Nurse Maggie Cooper and the Shaman Dawn

By Larry Strattner

Nurse Maggie Cooper and her husband Luke remain in the far northern California Redwood forests after massive economic and social changes render small cities and rural infrastructure decimated and dangerous.

Maggie continues as the healthcare provider for her isolated rural neighbors with the help of Lola a young orphan of the social storms.

They are assisted with homeopathic and ancient practices by Granny Longstreet an old Yurok tribal medicine woman, who also takes Lola under her wing and begins schooling her in the arts of the Shaman believing that new medicine will combine both practical and spiritual knowledge.

The interaction of new medicine and ancient rites, the battle of chaos with order and the survival of the good lends the story it’s name, Nurse Maggie and the Shaman Dawn.
An action tale centered on rural health care, personal growth and ancient native American medicine, Nurse Maggie and her friends survive danger and hardship and fight to begin a new era in their isolated world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Larry Strattner
• Release date: Jul 16, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476468129

Larry Strattner

Larry Strattner is the author of The Geek Assassin, Nurse Maggie Cooper and the Shaman Dawn, Queen of Hornets and Four of Swords and Other Tales of Random MayhemLarry’s work has appeared on line in Full of Crow, Bewildering Stories, MBrane SF, Twist of Noir, Cynic Online and numerous other literary e-magazines. He is a member of fictionaut.com. He was a finalist in the Deadly Ink short story competition and his story Exit Strategy was published in the paperback Deadly Ink collection. He writes an occasional newspaper column about items of pressing interest such as picking up your dog's poop while on walks.Bicycling, billiards, art, motorcycle racing and writing bad poetry are among his many interests.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Before the Beginning

To call a man evil is to not know him. We are all evil in the right moment. The test of a man is to pass by evil moments into another place, acceptance, perhaps understanding. I have never allowed those things I am to run free in anger, until the murder of my son.

Anyone can be overcome by the spirit of anger but I thought myself stronger. I thought myself more powerful. I was wrong. The man had killed my son, my youngest. My Otter.

The curse from the white man's world, drink, ensnared them. They fought. Otter lost. The killer, Logan, a tree feller, strong, a full grown man against my Otter could not be stopped. He cut Otter's throat with his skinning knife, a horrible way for a young man to die.

I stared into the distance for many days and then, having decided, waited for Logan in the dark, near the high path winding along the river, above the wet and shiny stones.

My power has been questioned, smiled at, even laughed at and mocked by those who have left the old ways. This night when Logan came walking from the drinking place where my son's blood still marked the floor I called upon the owl, aloft in the darkness of doom. His silent wings brushed across Logan's eyes and the man stumbled and turned, two steps to the void, the wet rocks of the river below rushing up to meet him with sudden justice.

I am old and frail. I could not have walked to the river in the darkness. I could not overcome a man like Logan. I traveled free in my magic, inside the evil a shaman must not do. It will haunt me, but the blood of my son demanded me. Logan will be among the dark spirits, lost. It was rumored my son was not the first Logan killed. The world is better without him, but in my anger I am made less.

Since my night of evil the world has also grown worse.

Years ago the wave of babies was born that would change the majority of people in America from mostly white to mostly brown, yellow and black.

No one took much notice then. Some people like babies. Others don't care much and do not pay attention. Neither sit and count the babies white, black, brown, yellow or other colors saying to themselves, Look, there aren't as many white babies being born as the other colors. Might something be changing?

Now the change is felt. Those babies are 16 years old. Continuing struggles over control of resources and money have grown. Some wrongs have been righted and some things not wrong have been righted nonetheless. Many whose hearts were hard were pushed aside. Modern things were maintained but now often halt completely and unexpectedly and even then never reach out very far from the city. Phones stopped. Television stopped. Food markets stopped. Gasoline stopped. We people living on the land found ourselves on our own.

In June, of the year of the babies, the District Attorney of our Humboldt County in northern California announced he didn’t have enough staff to prosecute misdemeanor crimes like petty theft, vandalism and vagrancy. Law enforcement was running out of money. As you might imagine, as the money dwindled to nothing things became worse.

Someone lost in the mists of history predicted the world would end, not with a bang but with a whimper. The world was busily proving this prophet all-knowing, not much use when you are dead.

The babies of the wave were now playing 3-D video games, stepping inside their movies, sending written words with their voices and taking even more drugs, driving reckless in cars computers prevented from having an accident. Most money was spent on entertainment. Whatever people thought the future would bring, it brought, none of it helpful. Few could read anymore. Many places in the country got dangerous for white people, whether they could read or not. They’d had ruled for almost three hundred years but their day was over. The chickens were home to roost.

Almost everyone ‘civilized’ is 20 pounds overweight, growing slowly stupider and lives in a city or close to one. Presidents have come and gone. Most are better gone. Towns, villages and the country folk are left to their own devices. People with skills migrated to places where they could survive. In most cases this meant in or close to cities.

Here, behind the Redwood curtain in northern California, help for people in need disappeared, hospitals and clinics closed, doctors headed for Portland or San Francisco, law enforcement broke down and much of the white population, even though not immediately threatened, left to take shelter in safer places or the cities where law enforcement or token military control seemed to promise more security.

We country people stayed home and hunkered down.

My house was built by Curtis Longstreet, a white man, a Forester, my grandmother's husband. He was the first of our new families. He is why I am called Granny Longstreet. My family name before the Europeans came was Wherl-ker-eesh-neg, for the Wolf. The first trading store made our name Welker. They could not say the name of the Wolf.

My grandmother's name was Chegemem, meaning Hummingbird. Whites called her Birdie. They do not like complicated names. She was a strong woman. Part of her name, temem, means the sound of her humming and is also the name of the rattlesnake’s buzz. Beware and leave her to her business.

"Since their Economic Downturn as they called it and the rise of people of color, the New Majority they call it, the white man’s world has fallen before the wind. For them life was taking and they were never happy living on the land. Though we of the ancient, native people have grown less in number, we still suffer the ills and curses they brought, the disease, the whiskey, the drugs.

"The world is always new. It changes for all of us as it has for me from a Wherl-ker-eesh-neg, to a Welker, to a Longstreet. People are lost, find each other and go on together. When I was a little girl I was sealed to be a medicine woman. For many years I listened and learned secret things, the spirit of the forest and worlds not easily seen. Soon it will be time for me to pass along things I have learned. My friend Nurse Maggie and I speak often of healing and the remedies found in the forest. Another realm beyond these awaits whoever I choose and teach to carry on our tradition.

Maggie Cooper, her husband Luke, adopted daughter Lola and me, Granny Longstreet, Maggie’s teacher in the ancient healing arts were hunkering in the forest. Nurse Maggie ministers to the rural people remaining along the Lost Coast and up into the land clinging to the slopes of the coastal mountain range.

In this wild and beautiful country the easy timber has been cut, the gold extracted and my entire ancient culture almost eradicated. Most towns in what was called the Emerald Triangle have become company towns. The company product is marijuana. Marijuana as fine as only a temperate rain forest can grow. When the area had been a bit more ‘civilized’ there were also other drugs, causing other problems. But most of those have disappeared.

The struggle to hang on and the challenge of serving the health of a far flung, remote and often ancient society has made it unclear what the future will bring for Nurse Maggie Cooper.

Her journey toward rebirth of the land and its people and her care of those courageous people who fight the good fight to survive is the center of this story. She gives her best to help those in need. She is true to herself: this is the one and only Yurok Law.

Chapter 2

Bullets, Babies and Granny

A sudden loud noise accompanied by the splintering explosion of a small tree close by has a way of focusing one’s attention. The bullet zipped past Maggie Cooper, inches in front of her nose and whacked into a medium sized alder tree bursting it to fragments of bark and wood splinters.

Some say you can’t hear a bullet in flight, but Maggie did. The report, bullet passage and exploding tree seemed simultaneous, yet each distinct.

She dropped to the ground. Rolled into the roadside ditch, flicked the safety off on her rifle and waited. Blending with the weeds in her camouflage, long auburn hair braided back and twisted into a bun to avoid obstructing her vision, she let her breathing settle down.

Lucky I missed you, dipshit. A high, crackly, old man’s voice, followed the bullet out of the forest.

Goddamn it, Cade Maggie called, recognizing the voice. What is wrong with your damn eyes? It’s me, Nurse Maggie.

Ought not to be sneaking around out here.

I’m not sneaking. I’m walking in the road. Doing my work. You won’t like it if I shoot back. I can see you a lot better than you can see me. I’m going to stand up. Point your gun at the ground.

Making no noise. Sneaking around. Hardly see you in those clothes.

No excuse. I’m out here on my nursing rounds. You know I come by on my rounds. You’ve no call to be shooting at anybody out here you don’t know who they are. Any baddies stay out near Route 101. People in here are friends. You kill some friend in here and the people left will give you a blanket party. Roll you up, let you float down the river and drown. She scanned the woods through her scope and picked him out among the lush green ferns. His mean looking face was above the fronds.

Now she had him spotted, his head with greasy, spiky unkempt hair, bobbing on the end of his ropy Adam’s apple bumped neck. She stood up, chest high in the weeds, near invisible among the poke and mullein. Her rifle was at ready but held low, hidden from the woods. Maggie thanked God he was so old with such bad eyes. Were he a better shot she would never have known what hit her. Her small size probably helped. The hunting camouflage suit gave her cover on her travels where it paid to see first rather than to be seen. She had hunted deer every year in Michigan with her father, Louis, and was an expert with firearms. The hours spent under Louis Murray’s tutelage, a former Marine, had now borne valuable fruit. Since the breakdown of services and law enforcement the world was much less safe. One tried to be sure of the lay of the land before walking it. The tools to protect one’s life needed be kept sharp.

Her eyes stayed glued on her aggressor. Back when life was more sociable her eyes had been one of her best assets. She caught her husband Luke with her big eyes. Even today he wasn’t clear about what hit him. She knew when they met he was the one for her. She gave him full wattage. Now her eyes were narrowed, watching Cade Smythe.

I’m walking away. Stay the hell where you are. I’ve got to see a sick baby down at Anhault’s. Don’t move. I’ll be telling Peter Dillon you got a round off at me too. You want to stay in one piece you’ll hold off shooting till you’re damn sure who someone is.

Smythe did not reply. He was too nasty to be sorry. Too ornery to apologize. Too hateful of strangers. Mention of Peter would calm him down. Scare him straight. While a fair and honorable man, Peter was tough. He had the biggest farming and grow operation in the area Maggie served. He brooked no shenanigans from neighbors. Cade knew any justice from Peter would be swift. Peter’s name made Cade think twice.

Maggie resolved to get a closer look at Cade as soon as possible. Give him a cursory physical. Decide what to do for him. If he was getting senile, as she suspected, he would need care. Couldn’t allow him to go around shooting at passers-by, even if he missed. She could perhaps brew him up some St John’s Wort to settle him down. Someone would have to make sure he took it. He was crotchety enough to quit taking a prescription as soon as no one was watching. She made a note in a small lined pad as she walked. She’d get Peter to send a man with her to Smythe’s. Force him to sit still for a chat. Take care of him, whether he liked it or not. God, she thought, internal medicine, trauma medicine, gynecology and now, psychiatric medicine. Glad I saved my textbooks.

* * *

Anhault’s cabin was less than three miles distant. Cade made her late so she used one of her hidden bicycles to make up time. After cars had stopped without the gas that fed them Maggie began hiding bicycles along her frequent routes behind the Redwood Curtain. A person on foot could expect to cover ten miles on a good day, even following roads. Throw in a few ravines, climbs and forest paths and the going got difficult. Her hidden bikes took the edge off.

When Maggie walked into the clearing Carol Anhault stood on her porch waiting. Dressed in a wrinkled, flannel shirt and jeans. Hair gathered behind in a loose ponytail, Carol clasped and unclasped her hands, worry showing in her eyes.. No telling how long she had been standing there watching, anxious, and distraught. Baby Kate was her first child. When Les Anhault came for Maggie it was clear he had been traveling fast. She responded in kind; she wanted the Anhaults to know she cared about their child.

Thank God you’re here, Carol wrung her hands. Kate’s right inside. She’s got a fever. She’s burning up. Maggie entered the spacious cabin. Baby Kate lay in a handmade pinewood cradle softly crying accompanied by phlegmy sounds. She was struggling a bit but breathing deeply. Her little fists were clenched over her chest. Her face was red. Maggie put her hand on Kate’s forehead.

The fever is breaking, she said to Carol. Probably happened in the time you were waiting for me on the porch. She put her pinky finger in Kate’s mouth and opened it to peek at her throat. Good. Nothing bad going on in there. She took a dental mirror from her kit , moved baby Kate’s cradle a bit so she could catch a sunbeam, shone the light into baby Kate’s ear. No infection in there. There was a faint smell of vomit, stronger than normal spit-up but not smelling dangerously foul. We’ll give her something to settle her stomach. With babies things happen quickly. She still has whatever it is, for sure, but you can hardly feel the fever now and it sounds like its loosening. Her glands are good. Her air passages are a bit clogged but nothing serious. This is good. She’ll be fine. I’ll come back again tomorrow and then set up my calls out here so I can get by every other day. She sounds and looks on the mend. Hard to tell what sicknesses are these days. Probably just a stray cold but we’ll keep an eye on her. You’re still breast feeding? Not giving her anything else?

Carol shook her head, No, just breast milk.

Good then keep her warm and cozy. Let her eat when she’ll eat, and this will pass. She gave Carol a packet of herbs. Boil these, let them cool, sponge her all over while the water’s warm. It will help her. Make her more comfortable as she comes off the fever. She’ll be fine.

Thank you Nurse Maggie, Carol said, taking both of Maggie’s hands. She and Carol did not know each other well. Nonetheless, Maggie drew her into a hug.

Just Maggie is fine, she said to Carol with a smile. Les giving Luke a hand with the stonework on our cabin was very helpful to us. We’ve got to stick together. I’ll come back to check on Kate next week. Long as I’m out here I’m going over to the Longstreet’s. Granny Longstreet likes to see me. She probably helps me more than I help her.

She waved goodbye to Carol and entered the forest path heading for Longstreet’s.

Carol called after her, Thank you!

Nature had taken her course. Maggie had done little for Kate other than sooth her a bit after the worst had already passed. Comfort and assurance for loved ones were a large part of Maggie’s calling and she administered them well. For a proper job of healing people had to believe in the healer. Maggie thought nurses knew this better than many doctors.

* * *

Well girl! Come to see my decaying old self, lying on the forest floor with all the big trees? The old woman spoke cheerily from her rocker on the porch.

Oh, for heaven’s sake Granny. You’re fine. You’re always looking for visitors so you can tell stories.

Need to tell them to someone who can understand. Someone who will tell them again to the next people who need to hear them. Granny adjusted herself in her woven willow rocking chair. Her long plain dress was clean and pressed. She kept an old stove-heated iron to use on her clothes. The iron was black with a turned redwood handle. She used it expertly, as her other implements from bygone times. Her long graying hair was loosely braided behind in a sheaf.. She was a small woman with a large aura.

You feel good? asked Maggie.

No one feels good at my age. Least the sun’s out. Looks like the earth’s having a good day. It’s not quite as warm as where I’ll be headed in the next life.

Maggie laughed. "For crying out