by Davis Bunn
He breathed hard. Again. A third time. And waited.
She did not move.
The fire was so close it sounded like it surrounded him on all sides. The sense of guidance was gone now. He was just another firefighter trapped in a world where he shouldn’t be.
“Come on, Kelly, speak to me.”
He was talking because he needed to. Not because he expected her to respond. She was too limp. Too still.
He set her back down. Stripped off his jacket and hers. Tossed his hat in the direction he thought the fire was probably coming from. Gave her four more quick breaths. Willing not just his breath into her lungs.
But his life as well.
Nothing.
He hefted her again and started walking. Not running. He could not hold her and keep his balance in the undergrowth and run. But he walked as fast as he could. Praying to God and to Kelly both. For one to show them the way out and the other to wake up. The farther he went, the more it seemed as though he was talking the same words to both.
He had no idea how long he carried her. Long enough for his arms to become one solid ache and for his back to grow numb and his legs to begin to stumble. But he was not setting her down. He stopped talking because he could not spare the breath. But the words were still there, slipping out of his brain and his heart in one steady stream. And he had the sense that she was listening. Hearing him talk about love and oneness and the wonder of finding her. How much it meant. How crossing over to wherever he was, the pain of the realization, the confusion, it was all okay. Because of her.
JayJay was not fully aware that he had fallen to one knee until he saw how much closer she had grown to the earth. He pushed himself back upright and saw where the earth had grown bloody. And realized it was his own. And decided it really did not matter so much.
He looked down at the bundle in his arms. And knew that if she was gone, he had no interest in staying behind any longer.
“JayJay!”
He heard the words but could not place them. Like sounds from another dimension. Which was kind of funny. Him being the person he was.
Arms crowded in on all sides. “I got her, JayJay. Let Kelly go. Come on, man. Unlock. Somebody bring me oxygen!”
He felt the mouthpiece fitted over his lips. He did not breathe so much as drink. And coughed so hard it felt like his throat tore.
“Easy, big guy. It’s okay. We got you.”
Ahn. The kid was crying again. The tears streaked his face and tore holes in his words. “The fire line held, JayJay. Come on, let’s get you on your feet.”
Only then did he realize he was flat on his back. He felt other hands pulling him up. Britt. Claire. Everybody but the one who mattered.
He stared up and realized the sun had emerged.
He dropped his head and tried to pull off the mask. But other, stronger hands kept it in place. He saw a crowd ahead of them make tracks for the road, holding a limp form between them. One of Kelly’s hands dangled flaccid and loose between the running men. Like she was waving him farewell.
Chapter 49
Martin was on the outskirts of Salton City when his secretary called on his normal cell phone. “I have Mr. Turner for you.”
“Patch him through. Britt?”
“Yes, Mr. Allerby. What can—”
“What’s this I hear about an accident?”
“It wasn’t as serious as we feared at first. Apparently one of the fire crews left the fuel they used to ignite the fire line out in the forest.”
“The news coverage suggests the town is under threat.”
“It might have been. The rising wind was against us. And the backup crew vanished. We still haven’t tracked them down.”
Martin took the Salton City exit. And kept his foot on the brake. He pulled over to the side of the off-ramp. Set on his blinker. And tasted the air.
His director was too calm.
“You’re saying . . .”
“Everything is under control here. The press junket is still fanned out around the town, interviewing anybody who’ll hold still. But the choppers have left. At least, I think they have. We’re not getting buzzed anymore.”
“The radio news still claims the blaze is out of control.”
Britt actually chuckled. “You know the press. They hate to give up on a good story, even when it’s dead. The fire is still smoldering in places. But volunteers from the town are out hosing things down. We lost the ranch, I guess you heard that.”
“No.” Martin touched his face. His flesh was numb to his own touch. “I hadn’t.”
“I’m editing the takes now. Crazy how all this worked out. We scored big-time, is my first impression. Even losing the ranch will fit into the script with a minimum amount of rewrites. Did I tell you Peter finished the screenplay?”
“I don’t think . . . No.”
“For a first-time feature writer, I’d say he’s done an incredible job. Big events, emotive enough to drive us easily through the second act. The high concept is something I’ve never seen before, a huge payoff I think will catch most people by surprise, but at the same time leave them saying afterward that they could see it coming.” Britt was clearly tired, but selling hard. “You know what they say, if it’s not on the page it will never be on the screen. Well, it’s here. And I’d say we’ve got ourselves a hit.”
Martin leaned his head against the steering wheel. He wanted to reach through the phone and rip the smug calm from his director’s throat. “You’re sure the fire is out?”
“Pretty much. We had almost three hundred volunteers show up from the town. They were fantastic. Just one case of serious injury and smoke inhalation. Which is a miracle. Kelly Channing is down, but she’s alive. The doctors are cautious but hopeful. JayJay saved her life, by the way. He was magnificent.”
Martin pushed himself off the steering wheel. But his spine held no strength. His head just kept moving back until it thunked against the seat rest.
Britt went on, “No casualties, more good press, friends all over town talking us up to the Hollywood junket, incredible takes in the can. I’d say we’re on a roll here. Nothing but good news at this end.”
Martin felt like he’d been fitted with a crank, just grinding out the words. “I’m glad.”
“Was there anything else?”
“No. Nothing.”
“I’ll get back to the edits, then. Maybe I’ll drive this lot down myself, take time out to watch them with you. I’d love to see how they play on the big screen.”
Martin tossed his phone onto the other seat. He fumbled with his door handle and scrambled out, almost going down on all fours. He staggered away from the Touareg. His fists remained clenched to either side of his gut, fighting to keep himself from being sick.
He stared up at the sky. Amazing how many stars there were out here away from the Hollywood smog. The moon was rising, a huge disk glowing in smug golden shades. Like he’d suddenly emerged from a smoking pit, only to discover a different universe, a different reality. One where his power did not reach.
There was something more etched into the nighttime sky. Written across the face of the moon. Martin had heard it clear as the night air in Britt’s voice.
The director knew.
Chapter 50
JayJay woke up in time to watch the bad moon rise.
The hospital held a somber tone. The room was dark and the other bed was empty. It was just him. Alone in the moonlight with smells and sibilant whispers.
He eased himself upright. The door was rimmed in yellow light, a warning sign wrapped around the frame. Telling him flat out he better be ready before he went out there and got told the news.
But he could not wait. Not even when the pain in his legs was so bad his groan came out like a half-formed scream.
Only then did he realize he was half-naked. Stripped down to his drawers.
Which meant the little black threads snaking over both shins and one knee and the opposite forearm were all visible. Se
eing them caused the pain to fully emerge.
Ahn pushed open the door. Saw what he was staring at. And said, “You pass out on us, you miss a lot of the action.”
JayJay kept looking at his legs because he couldn’t bear to see the kid’s face. Not just yet. “Kelly?”
“She’s in recovery.”
He just dropped. It was a silly thing to do. And of course the kid just panicked, seeing him slump to the floor. But JayJay managed to shush him before Ahn could call for the nurse. “Just find me some pants.”
Ahn left and came back with some hospital blues. “Everybody made it out, JayJay.”
“Take me to her.”
Ahn took a two-armed grip around his middle. “They’re not letting anybody in yet.”
They pushed through the door. He waved away the cluster of people he did not want to even acknowledge. “Get me as close as you can.”
He wore a face tight enough for the others to keep their distance. Just kept going on grim determination and a need not to acknowledge how wobbly his limbs felt. Ahn let JayJay use him as a human crutch, like he didn’t mind at all.
Which, truth be told, he probably didn’t.
They entered the intensive care unit. The rooms fanned out in a semicircle around a large central desk. Ahn halted only when a nurse the size of a dozer demanded, “And just where do you think you’re going?”
Kelly was near enough for him to smell her. Which was absurd, since the entire place was full of a scent sharp as airborne knives. “I just want to see her.”
“Who?”
“Kelly Channing.”
“And you are?”
JayJay just looked at her. “Please.”
His expression, the way the hoarsely spoken word carried across the empty hall, how he stood there barefoot and clinging to Ahn for support, was enough to melt the woman’s stern expression. “I’ll let you look in. But you mustn’t speak.”
“I am much obliged.”
“Unit seven.” She led the way. The glass door slid open.
There in the gloom JayJay made out a face so pale as to appear unbound by earth or time. Her beautiful mouth was slack. Oxygen tubes snaked into both nostrils. Her eyes were shut. She was cleaned up and the electronic monitor on the bed’s other side beeped the message that she was still with them. At least partly.
JayJay waited until the door had closed to ask, “How is she?”
“It’s too early to tell. Now I must ask you to leave.”
Ahn said, “I heard the doctor mention a coma.”
“She is resting well.” The nurse had a face that was made to say no with force. “That is all I am able to tell you.”
Back at the central desk, JayJay was the first to hear the tapping sound. Someone walked toward them, carried on heels driven with such urgent force they threatened to drive through the linoleum. He knew who it was long before the face came into view.
The newcomer hissed, “You!”
“How do, Mrs. Channing.”
She stepped close enough for her breath of rage to blister his soul. “You did this, you despicable little man.”
Ahn protested, “JayJay saved her life.”
“Only after you got her into this mess. I have no doubt whatsoever of that. Kelly has far too much sense to do anything so stupid as to be dragged into a fire. Except of course when a man is behind it.” Edith Channing’s fury shook her from her low heels to her shellacked copper hair. “You may stand tall in the lights of publicity, Mr. Junior. But you are a midget in my eye. An emotional dwarf. A stunted human being. You are forbidden to have anything more to do with my daughter, do you hear me?”
Edith Channing whirled about. She did not actually shout at the nurse. But only because the force of her rage made up for the lack of volume. “This, this actor is banned from coming anywhere near my daughter. Is that perfectly clear?”
The nurse recognized higher authority when she saw it. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Take me to her.”
Chapter 51
JayJay released himself from Ahn without ever really hearing the excuse he gave. He turned a corner as though headed for the bathroom, then was guided to a rear exit by a small Latina in a cleaning uniform. She might not have understood JayJay’s words, but she knew all about the press hanging around the front door, out beyond the police yellow tape. When JayJay pointed to the crowd and the clamor and then shook his head, she nodded and took hold of his surgical blues and led him to the loading platform. All without saying a word.
The more he moved, the easier his body responded. His truck was parked far down the road, just one more fire-streaked vehicle in a long, sooty line. He plucked the safety key from its holder beneath the bumper and drove back to the hotel.
The night manager was watching some LA newscaster breathlessly relate how close a Hollywood wildfire had come to torching Salton City. JayJay snagged two keys from their cubbyholes. One for his room, and the other for Peter’s suite. And sneaked away unseen.
JayJay had known what he was going to do the very instant Edith Channing had turned away. Shutting the door between him and the only reason he had to stick around. The only link to this world that mattered.
He entered the empty suite and walked over to Peter’s writing desk. The laptop was there, just waiting for him. He sat down in Peter’s chair and touched the computer’s surface. He felt a bit of stimulation, a softly humming power, strong enough to work through the numbness.
The plan was simple, like all good plans should be. He would find the script. He would type in the words.
He had been written into this world. No problem. He’d sign out the very same way.
He was in the process of opening the laptop when he thought he heard something.
He swiveled in the chair. The room was illuminated by courtyard lights spilling through the windows. He listened, but there was no further sound. Even so, he had the feeling that he was no longer alone.
Then the hairs on the back of his neck started rising.
Gradually the room’s shadows began coalescing into figures. Two huge grips leaned against the side wall. A pair of bespectacled electricians sat there beside them. Claire. Derek. Peter. Cynthia. A dozen figures. There and not there. All praying. For him.
And someone else.
JayJay bounded from the chair. With trembling hands he unplugged the laptop and clutched it to his chest. He backed over to the door. One hand scrabbled over the wood, searching for the handle. He let himself out and stumbled down the hall.
Chased by the impossible. Because the murmuring prayer did not cease when the suite’s door clicked shut behind him.
Which was why, when he got to his own door and saw the figure leaning against the wall, his neck-hairs tingled all over again.
The guy was so ropey-hard he mocked his own load of years. His forehead and silvery hair were both folded with the permanent imprint of the Stetson he was not wearing. His jeans were saddle-worn, his boots as tough and seamed as his face. He watched JayJay’s approach with eyes that had been raised on endless horizons.
“I reckon there ain’t no question who you be.” The old cowboy uncrossed his arms. “What’s the matter, Junior? You look like you done seen a ghost.”
JayJay resisted the urge to reach over and poke the man, just to make sure he was real. “Or something.”
“There’s somebody who wants to see you.”
“Can it wait?”
The cowboy pushed himself off the wall. “If it could, you think I’d be out here propping up this wall at midnight?”
“Give me a minute to get outta these hospital drawers.”
“The feller who’s waiting on you don’t care what you got on. You just come with me.”
The murmurs were still there. Following them down the corridor toward the front of the hotel. JayJay asked, “You hear anything funny?”
“You mean, other than my boss of thirty-seven years telling me we got to load up and drive to a town on the border
of a raging wildfire, then argue with a hotel manager for a room and pay five times the going rate, and then be told to stand outside your room until you show up, no matter how long it takes?” The old cowboy pulled out a key, knocked, and unlocked the door. “Nope, can’t say as I do.”
JayJay took a tentative step into the semidarkened room. A voice over by the window said, “Come on in, Mr. Junior.”
The old cowboy said, “If you’re done with me, I’ll go get some shut-eye.”
The voice by the window said, “I’m much obliged, Royce. Take this chair over by me, Mr. Junior.”
He rounded the bed and found himself staring at a man who had shrunk until his skin lay slack as a mottled rucksack. Then the door clicked shut. And the murmurs stopped.
The old man said, “I’m Carter Dawes. You and me got us some business to discuss.”
Chapter 52
Kelly did not wake up so much as swim through increasingly shallow depths. She passed through one level after another. First came a faint sense of her own body, far beyond the level of pain or even concern. Just knowledge that she had a body at all, one tied to a world she had not yet left behind. Then sounds, snippets of voices and electronic beepings that came in quiet waves. Then smell and a raging thirst and faint whispers of discomfort.
Then she opened her eyes.
“Oh, thank the good Lord above.”
The voice drew her closer to the surface. Her mother looked down at her. A smile fought through the worry and the shared pain. “Hello, darling. My sweet baby girl.”
Kelly knew just one clear thought. A question that could not wait another instant. Even though uttering the one word drew the pain into sharp relief, such that tears seeped from both her eyes as she whispered, “JayJay?”
Her mother’s entire body clamped down so tight her hand jerked as she cleared away Kelly’s tears. “That man has made you cry for the very last time.”
Kelly wanted to speak, to protest, but it was no longer possible to keep hold. Her eyelids fought but would not stay open. She was cast once more into the sea of slumber, carried away upon her wailing heart. “Eighteen years ago I bought me this podunk studio and threw a dump truck of cash at it. Just paid and paid. I had the money. I own almost a hundred wells, most of ’em solid producers. But I ain’t in the business of throwing good money away like that.” Carter Dawes’ voice held the reedy thinness of a man with no air to spare for inflection. “Did it because of what happened at a prayer breakfast. I was sitting there over my griddle cakes when I felt God reach out and speak to me. Only time it’s ever happened. Ain’t that the strangest thing you ever heard?”
