Angel Of Mercy

Chapter 14

"Will you please stop picking at that? Leave it alone, Maurice!" Karin demanded sometime later.

It had taken a little time, but with Mary's translations of Karin's advice and Sparrow's and some gorilla's help, they now had the orangutan's badly bruised ribs wrapped nice and tight with brilliantly improvised bandages. Only problem was that their patient did not care at all for being bound up in that manner.

"It is tight," Maurice complained.

"It's supposed to be snug, Maurice," Karin explained with exaggerated patience for the hundredth time. "It will speed your healing; will you trust me on this!"

"You know about ribs?" Maurice remarked, twisting and trying to get comfortable. "How?"

"Because I spent most of my childhood salving bruises, splinting sprains and binding up everyone's ribs, my older brother's, my Dads and his friends, and even my Mom's after her Saturday night trips to the bars," she told him. "Consider yourself lucky," she added. "If I had the tape with me from home, we'd also have to shave off much of those long lovely locks of yours."

"What?" Maurice yelped, then instantly wished he had not.

"Medical tape sticks badly enough in human hair," Karin explained. "Wanna make a 6-foot 6 grown man cry, wrap him up like you are now, then rip that off his chest and back. In your pelt, it would be a nightmare."

Maurice winced in sympathy.

"So, you've done this much to males in your family, have you?" the orangutan asked somewhat apprehensively as he made another grab for his bandage bindings that Karin quickly thwarted by firmly grasping both his hands in both of her own. He made as if to lift one foot, and she glared fiercely at him before placing one of her legs over his ankles.

"You could say that," Karin answered sweetly. "My brothers especially learned to be very nice to me on those occasions."

"I bet they did, indeed," the old orangutan grumbled.

"You will need to keep a firm hand on him" Sparrow had warned Karin through Mary's translations.

"And here I didn't believe Sparrow when she warned me what a horrible patient you could be, sometimes," Karin sighed. "Now I'm gonna have to apologize to her for that, thanks."

"Then again, maybe I should be flattered you're making all this fuss," Karin continued, her mouth twitching as she tried to suppress a grin.

Maurice stopped struggling against his bandages and just looked at her blankly.

"Well, never in my whole life have I had any guy go to all this trouble just to get me to hold his hands," she stated.

Maurice gaped at her for one moment, then he chuckled in spite of himself.

"You have found me out," he confessed.

"Oh, don't I wish," Karin sighed, and they both laughed.

Maurice was finally sleeping.

Karin sat beside him on the nest, her hand softly stroking his forehead before coming to rest lightly on the old orangutan's cheek. She considered grabbing a quick cat nap herself. But she knew if she did, she would have even more trouble sleeping that night. She never did sleep well in a strange place for the first few days, and this was one of the strangest places the woman had ever found herself in her whole life.

Karin yawned widely. Still in spite of her resolve, she did start to doze a bit. It was so quiet, this hut had obviously been specifically positioned to not be in the heart and bustle and noise of the main village, but still be easily accessible to the apes besides. Good quiet place for the sick or injured to rest, but not good for a physically and mentally exhausted human woman who was trying to keep herself awake.