by Sharon Sala
Chapter 18
Laurel was so scared she couldn’t cry. This was worse than the day Adam died. This was her baby, and she’d let her get lost. Laurel was given the job of staying at the command site, holding Bonnie’s school picture so the searchers would know what she looked like, filling them in on what she’d been wearing.
An entire hour had passed since the searchers’ arrival. She’d been so certain that they’d find her fast and still nothing. When another truck rolled up behind her, she didn’t even turn to look. Then someone put a hand on her shoulder.
“Laurel?”
She turned around, saw Adam’s brother, David; Beverly’s husband, Garrett; and a half dozen other friends of the Payne family and burst into tears. David held her until she managed to regain some control, and then patted her on the back.
“Tell us what to do,” he said.
Laurel wiped tears, told them what Bonnie was wearing and that Deputy Pittman was running the search.
“We’ll find her,” David said.
“It’s been hours. She got wet,” Laurel said.
“Just pray,” David said. “We’ll stay till she’s found. We won’t ever leave you on your own again.”
Laurel watched them hurrying away, and then dropped to her knees, too overcome to stand another moment and then thought of her parents. They couldn’t help search, but they needed to know. Laurel took the phone out of her pocket and punched in the numbers. It rang three times before she heard her mother’s voice.
“Hello?”
“Mama, it’s me, Laurel. Bonnie is missing. Searchers are everywhere. I can’t lose her. I’m so scared I feel like I’m going to die. I need you.”
“We’re on the way. Have faith, child.”
The line went dead in Laurel’s ear.
* * *
Because of the power outage and the businesses staying closed, it took Ruby Dye a while to learn about the missing child and the ongoing search, but it didn’t take her long to organize aide for the searchers. Within an hour she and Lovey were heading out of town with jugs of hot coffee and as many sandwiches as they had been able to make at Granny’s Country Kitchen. Bringing up the rear were at least a half dozen cars full of women, all bringing what they had on hand.
Upon arrival, they drove right up to where all the cars were parked and started carrying folding tables, while others came with food and drink. It didn’t take long for searchers to see the setup, and they stopped momentarily for a warming cup of hot coffee and took off carrying a sandwich or a cookie.
Ruby found Laurel sitting on the ground with her arms wrapped around her knees, staring off toward the line of trees above the creek. She knelt down beside her and put her arms around Laurel’s shoulders. “Laurel, honey, get up. The ground is cold.”
Laurel blinked, surprised by the sound of a woman’s voice, and then saw Ruby Dye. “My baby is wet and cold and lost. I lost her, Ruby. If they don’t find her, I will die.”
“Where’s your mama?” Ruby asked.
Laurel shuddered. “On the way.”
“Okay then. Now listen to me. Someone’s going to bring you some hot coffee. Drink it. You won’t do anyone any good if you’re sick when they find your baby.”
“What if they don’t?” Laurel asked.
Ruby frowned. “And what if they do? Think positive. Tell the universe what you want. Demand it, honey. Sometimes a woman has to shout real loud in this world to be heard.”
Laurel dropped the phone back in her pocket and then pulled herself up from the ground. She kept hearing Ruby’s voice.
Tell the universe what you need. Women have to shout to be heard.
For the first time, she stepped out of her panic to see what was going on around her—at the vast number of vehicles, at Ruby and her friends setting up a refreshment center, at the sound of a chopper now flying overhead. Everyone was actively doing something to find her child except her. She didn’t know her parents had just driven up or that they were frantically moving through the cars, looking for her at that very moment.
Her fingers curled into fists as she turned and strode toward the trailer. Her steps were long and sure, and by the time she got up to the back steps and turned around, she was so angry she was shaking.
She lifted a fist to the sky, and the rage that came out of her was the pent-up sorrow of two years a widow, hanging on to what she had without care for herself, working when she was sick, working when she was so tired she didn’t think she could put one foot in front of the other. The fury in her voice was unmistakable—the sign of a woman who had been pushed one step too far. And when she started with a scream, the sound carried on the air and down into the creek. Every man searching within hearing distance heard it, and then stopped what they were doing—a witness to a mother who was shouting down God.
“Don’t you do this to me, God! I don’t know if You’re listening, but this is a message to the universe. I lost my husband. I nearly lost everything we had, and I survived it. But I will not lose my last bit of joy. You cannot have my baby! Do you hear me? She is mine!”
And then she saw her parents coming toward her and collapsed on the porch as they took her in their arms. Men were standing with tears running down their faces, while others cleared their throats and looked away.
A cold chill stopped Jake when he heard her scream. If they lost Bonnie, he lost Laurel, too. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing either one, but both? It wasn’t to be borne.
He stopped in his tracks. It was time to rethink this.
Searchers had yet to find a single sign of any footsteps indicating that she’d been taken. There were no tire tracks and nothing to show where she might have been dragged up the bank or carried out. So if she wasn’t abducted, then she’s got to be here. Think of where she could be, but in a new direction. Were there caves? He couldn’t remember any, but the overgrowth was heavy enough to hide them if there were.
He turned around and began retracing his steps, returned to the place where she’d fallen in, and then started over, this time looking for any kind of a place to hide. Then he squatted down to look at the creek from Bonnie’s viewpoint. She was a very little girl. It wouldn’t take much to hide her.
He went all the way up one side of the creek from his house to Laurel’s, searching for access to a cave or crevice along the ground level, and then crossed the creek and began to do it again, but walking slower, looking for ledges or overgrowth hanging all the way to the ground. And then he saw the button, and his heart skipped a beat. He dropped to his knees as he picked it up and turned it over in his hand. It was a little black button. Small button. Small child. It had to be hers and not from one of the searchers.
He dropped it in his pocket and then got down on his hands and knees and began looking at the area from what would have been her perspective. Almost immediately, he saw the overhang only a few yards away.
“Please God, let this be it,” he said softly, and crawled over to the hanging limbs and vines and pushed them aside.
She was in there! So far back. Lying on her side, so still.
“Bonnie! Bonnie!” he yelled.
The lack of response was sickening.
He stood, let out an ear-splitting whistle, and then shouted. “Here! I found her. She’s here!”
Men nearby radioed the others, and even as he was back down on his belly and crawling into the crevice, the creek was swarming with searchers. Someone crawled in beside him. He didn’t bother to look. It would take both of them to get her out without causing her harm.
“Son of a bitch,” the man said. “How on earth did you find her?”
“A button. I found a button,” Jake said, and then looked to see who it was. It was David Payne.
They crawled a few feet farther, and then David stopped. “I can’t reach her. I’m too big to go any farther.”
Jake was in the same condition. He tried calling her again. “Bonnie! It’s Jake. Wake up, baby, wake up.”
She didn’t move, and Jake’s mind was racing when the obvious hit him and he started backing out. When he got up and turned around, he was shocked to see how many men were behind them.
“She crawled back so far into a crevice that we can’t reach her. It has to be someone smaller and thinner. Get her mother. Get Laurel. She’s the only one small enough to do it.”
Deputy Pittman didn’t waste time. The moment the words came out of Jake’s mouth, he was on his two-way giving the order.
Less than two minutes later, Laurel came sliding down the side of the creek, pushing her way through the crowd of searchers, and then stumbling through the water to where Jake was lying.
“You found her! Is she alive?” Laurel cried.
“I don’t know, and I can’t reach her,” Jake said. “You can do it, Laurel. Go in on your belly. When you reach her, grab hold of her arms and yell, then hold on to her. I’ll pull you both out.”
Pittman was already radioing for an ambulance as men began organizing a relay. Once they got her out, they would have to get her up the steep bank.
Ignoring the freezing temperatures, Laurel took off her coat, shedding anything bulky that could slow her down, and then dropped to the ground and quickly crawled out of sight.
There were no words to describe the shock of seeing Bonnie’s lifeless body, but she kept on crawling. “Bonnie! It’s Mommy. Can you hear me, baby?” she said, while still inching toward her baby’s body.
Twice her head banged on the rocks above her head, and both times she knew she was bleeding, but she didn’t stop. And then the horror set in. She was as far as she could go and still just a few inches shy of being able to reach her. For a few panicked moments she thought that she’d failed, and then again, she heard Ruby’s voice.
Women have to shout to be heard.
“She’s mine,” Laurel said loudly, and pushed forward, taking skin off her chin from the gravel on which she was crawling, while the rocks above her dug into the flesh on her back.
She didn’t feel a thing.
Shock swept through her as her hands finally closed around Bonnie’s wrists. Bonnie was so cold, and the fabric of her coat was utterly frozen. Then she felt a faint pulse beneath her fingertips and let out a scream.
“I’ve got her, and she’s alive. Pull, Jacob, pull!”
Jake could just reach her ankles, and he began to pull her while inching them both backward. He went slow, knowing Laurel would have to ease Bonnie onto her back before they could safely get her out. He pulled until his entire body was back out into the open, and then he got to his feet and pulled her even farther, pulling until he saw the ripped shirt and the blood on Laurel’s back, and nearly fainted.
No, damn you, no. Don’t do this. It’s not about you anymore. They are your life. You are their future. Shake it off.
It was only a couple seconds of hesitation, but it felt like an eternity to Jake before he got himself together and pulled them the rest of the way out.
The moment the searchers saw her, their admiration for the young widow grew in leaps and bounds. They could see the evidence for themselves. She’d sacrificed her body to get her baby, and in that moment, Laurel Payne became a hero in their eyes.
Then they saw Bonnie. Blue and lifeless. Jake reached for her wrist. There was a pulse.
In an instant, Lon Pittman was beside them, wrapping Bonnie in heavy blankets and issuing orders. Laurel was frantic. Her reluctance to give over her baby was obvious, and then Jake took her by the shoulders and turned her toward him.
There was a brief moment in which a look passed between them that no words could have ever explained, and then he was putting her coat back on her, sending her up the bank with her baby. “Laurel’s hurt, too,” he yelled, as the men began pulling her up. “Make sure they take her with them.”
Searchers began climbing out of the creek by the dozens. David Payne stopped long enough to shake Jake’s hand. “This is the second time you have saved a member of our family. You are one hell of a man, Jacob Lorde.”
Jake watched him go up the creek bank and then had to wipe his eyes before he could climb out because there were too many tears to see where he was going.
* * *
Laurel’s parents were waiting as they pulled her up. Once they realized she was injured, they sent her on her way with a promise to follow them to the hospital.
The EMTs were already loading Bonnie into the ambulance when another deputy stopped them and loaded Laurel in as well. “She has multiple head and back contusions,” he told them, then slammed the door and sent them on their way.
Searchers who’d been out in the cold for more than three hours were elated when they saw Ruby Dye’s coffee station and headed for it. The hot coffee began warming them from the inside out, and although there was relief that the little girl had been found alive, her condition was still too critical to rejoice.
It was then the talk around the coffee station turned to Laurel Payne. The ones who’d seen the ripped shirt and the bloody gouges in her back told the story, and those who heard it retold it yet again, until what Laurel Payne had done seemed far beyond a mother’s sacrifice to save a child. It had turned into a story of heroic proportions.
Laurel knew none of it nor cared. She just needed to hear a doctor tell her that Bonnie Carol was going to live.
* * *
Jake climbed out of the creek and ran toward his truck, his heart heavy with dread. He needed to get to the hospital, but he was afraid of the verdict.
Ruby Dye saw Jake, and she saw the fear on his face. She could only imagine what he was thinking. She handed him a cup of hot coffee as he passed their table.
“Drink it. It’s hot. You’re cold. God is good, Jake. It has to be okay.”
He paused as she handed him the cup and hugged her.
Ruby wasn’t expecting that, but she wasn’t one to turn down a hug.
“Thank you,” Jake said, then took a sip of the coffee as he continued toward Laurel’s house.
It was unlocked. Laurel would not have her purse or the keys, and she needed a clean shirt. The one she was wearing was in shreds.
He entered and went straight to her room and dug through her drawers until he found a sweatshirt. It would be soft against the bandages that would be on her back, and it would be warm. It took him a couple more minutes to find her purse and keys, and then he darted across the hall to Bonnie’s room to get Brave Bear, and then he was off, locking her house up behind him.
He drove to Blessings with a knot in his stomach and praying for mercy. Bonnie had to be okay. She just had to. Then just before he reached the city-limit sign, he remembered the power outage and wondered if the power was back on, then let it go. The hospital would have backup generators. No matter what shape Blessings was in, his girls would be cared for. That’s all that mattered.
It was obvious by the number of cars in the ER parking lot that many of the searchers had followed the ambulance to get an update. Until they knew there was going to be a positive outcome, there would be no celebration.
He grabbed Laurel’s things and walked into ER and was immediately enveloped within the milling crowd. People wanted to ask how he’d found her, what he’d seen, how she looked, or talk about what Laurel had done, but he didn’t stop to talk. He just nodded and kept moving until he heard Laurel’s voice. He parted the curtains and walked in.
Her parents were standing on one side of an examining table, while nurses were cleaning the wounds on her back, washing the bloody gouges with antiseptic solutions, and all the while Laurel was begging them to let her see Bonnie.
When she saw Jake, she just held out her arms. He handed her things to her parents and bent down and kissed her.
Laurel had his hand in a dea
th grip and couldn’t stop talking. The panic in her voice was as raw as the wounds on her back. “You saved her life, Jake. The doctor said another thirty minutes, and she would have been gone. Oh my God, how did you ever find her in there?”
Jake reached in his pocket, pulled out the button, and dropped it in her hand. “I found this.”
Laurel gasped. “It’s from her coat!” She began crying all over again. “They won’t let me see her. I need to know what’s happening. Please go check for me. I have to know.”
“Where is she?” Jake asked.
“Two bays down, I think. I keep waiting to hear her cry. I’ve never wanted to hear her cry in my life, but I need to hear it now.”
“I’ll be back,” Jake said, and left without speaking to her parents.
They had yet to apologize to him, and he wasn’t looking forward to another session. He had no idea that they’d already apologized to Laurel.
A nurse walked into the bay just ahead of him, and when the curtains parted, he saw Bonnie. She wasn’t moving, which scared the hell out of him. He pushed the curtain aside and walked in.
Dr. Quick recognized Jake, and he’d already heard enough to know he was the one who’d found her. At first, Jake didn’t speak. He stood to one side, out of the way, and listened, garnering enough information to know she was still alive, but not out of the woods.
When Dr. Quick finally stopped and stepped back, Jake spoke. “I’m here for Laurel,” Jake said. “She’s frantic. What can you tell me?”
Dr. Quick pointed to the warming blankets they were putting on Bonnie’s body. “Her core body temp is low. Those are warming blankets. It’s a bit touch and go right now as to how she’s going to respond. She had no injuries or broken bones. X-rays have determined that. We’re just working to offset the hypothermia. Prayers will help, and time will tell.”
“Has she regained consciousness at all?” Jake asked.
“No, but it’s early, and at this point, I’m not real concerned.”
“Would you consider her condition serious or critical?”
