We drifted closer. Now we were the fifth car.
“What’s your brother’s rank?”
“Huh?”
“Rank. In the air force.”
“He’s retired.”
“AJ…,” Reid said, his voice resolute, but his patience wearing thin.
“Uh, let me think.”
“Was he an enlisted airman or an officer?”
“An officer. First Lieutenant.”
“Perfect,” Reid said, gripping the wheel tighter as we drew closer to the front of the line. “This will work in our favor,” he said to himself.
“I don’t understand.”
I peeked over my shoulder at the lump that was Will.
“No more of that. Look forward, okay? He’s all right.”
“Okay.”
“The mobile hospital gave me an idea. You’re a doctor, okay? I’m your escort.”
I nodded. A few minutes later, we reached the front of the line. Reid immediately straightened his posture and put on a serious face, keeping his hands at the ten o’clock and two o’clock positions on the steering wheel while staring straight ahead, his attention fixed on the road.
A police officer with dark sleep-deprived smudges beneath his eyes raised his hand. He didn’t look at us or at my out of state license plate as he said, “You need to turn your vehicle around, sir. Go to your home. Wait for your recovery packs to be delivered. No travel beyond this point. Mandatory travel ban.”
“Corporal Reid Gregory. I’ve been ordered to escort Dr. Sinclair to Colorado Springs.” Reid flashed his ID.
The police officer squinted with suspicion and fatigue. He gave the ID a cursory glance. “You’re not in a military vehicle. Do you have written orders?”
Reid carefully clipped his ID onto his jacket pocket. “No, sir, but you can call Schriever Air Force Base and request to speak with First Lieutenant Brandon Monahan, who put in the order.”
The officer pinched the top of his nose and sighed. “One moment.” He trod over to his car and spoke with another officer in the driver seat. This man, whom I presumed to be the supervising officer, drew his scrutiny from a clipboard, stared at us a moment, and then spoke with the other officer with apparent irritation.
The tired officer marched over to us. “What is your purpose there? And your specialty, ma’am?”
“Medical assistance. I’m a pulmonologist,” I said with confidence.
He raised an eyebrow.
“Lung specialist, Officer,” I clarified.
He eyed the totes in the back seat with a few of my carefully folded blankets atop.
“You’re civilian?” he asked me.
“Yes.”
Please don’t ask which hospital, I willed him. I’d have to come up with some BS hospital out of state.
Now I understood about the literal need for red tape. A Red Cross doctor. But I lacked a uniform. Damn, of all the things to need. The boys loved tape. All kinds—masking, duct, packing tape—I drew the line with colored tape.
The officer sighed. He returned to his supervisor.
The man in the car held Reid’s stoic gaze for a long scrutinizing moment. He nodded and gave inaudible orders to the awaiting officer.
“Reid,” I whispered. “How is your ID not expired?”
“It is. Tired police officer and carefully placed finger.”
Impersonating a medical worker and an active army corporal were hefty offenses. We weren’t exactly smuggling in missiles. A child and supplies were nothing to set off alarms.
The officer spun a hand and directed two other officers to move one of the barricades aside. He returned to Reid’s window. “You’ll need to check in at the state patrol Pueblo Troop Office, where air force and United States Army regulatory units are working with the state police force. All vehicles going north toward Colorado Springs and Denver will be inspected, prepped, and monitored, including those with military personnel.”
Reid nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Are you meeting a convoy to escort you the rest of the way?”
“Yes. National Guard 89th Troop Command in Pueblo,” Reid said.
“The air filters, engines, brakes…everything…is affected by the ash. Civilian vehicles won’t make it much farther north than Pueblo. You’ll need a properly equipped military escort.” He tapped the hood, waved at the other officers, and let us through. “Good luck to you, ma’am,” he said to me.
“Good Plan B,” I said once we were through the barricade and on the road. “You know your stuff.”
“I have a few friends in that troop. A tired officer helped,” he added. “Not sure if it will get us as far as we like, especially once we draw closer to Colorado Springs, but it’s good enough for now. We may need to travel afoot or by bike at some point.”
“You’re telling me that you had planned to sneak in with your uniform all along?”
He shrugged. “Only if it came to it. Like I’d said, if that had been Guard there, we wouldn’t have made it through. Not putting down the police, but the military has different procedures. Tired or not.”
I could understand the need for finding family. Lily must have meant a lot to Reid. I fought the urge to check on Will or to look at the officers in the side view mirror. “Just another minute, Will. Okay there, honey?”
“Squeak!” came his muffled voice. He giggled. I snorted. Love that boy.
“Got through there by the skin of our teeth, huh?” Reid said.
“You can say that. Do you know much about disaster relief?”
“Some.”
“Now that we’re here, fill me in, Corporal Gregory,” I said as light-hearted as I could. The image of that boy’s face still played before my eyes, and if I let it get to me, I would be sick.
“Usually local and state police take care of matters. To federalize the National Guard, it requires written orders from the governors of impacted states. Those orders are sent to the DOD and then to the president. The Guard is the first to be mobilized. The president has released active army to assist as well; that’s the next step. The big guns are coming. This is all good. The military has the resources, capacity, and operational ability to take care of those areas in need. There’s usually a strict divide between civilian forces and military, but the Guard has been called, so all bets are off. As a country, we’ve never experienced a disaster of this magnitude.”
“I see. What’s the deal with Schriever Air Force Base? You think they could be there?”
“Maybe. I was thinking about it. Your brother’s retired air force, and that’s the closest base around that he may be familiar with. Bases will take on refugees if something happened.”
“Like if his plane was downed?”
“Yeah, or diverted. Or if it didn’t take off. It’s only a couple hours’ drive or quick flight from Denver. Your brother could know about that base. If he is as resourceful as you,” he said with an admiring smile.
I nodded. “He is.”
He added, “There are the other bases—Peterson has tight security though. Cheyenne is also an option. And any other mobile hospitals.”
I nodded, digesting all this knowledge. “Still many options.”
“Yeah. We’ll do our best, AJ. We need to check, cross it off, and move on to the next place. The bases have strong infrastructures, medical facilities. It’s quite possible he’s at a base. Or a hospital. Or another place secure enough to house the injured…a stadium, large churches…”
“Can Will come out now?” I asked with another look in the side view mirror.
“Yeah. Come on out, buddy,” Reid said. Will popped up from his hiding place. “We’ll stop in a few minutes to get your booster back in. Hang tight, little guy.”
“Mom, you guys lied to that police officer. Are you gonna go to jail?”
I cringed as I tried dialing Brandon again. Nothing.
“We didn’t lie. We are heading to that base,” Reid said.
“Mom’s not a doctor.”
“But Mom isn’t. Dad was a doctor scientist,” Will said.
“No, you’re right. We had to stretch the truth a little,” Reid admitted.
I added, “Sometimes you need to do that. It doesn’t hurt anyone, so it’s okay.”
“Are you a soldier? You protect our country from bad guys and stuff, like Uncle Brandon?” Will wiggled around, playing with his glow sticks like wands. In Will fashion, he had already moved on from the subject. Finn would have hounded me on the lying thing. Asking why, why, why. Then filing that information away for another time.
“Yes, I am, or I was,” Reid said. “I’m retired.”
“Will, sit still, honey, until we’re safe enough to get you in your seat.”
He did but smashed the glow sticks together and hummed.
I shared a look with Reid. One hurdle down. On to the next one.
Chapter Seventeen
Survival of the Fittest
I turned on the radio to find channels of static. No news. As we made the arduous drive along a desolate Route 50 to Pueblo and central Colorado, I found my mind on Finn again. The relief of getting through the first hurdle at Lamar had worn off. I tapped a finger on my teeth and stared.
I silently apologized for cursing God. Perhaps I still needed those damn white pills.
The air conditioning whirred, unlike its usual robust hum. I looked in the side-view mirror. The ash was deeper here, and our tires stirred a trail behind us like a storm cloud. Crosswinds blew the ash across the surrounding hilly grasslands and onto our path. Drifts piled and curled around the occasional boulders, ramshackle buildings, homes, and signs along the road. Prairies comprised our landscape, but sagebrush and a few yucca plants dotted the edges. If there had been any flora like coneflowers or asters, they were gone, torn to bits by the power of the wind.
The car shook with each wind burst.
Reid focused on the road, white-knuckled and, well, bruise-knuckled. Shadows of dusk snaked along the highway. I yawned, stretched, and clasped my hands together. “We check Pueblo first, and then head north for Schriever?” I asked like an impatient child on a road trip.
“It depends on the roads. I don’t know, AJ, but that’s my plan.”
Will was quiet. We had quickly switched his booster seat and a tote. In fact, I looked back to find him snoozing with his helmet on. How was that comfortable? He never napped in the car. His breathing was heavier and hoarser than normal, and it drew my concern. I wanted to pull over and check him, but with the way the ash settled here, stopping could potentially strand us.
Another wary look at the fuel indicator—yeah, we had enough.
As if he sensed my look upon him, Will sneezed, rubbed his nose, and briefly opened his eyes. He cracked a smile and said, “Love you, Mom.” Then he returned to his catnap with wheezy snores.
“Love you, honey.”
The wind released its scratchy claws upon the car in short-tempered bursts. With the impending night, I was grateful that Will was sleeping. I didn’t need my anxiety to rub off on him more than it already had. Fewer and fewer tire tracks paved the way for us. Reid was careful, deliberately driving within the two thin lines of our predecessors. Those lines were quickly disappearing.
Neither of us needed to verbalize that fear. Reid had stopped asking if I was okay.
Each time a vehicle, usually a military Humvee, passed us traveling in the opposite direction, I counted my blessings. They had bigger things to contend with. Reid didn’t show an ounce of trepidation, except for his board-straight posture and tightened hand grip on the steering wheel. He stared forward, resolute in his task—his mission? I could only assume that the military passerby saw his uniform and didn’t care or dusk’s shadows helped. Luck remained with us as each vehicle continued on its way.
“Hey, Reid?” I whispered.
“Yeah?”
“Last night in the hotel…” Much had transpired since last night. I was quick to add, “Were you having a nightmare?” I didn’t mention the other thing, though it was still vivid in my memory.
He cracked his wrists and tightened his knuckle-grip on the wheel. “Yeah…”
“Do you remember…you said some things…” I fought all the sensations that begged my lips to be touched. His taste had long since left them. I shivered thinking of his hands upon me. No regrets.
“I didn’t mean to wake you. I sometimes get them when I’m stressed.” He cleared his throat. “And us…I shouldn’t have—”
A spindly stray branch scraped the windshield.
“Wha—?” My heartbeat quickened momentarily.
“It’s getting gusty.”
The moment was lost. “I’m not sorry,” I said anyway. “No regrets.”
He gave me a look that made my insides quiver again. “Me neither.”
When he spoke again a few minutes later, I almost jumped. “In the woods, when we were looking for Will, I didn’t mean to imply you had PTSD. It’s not my place to diagnose. I didn’t know about your husband…”
“No, it’s really okay. I get where you are coming from. Maybe I did, or do, have a form of it.”
“Maybe.”
Soon, we saw no vehicles. An hour passed. Nobody. Sleep lured me, and the sun, or what resembled it behind all the gloom, dipped lower in a brown-gray sky. I allowed sleep to take me. I needed it, even if just a few minutes.
****
Sudden movement jolted me awake.
“Shit,” I said, startled from a dream…where Reid had been kissing me.
Reid fought against the car, which was fish-tailing and wheezing like it, too, had inhaled too much ash. I whacked my shoulder against the window. The engine rumbled and struggled.
I clung to the handhold on my door. “What’s happening?”
Reid shut off the sputtering air conditioning. The lights on the dashboard blinked off, then on. “Dammit,” he growled.
The tailpipe roared as he worked the accelerator. “Dammit,” he repeated. Slowing, the car rolled into a grooved area beside the shoulder. The dashboard lights flickered a few times, all the freak-out lights coming on. The car shuddered and then came to a halting stop, rasping its last breath as it succumbed to its ashy battle.
Reid tried the ignition and pumped the pedal. Nothing.
Again. Nothing.
He stopped and took the keys out. “Don’t want to flood the engine.”
“Glad I had my helmet on!” Will, now awake, said from the back seat.
I rubbed my aching shoulder. Ash obscured the road signs. “Where are we, anyway?” My gut twisted. I thought we’d make it farther before this would happen. Or maybe I’d been hopefully optimistic that it wouldn’t happen at all.
“Just east of Pueblo.”
“How much east?”
“I think a few miles based on the last signpost we passed.”
High undulating hills of plains surrounded us. I already disliked Colorado. Add that to Missouri on the never-to-visit-again list. And New York.
“I pushed the car too much.”
“No, you didn’t.” I flipped to the Colorado page in the atlas. “We’re not near Colorado Springs yet.”
“We’ve got a few options.”
I closed the atlas and looked around the dark car. I exhaled and listed them for him. “Wait for help. Call somebody…,” I began, pulling my phone out of the cup holder. One bar. I dropped it in the holder.
Reid stated the third option. “Or we bike into Pueblo and get a ride from there.”
I swallowed. “If we can get somebody to give us a ride.”
Reid shrugged. “We can try. At least first check Pueblo, right? Then work our way up to the Springs and Denver.”
“Yeah.” We’d be stuck here if we waited.
“Want me to check under the hood? See what’s going on?”
“Yeah. Maybe you can fix it?”
“I can try but don’t want
to get your hopes up. We might be able to get the replacement parts in Pueblo. However, it may need a tow,” Reid added.
“Okay.”
My phone pinged at nothing short of a fateful moment. I jumped. Reid stopped in his opening of the door. I grabbed the phone from the cup holder. It only read one bar of reception, but I saw that it showed “caller unknown,” and I hit talk. “Hello?” I said, sharing a look with Reid.
“AJ. It’s me.”
“Brandon!”
“I’m in…Springs…” His voice faded and was drowned by a buzzing crackle, but I recognized that voice anywhere.
“Brandon! I can’t hear you! Colorado Springs?”
His mangled voice returned. “At…the base…”
Crackling.
“Finn…he…”
More damn crackles.
“Brandon, repeat that.”
“AJ…”
“Is Finn okay? Brandon?”
Silence.
“I’m coming, Brandon! I’m coming! I’m on my way. Stay there!”
Muffled words.
Click.
Shit. Had he heard me? Did he know I was coming?
I turned to Reid. “It was Brandon! He’s in Colorado Springs. At a base, I think.”
“Which?”
“I don’t know. He said something about a base and springs, but it was hard to understand.”
“Finn?”
“I don’t know. It was garbled.”
Reid clasped my hand. “He’s okay. He’s going to be okay. Let’s check Schriever first. That’s my bet.”
I tucked the phone in my pocket, determined, trying to convince myself. “Okay. Yes. He’s going to be okay.”
“I’ll check the engine, then we can decide what to do, okay?”
“Okay. Please be quick.”
****
“Put on your jacket, Will.”
I put mine on, too, and pulled out a baseball cap. I grabbed my sunglasses, even though a thick gray haze obscured the sunset.
Reid buttoned his jacket. He put on sunglasses. I handed him a surgical mask.
I put on a mask as well and handed one to Will.
“Can’t we fix the car?” Will asked again.
“We can’t. Not with what we have here. We need to take the bikes, Will,” I said.
Will Rise from Ashes Page 27
