This week on Dr. Sullivan

Hugh came in supporting a hispanic boy who looked to be in his teens. He wore a long sleeved plaid shirt, blue jeans, and boots. The boy was limping and refused to put any weight on his left leg. His skin and eyes were jaundiced and he seemed to be having trouble even standing. Under those jeans his leg was in bad shape. The skin and muscle on his lower leg was almost completely black with a thin section outlined in the yellows and red of infection and inflammation. His chest was heavily bruised on the right side with the tenth and eleventh ribs being cracked.

Hugh was in far better shape. He had taken a hit too, but it had been from a smaller caliber leaving him with a bruise without breaking any ribs. He wore a simple sky blue t-shirt and khaki cargo shorts. He was not going to risk bringing a gun, so he had simply filled the white, canvas, duffle bag with the other things they would need. Namely money, clothes, and paperwork. He figured it could be explained away as them being on vacation. He had both of their shares of the cash in that bag and had relinquished his cut of the drugs to get the others to agree to this. They wanted to put a bullet in Chino's head and be done with it, but Hugh was not going to let them simply murder their friend.

He set the hispanic boy in a chair and began filling out the paperwork to get him triaged. He had IDs for both of them claiming new names and stories that they were foster brothers from Galveston. His brother, Miguel, was urban spelunking and fell. He had claimed to simply have gotten a few scrapes and bruises. Hugh, under the name "Conor", was visiting the city with him and assumed his brother was just resting up while he had spent the past few days seeing the sights. When he finally checked in on him properly he found him in this state. He quickly dressed the wound using his travel sized first aid kit and took him here. Hence the latex gloves he still wore.

He filled in everything he could on the forms using this back story and turned it in. Then he took his seat to do his real job. If Chino made it, this came out of his cut. If he did not, Hugh would eat the cost and make sure the money got to his family. That was assuming that he kept his trap shut about what they had really been doing and who was involved. If he started spilling secrets, it was Hugh's job to silence him. To drive home the point the boy spent his time in the waiting room talking to his real family and assuring them that he,would be home soon, but that a couple of his friends would be stopping by to check in on them. He knew that the people he was telling them to expect and welcom were there to kill them if he betrayed them. His life and share were not the only things he would forfeit if he screwed up.

Hugh would play the devoted brother who would not leave his brother alone and was looking out for him the whole way. He had medical power of attorney while they were here and their parents would hold him responsible. He just could not let his brother suffer alone. He was like better than any of the others would have been at the role. They were his friends, but that only went so far. His cut and their general fear of the hospital getting them arrested was just too far for their friendship to stretch. Hugh cared some and did not want to see the kid die. He could be a good soldier some day. He might have been stupid to get shot and dumber to walk into a mine, but he had cowboyed up and finished the job. He had been willing to wait to allow the others to get out of town. He was loyal and they needed that.