by Kate Morris
Simon nods and says, “Yes, sir. If the doctor is going to live on site, it’s awfully far if he were to run into problems.”
His eyes dart to Sam, who is standing on the front lawn with them. It mostly resembles an overgrown pasture, not a lawn. She is looking across the street at an empty field. Her gaze is void of emotion, sightless, seeing nothing in particular. He doesn’t like this. Simon has seen her like this before, and it is never a good thing.
“He doesn’t have to live on site; Scott would just prefer to,” Dave explains. “Let us show you the inside.”
They go in the abandoned house, which is definitely big enough to use as a medical practice.
“This is a good location between our compound and our town,” Henry tells them. “We’ll be able to offer medical care to more people in the area.”
“And it would keep the compound more private like yours,” Dave adds, looking at them.
“That’s always a smart thing,” Cory nods. “Plumbing still looks viable. I think the front rooms would work as exam rooms. What do you think, Professor?”
“Huh?” he asks, dragging his gaze from Sam. “Yes. The dining room, office, and living room would easily convert. Actually, the living room would be the only room that we’d have to build a divider wall in. And the kitchen is acceptable for a work area, storing meds and sterilizing tools.”
“This house has four bedrooms upstairs, too,” Henry adds. “It would be perfect for Sam and her uncle.”
Dave says, “We could post two men here with them, too. They’ll need amped up security.”
Simon doesn’t agree with any of this, “I don’t think it’s a good idea at all.”
Everyone turns their attention to him.
“It’s just that it’s far from your compound and going to attract attention. People looking for drugs will hit this place as soon as they hear about them running a medical clinic. There’s no perimeter wall or fencing structure around it. Our town has had problems time and again with people stealing from the clinic, probably non-residents of the town but people we’ve treated that heard about the clinic who traveled there for care.”
“We’ll be fine,” Sam utters stoically, not lifting her eyes from the dusty hardwood floor.
“No, I don’t agree,” he argues, looking at Sam, who has already lost interest and is back to staring at nothing in a daze. Simon, instead, turns to Dave. “There’s no way to secure this house. What are we supposed to do, build a stone wall around it? That’s the only thing in our town that’s helped.”
“You’ve got a point,” Cory says.
“We could establish the clinic but not have the doctors live here,” Dave offers thoughtfully.
“You’d have to lug your supplies back and forth from your compound to this house every time you have a clinic day,” Cory reminds them. “They’ll still break in and steal things, even shit they don’t know how to use like medical instruments and supplies. Some of it you could haul back and forth, though.”
“That would be alright, I suppose,” Dave says.
“Aren’t there any houses closer to the farm?” Cory asks.
“No, none that aren’t flooded out, molded, or too damaged by the tornado now to bother with,” he says.
“There’s an old log cabin near my farm,” Henry states, “but I don’t think it would be very accessible by road.”
“How close is it?” Simon asks.
“Less than a mile, but it’s just a rustic cabin,” he explains further. “It sits back really far from the road. We used it more as a hunting cabin than anything else.”
“Could we build small exam rooms in it?” Cory asks.
Henry considers this a moment before answering, “Yes, maybe. It’s not big, but we could probably get three exam rooms in there.”
“You mean that place back in the woods?” Dave asks.
“Yes, sir,” Henry answers. “My family built it a long time ago before I was born. The neighbors let my family build it, and they got to use it for free. They were friends of ours. It’s technically on their land, but they’re long gone now. They had more woods on their farm than we did, so we hunted over there. My dad and his brothers would sack out there and go hunting and fishing.”
“How would we get patients there?” Dave asks.
“We’d have to find a way to clear a path,” Henry says. “We used to take ATV’s to get there.”
Simon quickly puts in, “We could help with building a road.”
Cory also says, “What about bedrooms? Could Sam and her uncle live there, too?”
“Um, yeah. There’s a loft and two small bedrooms. It’s nothing fancy. Pump well in the sink, fireplace for heat. Not much.”
“It’s better than being out here on this paved road and open to ambush and attack,” Simon remarks.
“True. Good point,” Cory adds. “Once people figure it out that there’s a clinic here, and they will because word gets out quick, you’ll already have a security issue. The clinic in town grew so quickly. We weren’t even prepared for how many people found out about it and started bringing their families there for care. You’ll probably have the same. Doc and Reagan treat people who aren’t from our town, too. We let them in and give them care and then turn them back out through the gates.”
“Yes, I’ve seen that. Interesting,” Dave considers. “Maybe your old cabin isn’t such a bad idea, Gunny.”
“What do you think, Sam?” Henry asks, turning to look at her. “You know a lot about the way a clinic should work.”
She walks over toward them, having wandered to the front windows to look out.
“Doesn’t matter. This place. That place. Anything you guys decide will probably work,” she says. “We just need to get a practice set up and do it as soon as possible. There are so many women in town here who are going to have babies. We’ll be trying to help with the births when we can, but their babies are going to need a pediatrician. We need a practice unless we’re going house to house once a week to check on them.”
With this statement released, she walks away again, past them and out the front door. They all stare at one another with confusion. Apparently, he isn’t the only who doesn’t understand women. Simon follows after her. The men can discuss it further without him. He’s given his opinion. It won’t change.
“Sam,” he calls, not getting her attention. She stops at the truck but doesn’t climb into the bed again. She just stands there staring out at the field across the street. “Anything wrong? Did you see something out there?”
He naturally tightens his grip on his rifle sling.
She looks up at Simon and shakes her head. “No, nothing.”
He knows she is stressed out. She’s exhausted, barely on her feet, but she’s still beautiful to him. He’s seen her at her worst and was not the only man to find her attractive. That was the problem.
“Wanna’ sit?” he asks and opens the tailgate. She doesn’t acknowledge him. “Sam? Do you want to sit and rest a minute?”
“What? Sure.”
Without thinking, Simon wraps his hands around her waist and hefts her onto the tailgate. She doesn’t pull back or argue. She takes his help as if she isn’t even aware that he is there. He hops up and sits beside her. Simon doesn’t push her. She likely needs some space, but he is concerned. They sit in the silence of the afternoon, the birds chirping and the sun high and bright, although it does seem as if it will rain later. She keeps picking at her thumbnail. Her fingernails are painted, something she must’ve done while at the farm for her visit. They are chipping, though, and she keeps picking away at the polish.
Her hair is hanging down her back, not pulled into a ponytail or braided as she would typically do in such hot weather. He’s just guessing, but it also seems tangled as if she hasn’t brushed it yet today. Sam is wearing blue-jean shorts, cutoffs that she’s rolled up. They show off her tanned legs. Simon wishes she was wearing long pants, and not just to conceal her sexy legs from the other men. He fin
ds his eyes dropping to them a lot, too, while they wait in silence. Her pale pink, oversized t-shirt has dirt on the hem, leaving him to wonder what she has been doing today. Probably something that has to do with horses, he’s assuming. She always looks so pretty in pinks and rose colors; it brings out the flush of her cheeks.
A moment later, the men come out of the house, noisy as ever, unaware of much other than themselves and their discussion. If any of them notices Simon sitting with her or that Sam seems sad, nobody says anything.
They load up and travel back to Henry’s farm, but instead of turning down the lane, they drive past it to a field access driveway, which is mostly just an overgrown cow path full of ruts and holes that throw Sam against him a few times. When they come to a fallen tree, they dismount from the truck and walk. It doesn’t take long before they find the cabin that Henry told them about. He was right about one thing. It is rustic.
They look around the outside first and discuss whether or not they could build and clear a driveway to the structure. It is quickly decided that they can manage that. Cory and Henry climb onto the roof and declare that it’s solid but could use some upkeep. Then they go inside. The house is basically a bigger version of the cabin the McClanes stay in when doing a run to Clarksville. There are signs of spiders everywhere. Normally Sam would cringe at this, but she just walks around the cabin with a glum expression on her tiny doll face. He walks over to the men cloistered in the living room near the fireplace. Cory has his head up the chimney inspecting it.
“Looks clear,” his friend says and comes out covered in cobwebs and dirt.
“Can’t say the same for you now,” Henry jokes.
Cory laughs, and so do the others. Simon does not. He doesn’t really like Henry all that well.
They go from room to room, measuring and examining. Simon offers his opinion where he feels he should and listens as others do, too.
“Let’s discuss these houses more over dinner tonight,” Dave suggests as they prepare to leave. “We got some ideas today, but we need to get back.”
Simon looks around to find Sam gone.
“She went upstairs,” Cory tells him. “I’ll grab her.”
Simon offers a nod but still waits in the house for his friend to bring her down. Then they leave together and head back to the compound. She is quiet the entire ride and takes Henry’s hand to get down from the bed of the truck when they arrive on his farm. He tries not to be bothered by this.
He and Cory are shown to a small white cabin with chipping paint and a low roofline near the dairy barn where they will be staying while on the farm. It’s even smaller than their cabin back on Herb’s farm, but it is a little more private than staying in the bunkhouse with a lot of people. He’s appreciative, and he is sure Cory is, too. Henry warns them that the shower spits out mostly cold water. Simon’s glad he took one before he left this morning.
They join Dave’s group for dinner in the mess hall and go over their ideas and plans. Simon glances around several times looking for her but doesn’t find Sam in the crowd. There are a lot of people at the various tables, but he doesn’t think she is just lost in the crowd. It makes it very difficult to concentrate on the conversation around him. They do make a decision to go with the log cabin for the practice. It’s going to take a lot of work, but he’s satisfied that at least she and her uncle will be safer there than out on the road in a house not ten feet from it.
After dinner, the entire group goes to a burial site they have chosen for Reese. He can’t stand this. Dave further explains to them that so many people were gone on a run yesterday that they held off on her memorial service in order for them to be present. She was well liked. Simon is sick and tired of attending funerals. Dave’s compound has a village minister who gives the service. So many people are crying, even some of the men. Reese was a really nice woman. She certainly didn’t deserve the life she was given.
Simon looks around the crowd again and still doesn’t find Sam. Her uncle is standing next to Courtney, but Sam is not with them, either. He discreetly slips away and heads toward the women’s bunkhouse, which is quite a long way from his cottage rental. He doesn’t find her. He looks in the barns and still comes up short. A light drizzle has begun, which seems like it will eventually turn into a deluge. He searches a long barn, which must be where they store hay and keep horses because he hears them nickering to one another. Surely, she’ll be here. But he doesn’t locate her again and is beginning to get worried as he exits out the back of the long building. A two-story equipment shed at the end of the other barns and very removed from the rest of the farm is the only place he hasn’t looked. He jogs there since it is the last possible area she’d be. The sun is setting and making it difficult to see in the darkening building. It appears as empty as the rest. Then the soft glow of a lantern coming from the far corner of the pole barn catches his attention as he turns to go. He walks cautiously toward the source. Skirting around an antique truck from what he would estimate to be the 1950s, Simon finally finds her. She is sitting in the bed of the truck on an old mattress drawing by the light of the lantern. She doesn’t startle. Sam must’ve heard him. So much for his stealth skills or his future career as a ninja.
“Hey,” he says softly, not wanting to chase her off.
“I figured you’d find me,” she doesn’t say this with malice or anger, just as if she is stating a fact.
“I was worried,” he responds honestly.
“I’m fine,” she says and uses her pencil to point to her handgun beside her box of art pencils.
“What are you drawing?”
He steps closer, and Sam immediately flips the sketchpad closed. This worries him. She could be slipping into that dark place again.
“Nothing, horses, stuff like that,” she says and looks away.
Her behavior is suspicious, but he won’t push, not tonight.
“You’re missing the funeral for your friend,” he says as he climbs over the side of the truck and sits beside her, propping his gun against the frame of the rear, missing window of the cab.
“No, I’m not missing that at all,” she informs him.
Simon frowns. “She was your friend?”
Sam nods.
“I’m really sorry, Samantha,” he offers.
She just nods again.
“Don’t you want to go to her funeral?”
This time she shakes her head. Simon nods. He can understand. It gets old real fast, and they’ve certainly watched enough people, friends, and family be buried the last four years.
He replies with a simple, “Yeah.”
Simon sits with her for a few minutes in the quiet, listening to the raindrops tinkling down upon the metal roof. Sam packs her art supplies away but doesn’t attempt to leave.
“Want to talk about it?” he asks.
Her blue eyes slide to his, and Simon can see her pain, the anguish and something akin to horror that she’s been hiding all day by staring at the floor or out at fields or anywhere but at him directly. She barely shakes her head, the motion nearly imperceptible.
“It’ll help. You can tell me,” Simon offers and touches her arm.
Her breathing speeds up, her chest rising and falling faster and faster. Sam’s eyes morph into a haunted stare as she recalls something terrifying.
“Talk to me, Sam,” he urges.
“It…it was…”
She shakes her head and looks away. There is nothing to see on that side of the truck but a blank, dark wall.
“You found her?” he asks.
“How’d you know?”
“Courtney.”
Sam nods with understanding.
“In the barn she said?” he prompts.
She nods and says on a shaky breath, “Yes. She was…she was hanging there, swaying.”
“No, that’s terrible,” he says, picturing what she must’ve seen. It is a horrific image to be sure, one that won’t dissipate into the far reaches of her memory for a long time to com
e.
“Henry was getting hay down. We were the only two people awake, and I was drawing in the barn. He followed me to get hay for the mare that just had her baby. Her white dress caught my eye, and I looked up. It was…”
She doesn’t finish but looks away again. Simon is also concerned that she was the only person awake and hanging out with Henry all by herself in the barns. He doesn’t like it. For now, his concern is for Sam’s mental state.
“She was swinging just slightly,” Sam explains before he can ask another question. “She looked like a ghost. I guess she already was. Her face, though. Her face…”
“What is it, Sam?” he asks, resting his hand on her shoulder.
She shakes her head, draws her knees up to her chest and hugs them, refusing to talk.
“Was she dead already or had she just dropped?”
“No, she was definitely dead. I’ll never be able to get that image out of my mind.”
He rubs her back. “You will. Over time it’ll fade.”
She vigorously shakes her head and looks directly at him. “No, no, I won’t, Simon. It was…her eyes, and the purple mottling of her skin. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
He doesn’t know what to say. He’s never witnessed a suicide. It must’ve been a ghastly thing to discover.
“I’m sorry,” he offers.
Sam nods and rests her chin on her knees. She sniffs hard, leading him to believe that she might be crying. All he wants to do is pull her into his arms and comfort her, but he’s not sure if she would allow it. Before she left the farm, she would’ve turned to him for help dealing with this. She always sought him out for things that greatly bothered her. He just continues to rub her back and shoulders with his left hand. Simon hopes it helps to lessen her pain.
“I couldn’t go to her service,” she says. “I don’t ever want to see her again or even picture her. I just want to pretend it never happened, that I never knew Reese at all.”
He doesn’t think this is a healthy way to deal with this situation but holds his tongue. Instead, he says, “I’m sure everyone understands. You need to process this, take your time and handle it on your own terms.”
