Traveller by L.W. Samuelson (reading comprehension books .txt) 📖

us.”
Dr. Graham rolled his eyes. He’d never heard Lori plead for anything. “Okay, let me go to the office and get my medical bag. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“Thank you Doctor. He’s in the bunkhouse. Please hurry.”

Forty-five minutes later Dr. Graham knocked on the bunkhouse door. Lori answered. “Hi Doc,” she said.
“Where is he?” he asked nodding at Jesse and the other two guys sitting on the couch.
“Back here,” she said motioning for him to follow her.
They went into the back bedroom. Traveller was lying comatose underneath the several patchwork quilts on Jesse’s bed. When Dr. Graham saw the bluish alien, his eyes widened. “He’s almost blue. How long has he been unconscious?”
“Since yesterday. We gave him some medicine from the spaceship. . . I mean we gave him some water and he’s been like this every since.”
“What happened to him?” Dr. Graham asked examining the bandages. “Looks like you did a good job of dressing his wounds.”
Dr. Graham took his stethoscope out, gently pulled the covers back, and then listened to Traveller’s heart. A puzzled expression filled his face as he moved the scope from one side of Traveller’s chest to the other. He listened for several minutes before letting the stethoscope dangle from his neck. Next, he felt for a pulse on either side of the jugular. When he finished, Dr. Graham pulled the skin of Traveller’s upper arms. On the injured side the skin snapped back immediately. On his good arm the skin took a moment to slowly move back into place.
“I’ve never seen anyone like him. He’s dehydrated on one side and not the other. I can’t tell for sure, but it’s like he has two hearts. The one on the injured side is beating faster than the one on the right. It’s almost like one side of his body has shut down to allow the other side of his body to fight the infection. He’s obviously lost a lot of blood. Those look like bite marks,” he said after he removed the bandages on Traveller’s head.
“He was mauled by a mountain lion,” Lori said.
“He’s going to need to go to the hospital. I don’t think he’ll survive without a blood transfusion,” Dr. Graham diagnosed.
“Damn it!” Lori exclaimed, her heart racing.
“It’ll be okay. The infection seems to have been checked somehow, there’s no gangrene. What’s the matter? You’re worried that he’s illegal. I can register him under an assumed name. I’m on the board of directors, no one will question me.”
Lori didn’t know what to say so she didn’t say anything.
“We’ll get his blood type identified and go from there. I’m going to give him a shot of antibiotic to help with the infection. Why don’t you call an ambulance?” he asked Lori.

Traveller Orgen was checked into the hospital as Travis Orlovsky. Dr. Graham filled out the paper work personally. He even put himself down as the patient’s legal guardian, took responsibility for the bill.
He had instructed his nurse to take a blood sample from the “alien” for analysis. She spent over twenty minutes trying to find a vein on his right arm. No matter how much she tightened the elastic band on his bicep, nothing surfaced.
“I give up Doctor,” she said.
“First, try a smaller needle. Also, put the band on his left shin. Try taking blood from the veins in his leg when they appear.
“Which vein Doctor?”
“The biggest one with the most blood,” he replied with a smile.
The nurse followed his instructions. After several moments, she finally saw a vein to go fishing for. The nurse inserted the needle into the top of Traveller’s foot manipulating it around until she got the vein. Blood trickled slowly into the test tube for a few moments before it stopped with a little over a quarter of the tube filled. She left to have it analyzed.
“What happens if we can’t find a match?” asked Lori.
“I’m sure we’ll find a match. We have to. Mixing blood types causes an immunological reaction against the donor cells. It can kill the receiver or make them very ill. Before anyone knew what they were doing back in the seventeenth century, a doctor tried giving transfusions with calf blood. Needless to say, the persons receiving the transfusions died. It wasn’t until 1910 that blood typing made the process possible. So if we can’t find a type match, there will be no transfusion. That’s why we store blood.
Over the years, scientists have improved typing and storage methods. We have a blood bank right here in the hospital. It contains all but the rarest of blood types. I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Dr. Graham explained.

Just over an hour later the nurse came back to Traveller’s room where Dr. Graham was waiting with Lori. “A B negative,” she informed the doctor.
The nurse continued, “We don’t have anything stored here that’s compatible with that blood type. It’s too rare. I called Twin Falls and Pocatello; neither hospital can supply us with a match.”
“We’ll have to make do. Get on the intercom. Ask the staff if anyone has A B negative, A negative, or B negative blood,” the doctor instructed.
The nurse left. A minute later her voice came over the intercom asking for the bood types Dr. Graham listed. She came back in the room. “We’re out of luck,” she explained.
“I don’t think we have time to have some flown in,” said Dr. Graham. “Didn’t I see a black man with Jesse? Sometimes African Americans have rare blood types.”
“You mean Willy?” asked Lori.
“Is that his name? Nurse get me a blood sample from Willy.”

When the nurse asked Willy if she could draw blood, his eyes widened, “Man, I can’t stand de sight a blood. Ain’t no other way?”
“No. If you want to save your friend we need to hurry,” she replied.
When Willy nooded, she hustled him out of the waiting room and into the lab. He kept his eyes averted as she wrapped the rubber hose around his arm. When the highways of blood revealed themselves, the nurse inserted her needle “Finally veins I can find,” she said with satisfaction as she withdrew a healthy sample of burgundy blood.
Just as she replaced the needle with a cotton swab, Willy turned his head. When he saw the deep colored blood that filled the test tube, his eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he fainted.
Dr. Graham had the nurse attend to the fallen hero while he placed two ccs of Willy’s blood in a test tube and then added two ccs of Traveler’s blood with it. He placed the tube in the serofuge. It mixed the blood together for a few minutes. When it stopped spinning, Dr. Graham examined the blood.
He looked at the nurse, “There’s no agglutination. The blood isn’t sticking together. I say we have a compatible donor. Good job Willy,” he said to the unconscious man on the bed.

When Willy came to, Jesse and Tim were standing over the examination bed. “Hey Willy guess what?” Jesse said. “While you were asleep, Dr. Graham found out your blood’s compatible with Travis’s. I told him to hurry and draw blood before you wake up and he did. You’ll be the first person in history to give an interplanetary transfusion.”
“Man dat ol’ Travis goin’ to be a super alien now. He be the best basketball player in the universe. Probly be better lookin’, too,” a little paler than before, Willy smiled,
“I just hope he survives,” said Jesse.
“Oh he be surviving alright. He be getting’ de best black blood they is,” Willy bragged. He tried to stand up, but the room spun violently. He lay back down.
“Man how much blood dey pull out of me?” he asked Jesse.
“Damn near a gallon. It was just enough to turn you white.”
“White? You lyin’ honky?”
“Every chance I get,” Jesse replied. He laughed with Willy and Tim joining in.

Dr. Graham was watching the last of the blood plasma drain into Traveller’s foot. Suddenly, his patient doubled over grabbing his midsection with both arms. The needle pulled out of his flesh to leave a bright red blood spot on the hospital’s white sheets.
Sweat beaded Traveller’s forehead; he felt hot, feverish. Dr. Graham looked at the nurse, “Uh oh, I think we’re having an allergic reaction,” he said deeply concerned. “Let’s administer five ccs of anticoagulant. He’s fevered. We’d better give him five ccs of antipyretic along with it, we need to get his temperature down.”
The nurse left the room to get the medicine. Dr Graham kept his hand on Traveller’s forehead. “Come on, you need the blood. Let your body accept it.”
Lori entered the room to overhear the doctor’s plea. She had left to get a drink of water. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“He’s having a reaction to the transfusion. It’s going to be touch and go from here on out. I’m sorry Lori, but we didn’t have any choice but to try. He’d lost way too much blood.”
“He’s going to make it isn’t he?”
“Not if his body rejects the blood. We’ll know in a few hours.”
Chapter 26 - Meeting Death
Traveller waited for his parents and Logis so he could ferry them across the Snake River. He was dressed in the blue ceremonial robe of the Sanctum Just. It pleased him to see the proud look on Fa Orgen’s face. “Hi father,” he said so happy to see Fa Orgen that he eagerly returned the embrace.
“Traveller, I’ve missed you,” his father said.
His mother’s eyes filled with tears as she stood waiting for her chance to touch her precious son. When he parted from his father, she moved into his arms now crying with joy. “Oh my sweet one, I thought I would die of pain when you left without warning,” she said.
They held each other for several moments before Logis cleared his throat behind them. Traveller let his mother pass onto the boat then held his hand out for Logis.
“You have gained a calmness that wasn’t there before,” Logis said as they shook. “You seem less determined to fight everything. Have you found that one has no choice but to follow the rhythms of life, otherwise one finds chaos?”
“I’m learning Fa Logis. I’m learning,” Traveller replied. He helped the Chosen One onto the boat humbled by the profound sadness that haunted the Benwarians leader’s eyes. The yoke of leadership is a heavy one he thought.
Traveller poled the flat wooden raft with a small hut in the middle of it out into the current. Once the water took the boat, he let it follow the flow to the other side of the river. Poling just enough to keep the boat from ending up too far downstream, he aimed for the dock on the far bank.
His aim was true; the current carried the boat until it glanced against the wooden dock. His Benwarian passengers jumped ashore while he kept the boat in place with the pole. Tim, Lori, Willy, and Jesse appeared out of nowhere and tethered it to the dock with the thick rope attached to a metal ring on the deck.
Once his passengers were safely ashore, his human friends untied the rope that kept the boat against the dock and pulled him upstream along the shore. When he was far enough up river to allow the boat to use the current to cross back, they let go. Jesse threw the rope onto the deck and the four of them jumped aboard. When he glanced behind for one last look at his family and