My eyes raked the area, searching for two old men huddled together. I saw no one. Bile in my throat.
"Tully? Oscar!"
Frantic now, I turned in circles and shouted. The sound of an ambulance screeched in the far distance, as if it had just headed out of the town barns. Too far away to help.
The men had to be inside.
I shivered with fear in my sodden clothes. Thankfully, sparks flying from the roof didn't catch on fire when they landed on me. I scrambled toward the front door, opened it fast, took a deep breath and held it, and almost tripped over Oscar and Tully.
"Oscar!"
He lay draped over Tully, as if he'd been pulling him to safety but had collapsed from the effort. Without hesitating, I grabbed his hands and dragged him over the sill and to the porch. With another Herculean effort, I lunged backwards and dragged him feet first down the steps. His head hit the steps hard, but it was my only choice. I got him about twenty feet away from the building, sucked in clean air, held it deep inside me and ran back inside for Tully.
He was heavier than Oscar. A lot heavier. He lay unmoving and gray, and with a start I nearly sucked in the smoked filled air.
Oh my God. Is he dead?
There was no time to figure it out, so I prayed he was still alive and tried dragging him by his hands. It didn't work. He seemed stuck to the floor. I grabbed his legs and pulled, and finally dragged him a few feet. My lungs grew white hot from the exertion and from not breathing, and I couldn't hold it any more. I inhaled a lungful of smoky air through the cotton of my soaking t-shirt. One more try. The ambulance sounded closer now, and I prayed they'd get there in time to help us. Heaving with all my might, I pulled until my straining arms felt they'd come out of the sockets. Inside, my brain wailed. Come on, get him out!
A beam crashed into the living room, sending a fresh wave of flames and smoke racing toward us. Heat scalded my face and arms, and I couldn't see anything through the black haze.
Penni's voice whispered inside me.
Roll him.
With a start, I realized she was right. Like a lumpy log, I straightened him out and pushed. He landed with his face smashed against the doorsill, but I'd moved him three feet. I maneuvered his legs outside, got him past the doorway, and then logrolled him down the steps and across the lawn. With a ragged breath, I sucked cooler air into my lungs.
The town ambulance rumbled up the driveway. I collapsed on my back beside Tully and Oscar, praying they were alive. My chest heaved and I tasted charcoal in my mouth. Cold rain washed the soot from my face and cooled my blistered arms. The world slowly went black, and I lost consciousness to the sound of Penni's sweet whispers.
Chapter Forty-six
When I woke on the grass by the woods, I stared into the sooty face of a firefighter and panicked. I pushed hard against him and tried to yell, but all that emerged was a pathetic croak.
"Whoa, there. It's okay." He patted my head like a dog, but for some strange reason, it didn't bother me. "I'm Trav. What's your name, son?" He turned toward a man who'd just parked a second ambulance nearby. "He's coming around!"
I whispered my name, noticing the oxygen mask he held in one hand, and I realized I'd been breathing the canned stuff while I was out. A coarse wool blanket was wrapped around me. The rain had stopped, and when I turned toward the house, all I saw was a steaming dark jumble of broken beams, stone walls that remained partially standing, with smoking rubble strewn between them.
I pushed against him again and sat up, looking wildly around. "Where are Oscar and Tully?"
"Gus? Is that your name?"
I nodded, craning my head around him to see.
"Don't worry. Your friends are on their way to the hospital. The ambulance left a few minutes ago."
"Will they be okay?"
He grimaced. "Too soon to tell. The tall man with the hat around his neck woke for a minute and told us he thought the other fellow had a heart attack." He gently pushed me back toward the ground. "Now you just rest here while my friend Bart checks you over, okay?"
I sat up again. "My horse! I set him loose in the woods."
He pointed across the field. "Is that him? Looks like he's getting his fill of alfalfa. Don't you worry. We'll call someone to bring him home for you. Who are your folks, boy?"
I didn't answer, afraid my parents would freak out and get mad at me for my friendship with Tully. The men lifted me and laid me on a gurney inside the ambulance. Bart looked in my eyes with a tiny flashlight and examined my arms where I'd been scorched. "Can you tell me what happened?"
Before I could answer, the kindly man who'd called for help appeared in the ambulance door. "Remember me? I'm Mr. Pratt. Are you okay, young man?"
I nodded and smiled as best I could. "I guess so."
Bart repeated his question. "So tell us what happened, son."
"Um. Well, we were searching Tully's old house for some papers. Historical papers. Oscar, I mean Mr. Stone, is the town historian."
Mr. Pratt's hand flew to his mouth. "Oh, no! Was that Oscar Stone in the ambulance? I know him."
"That's him. We were searching for these old papers with Tully, and suddenly Tully dropped to the floor. He looked really gray and was out cold."
Bart applied some cool ointment to my burned arms. "Is that when you rode your horse for help? Mr. Pratt here said you arrived on his doorstep all shook up."
Pratt came inside and sat opposite me. "That's right. He asked us to call for help, then he took off like a banshee out of… er… heck, on that black horse of his."
"I had to get back here. I had this feeling—"
Bart placed some gauze gently over my burns and secured it with white adhesive tape. "Was the house already in flames when you got here?"
"Yeah. It was bad. I tried to find Tully and Oscar outside, but they weren't anywhere. Then I realized they must be inside." My words wobbled a bit, and my voice cracked. I was dangerously close to tears and tried to pull myself together before I went on. I took a deep breath. "I went in and found them, pretty close to the front door. But Oscar had passed out, too."
Pratt leaned closer. "What did you do?"
"I… um. I dragged them out."
Bart squinted one eye. "But you're just a—"
"I know. Anyway, I ended up rolling Tully out and down the stairs, then across the lawn. He was too heavy to drag."
Bart sat back on his haunches and finally stopped treating me like a war victim.
"I think you'll live, young man. Now, are you ready to tell us how to reach your folks? We can radio into headquarters and they'll give them a call. They can meet us at the hospital."
I closed my eyes. I wasn't ready for this yet, and as much as I wanted the comfort of my parents' presence, I was more worried about Tully and Oscar. I needed to go where they went. "So sleepy," I mumbled.
"Gus? Can you stay awake long enough to…"
I let my head flop to the side and pretended I was out. I didn't realize until later that I'd worried poor Bart into thinking I had some kind of concussion. But it got me out of answering, and at that point, it was the only plan I had.
***
When we reached the hospital, I didn’t open my eyes until I was transferred to a cot and rolled to a curtained room in the ER next to Oscar.
"My boy! You're okay." His voice cracked, like mine had earlier. Had he thought I'd died? A white bandage encircled his head, and his right arm hung in a sling. I wondered if I'd broken it on his bumpy ride down the porch steps.
Bart and a stocky dark-haired nurse steered my bed into the corner beside Oscar. "Looks like the boy's awake now, Pam. Can you get his information and call his folks?" Bart said.
She smiled and patted my arm. "You bet. Get back out there and save someone else, honey." She reached behind and patted his rear with one hand. I looked away, and felt my cheeks flush with embarrassment.
She winked at me, and then at him. "But you'd better be home for supper. I'm making pot roast tonight.
"
My stomach growled.
"Hungry, are we?" she asked.
Bart chuckled and headed for the door. "Better get our little hero something to eat. He's had a pretty busy morning." With a tip of his cap to me, he was gone.
Pam bustled around the room. "You two will have to forgive me. We're loaded down with some serious cases today. Can you hang out and wait for me to handle them first?"
I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the cot. "I'm not sick. And I need to find out about my friend, Mr. Tully."
She stopped in her tracks and her cheery attitude deflated. The world seemed to go into slow motion. She faced away from me, but slowly turned with a pained expression on her face. I felt my insides shrink and crumple into a sea of blackness.
Pam came to my bedside. I searched between her eyes and Oscar's, and found too much sympathy there. My brain screamed "NO!" and I searched with my soul for Penni.
She didn't answer.
Pam took my hand. "Son? Do you know what a heart attack is?"
I nodded, unable to speak.
"Well, your friend Mr. Tully had a pretty bad one. He's in surgery right now. They're replacing some valves and fixing him up. You won't be able to see him for a few days, I'm afraid."
"He's alive?" I choked on the words; so happy I was wrong that I could barely contain myself. "Alive?"
She patted my head and looked at me as if I were a little baby. "Of course he is, dear. He's just down the hall. Why? Did you think he had died?"
I tried not to let the tears of relief out, but they scalded my cheeks anyway. I made no noise, but shook my head to answer. Of course I hadn't thought such a dumb thing. I wasn't stupid.
Was I?
It didn't matter. Tully was alive, Oscar smiled beside me, and we'd made it out of that burning house. A sudden thought struck me. I turned to Oscar when Pam swished out of the room. "Oscar, the papers. Did you save them?"
A cat-who-ate-the-canary smile crossed his lips. He reached over for his field jacket and rummaged in the inner pocket. "Indeed. Couldn't let history go up in smoke, now, could I?" With a flourish, he pulled out the sheaf and carefully laid it open before him. "Maybe we should finish reading it?"
Chapter Forty-seven
I hopped down and dragged a chair beside Oscar’s bed, feeling woozy but not wanting him to notice. Fortunately he was studying the paper in his hands so he didn't pick up on my less than perfect landing on the chair. He had an IV in his arm and the pinch point where it entered his skin was covered with clear tape and bloody gauze. It made my stomach lurch and I was glad they hadn't done that to me.
Oscar ran his hand down the frail paper, his eyes scanning back and forth across the page. "Now, where did we leave off?"
"It was where he mentioned Penni and her brother."
"Right you are. Let's see what else he has to say." He adjusted his glasses and found the spot, marking it with his finger. "Here it is. 'It is with heavy heart I lay bare my soul today, to testify to the travesty that has been my unworthy life. The Brits paid me well, all in gold, which was sent home to my family. I pray they never discover my dishonor, and that my soul—stained with so much blood—will not burn in hell forever.
"'I led my fellow soldiers into a trap. Friends I'd bunked with, fought with, and eaten around the fire with for many months had no idea of my complicity in this vile deed. The ambush was not a surprise, but a well-laid plan. Little did I know we'd lose so many soldiers, or that Parker and Boyd would be tortured by Little Beard's tribe. I walk the fields and woods where it all took place now and hear the haunted cries of those friends who were slaughtered by the Brits and their Indian friends. Because of my weakness. Because of my frail morality. I fear God will never again show his face to me.
"'Yet worse than the cries of my fellow soldiers is the image of the young Oneida Indian girl and her brother, whom I misled and used in my scandalous plot. Penaki was barely sixteen. Her brother Timoktu, just turned eighteen, helped our troop, advising trails and helping with hunting deer for sustenance. He brought me to his peaceful village, where I met his sister, a most beautiful young maiden. She prepared food and welcomed us, but on that awful day, that dreadful, terrible day, she followed us to the hillside where the fighting occurred, and her brother was slain with the others. As it was happening, she looked deep into my soul and somehow she seemed to know I was involved in the setup.
"'The British slaughtered her brother before her eyes, before they captured, defiled, and murdered her.'"
Oscar stopped, realizing he'd just told me something that perhaps was better left unsaid. I'd heard of rape before, when we saw To Kill A Mockingbird last summer in the movie theater. I knew it was a heinous crime, and that it savaged a woman in the worst possible way. But I didn't quite understand the details. I wasn't sure I wanted to.
A series of beeps came from rooms on either side of us, causing feet to scurry outside toward them. Across the hall a woman screamed. I squirmed on the chair, suddenly painfully aware of the horrors described in the papers Oscar still held in his hands.
"Shall I go on?" he asked.
I wondered if Penni had heard him read the account. But I realized she was more likely in the operating room with Tully, floating over him, or holding his poor hand with her ghostly fingers. Penni's childlike, playful spirit had made me think of her as close to our age, maybe nine or ten. But now we knew she'd been a teenager. I had to adjust my thoughts of her, and retreated to my bed to think.
I faced a more immediate problem when Pam reentered the room with a clipboard. "Okay, young man. I've got a little breather. Let's get you registered. You're probably just fine, but we might have to keep you for observation, since you passed out in the ambulance on the way here. Could be you hit your head in that burning building. I'll get your info, get your vitals, put you in a Johnny, and then get you gentlemen some lunch. Sound like a plan?"
I didn't like the idea of wearing one of those hospital gowns that opened in the back, and wondered if she'd give me two so I could cover up both sides of me. Oscar suddenly turned to me with a puzzled look on his face. "You came into the house?"
I nodded, but didn't want a huge fuss made over me again.
"How did you—"
"I dragged you guys out. That's all. You were almost there, Oscar. You passed out by the front door."
His face froze in shock for a minute, and then he came alive again. "My Lord, Gus. I assumed the EMTs saved us. You're the bravest boy I know. And I'm going to help you with your—er—parental issue, if you get my meaning."
He winked and motioned to Pam. "I'll call his parents while you get the particulars from him. And I need to call my wife, Millie, too. She'll be wondering why I didn't come home for lunch as planned, don't-you-know?"
Pam bustled over to the beige phone on the rolling table between us. "Let me get this hooked up for you, Mr. Stone." She strained to reach behind the table and plug it in, and then handed it to him. "Here you go. Local calls are free."
He lifted the receiver and dialed while the nurse copied down my name, age, address, and parents' information. I heard Oscar spin a tale that was truth but not truth. He said I'd been riding my horse past one of his investigative sites when I'd seen the fire and saved him. He didn't mention Tully, and although I knew the omission was a lie, I think he must've felt he owed me. I felt odd being complicit in such a fib, and decided I'd tell my folks later what really happened. On the other hand, I was glad my mother wouldn't flip out over Tully, especially in the hospital in front of all the strangers who brushed past our doorway and mumbled in medical gobbledygook that I didn't understand. Life was starting to get really complicated, and more than ever I just wanted to go home, check on my horse, and go for a ride with the twins.
"Okay, young man. Now stick out your tongue. I need to get your temp."
The glass thermometer was cold and tasted of the alcohol bath it sat in, inside its glass beaker. I grimaced, but kept my mouth sealed tightly around i
t, the way my mother had taught me. Three minutes later, Pam held the thermometer up to the light, squinted at the mercury line inside, and smiled. "You'll live."
She wrapped a giant cuff around my upper arm and pumped it up. I'd been in a hospital twice before. Once, when I was eight and had my tonsils out, and the other time was last summer when I almost burned to death in an abandoned shack set on fire by a deranged murderer.
I stopped to ponder the odd similarities of both occasions. Two fires. Two times almost getting burned up. I wondered if I had used up seven of my nine lives, like a cat. With a shiver, I put it out of my mind and watched as Pam pumped my arm up until my fingers grew numb.
She listened with her stethoscope and wrote down a scratchy note on her clipboard. "Okay. Now you climb out of your clothes and put this on, you hear?" She handed me a blue and white gown, then noticed my frown. "Whatsamatter, honey?"
"Uh. Can I have two, please?"
With a robust laugh, she walked to the cupboard to get a second gown, then plopped it on top of the other. "A modest youngster, are we?"
I nodded, not really sure what she meant, but glad I'd gotten my way. "Thanks."
"Okay, I'm ordering lunch for both of you. Mr. Stone, you're eligible for some pain med if that arm bothers you. Just press the button if you want me to get you some. And Gustave, a doctor will be in to check you over, shortly."
"Okay." I clutched the two Johnnies to my chest and hurried into the bathroom. Horrified there was no lock, I pressed my back against the door while I changed and ran back to my bed to hop inside before anyone saw me. I slipped my bare feet under the stiff, starchy sheet, pulled a white blanket up over myself, and lay back on the thin pillow.
Don't Let the Wind Catch You (LeGarde Mysteries Book 6) Page 17
