Crow Mountain

by Lucy Inglis

  One of the medics looked up as Hope righted herself and faced up to the police chief, fists clenched. He got between them, one bloody glove on each of their chests. ‘I’d say you two are about even. So why don’t you try helping this guy. He’s losing blood fast. It’s the best part of an hour to Helena and they’re gearing up the surgeon.’

  *

  The journey in the helicopter was the longest of Hope’s life. Cal showed no signs of a response as she sat with him and held his hand. The two mountain rescue paramedics had donned headsets and spoke to each other through them without Hope being able to hear what they were saying over the thudding of the helicopter. They’d stripped Cal to the waist and he was covered in electrodes. The bullet had gone straight through his lung, and the gauze dressing pads beneath him were soaked within minutes. It didn’t look that bad from the front, just a thumbnail-sized red and black hole on the left side, but his back was a mess. And all the blood so dark.

  Hart and Jones sat on the other side of the helicopter, not speaking.

  As the mountain receded behind them, Hope felt the diary in her pocket like a lead weight.

  As they landed on the tarmac in front of St Peter’s Hospital, the surgeon and a medical team were already waiting for them. Hart and Jones went into a huddle, walking away from the racket of the helicopter.

  Hope ran alongside the trolley as Cal was wheeled through the doors of the huge, square building. People stared at her bare feet and her tear-streaked face but she didn’t let go of Cal’s hand until he was taken into surgery, the nurse barring her way as inside the theatre the surgical team descended on him like vultures.

  She stood, staring at the door, unable to take in what had happened. The ordinary noises of a hospital intruded on her. A nurse led her to a seating area and offered her a cone of water from the dispenser. The swing doors opened and a familiar voice spoke.

  Meredith touched her arm. ‘Hope?’

  It was a few seconds before Hope responded, blinking and looking at her mother.

  ‘Oh dear God, look at you,’ Meredith said, shocked. Hope saw over Meredith’s shoulder Caleb Crow asking at the nurses’ station to speak to a doctor. Dazed, she looked down at herself, seeing her bloody legs and clothing, patches of her hair in clotted strings. Cal’s blood had dried in the webbing of her fingers. It was everywhere.

  Her mother was examining Hope’s bruised cheek. ‘Did he do this to you?’

  Hope flinched away. ‘We were in an accident. The rig crashed.’

  ‘I was out of my mind with worry. I brought you some clean things. I didn’t think to bring different shoes,’ she said, looking at Hope’s filthy bare feet. ‘But I’m sure there’s somewhere here you could shower.’

  Hope stared at the bag, bewildered. ‘I—’

  Caleb Crow’s voice interrupted them. ‘We’ll know nothing for a couple of hours. He’s lost a lot of blood.’ His voice cracked slightly on the words as he looked at Hope.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, gesturing to her appearance and sniffing back a tear. ‘I haven’t had a chance to—’

  He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s OK, Hope. But you should probably get cleaned up, Cal’s mother’s on her way.’

  ‘Hurricane Elizabeth.’

  ‘You’d better believe that,’ he said, patting her. ‘And someone should look at that cheek, honey. It’s one hell of a bruise.’

  Hope shrugged. ‘I’m fine. I hit it on the roof of the truck, that’s all. In the crash. On the bridge. When—’ She was stuttering, teeth chattering. ‘Maybe I’ll take that shower now.’

  Meredith decided Hope needed to eat and went out to find a store, describing the offerings at the hospital as inedible and unhealthy, so when Hope came out of the shower her mother was nowhere to be seen.

  Hope was sitting on her own in the nurses’ station, where one of the nurses had taken pity on her and given her a hot coffee. But the nurse had to go, leaving Hope feeling desolate. Then a friendly female police officer with her brown hair in a bun came to the desk.

  ‘Hi, Hope Cooper? My name’s Officer Langton.’

  Officer Langton began to ask her about what had happened. Hope almost didn’t know where to start, and it took some time to explain that the truck wasn’t, as the officer continued to imply, hidden somewhere near the lake, but miles away at the bottom of a river bed under millions of gallons of meltwater.

  ‘And we’d like a doctor to give you a medical exam.’

  Hope frowned. ‘Why? It’s only my face. I bruised it in the car accident.’

  ‘What about your hands? They look sore. How did that happen?’

  ‘I . . . we had to bury Buddy—’

  Officer Langton smiled sympathetically. ‘Is there anything you would like to tell me, Hope? Anything Cal Crow did or said to you that you might have felt was inappropriate?’

  ‘I have no idea what you mean.’

  ‘Nothing physical happened?’

  Hope lifted her chin. ‘We were in a car accident together – I’m not sure how much more physical there is.’

  Officer Langton persisted. ‘Still, we’d like a doctor to conduct the exam, just to rule out any difficulties in establishing your story.’

  ‘I haven’t got a story, it’s the truth. We were in a car accident and we were waiting at the cabin to be rescued.’ Hope’s voice was rising now.

  ‘Easy, Hope. No one can hurt you now . . .’ She put out a hand.

  Hope backed up. ‘No one has hurt me!’

  Officer Jones came up and beckoned. The female officer excused herself and they talked in the corner for a few seconds. When she came back, she smiled. ‘The clothes you came in wearing, we’ll need them.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Where are the clothes?’

  ‘I don’t know, maybe my mother has them,’ Hope lied. Her bag was, in fact, behind the nurses’ station by her feet. ‘I need to go to the bathroom. May . . . may I have another coffee please?’ She drained the mug and held it out.

  The officer nodded and smiled, taking it. ‘Sure, honey. I’ll be here when you get back. Where has your mother gone, did you say?’

  Hope shrugged and the officer turned away, heading for the coffee machine. Grabbing her nylon bag, Hope carried it against her front, arms tight, to the bathrooms. Inside the stall, she unpacked the bag, thanking her mother silently all the time for the extra set of clothes she had brought to the hospital and for the fact she always made Hope put plastic sacks in the side pockets. Pulling one out, she put in the extra-clean shorts, underwear and a T-shirt. Into another, she put everything from the mountain except the plaid shirt and the diary, which she replaced into the holdall. Leaving the bathroom, she put her mountain clothes in a yellow bin marked ‘Hospital Waste’ and stowed her bag back behind the nurses’ station. Walking back to the coffee area, she handed the female officer the bag of clean clothes.

  ‘Here, I forgot I’d left them in the bathroom.’

  The officer smiled, taking the plastic sack, almost holding it at arm’s length. ‘That’s understandable, with everything that’s happened to you. Now, explain to me again how the vehicle crashed.’

  Hope saw, with relief, Meredith stalking towards them. She let her bottom lip tremble. ‘Mum,’ she called out, ‘they’re asking me questions, and I—’

  ‘Officer! What on earth are you doing? I cannot believe you are questioning my daughter after the ordeal she’s had!’

  The officer stood up, offering her hand. ‘Officer Langton, ma’am. We’re just trying to establish the facts, ma’am.’

  Meredith put her arm around Hope. ‘Are you all right?’

  Hope nodded, feeling genuinely tearful. Just then, a doctor came up, a woman in her late thirties.

  ‘Ms West? I’m Doctor Ellison. I was wondering if I could just look Hope over, make sure she’s doing OK?’

  Meredith got to her feet. ‘Should I be there? Hope?’

  ‘It’s not necessary,’ the doctor said, shepherding
Hope away.

  In an examination room, the doctor asked Hope to hop up on the bed and lay back. She examined Hope’s cheek, then took a photograph of it.

  Hope winced in the flash. ‘Why do you need a photograph?’

  ‘It’s for evidence, Hope. That’s all.’ She put her hand on Hope’s arm, reassuring.

  Pushing herself up on her elbows, Hope shook her head. ‘Evidence of what?’

  ‘They’ve asked me to catalogue your injuries, that’s all.’

  ‘Is no one listening to me? I’m fine.’

  The doctor turned aside. ‘The police officers noted you have bruising to one of your thighs, so, if you could just take off your things and slip into this gown for me.’

  Hope jumped down from the table. ‘No way.’

  Turning back, the doctor looked at her, face kind. ‘Hope, you can tell us anything, you know.’

  Pulling on her cardigan, Hope pulled her hair out of the back of it. ‘There’s nothing to tell. And I don’t want to be examined any more than I already have been, thank you.’ She walked back out to the waiting area and sat down next to Meredith and Caleb Crow, folding her arms and staring stubbornly into space.

  Four hours later, Cal was out of surgery and in the ICU. He had not regained consciousness and the surgeon had decided to induce coma to see if it helped him stabilize. Hope sat by his bed with Caleb until Elizabeth Crow arrived.

  Cal’s mother was tall, dark-haired and impressive in her fury. Coming in, she walked straight over to her son’s still form in the bed and kissed his forehead, stroking away a stray lock of hair that Hope had been too afraid to touch. After a long moment of gazing at her son, her eyes fixed on Hope.

  ‘Hope Cooper?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Elizabeth Crow nodded. ‘What happened?’

  ‘The bridge gave out beneath the truck and trailer. We made it to the cabin and waited to be rescued. But I shot a bear—’

  ‘You shot a bear?’

  Hope nodded miserably. ‘It was going to hurt Cal. It killed Buddy. But it came back. It must have . . . been disoriented by the helicopter or something. Flushed out. Cal thought it was coming for me and raised his gun and Chief Hart shot him.’ And this whole thing is history repeating itself and I can’t tell you because why would you believe me? ‘They keep asking me questions, and I think they’re trying to twist things.’

  Cal’s mother looked at her, gaze steady. ‘And what did you tell them?’

  Hope tried to hold her stare. ‘That we crashed and that Cal took care of me. And . . . I know he didn’t do anything to Carrie.’

  Elizabeth nodded and squeezed Hope’s hand briefly. ‘Carrie’s sweet, but she’s weak. Getting involved with her was a mistake. The feud between the Crows and the Harts is as old as Montana and that just made it worse. Hart was looking for an excuse.’

  Caleb Crow was letting himself back into the room, looking out of place in his plaid shirt and jeans. Hope stepped away, not wanting to intrude. The monitors beeped and droned fitfully. A nurse hovered.

  Elizabeth Crow held out her hand to her husband. He took it.

  Hope took a deep breath. ‘Mr and Mrs Crow, can I ask, have you ever heard of a girl called Emily Forsythe?’

  They both looked at her, blank. Elizabeth Crow frowned. ‘Is she a friend of Cal’s?’

  ‘No . . . she . . .’ Hope shook her head. ‘Don’t worry, forget I asked.’

  Outside, in the waiting area, Meredith came around the corner from the nurses’ station, with a brown bag from a sandwich store. Hope had never felt less hungry, but she took the bag.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said listlessly. She was feeling cold in the over-heated hospital, despite being dressed in jeans, a camisole and a shirt, more clothes than she’d worn in days.

  ‘Would you like to eat it here or in the car on the way back to the ranch? Jesus will drive us.’

  Hope looked up at Meredith, mystified. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  ‘Hope, you need a good meal and rest. And I need to work.’

  ‘You go and work then, I’m not stopping you.’ The tense silence that followed made Hope’s fingers tighten on the bag. ‘But thanks for the food, and everything.’

  ‘You need to rest.’

  ‘I’m fine here.’ Hope stood her ground.

  Meredith’s lips thinned, then she stalked out towards the nurses’ station, to where Jesus hovered anxiously by the door, hat in his hands, disliking the hospital atmosphere intensely.

  Hope looked inside the paper bag: a salad in a plastic tray and some rolls. Just then, the elevator opened and four policemen walked out, including Chief Hart and Officer Jones. They were heading towards the ICU, where Cal was.

  Hart and Jones went inside while the two others took up positions outside the door. The nurse rushed past Hope, who followed on her heels. Caleb was holding Elizabeth back as Officer Jones handcuffed Cal’s unresisting arm to the bed railing.

  ‘None of this is helpful for the patient!’ the nurse was saying urgently, checking Cal’s monitors as she looked back at the officers.

  ‘It’s procedure, ma’am, is all.’

  ‘I’m going to call a doctor,’ the nurse muttered, and left.

  ‘Procedure, my ass,’ Caleb ground out.

  Officer Jones turned and Hope dodged between them towards the bed, taking Cal’s free hand, careful of the cannula.

  ‘Miss Cooper, we’re advising you to stay away from Mr Crow at this time,’ the police officer said. Chief Hart folded his arms and looked at her.

  Hope lifted her chin. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he’s the subject of an investigation, and we advise it.’

  ‘What investigation?’ Caleb asked.

  ‘We’re still considering the charges based on the collection of evidence.’

  ‘He didn’t abduct me,’ Hope said clearly. ‘He saved my life.’

  ‘Miss, we’re not sure you’re in a position to make a judgement on that at this stage. Mr Crow’s record indicates—’

  The room erupted as Caleb, Elizabeth and Hope spoke over the officer all at once.

  A second later, the nurse pushed back into the unit. ‘All of you! Leave, now! Get out before I call security. This is not the place. He can probably hear you and this will be distressing him.’

  Hart spoke briefly with one of the police guards by the door and then strode away, shiny boots squeaking on the linoleum.

  As the elevator door closed, the door to the stairwell opened a little, and a pretty brunette girl put her head through the gap. ‘Have they gone?’ she whispered.

  Hope nodded. The girl slipped through the doorway, clutching the strap of her bag. She had very straight hair, with a thick fringe, and dark-brown eyes.

  ‘I . . . had to come. Is he OK?’ She struggled to speak.

  ‘Cal? No. He’s just out of surgery and he’s been handcuffed to the bed.’ Hope watched her, and then realized suddenly who she was. ‘You’re Carrie, aren’t you?’

  She nodded. ‘I don’t know if Cal told you . . .’ And as Hope nodded, her face crumpled. ‘I should . . . I know I should have told the truth, but my father . . . I came to say, and just let me say it, that my father doesn’t have any evidence, not really. The rig and the trailer have been found in the creek bed. But my dad’s real clever at making things look different than the truth, and I heard him say he was going to make this hard on Cal when you were found.’

  ‘Hard? He shot him!’ Hope exclaimed.

  Carrie winced. ‘He’s . . . I don’t know why he’s taken it so far this time. Our families have never gotten along, but this is . . . What happened up there? It’s not . . . what my dad says, is it?’

  Hope thought of the diary, of the rerunning of another story, but there was no way to explain.

  Taking a deep breath, Carrie went on. ‘There’s a lady, in the Helena police department. She’s called Margaret Redfeather. She’s . . . helping me and my mom with some stuff. You should speak to her. She gave me a ri
de here.’

  Redfeather? Hope pressed her knuckles into her forehead. ‘OK. Where is she?’

  ‘In the parking lot.’ Carrie nodded towards the stairwell.

  Hope took a deep breath. ‘Come on then, let’s go.’

  They headed downstairs, not speaking, and walked out into the bright spring sunshine. Leaning against a faded green convertible was the tall woman from the Black Eagle Stores, wearing a sharp black suit with a white shirt, and stubbing out a cigarette.

  Carrie was nervous, looking around. ‘I’d better go. If my daddy finds me here, he’ll get you fired,’ she muttered to the tall woman. And with that, she was gone, fear driving her feet.

  As Carrie left, Hope turned to the tall woman. ‘You’re a policewoman! Why couldn’t you stop Hart harassing Cal and his family? Make Carrie tell the truth?’

  Margaret Redfeather looked at her for a long time. ‘Cal has told you his side of the story?’

  ‘You mean the truth,’ Hope said, stubbornly.

  Margaret sighed. ‘You know, all this is as old as the hills. But Hope – may I call you Hope? – Carrie is a victim too in this. And she is the only person who can make the choice to defy her father. I’m tryin’ to help her and her momma make that choice. Maybe when you get a few more years on you, you’ll understand that—’

  Hope closed her eyes, hands clenched, and took a breath. ‘Cal is lying in there in a coma! He might die. Because of some stupid feud.’

  ‘If he survives, the Crows have more than enough to press charges against Chief Hart. I looked into it since the incident at the store the other day. Too much harassment, too much to ignore.’

  ‘That won’t help Cal if he’s dead, will it?’ Hope said, furious.

  ‘Hope?’ Meredith’s voice cut across the car park.

  ‘This is my mum. She—’

  ‘Hope? I told you, Jesus is going to drive us back to the ranch,’ Meredith said, standing a little apart from them, ignoring the other woman completely. She looked down at Hope’s feet. ‘Oh dear, I wish I’d thought about shoes . . .’