by Rich Foster
So far there was no access to the bus. The switchbacks on the road made access impossible because the road cut in an out of the fire lines. The chopper had made a pass over the bus but high winds, smoke, and the gray ash storm made a close approach impossible. Gaines could only impatiently wait and watch as the fire descended the hills having engulfed the area where the bus was spotted.
An hour latter the heart of the fire moved to the east. The police helicopter was able to fly in closer. Surveying the charred bus the airmen saw no bodies, but also no movement. They hovered over the scene.
“Over there!” yelled the co-pilot. Down the road they saw a muddied fellow deputy climbing the roadway bank, shotgun in hand. He waved the all clear to the plane. A moment later, from under the far side of the bridge, a prisoner made a dash down the road. The guard fired a warning shot into the air. The man kept on running.
The helicopter maneuvered around, descending like a vulture dropping on its prey. The rotors drove a dervish of ash that sent the escapee to his knees. The copter hovered. Four SWAT officers rappelled down, fully armed with M-16’s, ready down to assist.
Sheriff Gaines received the report by radio, two men had escaped and one deputy was being Medi-vaced to the hospital. The remaining prisoners were in custody and awaiting ground transport.
He ran a hand across his tired eyes. The department had nobody to spare for escapees. Dogs would be useless; the scent would be scorched away by the fire. His men could only keep an eye out for the prisoners while pursuing their other duties. Most likely, the men would go to ground in a vacant cabin.
An APB for two men in county jail jumpsuits was put out, while Gaines awaited the identification of the missing men. It took a little time to establish who they were. The transfer papers burned in the bus, the unarmed guard was a new hire. He did not know the prisoners by sight. The non-escapees had offered no names. A roll call was taken, as prisoners sat in the middle of the road.
The word came back: “It’s Whitmore and Goodman. They’ve been gone over three hours.”
Gaines stroked his mustache. A nearby deputy wondered how many more years this man he respected, would be his boss. The years seemed to be quietly eroding him. His eyes were tired and his shoulders slumped.
Gaines called a meeting of all officers at the command site. Fifteen minutes later he addressed a group of deputies.
“Gentlemen, we’re going to have a mess. Goodman as you well know, is a psychopath who has no proclivities against killing. Clarence Whitmore is a nasty little pervert who likes to molest children. He doesn’t care about their sex.
When word of their escape goes out, every Tom, Dick, and Harry, in the valley, will be grabbing his gun and going hunting. I’d like to sit on this news, but we can’t. I will be doing a press conference in five minutes. Put the word out to the men to be on the lookout not only for Goodman and Whitmore, but also for vigilantes. If they spot vigilantes they are to arrest them without warning. As to the escapees, they are authorized to use whatever force is necessary to bring them in.”
A hand went up, “Are you approving deadly force?”
“The shoot to kill order continues in effect. I’d like to have these prisoners back in lock-up before the fire is out and the evacuee’s return. That’s all.”
*
Calley Haskell’s level of frustration neared the boiling point. The elderly lady she was attempting to help was nearly deaf, yet refused to wear a hearing aid. It was difficult to communicate over the blaring noise of the wall-mounted television. Exasperated, she threw up both hands in front of the woman, like a ref making a call.
“Wait!” she mouthed the words.
The woman lay back. Calley picked up the remote control to turn down the sound. On the screen a booking photo of Robert Goodman and another criminal appeared.
“…the men escaped after the bus they were riding in was trapped by the flames. Sheriff Gaines assured us the men likely died in the blaze. However, he added, the public should exercise caution. People are asked to report any suspicious activity. These men are armed and dangerous. Do not approach either of them, nor should you attempt to detain them yourself.”
From the screen, Goodman’s eyes seemed to stare straight into Calley’s soul. What she saw was pure evil. Her hands shook so terribly that she dropped the remote and fled the room.
She rushed to the woman’s restroom and locked herself in a stall. Sobs wracked her. She quivered and shook like a malaria victim. After the initial wave of primordial fear passed, her thoughts turned to her children. She had to get home. She shouldn’t be working, fire or no fire!
The thoughts ricocheted through her mind, a deadly fusillade of linked anxieties, which ended with the final thought that, she needed something to calm her nerves. Just one or two pills to settle herself.
Her fears propelled her out of the bathroom. Calley moved quickly through the ward hunting the halls for the meds cart. She located it unattended at the far end of the ward. The meds nurse appeared briefly at the room’s door. She checked the chart then picked up the patient’s afternoon dosage and re-entered the room.
Calley drifted past the cart, slowing to look for familiar pills. Her longing for relief obscured any thoughts that she was stooping to thievery like any street addict.
The nurse came out of the room. Calley moved on. When the cart stopped at the next room, she reversed direction and swept past the cart. Deftly, she lifted one of two pills from two separate containers. The call light from a nearby room was lit. She ignored it and quickly moved off. Alone in the bathroom she looked at the pills. Both were Hydrocodone. One was 500mg. the other 325mg. She swallowed the larger of the two. Already, she felt relief, not from the pill, but from knowing it would soon be working its magic.
She was about to ask to leave work early, when an inner voice warned her that disappearing drugs would be a problem. Calley had the feral instinct to cover her tracks.
In the hall she looked around. The pills had not yet been missed. At the nurse’s station, several bouquets waited to be delivered to patient’s rooms. She picked up the largest one. The flowers covered her face. She peered around the side of the bouquet as she walked down the hall on a collision course with the meds cart. A crash ensued, the flowers were dropped, the vase broke and water sloshed across the floor. The meds cart tipped over scattering the medications.
Calley apologized excessively as she wiped herself off and picked-up the flowers. An orderly came to aid with the cleanup. It did not occur to Calley, that patients who were awaiting pain pills would suffer because of her theft. Nor did she think about someone’s floral gift being crunched on the floor. Like any user, Calley was now thinking only of herself.
*
Grace spread sheets over the rosebushes in her garden. The ash fell. It was a snow flurry that would damage the leaves. If the dew mixed with the ash it would leave a residue that would defy all attempts to remove it. She swept the covered patio in a futile attempt to avoid tracking ash into the house. Her sweeping was bested by the winds that pushed the fine gray powder.
Her paper mask was hot and itchy. She surrendered the patio to the ash and retreated into the house. The air-conditioned rooms were a welcome respite from the September heat. She poured herself a tall glass of lemonade and seated herself at the kitchen table.
She was lost in thought when a knock came at the rear door. “Come in,” she called.
The mudroom door opened. Lucas called, “Hello.”
They had become friends over the past month. One or the other would drop by to say hello and pass the time of day. Sometimes Lucas fixed some small problem around her house. Grace would return the favor with hot scones or a fresh baked pie.
“I wanted to and make sure everything was all right.”
Grace poured a glass of lemonade for him. “Thank you Lucas, that’s thoughtful of you. I’m fine but I can’t say the same for the garden.”
Lucas glanced out the windows where the greens were mute
d, the natural light dimmed, and the sky a sickly brown.
Looking at her yard, Grace murmured the familiar funerary words, “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” She looked back to him. “It’s true Lucas. It all quickly passes and soon we’re just dust in time.
Sensing her melancholy, Lucas answered with the prayers second line, “In the sure and certain hope of the Resurrection into eternal life.”
Grace smiled. “Yes, I suppose I still believe that. Though I’m not certain I wish it for Lester. I can’t help but think he would find life eternal somehow disappointing.”
Silence lingered between them. Finally Grace spoke again.
“We never really know one another do we? For example, take your uncle, look at the things you didn’t know about him.”
“Perhaps not all the details,” Lucas said, “but we can see the character.”
“But life is in the details is it not? I regret the many small bits of living that I never shared with Lester, because either I wouldn’t or felt I couldn’t. Lester wasn’t an easy man to live with. I think I might have done more with my life if I hadn’t married him. Perhaps, I wouldn’t have retreated from life.”
“I believe, if one loves God with all his heart and his neighbor as himself, one will find life takes care of itself.”
“Perhaps Lucas, but somewhere along the way, one needs to learn to love oneself. I think that may be one of the great problems in the world. So few people love themselves.”
Lucas raised his eyebrows, as if doubtful.
Grace continued. “Oh, people can be selfish, no doubt. They can grab and gather for themselves, but in whole I believe that many people hate and despise themselves inside.”
“I can see some truth in that.”
“For example, look at Robert Goodman. I heard on the news that he has escaped. Do you think he is any more free now than when he was in chains?”
“I think he is far more dangerous.”
“Well of course, we both know life is full of dangers. But what drives him? Is he angry because he lost a wife and daughter, ones he was known to beat? Does he hate those who have wronged him? Is it because the “system” is unfair?” Grace paused to sip her lemonade. She waited for her thoughts to settle. “I think he hates because he is miserable with who he is. I think he believes if he could only make the world know how miserable it is to be him, then the world would do something about it.”
“I can see your point.”
“Oh, I am certain it is more than a point. After all, contented people ferment peace. It takes someone who is unhappy to change the world.”
Night came to Red Lake. The dirty light faded to a muted orange in the southwest. Spirals of flames rose to the south. The wall of flames slowed their advance as the sun-downer winds faltered and died away. The smoke barely rose. The air was suffocating. No stars shown in the city.
Those remaining in Red Lake watched the flames from their homes, ready at a moments notice to climb into their vehicles, taking all that they could of what they valued. Dozens of vacation cabins were already consumed; now the lower flank threatened the southeastern edge of the city. The red lights of fire trucks flashed, small dots of hope scattered across the fire line.
As the temperature fell, the fire abated in its fury. The weather forecast predicted high winds from the storm front that was moving in. Hopefully, it might bring heavy rains.
Calley’s shift ended. She hurried toward home. The fears she fled in the city pursued her down the asphalt, though they were muted by the numbing effect of her stolen drug.
She stopped to pick up her children. An exasperated Mrs. Deitz answered her knock. Wing to the falling ash, the children were inside all day. It proved to be too much for the elderly lady’s nerves.
“I’m sorry Mrs. Haskell. I cannot do this anymore! You must find someone else to tend your children.”
“Well, I will start looking.”
“I don’t care when you look, just don’t bring them here tomorrow! As I said, I am through.”
Calley did not know what to say. She started to fumble with her purse. “Then I will pay you for …”
She did not get to finish.
“I don’t need the money, I need your children out of my house.”
Calley called her children who complained they were watching a video, “just one more minute,” they chorused.
She shooed them toward the door, stopping outside to apologize for whatever offenses her children committed, but the door was already closing.
“Good-bye.” Mrs. Deitz said with finality. Behind the closed door Calley heard her finish “and good riddance.”
The Haskell children suffered from Calley’s depression. Like cats, put out of the house, they were going feral. For weeks she had been too tired, paralyzed by depression, or too medicated to notice the slide in their behavior. Several notes came home from the school. She either initialed them unread or forgot to return them at all.
Needing to block out the noise of life, she took her other pill. The kids watched the television while she tried to make dinner, but during the process of making macaroni and cheese she became lost. In frustration, she called nine year old Sarah to the kitchen and left her to cook. Calley went upstairs where she curled up on her bed.
*
Seventy miles south, in Beaumont, it was a beautiful summer night. Overhead the Milky Way trailed across the center of the sky. The same heat that drove the fires in Red Lake created a warm and comfortable evening in the city. People sat on porch swings chatting, waving to neighbors who strolled by, while swapping comments on the coming storm or the fire over the mountains. Slowly, porch lights went out as people retreated indoors. Like fireflies, the interior lights winked on and then off as people made their way up to bed.
Night owls were still out and about in Beaumont. Robert Goodman was one. Travis Parks was another. Travis sat at an upscale bar sipping a nightcap, having struck out with his dinner date. He had spent four hundred dollars on dinner. Even the expensive wine failed to cause her to drop her defenses. Every pass he tried was successfully blocked. Win some and lose some, he thought. To him it was all a game, the law, dating, even life. For him there were no absolutes.
Last call. He knocked back his drink. Outside the air flowed in warm and pleasant as he drove home, running through the gears on the highway and then taking it easy within his own neighborhood. The BMW motor announced his arrival as it purred into the drive. The door on the detached garage, rolled up. He coasted to a stop.
Travis climbed out of the car, tapped the remote mounted by the side door. He was irritated to find pathway light leading to his house was out. He paused, permitting his eyes to adjust to the darkness, before he moved toward the house. By his second step there was an explosion of light inside his head. His world went dark.
Robert dropped the hunk of firewood he used to put Travis down. For three hours he had waited behind the garage. His frustration went into the force of his swing at the back of the lawyer’s head. Travis lay face down. Robert rolled him over. The head lulled to the side, the mouth hung agape and the eyes broadly open but unfocused. For a moment, Goodman wondered if he had swung too hard, but Parks chest was rising and falling shallowly. He picked the keys from Travis’s clenched fist.
He let himself into the house. Off the rear entry, a kitchen lay to the left. Ahead, a stairway went down. Robert flipped the wall switch. He descended into the basement that was converted to a party room, with a full bar and a large ornate pool table.
On the far wall, two doors opened off the room. The first was to a kitchenette. The other had a temperature gauge beside the jamb. Behind the door he found a wine cellar. A table surrounded by straight-back chairs filled the center of the room; the walls were lined with wine racks filled with hundreds of bottles. On the table, tasting glasses awaited use.
Robert left, returning shortly with Parks slung over his shoulder. With his free hand he swept the glasses off to shatter on the flo
or. He dropped Travis, whose head made a dull thud on the marble top. He tied one limb to each of the table’s legs.
Goodman lifted a bottle of wine from the shelf. He looked at the French label in disgust; letting it drop to the floor. He went to the other room where he grabbed a bottle of bourbon from the bar and returned to the wine room. He shut the door. The muffled silence was like a tomb.
Fresh out of jail and free from enforced sobriety, Robert was content to slack his thirst for booze. As he became inebriated, the rage that lurked beneath the surface resurfaced. He became agitated. Picking up a bottle of wine and cracked the neck off on the edge of the table, ruining a two hundred fifty dollar bottle of wine. Robert didn’t know that, nor could he have distinguished it from four-dollar plunk, nor would he have cared. He poured the wine on Travis’s face. The man stirred. Robert poured more in the gaping mouth. Travis’s body became animated, shaking as he coughed and choked the wine out of his throat. By the time the coughing fit was over, he was fully awake.
“Surprise!” Robert said, blowing smoke in Travis’s face, as he leaned over him with a maniacal grin. “Remember me?”
Travis nodded slowly. Goodman’s face slipped in and out of focus. He had seen the news. He knew Goodman was loose. It just never occurred to him that Goodman might come after him.
“I’ve got money.” Still befuddled by the blow to his head, he stumbled on the words. “I’ll pay you anything! What do you want?”
Robert heard the fear in the lawyer’s voice. He found pleasure in it.
“Ain’t that funny, now! You’ve got money and guess what? I don’t! Do you know why?” he said leaning in close where Travis could smell booze, sweat, cigarettes, and the odor of the forest fire.” “I’m broke because some slimy little lawyer cheated me out of what I had coming.”
Parks lay motionless, afraid to speak. Goodman lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of his last. He deeply inhaled then blew out a cancerous cloud. He chased the smoke with a belt of whiskey.
