The Magnificent Seven Chapter 6

It was late afternoon already when she returned home to break the news to Niam Tais Paj and Yawm Txiv Txooj Sua.  When she arrived at their wooden shack, Yawm Txiv Txooj Sua was cutting wood outside.  Too focused on his wood cutting, Yawm Txiv Txooj Sua did not even notice her return.  She decided not to bother him as well so she quietly stepped inside the home. 

Noog Xi saw Niam Tais Paj sitting on a wooden stool, polishing her silver jewelries.  “I’m back,” she said.  “Have you and Yawm Txiv eaten?”

“Not yet.”

“Let me cook then.”

She went into the kitchen and pulled out some meat and vegetables.  She scrambled a few dishes for dinner that night. 

When the food was prepared and served, Noog Xi called Niam Tais Paj and Yawm Txiv Txooj Sua to the dining table.  They sat around the round bamboo-woven table and ate their portion silently. 

After swallowing a few bites, the girl cleared her throat and looked at her aunt and uncle.  “Niam Tais…Yawm Txiv…I know that we are very poor now so I found a job,” she said.

Niam Tais Paj and Yawm Txiv Txooj Sua stopped eating.  “You did?” Niam Tais Paj responded surprisingly.  “Daughter, you didn’t have to.  I didn’t mean to force you to find a job with the words I said the other day.”

“It’s alright, Niam Tais.  I know that you and Yawm Txiv need all the help you can get.  I am still young so let me suffer a bit.”

“What job did you get daughter?” Yawm Txiv asked.

“A nursing job.”

“And when do you start?”

“Tomorrow,” the girl answered firmly.  “But, this job is not like my previous teaching position where I can live at home and walk to work everyday.  This job requires that I live at my work place.  But before that, I will be taking courses in Vientiane for 6 months and then spend another 6 months training in Thailand before returning here.”

“What?  That’s ridiculous!  I won’t let you do it!  Even if we are poor now, Yawm Txiv and I will find a way out!”

“Niam Tais, it’s not as bad as you think.  The job pays well so that I can support us.”

Niam Tais Paj sighed.  “It’s not that, daughter.  How…how can I let an unmarried girl live away alone?  Besides, how will I explain things to your mother when I meet her again?  She will definitely think that I purposely abandoned you!”

Noog Xi put her plate and spoon on the bamboo-woven table.  She got up and walked over toward Niam Tais Paj.  She got on her knees and smiled. 

“Niam Tais, did you forget that I have lived away before.  Actually, I have lived away for much of my life.  I will be away for a while again, but I’ll come to visit you and Yawm Txiv whenever I have the opportunity.  I can’t let you both worry about money.  Besides, it would be foolish of me to spend so many years away being educated, and then hide it all for the sake of preserving my life.  No, that’s not how I want to live my life.  I believe that mother and father sent me to learn for a purpose, and now it is only right that I return that knowledge to help our people.  Furthermore, I’m sure my mother will never blame you.  She can only be grateful that you are here to take care of me.”

“Daughter, my heart becomes heavy when having to think that you are suffering out there.  You’ve gone through too much now that I just want you to stay home and be safe.  But as much as I want to tie you to the home, I guess I won’t be able to do that if your heart and mind are set on doing this already.”

“Niam Tais Paj, thank you for understanding,” she said and hugged the worried woman.

That night after finishing dinner, Niam Tais Paj forced her niece to sleep early.  She then woke up early the next morning to make breakfast while Noog Xi packed her clothes.  After having her last meal with her kindhearted maternal aunt and uncle, she left for her journey to Vientiane.

***

Noog Xi spent one semester at Dongdok University in Vientiane mastering human biological courses.  Her schedule was specialized and accelerated, and she learned more materials than a regular college student.  Once the semester was up, she was then transferred to Sririraj Hospital where she stayed for a year.  She made rounds with doctors and learned everything from how to stabilize heart rates to inserting IVs, treating and getting wounds packed, monitoring vital signs, and giving shots and vaccinations.  When she was not training at the hospital, she was doing coursework at Sririraj’s affiliated Mahidol University.    

A year and a half swiftly brushed by, and Noog Xi returned to the familiar setting of Sam Thong and its hospital.  Before her departure, the nurses’ dormitory construction had nearly begun.  But upon her return, the dormitories were completely built near Sam Thong Hospital.  The walls and floors were made of split wood while a tin roof covered the top of the buildings. 

After settling into a dorm room, Noog Xi began the last of her training with Diana.  She trained intensively in nursing practices critical at Sam Thong and out in the battle field.  She learned how to amputate limbs, distribute prescription and medications, and undertake some tasks normally reserved for physicians like autopsies.  She also learned by serving as a teaching interpreter for Diana. 

By the time Noog Xi became comfortable doing many of Diana’s tasks, the heavy rain had subsided and the festive time approached again.  She went home for the holiday, the first time since she’d left almost two years ago. 

Niam Tais Paj and Yawm Txiv Txooj Sua were overflowed with joy to see their dear niece again.  She too was glad to see their familiar faces, and pleased to smell another kind of air apart from the hospital’s medical older.

Earning a monthly salary with her nursing job now, she gave some money to Niam Tais Paj.  The woman then used it to purchase two female chickens and a male rooster to pauj kab yeeb—pay tribute to the Goddess of Mercy, Kab Yeeb.  Yawm Txiv Txooj Sua called the family’s spirits to return home with the two female chickens and after sacrificing them, he offered the chickens’ cooked meat to his ancestors to ask for blessings and good fortunes for the coming year. 

Like any town or village with Hmong residents, Sam Thong too held a festival where the young could court and the old could greet one another.  But the hospital was a busy place and it called for her.  So, even before the celebratory days begun, Noog Xi had returned to the facility. 

Now a trained nurse, Pop Buell and Dr. Weldon promoted Noog Xi to head nurse alongside Diana.  She would also take on the title of administrator, recruiter, and instructor of the new nursing students. 

Noog Xi spent the remaining part of the New Year’s days planning a curriculum with Diana.  She translated Diana’s entire course into Laotian to make it easier to teach all potential future ethnic highlander nurses.

When the days of Hmong New Year floated by like Sam Thong’s relentless clear mountain stream, Noog Xi began her recruitment.  She started in Sam Thong, and then was airlifted to nearby towns like Ban Some, Phak Khet, Pha Khao, Mouang Cha, and Ban Houakham to find female volunteers who were willing to undergo the nurse training program, Operation Brotherhood.  After making her way through these towns, she made her last stop in the happy valley south of the Plain of Jars—Lima Site 20 Alternative, hidden deep inside the mountains of Xiengkhouang. 

A 1260 meter-long runway, completed two years after the population of the valley—was visible from the sky.  At the airport, ten minutes did not go by without an aircraft landing.  A few blocks away from the airport were Americans in civilian clothes working on aircraft engines, taxiing unmarked T-28 fighter-bombers up and down the runway.  Then, there were others surrounded by Hmong men who were learning the art of engine maintenance.  Further away from the airport, tin shacks sat on either side of the road while living quarters, white and pink California apartments, restaurants, bakeries, food stalls, and playgrounds made up the famous city of Looj Ceeb. 

With tens of thousands of people residing in Looj Ceeb, the city was a bustling desultory, business metropolis.  As Noog Xi walked down the unpaved dirt road, men and women, adults and children glided merrily to and flooding the market place.  Some vendors sold produce on a mat on the ground, while others baked sweet French style bread and sold it straight from stone ovens.  Then, there were the vendors who displayed paj ntaub—embroideries, silver, shoes, bar soaps, candies and delicacies all over their booth.  Food stalls were crowded with consumers, who returned home after purchasing their needs on military-jeep taxi services.  It didn’t matter that this town was Looj Ceeb, but the blacksmith were always found at the end of the market—firing up their furnaces and dipping flaming-red metals into cold water to mold household tools.  Past the opened-market were shops where people cobbled shoes, tailored clothes, and repaired radios.  A mass of thin, metal antennas spiked out on top of almost every building. 

She spent a couple of days in Looj Ceeb, but at the end of the trip, Noog Xi found the necessary amount of girls needed to trial start the nursing program.  Most of her participants came from here, with some even being literate. 

***

It was already afternoon when Noog Xi finished teaching the girls the last lesson of physiology.  She led them to the main hospital to gain hands on experience.  Six moon cycles have passed since the recruits began their training, and the girls have become familiar and comfortable with many of the nursing practices.  Although they have yet to master every nursing duty, both soldier and civilian injuries were escalating, so there was no time to waste.  A little more training and the recruits would have gain the necessary experience to begin taking care of patients. 

Just as the group stepped inside the hospital, a trauma alarm began to sound.  Two medics rushed a patient on a stretcher, made of a canvas sling with long edges sewn to them to form pockets through which wooden poles could be slid, to the operating room.  The white bandage around the patient’s wound was completely soaked in crimson blood. 

Diana rushed from the operating room to grab Noog Xi.  “Three bullets and patient’s in critical condition!  You and I are needed!” Diana said urgently.

Noog Xi turned toward the group of trainees.  “Iab!” she called.

“Yes!” answered a feisty girl.  She possessed well refined features, her eyes fierce, her nose bridge straight, her skin fair, and her voice vibrated strong.  One could tell that she was someone who was sheltered throughout most of her life, so that she developed a bold and confident character.  Her full given name was Ntsa Iab, meaning brilliance.  She came from the prominent Muas—Moua, clan, strong supporters of General Vaj Pov.  Her father was Muas Txawj Toog—Mayor of Moos Cab--Mouang Cha, and she had been schooled with her brothers since young.  She was someone who knew some English prior to becoming a nurse.   

“I’m leaving you in charge!  Take the girls to the malarial clinic.  I’ll be there as soon as we’re done!”

Ntsa Iab nodded.

Noog Xi turned toward Diana, and the two hurried to the operating room.  When they arrived, the medics have just laid the injured patient onto a gurney.  Noog Xi immediately pulled the bag of intravenous fluid away from the patient and hung it on a metal pole.  She took the patient’s vital signs and then three male doctors rushed inside—one was a Filipino doctor named Zachary Moreno, while the other two were American doctors.  One of the two American physicians included a man name Dr. Charles Weldon, a U.S. Health Service doctor employed by the Agency for International Development.  He was Pop Buell’s partner in starting Operation Brotherhood.  . 

The two medics left the room.  The anesthesiologist instructed Noog Xi to give a morphine shot to the patient and then he applied a continuous IV infusion of propofol.  Once the patient became unconscious, the surgeons cut his shirt and began work on extracting the bullets. 

By the end of the operation, the surgeons left the bullet near the patient’s heart untouched since it would be fatal to try to remove it.  Although the left side bullet could not be removed, the surgery was still a success.  Everyone was relieved that the young soldier had been saved. 

***

The sky had been tinted with a fuzzy red-orange color and the sun was vanishing in the western mountains when Noog Xi came upon the malarial clinic.  She found her students working hard to take care of the patients there.  When night fell, she dismissed them. 

Before calling it a day, Noog Xi stopped by the recuperating ward to check on the patients, especially the one that had a critical surgery earlier.  But before stepping inside the ward on the eastern wing, someone called her name.  She stopped and turned around. 

“Lwg!” Noog Xi called surprisingly. 

An amiable girl who appeared much younger than her age, she had pale skin, a pair of large dark brown eyes, and a softly shaped jaw.  Her cheeks burned a bright red whenever she was shied or embarrassed.  Her full given name was Lwg Dej, meaning dew water.  She came from the Yaj clan in Ban Some.  Her father was a retired Hmong warrior who fought many battles during the times of World War II and the first Indochina war. 

“It’s late already.  You should be in bed.  What are you doing here?” Noog Xi asked.

“Niam Laus Noog, I want to observe what you’re doing.  May I?” she asked timidly.

Noog Xi could not say no to someone who wished to learn so she allowed it.  “Come on in.” 

The student smiled gaily and followed her teacher inside the eastern-wing ward, a recovery area reserved mainly for injured soldiers.  Many beds inside the ward were occupied.  Some patients were either lightly or deeply asleep while a few others were awake.  Some have family members gathered around them with solemn and tired countenances while others slept without the presence of a single family member. 

Noog Xi went through many patients’ charts and monitored their vital signs and IVs.  When she was done with a patient, she wrote down her observations and hung the clipboard chart back on the ledge of the patient’s gurney.  She then made her way through multiple patients before approaching the young man who had surgery earlier in the day. 

The young soldier remained still in an unconscious state.  The head nurse quickly checked and jotted down her observations. 

“Niam Laus Noog, this patient looks like he’d suffered through a lot.  Will he be alright?” Lwg Dej asked in quiet tone.

“He is out of critical condition.  With time, he will recover,” she answered. 

Just then, the patient began to shiver abruptly and endured repeating chill episodes.  Noog Xi quickly touched his forehead and felt that it was burning hot.  “He has a fever,” she told.  “Get him an extra blanket!  I’ll call for the doctor!”

Lwg Dej nodded. 

The two ran in their own direction. 

Noog Xi found Dr. Moreno in the triage desk.  He rushed over to examine and stabilize the patient.  With Dr. Moreno’s instruction, Noog Xi gave medication intravenously to help reduce the young soldier’s fever.  Once he was calmed, Dr. Moreno left.

The head nurse grabbed a bowl of cold water and a towel.  She soaked the towel in water and was about to use it to wipe the patient’s forehead to keep his temperature down, but Lwg Dej stopped her. 

“Niam Laus Noog…if you don’t mind, let me do it,” she suggested.

Noog Xi was baffled by the bashful girl’s offer, but agreed to it anyways.  She handed the water bowl and towel to her student. 

“Niam Laus Noog, you are probably very tired.  Why don’t you go rest?  I will look after him well,” Lwg Dej offered and gulped, “and the rest of the patients here too."

Noog Xi nodded, but she knew that something smelled fishy.  A girl who would not dare be the one to take the initiative to do something, unless by force, Lwg Dej’s act of volunteering was something to be suspicious of.  But perhaps this was not yet the right time for her to pry into her student’s personal business, and she didn’t want to get involved either so she let the subject matter go.

“Sure,” she answered and smiled.  “Thank you for the offer.  Now, I have freed up some time to do other things.  If you need anything, let me know.”

Lwg Dej nodded, and her teacher left the ward.

Turning to the young soldier sleeping soundly on the bed, Lwg Dej dipped the towel in the bowl of water.  She twisted the towel to squeeze some water out, and then used the towel to wipe the patient’s face and arms. 

As she cleansed him, she noticed that his face was pale.  Too pale that he appeared weak and vulnerable.  He looked almost like that first time when she had met him.  It was a pity that when they finally have the chance to meet again, it was another encounter where only she could stare at him.   

It must have been about two years ago that he stumbled upon her on the outskirts of Ban Some.  The air was refreshing and the rolling green hills were pleasant that morning when she ventured into the forest hunting for herbal medicine for her sick father.  She was busied picking a handful of green herbs when she felt a hand suddenly grabbing her shoulder.  She had roamed that forest alone even as a child and nothing had frightened her before.  But the woods that morning was so quiet and still that for the first time in her life, she was afraid she had encountered if not a tiger, then a ghost.  She felt her head doubled in size, Goosebumps running throughout her body, and sweats dripping down her face.  Although her hands trembled, she strengthened her heart and decided to turn around to take a look. 

“Help me,” mumbled a mysterious man, who clutched her shoulder even tighter.  She screamed out of shock at his bloody hands, and retreated—causing him to tumble with his front side, straight to the ground.

“Help me,” he repeated in a softer tone, reaching his hands out to her before falling into unconsciousness.

Seeing that the man was lying on the ground like a dead person, she stuck a finger out to tap him to see if he was human or ghost.  When feeling that his body was solid and not transparent, she was reassured of his humanness and decided to bend to his level to wake him up.  “Hey you!” she called.  “Are you okay?  Wake up!  Wake up!”

But the man gave no response.

She put the bundle of herbs into her back-basket, and using both her hands, turned the man over to his back.  With his front body to her now, the girl noticed that this mysterious man was in fact, young and a soldier.  But his camouflage shirt was drenched in blood, the same crimson color that stained his hands. 

She ripped his shirt opened, and saw blood oozing continuously from a wound near his abdomen.  The flattened elliptical shape cut looked not like a bullet or an arrow wound, but a knife wound.  She assumed that he must have been stabbed.

She used his shirt to wipe the blood away, then pinched the skin folding around the wound and applied pressure to stop the bleeding.  Once she could let go without blood pouring out, she left him there and scurried the herb-abundant forest for a green that would heal his wound. 

He was a very lucky lad to have stumbled upon her, she thought.  If not for the reason that her father, an old warrior of the past wars, had sustained many injuries and was sick in his old days—she would not have to constantly find him herbs and if so, she would be unfamiliar with the plant that could save his life.  She soon found it, a shrub flowering violet buds whose leaves are broad and heart-shaped.  She quickly brought it back.  Using two rocks, she smashed the leaves into a fine paste.  She then applied the herb to his wound, and tore a piece of cloth from her green sash to help maintain the medicine in place.

After treating him, she looked to the sun.  Its bright, round sphere and golden beams have reached the peak of the blue sky already, and the girl knew that she must return home.  Her father was waiting for his morning herbal drink, and he would be worried sick if she was late.  But what would she do with the injured soldier.  She could not drag him all the way back to the village.  It was a long distance.  Besides, he was a man.  And men are always so heavy even when they were the scrawny type—which he was not at all.  So, she decided that it was best to leave him there. 

She searched the forest once more and came back to the unconscious young man.  She laid a couple of banana leaves next to him, and dumped a pound or two of lychee fruits onto the leave plate.  She then left her plhuaj taub—drinking-water gourd, beside him.  Before leaving though, she decided to study the young man so that she could remember his face. 

Having cleansed him up a little bit, she noticed that his features made out a quite handsome fellow.  His hairline formed a wide v-shaped on the tip of his forehead, his eyebrows curved like a sword, his eyelashes were dark and long, his nose bridge tall and straight, and his lips narrowed, but dried at the moment.  Even in his sleep, she could sense that he was charming, and had an aura unlike any young man in Ban Some. 

The more she gazed at him, the more her heart flickered and her cheeks blushed.  It was an odd feeling that she couldn’t quite make out.  She had watched her father in his sleep before, and she never felt anything but worries.  But then she had never looked at other young men due to her cowardly shy character, so she couldn’t tell whether the feeling was general to all young men or was it specific to just one man. 

Her heart felt heavy, and she didn’t want to leave him.  If not for the reason that she felt a connection with him even though she didn’t know who he was or where he came from, then for the reason that she was going to abandon an injured human being so her conscious was becoming guilty for the act.  But she had no choice.  It was either him, or her father.  “I’m leaving you for now,” she said reservedly.  “You’ll have to suffer alone the rest of the day.  If your people don’t come get you, then we’ll meet again when the sun rises tomorrow.”

The girl brushed her right hand against his high forehead, her jaws turned into a wide smile.  She then straightened her body and walked away.  And at the instant that she left, the young man opened his eyes slightly with his right hand reaching out for her once more, as if begging her not to leave him.  But she was unaware of this, and he fell back into an unconscious state.

She came home to brew medicine and looked after her father the rest of the day.  When she returned to the same spot the following morning, he was already gone.  The only things she found were the banana leaves and scraps of lychee skin.  She smiled, glad that he was alive.  Whoever he was and wherever he came from, she did not know.  But she looked to the sky, hopeful that the heavens would allow them to meet again someday.

She then went about her daily activity of gathering fresh herbs for her father.  It was not until she tied the handful of greens into a bundle that she noticed her silver bracelet was gone from her left wrist.  The bracelet was an amulet that her mother gave to her as a child to ward off evil spirits.  It had a pair of phoenix heads meeting at the ends, and attached to the heads were two tiny bells that jingled whenever she swung her left arm.  The sound, though, had become so normal to her ears that she had learned to zone it out, so that she had only just noticed its disappearance at the moment.

As she grew older, the bracelet became tighter and she recently had a silversmith enlarged the jewel.  But the silversmith made it too large, and it was loose around her wrist—falling out a couple of times in the past few days.  She was planning on taking it back to get it fix, but it was too late now.

In her mind, she retraced her steps to where the bracelet could have fallen off, and the only image that popped up was when she was helping the young soldier.  Her bracelet would have slipped to the ground when he grabbed her and she withdrew. 

She quickly rushed back to the area where she treated the young man.  She searched through the bushes and vegetation, looking within the vicinity to see if her bracelet might have fell somewhere around there.  But even after a morning’s search, she found nothing.

And it wasn’t until she saw the medics rushed a wounded soldier through the doors of the hospital that she spotted a phoenix head, silver bracelet encircling tightly around his wrist.  The arm that bore the bracelet had hung over the stretcher, and as the medics glided him across the hospital hall, the bracelet’s pair of bells jingled the same melody that was so natural to her ears. 

She was confident that he was the same young man, but to ensure that every piece of puzzle fit to form a clear picture, she lifted the cotton blanket covering his body and slightly pulled the patient shirt above his waist, just enough to expose a scar that would be present if he was the same young soldier she once helped.  And surely enough, it was there—a discoloration about two inches in length that felt bumpy when she ran her fingers across it.

 Lwg Dej smiled and covered him up again.  She then pulled his chart to read.  “Xyooj Vaj Huam,” she uttered the name written under the line—Patient Name.