Ill Wind

by Nevada Barr

  THE maintenance yard was loud with heavy equipment. Stacy pulled up in front of the fire cache. “Stay in the car, honey. Too much traffic. I’ll find Drew.”

  “Are you married?” Bella resumed the interrogation as Stacy disappeared into the cache.

  “Used to be,” Anna replied.

  “Did he divorce you?”

  “He died.” Anna wished Stacy would come back. “Maybe I’d better go and see what’s keeping your dad.”

  Her cowardly exit was thwarted. “No. Stay. Stacy’ll be right back. He never forgets. My first dad divorced us because I wasn’t born normal,” Bella stated matter-of-factly. “Momma said.”

  Anna didn’t know what to say to that. She was saved by Stacy’s reappearance, Drew beside him. Drew Kinder was as close to a “mountain of a man” as Anna’d ever met, made of a core of stone-hard muscle covered with a layer of baby fat a couple of inches deep. Unruly eyebrows and a moth-eaten mustache grew like lichen on his round face.

  Next to the helitacker, Stacy’s six-foot-two looked average, short even, and his slenderness was accentuated. Seeing the two men together, an image of a bass fiddle and bow flashed through her mind.

  “Hiya, Drew,” Bella called.

  “Hiya, beautiful.” Drew leaned down, hands on the door frame. His head filled the window. “I gotta fuel the truck, then we hit the road.”

  “Hit the road,” Bella repeated, as if the phrase had struck a harmonious chord within her.

  “I’ll help you with the truck,” Anna volunteered. She didn’t want to be left alone with Bella again. The child’s unrelenting forthrightness was unsettling.

  “Can’t hack it?” Stacy asked over the roof of the patrol car as she climbed out.

  Anna just laughed.

  While Drew filled the fire truck with diesel, she leaned against the fender. In his huge hands the nozzle looked like a child’s water pistol.

  “Bella’s quite a girl,” he said.

  “Seems smart enough. Too bad she’s . . .” Aware she was giving pity where none was asked, Anna left the sentence unfinished.

  Drew straightened up. The sun was behind his head. In silhouette he loomed as solid as the proverbial brick outhouse. “Maybe that’s what makes her so strong, so smart. She sees right through people. Maybe she got that from being the way she is. Ever think of that?”

  “I will now,” Anna promised.

  “Her mom wants her to get all these operations on her legs. Pretty painful stuff. Make her more ‘normal.’ Maybe it’s a good idea, maybe it’s not. All I know is it’s got to hurt. I don’t like seeing kids hurt.”

  “Nobody does,” Anna said mildly.

  Drew shot her a look that startled her with its venom. “Don’t kid yourself,” he said, and went back to pumping diesel. “Her folks ought to leave her alone. I’m a giant. She’s a dwarf. We’re the variety that adds spice.”

  A blue Ford six-pac carrying five men in orange hard hats pulled up behind them in line for fuel. Ted Greeley was driving.

  “Well, if it isn’t my own personal ranger,” Greeley greeted Anna. “How am I doing? Running afoul of the law?”

  “Not yet,” she returned.

  He looked at his watch. “It’s early.”

  “Did Frieda get ahold of you about last night?”

  “She did. Damn near too late. You guessed it. The son of a bitch dumped sugar in the gas tank of my ditcher. If anybody’d fired it up I’d’ve been proud owner of a piece of shit retailing at close to a hundred grand. I’m none too happy one of my boys left the gate unlocked and I’m none too happy one of your boys didn’t catch it. I’d hate to think all my tax dollars are paying for are cute uniforms for pretty little rangers.” He winked and Anna managed not to spit in his open eye.

  Silva got out of the truck. He had his shirt on this time—a western cut with pearl snaps—but the tails were out, the cuffs not snapped, the collar open. He looked just tumbled out of a woman’s bed or ready to tumble into one.

  “ ’Morning, Ranger Pigeon,” he said lazily as he looked Anna up and down. Again she wasn’t flattered.

  “That ever work for you?” she asked.

  He didn’t even play coy. “More often than not. Is it going to work on you?” Silva removed his hard hat and ran a hand through his shock of black hair. “Or are rangers’ sex drives too low?”

  “IQs are too high,” Anna retorted.

  Everybody laughed but Silva. Anna guessed she’d struck a nerve. A smile broke slowly on Tom’s face but it never reached his eyes. She braced herself. She had the sinking feeling the repartee was about to take an ugly turn.

  All he said was: “Better watch it. I’m getting more and more eligible every day. By August I ought to be Bachelor of the Year. Ain’t that right, Ted?”

  Greeley didn’t return Silva’s smile.

  “Got to hop to it,” Silva said. “The boss wants to leave early to get in a round of golf. Me, I can’t play golf. I’m not over the hill yet.”

  “Come on,” Greeley growled. “I don’t pay you to chase—”

  Anna was sure he intended to say “pussy” but he saved himself at the last second.

  “—your tail,” he finished.

  “See you around,” Silva said to Anna as he put his hard hat back on.

  “By the way, I never did find out anything about that truck that ran you off the road,” Anna told him.

  “Was no truck,” Tom said as he turned away. “I was just jerking your chain.”

  He was wearing brown cowboy boots. But then so were Greeley and two of the others. So was Anna, for that matter.

  DREW finished fueling the truck and Stacy brought Bella to the gas shed. As he lifted her onto the high front seat their radios rasped to life.

  “Seven hundred, this is Beavens at Cliff Palace.”

  As one, Drew, Anna, and Stacy turned up the volume on their portables. The interpreters in the ruins seldom called in unless there was a problem.

  “Lockout,” Drew offered.

  “Let’s hope,” Stacy said.

  “Shhh.”

  “Cliff Palace, this is seven hundred. Go ahead,” Frieda’s voice came over the air.

  “We’ve got a little girl here having trouble breathing. She doesn’t look too good.”

  Anna and Stacy began to run for the patrol car. Anna flipped on the vehicle’s lights and siren. “Nothing like starting the day off right.”

  “Jesus. Not another one.”

  The anguish in Stacy’s voice startled a laugh from Anna. “Hey, it’s something to do.”

  The two-way road to Cliff was narrow and twisting with no shoulders. Despite lights and sirens, tourists plodded ahead, refusing to give right-of-way.

  Trapped behind an RV, Anna and Stacy crawled along at twenty-three miles an hour. Anna grabbed the public address mike and turned up the volume. “Pull to the right, please. Pull to the right. Pull to the right, please.” She repeated the command until the RV’s driver came out of his comatose state and began to slow, squeezing the oversized vehicle to the side of the road.

  “Damn. Just once I’d like to ride shotgun with a shotgun and permission to use it.”

  Stacy said nothing. His eyes were fixed on the road as he hunched over the wheel. Above the dark line of beard, his cheek was pale. Tension pulled his shoulders almost to ear level.

  Cliff Palace lot was full. They parked in a handicapped space near where the trail started down to the ruin and Anna called in: “Seven hundred, three-one-two, we’ve arrived on the scene.”

  Having taken the red trauma pack and an oxygen bottle from the trunk, she led the way down the crowded trail using “excuse me” the way a frustrated motorist uses the horn.

  As soon as they climbed the eight-foot ladder that brought them within the cliff dwelling, they saw the knot of people surrounding the sick child.

  On the periphery was Jamie Burke. The moment she noticed Anna and Stacy she marched toward them. They met halfway through the alcove and the int
erpreter started in: “It’s not like you weren’t warned, for God’s sake. Nobody listened. This time it’s a child. Solstice—”

  “Hold that thought, Jamie,” Anna cut her off. “I’ll get back with you this evening.” Dodging past the other women, she plowed through the tourists at a fast walk.

  Mesa Verde’s most famous cliff dwelling, Cliff Palace filled an alcove several hundred feet long. The dwelling itself was composed of two hundred and seventeen rooms, twenty-one kivas, and, at the far end, a four-story tower, the inside room of which boasted intact plaster with discernible paintings. The entrance to the tower was reachable only by ladder that led to a narrow path around yet another roofless kiva.

  In this congested part of the ruin was a frail-looking child. She strained for air with the rounded chest of those suffering chronic pulmonary disorders. Dark hair fell forward over her face, and stick-thin arms and legs poked out from beneath an oversized T-shirt. The child was propped in a sitting position against a stone wall built seven centuries before she was born. A man—probably her father—sat on the wall, one leg on either side, supporting her. A hand-lettered sign reading PLEASE DO NOT SIT OR CLIMB ON THE WALLS had tumbled to the path at the foot of the wooden ladder.

  The girl braced her hands on her knees and leaned forward. Tendons in her neck pulled like ropes with the effort of breathing, yet only squeaks of air were pushed out.

  Anna eased through the crowd and put down her gear. “Hi, I’m Anna,” she introduced herself as she removed a nasal cannula from the oxygen kit and fitted it to the cylinder. “What’s your name?” The girl hadn’t enough breath to spare for an answer.

  “Her name’s Stephanie,” the man seated on the wall answered for her. “Stephanie McFarland. She’s got asthma.”

  An ominous blue tint colored the skin around Stephanie’s lips and in her fingernail beds.

  “She was doing fine a bit ago, then she started feeling like she might throw up,” a thin-faced woman in her early thirties told Anna. “She’s been at altitude before and we’ve never had trouble like this. We’re from Denver. It’s nearly this high. Steph should be used to it. I’m her mom,” the woman finished in a whisper.

  “Well, Stephanie, we’re going to get you down to a doctor so you can breathe better, okay?” The girl nodded slightly, all her concentration taken by the effort of drawing and expelling air.

  “Meyers, hand me the—” Anna broke off as she looked over at Stacy.

  Clutching the red trauma bag to his chest as a frightened woman might clutch her baby, he stood at the edge of the circle of concerned onlookers. The blood had drained from his face and he was so pale Anna was afraid he was going to pass out.

  “Meyers!” she said sharply.

  The brown eyes turned toward her. They were clouded with fear—or shock.

  “Hand me the bag. Then give Frieda a call and see if we can’t get helitack down here with a litter. We’re going to need the ambulance as well.”

  For a moment it seemed as if he didn’t understand, then his eyes focused. Anna watched him for a few seconds more but he began making the calls. She turned down her radio so she could talk with Stephanie and her parents.

  Seven minutes and Drew called on scene at Cliff Palace parking. In that time Stephanie had begun to go downhill. By the time Drew arrived with the Stokes, she had lost consciousness.

  Keeping up a running commentary to calm the parents and Stephanie if she wasn’t beyond hearing, Anna had taken the IV kit from the trauma bag and prepped the child’s thin arm. “This is just to get some fluids in her; it may help to break up the congestion. And, too, if she needs medication at the hospital, they can just put it right in.”

  She swabbed the skin with alcohol and readied a number-sixteen needle. To Drew she said: “We’re not wasting time with this. One try; if I don’t get in, we’re out of here.”

  “Do it,” Drew said.

  “Damn,” Anna whispered. “This kid has no veins.”

  “What? Have you got it?” Drew asked.

  “No. Load and go. Wait. I’m getting a flashback.”

  “Too many drugs in college,” Drew muttered under his breath.

  Anna noted the red of blood in the flashback chamber of the IV catheter with satisfaction. She was in. Carefully, she pulled the catheter off the needle, sliding it into the vein. “Pop the tourniquet.” She taped the catheter in place. “Go.”

  Anna addressed herself to the little girl strapped into the evacuation litter. “Stephanie, we’re carrying you out. You’re in good hands.” Maybe the child’s eyelids twitched in response. Maybe it was just the play of the sun.

  Drew had taken his place at the head of the litter. Crouched down, elbows on thighs, he looked solid, like a rock. When he began to rise Anna was put in mind of the unfolding of the stony peak of Bald Mountain in Disney’s Fantasia.

  Stacy knelt at the foot of the Stokes. His lips were pressed in a thin line and his eyes turned inward, unreadable.

  “Ready?” Drew asked.

  Meyers didn’t respond. “Stacy!” Drew raised his voice. Like a man in a trance, Stacy slowly began to lift. “Atta boy,” said the helitacker.

  The Stokes was of orange plastic hard enough to haul up inclines and drag over rough terrain. Encasing the fragile form of the child, it resembled a medieval instrument of torture rather than the secure embrace of modern emergency evacuation equipment, and Anna felt bad for the parents, already frightened half out of their wits.

  Four ladders of juniper wood, polished to a dark gloss by the palms of countless tourists, led up twenty-five feet through the crack in the cliff’s face to the mesa.

  Stephanie McFarland would not be roped up this incline, but carried back out the entrance trail. The distance was greater but the ascent not so precipitous.

  “Coming through,” Drew boomed. Curious onlookers parted reluctantly. Drew going first, the procession began to move down the path fronting the cliff dwellings. Tourists shifted, pressing back against stone walls. Bright-hued clothing, cameras, sunglasses, all combined to create a jarring kaleidoscope of color against the serene peach and buff of the ancient village.

  Over the centuries roofs had fallen in, paint chipped away, and fiber mats rotted from doorways; the clangor of life leeched away until the structures had taken on the timeless purity of Greek statuary. But, like the ancient Greeks who had painted their pale marble figures vivid colors, the Anasazi had plastered the warm neutrality of their sandstone exteriors, then decorated them in red and black patterns.

  Mesa Verde’s Old Ones might have been as much at home with the cacophony of neon and spandex as the moderns.

  The pathway clear, Drew picked up the pace. Holding the IV bag above shoulder level, Anna walked beside the litter. Stephanie’s chest movement was barely perceptible and the tissue-thin eyelids blue and delicately veined. Some of the pallor was probably natural but the faint bluish at her lips and fingernails was not.

  Anna stroked back the dark hair. The child’s skin was cool to the touch, clammy.

  “Seven hundred, three-one-four.”

  “Seven hundred,” Anna and Drew’s radios bleated as Dispatch responded. Anna turned hers down.

  “The ambulance has arrived at Cliff Palace. We’re at the entrance. Repeat: the entrance.”

  “Seven hundred copies. Did you get that, three-one-two?”

  Anna pulled her radio from her duty belt. “I got it. We’ll be up in ten minutes or so. Two helitacks are standing by at the stairs. There’s a narrow spot there. Send somebody down from the overlook to clear the visitors out of it.”

  “Ten-four. I’ll send Claude Beavens.” The dispatcher named the seasonal interpreter, who had radioed in the incident.

  Anna put her radio back on her belt and watched her footing as she trod the uneven pavement. Like all the park’s ruins accessible to tourists, Cliff Palace had a paved path leading to it from the parking lot on the mesa top. When the ruins were first opened there’d been primitive trails
that ladies in long dresses and picture hats had picked their way down, carefully placing each buttoned-up boot. In the thirties the Civilian Conservation Corps had come in and earned their Depression dollars with the back-breaking chore of carving staircases from native rock and shoring up trails with stone.

  Beauty and grace had gone the way of cheap labor. Now the paths were a hodgepodge of asphalt and rock, patched and repatched.

  The trail switched back several times then narrowed to hand-hewn steps leading into a crevice between two boulders. After more than half a century the workmanship of the CCC still held fine. Only the lips of the steps had been fortified with pale scabs of modern concrete.

  The stairway, just wide enough to admit people single file, was choked with tourists who’d started down before Claude Beavens had been sent to stop traffic.

  “Gonna have to ask you folks to go on back up,” Drew called over the low-grade chatter. The hips of the better endowed scraped a patter of sand from the soft rock as they shifted in the confining space. Faces displayed the sheeplike vacancy of vacationers who’ve come upon the unexpected.

  “Ask the guy behind you to turn around,” the helitack foreman suggested patiently. He spoke over his shoulder, his thick arms showing no strain at holding Stephanie’s little weight.

  Attuned to the vital signs of her patient, Anna caught a faint sigh. She laid the palm of her hand on the girl’s diaphragm. Through the knit T-shirt, she could feel the bones of the rib cage but not the gentle rise of lungs filling with air.

  “What?” Drew pressed.

  Anna shook her head, waited. With a sucking sound, like the hiss of a new kitten, the child drew a sudden breath.

  “Thanks,” Anna said to no one in particular. To Drew she said: “We’re in a hurry.” Edging past him, she stood at the foot of the stairs.

  “Got to move you out. This girl needs medical attention. Up you go. Thanks. Thanks.” Anna spoke pleasantly, but she was prodding rounded backs and pudgy shoulders, herding people up the stairway.

  As they began retreating, she turned back to Drew. His head was sunk between his massive shoulders. The little braided pigtail he affected poked out incongruously as he stared down into the litter.