Excellent Jess brings medicine for Helga Tin Cup : Almost an orphan by Delahay

Synopsis: Jess Harper, a Civil War vet,was traveling through the west trying to make a life for himself after the war. Jess was robbed by three traveling companions. He found them, killed two, retrieved his possessions, then let the third one, Charlie, leave. Charlie later caught up with Jess, shot him in the back, then aimed a gun at him as he was lying on the ground. Jess was saved by a settler, Abe Klein, and his daughter Helga. While recovering with the Kleins, Jess fell for and marries Helga. When Helga became pregnant, Abe and Jess tried to find someone to help Helga with the baby. The person they found did not work out well so Helga stated she would find someone on her own. She disappeared one morning and was gone for most of the day before returning with an old Native woman, called Oota, who takes charge of preparing for the birth. Early one morning, Jess is awakened by screaming. Helga is in labor. After a very long and tense day, Helga delivers a healthy baby girl. Soon, however, Helga develops a fever and Oota sends Jess up into the mountains to bring back herbs to make medicine and snow to help cool Helga. I raced back to the cabin as fast as possible over the rocky ground. My horse shied suddenly as we approached the clearing nearly throwing me from the saddle. Leaving the treeline, I saw Oota standing in front of the cabin with a rifle in her hands, yelling words I could not understand. To my surprise, she raised the rifle and pointed it in my direction. My thoughts froze in horror as I waited for the shot, unable to understand why Oota would shoot at me. I managed to duck, a futile gesture I thought, as the report of the rifle filled my ears. Something hit me hard, but I could not understand why it felt as if I'd been struck from behind. My horse reared and I found myself on the ground, struggling to get out from beneath what I finally understood to be the body of a mountain lion Oota had killed as it pounced at me. Later, when there was a chance to think about it at leisure, I would be amazed by Oota's ability and accuracy with a rifle. As it was, I got up and dusted myself off, grateful and surprised to still be alive. As I limped toward the cabin Oota rushed out to meet me. "Mr. Jess o.k?" She asked. I managed some sort of a response, still shaking from recent events. Oota, on the other hand was all business. "You bring medicine Mr. Jess? Where medicine?" I said, "in my saddle bag. Did you see where the horse went?" She pointed to the stable and started toward it, leaving me to catch up. "How is Helga? I asked. Oota answered, "Still too hot, need medicine," as she strode quickly forward. We found the terrified horse in its stall, quivering in a corner, dripping with sweat with the whites of its eyes still showing. I managed to quiet it enough to retrieve the saddle bags and handed them to Oota. She took them and rushed back out. I knew the horse needed tending to but it was all I could do to get the saddle off of it before hurrying to the cabin. I spared just a moment to hope that I had not foundered it, but otherwise the horse would have to see to itself for a while. Approaching the cabin, I saw Abe on the porch holding my daughter. "How's Helga doing?" I asked him. "Not good", he replied, looking more worried than I'd ever seen him. "She's burning up with fever and delirious. Doesn't even know who I am." I patted his shoulder, stopped to gently kiss my daughter, and walked past him to the door, afraid of what I would see if I went in.   I could hear moaning from inside. I stopped in the doorway, unable to make myself enter. I could see Helga thrashing around on the bed, covered in sweat, with the blankets tangled around her. Oota was placing snow in cloths and putting them around Helga's body. "Mr. Jess, take this," she said, holding out a wet cloth. "Put on her head. Talk" I assumed Oota wanted me to put the cloth on Helga's forehead to help cool her, and perhaps she thought speaking to her would offer comfort, but I had no idea what to say. As I hesitated, unsure and, quite frankly, terrified by the sight of just how sick my wife was, Oota snapped, "Now, Mr. Jess." I got my feet unstuck from the floor, took the cloth Oota offered, and placed it on Helga's head. She was thrashing around so much, I had to hold it in place. As hot as she was, the cloth quickly grew warm so I put it in the bowl of ice water I found next to the bed. Then I squeezed it out before returning it to Helga's forehead. I did this over and over throughout the afternoon and night. I also prayed more than I had ever done in my life; more than before or during any battle I had ever faced. More than when I watched men, broken and bleeding, crying for their mothers, dying in the mud in nameless places far from home. I offered God my life and soul if he would only allow Helga to live. I had finally found the one thing on Earth that meant more to me than anything and everything else, and I could do nothing but watch her suffer. I wondered if was I being punished for my sins. If so, why was Helga the one paying? My prayers were silent, Abe's were not, and through the night I heard Oota chanting something in her own language. She also brought tea for Helga to drink, made from the plants I had gathered up the mountain, and kept putting snow wrapped in cloth around Helga's burning body. A faint memory stirred in my head, a memory of my mother, a cool cloth in her hand, placing it on my head as fever raged through me. A fleeting thought from my childhood, a feeling of being loved and cared for. I don't know how it could have happened, but I obviously must have dozed off because I woke to early morning sunshine. I was confused, why I was sitting in a chair instead of in bed with Helga? Then I remembered. I straightened with a gasp as my gaze went to Helga's sleeping form. I realized suddenly that Helga was doing exactly that, sleeping. Not thrashing around in delirium, but sleeping. I felt her forehead and was amazed and elated to find it cool. My ecstatic cry woke Abe and the baby who started crying, and brought Oota rushing in from outside. She looked as exhausted as I felt, but she pushed by me to lay her hand on Helga's head, brushing the tangled hair back from her face. As she turned to smile at me Helga opened her eyes and said weakly, "Why is the baby crying?" Author Notes Founder, also known as laminitis. A painful condition in a horse's feet where the hoof wall separates from the coffin bone. A sever case leaves a horse profoundly lame and the horse must be humanely euthanized. The cause is frequently unknown but some believe that very hard riding can bring it on.

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