Novel Yancy

yancy wakes

Yancy opened his eyes. Majag felt the bed move under his folded arms and head. He did not know how long he had been asleep this time. Majag was surprised to see Yancy pulling at the bandages that covered his eyes.





“Hello, nephew,” Majag tried to sound as happy as all the times he had told the child stories. “You have been a sleep for a while.”





“Where is Momma?” It didn't matter what nationality a child in pain needed his mother. Majag gently pulled the small wounded hand from his face. “I want Momma. I hurt so bad.” Majag lacked the words that he needed, “Shhhh.”





“Nurse!”





“How may I help you?” A lovely older woman, who could have been a grandmother herself, ran into the room. She walked over to the child.





“I want to go home!” Yancy's chest was beginning to move rapidly with sobs that yielded no tears through the bandages. “I want my Mom!”





Sara was the name on her name tag. She glanced at Majag. He looked terrified. She had to break news like this almost daily, but she knew that she had more practice than the family.





Sara pulled a chair to the other side of the bed opposite Majag. She took the other hand that was nearly unburned. She raised it to her lips. “Do you know where you are?” she asked the child.





“No,” He just wanted his Momma to make it all better. Yancy looked around the strange room. He was unable to recognize anything he saw except for his uncle. This was one time that Majag did not sport his usual bright smile.





“You are in the hospital.” Sara explained. “Do you remember anything about being in your house? Do you remember the fire?”





Young Yancy looked confused. “Fire?” Then he looked at his bandaged hand that was yellowing with discharge.





“Yes, child, your house burned down.” She was careful not to tell the boy the reason for the fire. That he would remember slowly on his own. “Your parents and sister did not make it. The fire nearly took you and Bidzill. Now you will be fine in a few days.”





Yancy turned his head toward his uncle. Majag face told the entire story. Yancy only had him now. “Where is Bidzill?”





“You needed to get better. Bidzill went to live with an Indian couple, Cherokee tribe I think. He is their only child.” Sara handed him a cup with three pills in it. “ This will stop you from hurting so bad.”





“No! I am a Cherokee and a brave son of a Sheriff.” He pushes the cup away. “I don't want that stuff.”





“Yan....” Majag began to demand the boy to take the medication.





“That is ok. He is a brave boy. I think he will make the Great Spirit proud.” Sara smiles toward Yancy as she unwrapped the soiled bandages from his hand.





Each unwrapped finger was covered with yellow blisters and oozing burnt flesh. Yancy looked at the arm, and then at Sara. “What does my face look like?”





She continued to treat his deformed arm. “I have to change the wraps on your face next. Then I will give you a mirror.”





Majag looked at Sara as if she had lost her mind. He had not even seen the boy's face since the firemen backed ice around it in the ambulance.





“Are you sure are ready to see?” Sara asked him.





Yancy had not seen anything but shadows through the dressing. “Yes, I want to see.”





Sara handed the child a mirror in his unburned hand. He holds it up in front of his face as Sara unwrapped it. As Sara uncovered his eyes, Yancy could see that the dressings would stick on the discharge in certain places. Sara used a soaked wash cloth to loosen the cloth. She continued to unwrap his young face.





First thing Yancy noticed was that he did not have any hair in the front of his head. He had no eye brows or lashes. The top of one eye was nothing but blister. He did not recognize his own face. Yellow pockets were large from one side of his nose. The blisters created a monster’s face where a child once was.





“Yancy, are you alright?” Majag asks.





He continued to stare into his reflection. “Will I always look like this? I don't have ears and some of my nose is gone.”





“You will never be the same as you were. That I will not lie to you about.” Sara announced as hopeful as the circumstances would allow. “We are going to take skin from other parts of your body and use it to re-create your ears and nose. You will still have scars, but you will live.”





Yancy allowed the mirror to fall into his lap.





“It is up to you what your life will become.” Sara picked up the mirror. She turned his face toward her own to have eye contact. “You are still living. You can either give up, and be the monster that you think you see in the mirror. Or you can use what you see; the fight, the survivor, the strength, the Cherokee Brave. You can be what it is that the Great Spirit saved you to be.”





“How do you know about the Great Spirit?” Yancy asked.





“My grandmother was a Apache maiden. She was given to my Grandfather a solider in the army. Grandfather tried to hide her by creating a white-man's life. I would ride out to meet with the Apache after my mother told me who her mother was.” Sara continued. “My grandmother's tribe, that she had forsaken, taught me of the Indian way.”





After Sara finished treating and dressing the burns, she pulled out a small clay turtle. “My grandmother gave this to my mother when she gave birth to me. The turtle is a symbol of Mother Earth. She stands for order, creation, patience, strength, longevity, innocence, endurance, and protection.”





Yancy looked at the turtle that Sara held. His mother wore a turtle bead in hair.











“I didn't have any children, and today if the birth of a new Yancy Lancer.” Sara says as she rubbed the turtle. She whispered a prayer. “This turtle is meant to be passed to another. I want you to have it.”





Yancy took the turtle, and he tucked it under his pillow. That was the day that Yancy made up his mind to be all that he could be without self pity. Sara and Yancy spent time everyday together learning from each other until he was released three months later.





Sara sensed how the boy felt as she walked with him in the hall. “Yancy, I bet you are ready to leave this stuffy hospital.” Sara said trying to feel out what the boy was thinking.





Yancy looked down at his wrapped feet covered in modified moccasins. His bearskin shoes were only soles wrapped with strands of the hide so that they could be removed easily to treat the burns.





“I guess so.” He answered. He did not know how he would feel when he would live with his mother's tribe.





“You know that you do not want to be here any more.” Sara reaches for the child's uninjured hand.





“I don't know what is out there for me.” He replied beginning to look toward Sara.





“You have family. Majag has been by your side everyday, and he has gone today to let everyone know that you are coming.” Sara tried to confront the nervous child.





The two friends walk to Yancy's bed where she cleaned and wrapped the burns. “They are looking so much better.” She said.





Yancy had a hard time falling to sleep this night because of thinking about going to a different place to call home. His mother's family. His mother's home. Would he be excepted?





Magaj walked into the room where Yancy sat waiting nervously with his few belongs he collected in the hospital in a small bag.





Magaj was not alone. He had Berry Blossom with him. Berry Blossom was a sister to his grandfather Rising Son. Yancy nearly cried when he seen this woman who he once knew as his aunt looked like an older version of his mother.





Berry Blossom glances at Sara who was standing behind a wooden chair that had large wheels attached. “This is Yancy?” Berry Blossom asks.





Yancy begins to be worried. Not even his favorite aunt knew him. She walks over. “Let me see. I don't think this is the same little boy who chased Ole Bug, the stray dog in the tribe, with those sticks.” She she helps him cover his face with protective cloth from the sun he would encounter out side the hospital. “You are half grown.” She smiles at Yancy, nods to Sara that they were ready to make their way from the hospital, and follows behind the chair.

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