She nodded, trying to tune out Mama as she protested weakly, “We need to get you down to the cafeteria for something to eat. You’ve got to take care of yourself, sweetheart. You’re no good to David if you make yourself ill . . . or something.”
Her voice trailed away and Susan couldn’t help wondering how long it would take before her mother was able to relax enough to lose her fear that Susan would suddenly blank out and disappear from behind her own eyes. Certainly when David was better and she had space in her brain to think about anything else, she might spend some time worrying about that too.
Even though Grandpa Harry started out ahead of her, Susan’s long, young legs allowed her to catch up with him and for them to go through the doors to the intensive care area together.
David’s small room was midway down the aisle and Susan who was beginning to realize she was an object of curiosity among the townspeople looked straight ahead, stopping at the entrance to allow Harry to go in ahead of her.
David, looking pale and drawn, stared at them as though wondering if they were real or not. “You’re looking better, son,” Harry said. He took the chair on the far side of the narrow bed, leaving the nearest side to Susan.
Guessing that David was wondering if she was all together there, she reached out her hand so that despite tubes and connections, he could touch her fingers and find them warm and substantial. “Feeling much better,” he lied.
“Hector says they’ll move you into a regular room by the end of the day if you continue getting better,” Harry said, sounding unbelievably cheerful.
David blinked acknowledgement as though even that simple movement hurt. “Nobody’s telling me what’s happened,” he complained.
No time for small talk, Susan decided. She supposed he hadn’t energy to waste and so many questions to ask.
“Jon’s locked up,” Harry answered the question he had not asked. “Claims it was all a misunderstanding and he never meant to harm anyone. Thought you were a dangerous man and all that. But, of course, you, me and Susan here can testify to the opposite. Also June, who is still confused, but can say what she saw and that was him shooting you.”
Susan didn’t mention the fact that she couldn’t exactly be counted as a witness since her own mother would testify that she’d been miles away at the time of the attempted shooting from outside the house. They would worry about that later.
“And you’re all right?” he whispered hoarsely, looking at her with those pale blue eyes that seemed to swallow her up.
“Good.” She nodded. “Fine.”
He hesitated and she guessed the next question was the one he’d been waiting to ask. “What happened to send you away?” he whispered. Harry leaned back in his chair as though to exit himself from the conversation.
She swallowed hard. Mama had told her, but she still couldn’t take it in. And she still remembered nothing but leaving the house for little Liberty School and her seven first graders that morning.
“Mama says . . .” She hesitated, clearing her throat before going on. “She says an unexpected storm popped up after I got to school. There was little warning and a twister hit the school, coming right in on my classroom on the southwest corner of the building. The kids and I sheltered in the old cloakroom.” She swallowed again, remembered the long dark closet where children stored their winter coats and their lunch boxes. “When they found us huddled there, six kids were hurt, one so seriously that he—she died later in the hospital. One was already dead.”
So far she hadn’t asked Mama which two had been lost. She couldn’t bear to know, not yet.
Silence lay across the room. She wondered if David was thinking as she had that it was criminal that she had survived when two of her babies had not.
Grandpa Harry spoke up. “The walls fell in on them. They found Susan all smashed up, but covering the kids with her own body. The news people back then reported that she was a hero.”
Susan found she was shaking all over and felt cold, so cold. Then David squeezed her hand. “I know how it feels,” he said, and she leaned her face against his hand.
The End
From the Author: Wolf Creek is a fictional town based loosely on a real place of another name located on I-40 something around a hundred miles west of Oklahoma City. As a country family, it was to this small city we went to sell cream and eggs and buy our groceries at the Safeway back in the ‘40s and ‘50s. Sometimes those days where we crowded on the busy sidewalks downtown to visit with friends and relatives, shopped at J.C. Penny or Montgomery Ward, and went to the Westland, Rex or Elk theaters to enjoy a movie in the company of friends from all the nearby rural communities are more present in my mind than the streets of today. For this writer, that place in time exists much as does the active boom or bust economy of this oil field city with its good schools, love of music and the arts and Friday night football. But it is the little library on Broadway where I have played fictional games with the truth, writing from my imaginary image that mixes past and present. Wolf Creek does not follow a close pattern of the actual town, nor are any of the characters or events based on reality. But for my readers, welcome to a re-imagining of the town where I used to spend long summer vacation weeks with my beloved grandmother.
Those Who Mourn: A Wolf Creek Mystery (Wolf Creek Mysteries Book 1) Page 17
