbling around with various papers with true zeal, realizing perhaps that if Mr. Simmers was going to fail in his quest to get Janie to Dr. Ridemern it had best not be in any way her own fault.
After about two minutes but what seemed like an eternity Sally produced a map and then began scouring it avidly. Less than a minute later she showed it to him and drew a circle around the hospital.
“Dr. Ridemern’s house is about three blocks south. It’s red brick and has a white picket fence and—”
Righty was out the door, carrying Janie, and he disappeared into the blackness of the night before Sally could even finish her sentence.