The Sicilian

by Donna and Abs

The sound of the horse's hooves thudding as it galloped was the only thing that Salvatore Giuliano  heard anymore. When he had been caught trying to smuggle grain to some of the peasants that the landowners were basically starving out, he and his friend had stolen some horses and fled. But he hadn't escaped totally free. The kick of a bullet in his back and the spreading fire in his gut told him that. As his horse splashed through a stream, Sal struggled to stay on, a bright trail of red fanning out in the water behind him. Somehow he managed to stay in the saddle, and once out of water, the horse galloped on again. Sal was barely conscious by then, and he was unaware that he was now alone, and that the landscape around him had changed. The horse charged past a sign that said *Edan* and into a sleepy looking town that looked like it belonged in the old western frontier of America.  

Giuliano slipped off the horse just as people noticed he was there.  Lupe had smelled the blood, but had had to restrain Nathaniel, and hadn't gotten to go get Methos before the strange man actually arrived and fell off his horse into the street.  Fortunately, he was right in front of the clinic! 

The last thing the Sicilian saw before darkness claimed him were the faces of the doctors who had raced out of the clinic, faces that all looked the same!  

"Dear God," said Helm, "He's shot in the back!" 

"Get him inside," said Shepherd.  "Alex and Sarah, go get things ready while Robert, Ben and I carry him in." 

They raced inside and got an exam bed ready for him to be placed on. When the others brought him in, Alex set up the surgical tray while Sarah Jo started to strip off  his clothes and the others scrubbed up.  "No exit wound," Sarah Jo said as she got his shirt and pants off. "And his belly is distended. He must be bleeding internally."  

"Wonderful," said Helm.  "Just wonderful. Someone find one of the Connors - preferably the real thing!" 

Luckily one of the policemen who had come to see what was going on was Mullard, who fit the genetic type needed. A pony express rider was then quickly dispatched out to the MacLeod place. The elder highlander had just returned the evening before from his latest run with his ship, and would most likely be with Katherine at the farm.  

Meanwhile they set up Mullard for transfusion.  Although they had refrigeration, it was kept cold enough to freeze, and they did not want to freeze blood.  Fortunately there was no shortage of donors.  Usually. 

As Sarah Jo deftly inserted an IV needle into the injured man's arm, Helm started to probe his belly, trying to locate the bullet. If he could feel it from the outside, they wouldn't have to cut him wide open and go searching for it. "Found it!" he announced.

Shepherd handed him a scalpel.  "How deep?  Can we do it with a local?" 

Sarah Jo was asked what his vital signs were, and it was decided that he wasn't stable enough to put completely under even though the bullet was fairly deep. A local would have to do. He was rolled onto his side, and given an epidural that would effectively numb him from the chest down. Once that was done, he was rolled back onto his back and after his belly was scrubbed and a sterile drape placed over him, Helm made an incision in his lower belly. But as he started to probe with his fingers for the bullet inside, Sal's eyes flew open and he moaned softly. Sarah Jo hushed him, telling him to be still, that it would be over with in just a little bit.  

Helm had withdrawn from him when he awoke so quickly, but now he went back to trying to find the bullet.   The patient grabbed his hand and looked at him intensely, and Helm gave a little cry of surprise.  "Damn it, someone keep him still!" 

Sarah Jo placed her hand on top of Sal's. "He's a doctor," she told him in a soothing tone of voice. "He's only trying to help you. You've been shot and Dr. Helm is looking for the bullet so he can remove it."  

Sal looked at her and then Helm, then released his tight grip. "Take it out then!" he ordered. 

"I'm bloody well trying!" said Helm, but both Sarah Jo and Shepherd gave him warning looks and he shrugged, getting his shoulders set to go probe for the bullet.  It took a few minutes, during which Sarah Jo stood by the patient's side, holding his hand.  And then Helm was successful! 

He pulled the bullet out and placed it on the tray, then went back inside, to see if the bullet had caused any damage that he would have to repair before closing him up. "I don't think he has a perforated bowel," he said as he put a drain into the wound and then packed it with gauze. "When MacLeod gets here, give him a couple of units of his blood, and that should help."  

Alex brought over the suture tray and they closed up the small wound Helm had made, and then the one that was made when the bullet went in.  That one needed far more cleaning and repair work before it was closed. 

During this, the patient remained surprisingly alert, his intense eyes watching them all as they went about their work. After they were finished, and were cleaning up, he finally spoke. "Where am I?" he asked.  

"You are in Edan," said Adams, who had been assisting.  "It is difficult to explain it other than to say it is another world, other than the one in which you once lived." 

"My name is Salvatore Giuliano. I am Sicilian. Who are you all, and why do you look alike? Are you brothers? And why do they..." he motioned to Mullard who was lying quietly on a cot while recovering from giving blood, and to Connor MacLeod, who had just walked in, "look like they are mine?"  

"I honestly cannot tell you," said Adams.  "We only know that men continue to arrive who have the same face." 

"But in this case it is fortunate," interrupted Shepherd as he took Connor over toward where Mullard was lying.  "The blood is the same, as well, and there is enough to replace what you have lost." 

"Good," the Sicilian said. "It will help me recover faster then so I can return to my people." He closed his eyes, and with a sigh, let himself slip back into the darkness again.  

Connor chuckled as he held out his arm for Sarah Jo to insert the needle into his vein. "Salvatore Giuliano, huh? Do you guys have any idea who this man is?"

"Just another one who looks like you," said Alex as he finished cleaning up.  "Why, is he famous, like the Padre?" 

"Infamous would be a better term. He took on the Mafia, the Italian government, and the Roman Catholic church all at once in an armed revolt over the conditions of the poorer people in Sicily. They mounted one of the biggest manhunts ever for him in order to stop him. He is still revered as a folk hero in Sicily."  

"Well, we have no poor people here," said Methos as he came in to see what was happening.  He had just overheard the tail end of Connor's speech.  "I wonder what we'll do with him?" 

MacLeod shrugged. "I'm sure he will apply himself to something. He was an excellent horseman. Maybe he would like training horses rather than filling the streets with a great deal of  blood. Believe me, he is capable of doing the latter!"