by Christa Wick
Dazed, unsteady on his feet, Mongo lifted his revolver.
I put two slugs in his chest.
"There you are, pig."
I swung my weapon toward the sound of Junker's voice. Before I could spot the biker, the muzzle of the AR-15 flashed. With my body flying backward from the bullet's impact, I fired off one last shot in the direction of the flash.
I landed on my back, tried to roll before he could take another shot. The pain spreading through my gut was too great. Vision fading to black, I lifted my head and saw Junker. A thin ray of light fell on the man's face. His eyes were open, the gaze dull but alive.
Head falling back to the ground, I passed out to the sound of him laughing.
19
Delia
Staring into my coffee cup, I listened as Dr. Thorne Nygård outlined the equipment needs of Willow Gap's non-profit medical clinic. As the clinic's major donor, Lindy was on the board of trustees. So was Siobhan.
I rolled my lips to keep from smiling. Siobhan's presence at the meeting was less about the community's health needs than it was about Nygård's physical resemblance to some Viking War God. The man had flaming red hair, a darker red beard, was tall as an oak and almost as thick.
"I vote we do a harvest festival," Siobhan said, marking the idea down on her notepad. "People who can't afford to donate much can give us their time. Others who can't be bothered to donate will spend their money anyway."
A mischievous grin cracked Siobhan's face wide open.
"I'm sure we could clean up with the ranch hands if we get Adler, Royce and Will to sit a spell in the water tank."
Lindy laughed at the idea of dunking her oldest son, along with the stable master and the ranch's foreman.
"You're right, it's time to pull the tank back out," she said, before throwing a wink at Nygård. "Maybe the kissing booth, too."
Siobhan clucked at her aunt before turning to the doctor.
"Now, Thorne, I want you to understand that your employment is not at all conditioned on your willingness to kiss a bunch of women you don't know."
"Or ones you do," Lindy teased.
Siobhan tossed her aunt another disapproving look before continuing. "Plus, we can all agree that a kissing booth is very unsanitary."
"You're right," Lindy agreed. "But it might give Willow Gap a population boost after all those married ladies go home to their husbands."
Gut hurting with the need to laugh at Siobhan's distress, I offered a suggestion. "What about a pie auction? I was surprised there wasn't anything like that last year."
"Oh!" Lindy smiled. "Yes, that will bring in some of the families from the colonies. I don't know when the last time I had Schuten pie was."
Siobhan shuddered then leaned over to whisper in my ear. "It's cottage cheese pie. Wouldn't bid on that, not even to buy it for someone I don't like. But the fig pockets they bring are to die for."
Siobhan straightened as the pager attached to her utility belt beeped. She looked down, read the numbers.
"Just a second," she said, jumping up from her chair and quickstepping into the kitchen. I heard the radio crackle, but whatever was said was too low to make out.
Maybe half a minute after leaving the room, Siobhan returned at a run.
"I need you and your medical bag!" she ordered, her gaze locked on Nygård.
He nodded, quickly rising from his seat.
"And you!" Siobhan pointed at me. "You said you did your Montana certs this spring?"
I bobbed my head.
"Up," Siobhan said. "I need you both. We've got multiples."
"What is it?" Lindy asked, chasing after us through the living room. "Was there a pile-up on the highway?"
"Don't worry, Aunt Lindy."
Siobhan's face didn't match her words. Her mouth wrenched downwards and her hands patted around her utility belt like she was checking the placement of each item, including her 9mm.
Especially her 9mm.
Lindy grabbed her niece by the arm.
"Emerson…"
Siobhan paled, grabbed Lindy's hand and squeezed it before stepping onto the porch.
"I imagine he's sitting in his office in Billings," she said. "No time to talk, we have to go."
Nygård was already off the porch and pulling his kit from his trunk. I slid past Lindy and helped him stuff two bags in the back of the patrol car.
I took the front passenger seat. Siobhan jumped behind the wheel, hit the siren and pulled away from the house. Leaving the ranch, we headed west.
"Okay," Siobhan said. "I just lied to Aunt Lindy."
My heart clogged my throat, the thick mass threatening to choke the life out of me.
"Emerson?"
"Don't know anything other than he's on site. Maddy called in the alert for medical assistance." Her eyes leaving the road for a split second, Siobhan glanced at me. "Gamble talked to her, she's okay. FBI's still clearing the scene to make sure it's safe. They had one air ambulance pickup already, but the other helicopter they had on standby won't fly. Something about the dust storm overloading its safety sensors. A lot of help inbound, but you two are the closest."
"What are we looking at?" Nygård asked as he pushed a pair of medical gloves through the window for me to put on.
"Gunshot wounds, a lot of them," Siobhan answered. "Afraid we're kind of putting you right back in Baltimore."
I pulled my phone from my pocket, checked it for messages from Maddy or Sutton. I didn't expect any from Emerson, didn't know if he even had my number despite making love to me a day earlier.
"How far?" I asked.
"From here," Siobhan estimated, "about eight miles of dirt road with three intersections and hopefully no fracking cows."
I looked at the surrounding fields and then in the back seat, my gaze landing on the bags Nygård was arranging.
"You look like you have everything but the actual surgical tray."
He nodded, his big hands running over everything like he was memorizing their location.
"I reviewed the major accident reports for the last three years," he said. "Especially fatalities. The rescue team lost a young woman who was buried up to her elbow in an auger."
“Molly Tapper,” Siobhan said, her mouth instantly pulling into a deep frown. “Don’t imagine her parents are ever going to recover.”
His bright gaze turning grim, Nygard pulled out a bone cutting tool.
“Before that," he said, "a senior citizen died when his trailer slid and pinned him.”
“Phil Marcus,” Siobhan whispered, her gaze jumping to the mirror and the bone tool Nygård still gripped. “I hope to God you are over prepared for today.”
Zipping his bag, he nodded.
“So do I.”
I found I was holding my breath. I quietly exhaled, forced myself to take a calm breath in.
"Should I call Sutton?" I asked.
I really needed to. My brain had suddenly developed sharp claws intent on savaging the inside of my skull. The scratch of nail on bone seemed to spell out Emerson's name.
"No," Siobhan answered. "He's not medical and he's not law enforcement. If Maddy wants him to know something, she'll tell him herself."
"Okay." I rotated my phone in my hand, need still scraping inside me. That Maddy might have already told Sutton something was the entire reason for my desire to call him.
"Here." Nygård pushed the smaller of his bags through the open window. "Fixed it up for you."
"Thanks." I unzipped, made a quick inventory. Looking up from the contents, a swear word blew past my lips as I spotted smoke billowing on the horizon.
"Is that our target location?" Nygård asked.
Siobhan croaked out an acknowledgment, her face screwed tight as she concentrated on the road.
We turned down another dirt road, its width barely bigger than the car. Tall pine loomed up in front of us, but the road cut through. For a second, the smoke disappeared, then we cleared the trees and saw the carnage in front of us.
Men, nine of them, were handcuffed to what looked like holding pens for cattle. Five were dressed in combat fatigues, their faces covered with camouflage paint. The other four wore riding leathers. Two men dressed in black tactical gear stood watch over them, assault rifles loosely pointed in the prisoners' direction.
Bikes were on the ground in the dirt. Half of a brown delivery van was buried against the side of a barn. Smoke continued to drift up from the roof of the barn, but the fire looked like it was down to one small corner.
Siobhan pulled off the road next to a state patrol car. Jumping out, she yanked the door open for Nygård.
Maddy had already spotted us.
"Thorne!" she shouted. "Over here! They brought a kid with them, damn it!"
Siobhan joined the state trooper while Nygård and I rushed over to Maddy. The male body she hunched over was close to six feet long, but lingering deposits of baby fat softened the bone structure of both the hairless chin and cheeks still spotted by teenage acne.
I guessed the boy was maybe fifteen. Not old enough to drive a car on his own, but old enough under state law to carry a weapon.
"We just pulled him out of a pile of canoes. Had a sniper rifle," Maddy said as she made way for Nygård to begin working on the kid. "I have two air ambulances inbound, first in five, second in fifteen. But the first one lost its physician."
I pulled the bleeding control pack from the larger medical bag and unrolled it for Nygård.
"Combat gauze," he barked.
I opened the container and handed him the gauze. Dancing along the periphery of my gaze, I saw more bodies on the ground, all of them perfectly still. All of them dead.
I looked at Maddy. She read the question stamped on my face.
"Haven't found him. Tactical finished extinguishing the barn fire just after you pulled in. We found explosives in the van, so tactical has to clear the barn first. If he's in there, they'll find him."
Nodding, I realized the steady thrum vibrating in my ears was a helicopter. Five minutes went fast when there was a kid on the ground bleeding out.
"They're here," I told Nygård. "We have to get him ready to lift."
He grabbed my hand and put it on top of the clotting gauze that covered the boy's stomach.
"Keep pressure!"
From his bag, he pulled out an adhesive pressure dressing and attached one end to the boy's skin just beyond the edge of the wound. Together, we orchestrated keeping pressure on the injury. Nygård slid the dressing over my hand and I slipped my hand out right before he pulled the dressing taut and adhered it to the other side.
Maddy shouted into her hand radio, directing the team off the helicopter. Nygård helped the crew load the boy onto a board.
"If I don't go with them, I think he dies," Nygård told Maddy.
She nodded. Nygård ran to catch up with the aircrew.
Head spinning, I scooped up the medical bags he left behind and ran for the barn.
20
Delia
The hand radio screeched as Maddy chased after me.
"This is Alpha Three, barn is clear. Need a medic now!"
In the time Nygård and I were working on the boy and loading him into the air ambulance, the tactical team had pulled the van away from the barn. One of the team members stepped out, then dodged to the side as I barreled through with one medkit slung over my shoulder and the other clutched to my chest.
"Where?"
"Here," a big voice boomed. "One entry wound that I can tell. Lower right groin, but I can't see where he's bleeding from."
I fell to my knees next to Emerson's body, elbowing the man out of the way as I put on a fresh pair of gloves.
"Ten minutes!" Maddy shouted. "Next air ambulance is ten minutes out."
Seeing how pale Emerson was, how big the bloodstain that soaked his clothes and the ground beneath him, I wanted to scream that ten minutes was too damn long.
Ten minutes could be a death sentence.
"Pulse?" I asked the man helping me.
"Weak," he answered. "But it's there and he's still breathing on his own."
I pulled trauma scissors and gloves from the bag and handed them to him. "Cut the pants and vest off."
I took out an IV kit next. While a tactical vest covered his torso, most of his arm was bare. I quickly tied off a tourniquet around his lower bicep then slapped and squeezed at the flesh near the crook of his arm.
As much as he had bled, the veins were in retreat.
"I need light!" I shouted.
Maddy repeated the command over her radio as she pulled a Maglite from her utility belt and pointed its beam at Emerson's arm.
I swabbed the skin, prepped the catheter and needle. Sticking him, I had to dig around before locating and piercing the vein.
"Done!" the man said.
I shoved the IV bag at him.
"Stand and hold this like your life depends on it—because his does."
Maddy moved the light as I turned my attention to Emerson's lower right abdominal area.
"I need that chopper and more light now!" Maddy yelled into her radio.
It wasn't just the lack of light, I knew. The air itself was dark with lingering smoke.
"You have oxygen?" I asked as one of the agents ran in with a portable light on its own stand.
He nodded, issuing an order for O2 into his radio as he positioned the light.
"Water," I yelled as I wiped a piece of cloth along Emerson's blood-soaked groin in search of the wound.
The man unhooked a canteen from his utility belt, unscrewed the cap then looked at me.
"Pour here."
I kept swabbing.
"Good, keep pouring, keep—stop!"
God, I thought as I looked at the entry wound. It was such a small hole.
Then a pulse of blood pushed up.
Sucking in a breath, I forced myself to continue assessing the situation instead of who I was working on and what he meant to me.
Active bleeding.
Proximal extremity.
Tourniquet would be of no fucking use.
A blur of people rushed into the barn. Siobhan was one of them, a portable oxygen cylinder cradled to her chest like a newborn baby.
"Put it on him," I barked. "Set the flow rate at three."
Pushing my finger into the wound, I felt around as my free hand reached into the bag and pulled out a scalpel, spreader, and two clamps. I tore open the individual bags sealing them.
Maddy wrapped a hand around my shoulder, the pressure just firm enough to be controlling.
"Can you do that?" she asked, her attention focused on the surgical instruments.
"No choice but to find out." I pulled my shoulder free. "He still has active arterial bleeding. It isn't something I can just pack with gauze and a clotting agent."
Drawing a long breath, I steadied my hand then made the first cut. I swabbed at the fresh blood, inserted the spreader then opened and locked it.
"I need direct light on the wound," I ordered, tearing open the wrapper on a surgical sponge. I wicked up the blood as Siobhan shined a flashlight over my shoulder.
Seeing where shrapnel from the bullet had nicked the internal iliac artery, I silently prayed as I clamped the artery above and below the nick then used another sponge and gauze to see if I could find additional bleeding.
More bodies rushed into the barn. Glancing up, I saw the air ambulance uniforms.
The flight physician elbowed me aside
"You did this?" he asked.
"Yes," I croaked, expecting a furious backlash but not giving a damn if it meant Emerson had a chance of living.
"Good job, but we'll take it from here," he said, his voice gentle for a second before he started barking orders at the crew to make sure an operating room was prepped for their arrival.
I stood, staggering until Maddy and Siobhan caught me by the arms.
"I didn't even hear the helicopter," I said as the aircrew rushed Emerson out of the
barn. "Didn't hear it…"
"It's okay, babe," Siobhan murmured. "You were focused on saving his life."
Numb, I nodded. Lifting my head, I saw half a dozen FBI agents and a few state troopers standing in a semi-circle and staring at me. I looked over my shoulder to see Maddy wearing the same shocked expression.
Someone started a slow clap. The others took it up, everyone applauding what I had done.
I felt no sense of pride, no flush of accomplishment, only the ravenous, clawing worry that I hadn't done enough.
21
Delia
With no one else on scene in need of medical assistance, Siobhan folded me into the back seat of her cruiser and drove away from the abandoned ranch.
"I don't know if anyone notified Aunt Lindy or Sutton yet," Siobhan said, her gaze jumping from the road to the rearview mirror then forward again. "But I can't take you to her looking like that."
I stared at the clothes I had put on that morning. I barely recognized them. Blood stained the sleeves and bottom hem of the lilac-colored, chambray shirt with its row of pearly white buttons. More blood soaked the knees of my jeans from how I had knelt beside Emerson. In the mirror, I could tell that I had touched my face at least once. Red smeared my cheek and a thick lock of hair.
"I'm sorry," I whispered. "It's getting on the back of your seat and…everywhere, really."
Siobhan looked confused then shook her head.
"The fact that you’re apologizing probably means shock has set in," she said. "We'll go to my daddy's ranch. No one but Cassian should be in the house. He's likely out in the fields, anyway."
I nodded. Siobhan was probably right about the shock—just not in a medical sense.
"Acute stress reaction," I mumbled.
Siobhan glanced in the mirror.
"Well, whatever it is, I'm going to stick you in a warm shower, get some clean clothes on you, food, something to drink…in fact…"
The patrol car drifted as Siobhan reached under her seat and pulled out a Gatorade bottle. She passed it to me in the back seat.
