"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven..."
Ecclesiastes 3:1
By Atonia and Jo
Jo writing Maximus, Caroline, Bud, Marie, Lachlan, Hope, Cort, Daisy, Ben, Mae, Zack
Atonia writing Terry, Dee, Alex, Linda, Jack, Tarwyn, John, Bethany, Dino, Max, Sophia
PART 13:
Tarwyn stood back out of the way, marveling at how the house was coming together. The decorator was directing but her staff was busy hanging drapes and using a steamer to get rid
of wrinkles and smooth out skirts. Outside the generator was making an awful noise. Jack had taken himself away from the house and on horseback with Joaquin.
The big semi pulled up to the front door was nearly empty. She felt good about everything she’d help choose but a little leery about Jack’s room. It was off the main hallway in an area that was built on at some time, not a part of the original house. Two steps down into the room lined with bookshelves and display cases. She’d trusted them to find the right items to display. All nautical and all antique. What bothered her about it was its formality.
This was a place she thought he’d be taking care of farm business and whatever else he wanted to use if for. There were matching leather Chesterfield sofas facing in front of the fireplace, a concealed TV over the mantel, a sound system, DVD and CD players, The books had been bought by the yard and she’d specified what she thought he might like to read. Some were antique and some were new. A set of encyclopedias and several dictionaries might prove useful for him. He, of course, had no inkling of what she’d done. Gentleman’s quarters, the decorator had called it. Jack was a gentleman.
“I could ride on over to one of my brother’s places, get you some clothes.”
“No hurry, Ben. I’m fine like I am right now.” Mae didn’t want him to go, didn’t want other people knowing she was where she was. Not yet.
“You’d be right about that, Mae. You are fine.”
She smiled a little. “And how would you be knowing about that?”
“I know fine when I see it.”
“And I expect you saw it.”
“I expect I did.” So…the woman in his field was no missionary.
“And did you do anything about that fine you saw?”
“Not much.”
“Ah, you were being that gentleman you’re so fond of being like.”
“Not quite.”
Her brows went up. “What’s that mean?”
“Not much.”
She openly stared at him a while and he met her gaze. “You’re different, Ben.”
“I know.”
“How different are you?”
“More’n you can imagine, Mae.”
“I can imagine a whole lot.”
“Not this.”
“What do you mean ‘not this’?”
“Well, Mae, I done found you in my field an’ I done cut you loose an’ brought you home, give you my bed an’ fed you my food, but I ain’t ready to tell you what that means.”
So he had secrets he wanted to keep, did he? “Who are you, Ben?”
“I’d be…me,” he grinned.
“You’re as good at not answering as I am.”
“Had me a lotta practice, Mae.”
“And why did you have practice?”
“Needed to. Simple as that. Needed to.”
“Me, too,” she whispered, reaching down to stroke Outlaw’s head.
Ben noticed the gesture and liked it. “Outlaw seems to be gettin’ hisself fond of you, Mae.”
“Outlaws tend to like me.”
“I like you, Mae.”
“You’re not an outlaw, Ben. The dog is.”
The decorators had moved on to the den and Tarwyn went upstairs to their bedroom closet.
As yet, they had not started upstairs. In a box wrapped in bubble wrap and tissue she found something she’d had for years. A replica of the HMS Surprise. Carefully she unwrapped it and carried it downstairs. Everything was placed so perfectly in his room. She stood with it in her hand for a moment and then walked to the mantel. Two brass candlesticks were placed on either end of it. She moved both to one side and placed the ship.
Out in the kitchen lights were coming on and someone exclaimed that the power must be back on. Tarwyn ran out to the back patio and turned off the generator. The light at the back door was on. She was so glad.
Max made his way into town and to HAWCO’s new offices. The building hadn’t suffered in the storm as far as he could tell. Windows on the men’s shop were still taped up with big X’s. The elevator worked and upstairs it looked like a place of business. Linda had it decorated for them in shades of blue with a few bright accents.
Since he hadn’t been told differently he went through the offices and picked out one for himself. It had a window that looked over the main street below. He placed his laptop on the desk and went into the bank accounts to make sure all was well there. Some large checks had been
written on Jack’s account and he quickly covered them.
It occurred to him that nothing had been done for Zack. Zack needed more than money. He picked up his phone and called Terry.
“Max, what’s up?”
“Terry, have you done anything about getting identity papers for Zack?”
“Ah, no, Max. I lost my computers in the storm. Haven’t had time to go shopping.”
Max winced, “Then you no longer have the ability to generate identity papers?”
“I have the software, but nothing to use it on.”
“I see, well, would you mind if I do something about that?”
“Not at all.”
“Where are you?” Max could hear a loud noise in the background.
“Out in the boonies trying to get a helicopter in the air.”
“Hmm, I’ll go ahead and order your computers and have them delivered to the apartment.”
“Thanks, Max, I appreciate that.”
“How long do you think they’ll keep us here?” Lachlan asked.
“In this particular place?”
“Yeah, Zack. Seems more like a medical unit than an actual camp.”
“What if, um, it’s not a prison camp?”
“What are you saying? You don’t think we’re in some sort of Nazi experimental lab, do you?”
“Oh, no, Lachlan. I don’t think that at all. Not at all. It’s just I think you’re right about this being more of a hospital than anything else. Don’t you think it could be a hospital?”
“Like maybe they have us here ‘cause we’ve been injured?”
“Yeah, something like that. I was pretty badly injured when I was first brought in. I heard someone say I was in a coma for a while.”
“Coma? Bloody hell, Zack!”
“Like I said, Lachlan, I don’t remember anything about being found or brought here. Do, um, you remember when you were found?”
“Yeah, I do. I’d been hiding out under some old feed store and not long after I came out to look for water, three SS troopers chased me down.”
“Are you sure they were SS troopers? Were they wearing uniforms?”
“Sure, they…well, they must have been. My head was hurting so bloody awful I could hardly see straight.”
“Did they shoot at you? Did you see weapons?”
“Well…um…I guess…um…sure, they had to have weapons.” His head was beginning to pound. “Zack, I gotta close my eyes for a while here. Head hurts too much for talking.”
“Come on, come on, come on, baby!” Dino urged the copter. A smile crossed his face.
The mechanic gave him a wave and backed away with the fuel line. “I think you’re good to go!” he shouted.
Dino gave him a thumbs up. Terry climbed aboard and took the co-pilot’s seat. “Alex is going
to ride back with HAWCO.”
“Is it a good idea or what…Alex?”
“What do you think? A three man outfit is better than two. When we’re both out in the field there’s nobody minding the store.”
“I agree, Tio. We need him and he’s somebody we can trust or beat the shit out of.”
Terry grinned. “Take me home, Dino.”
“That reminds me, I can’t keep sleeping on your couches.”
“No, you absolutely cannot stake a claim in our apartment. I don’t know if Bethany’s apartment has been rented yet. They don’t need it any longer. I’ll check with her. You’ll need a bed and things.”
“I need everything.”
Terry looked over at him, “You can say that again.”
“I need everything,” Dino repeated.
Lachlan went to sleep and when Zack was sure of it, he buzzed the desk. Canfield himself answered.
“He’s sleeping,” Zack whispered and I need to piss like crazy.”
“Ah, we didn’t catheterize you, did we?”
“And you’re not going to, either!”
“Well, you can’t get up, Zack. He’s only asleep, not sedated, and we can’t chance his waking
up and seeing you coming out of the bathroom.”
“Do something, Doc, and do it quick!” Zack hissed.
“I guess I could sedate him.”
“No, don’t do that. Every time he wakes up from that he thinks some part of him is missing and it just confirms to him the Nazis have got him.”
“Ok, then...ze evil guards vill now take you to ze torture chambers…across ze hall,” Canfield smiled. “Lie still and I’ll get a couple of orderlies.”
“Hurry!”
In the maneuver to get Zack onto a gurney and out the door, Lachlan’s bed was bumped and he woke with a start. “What?”
Canfield pressed his palm firmly down on Zack’s chest to keep him still, ignored Lachlan, and the gurney was wheeled out the door and across the hall.
“Zack!” Lachlan bellowed. “You bastards bring him back!”
“This is not a good plan,” Canfield sighed when they were in another room. “We cannot be doing this every time you need to use the pot, Zack. We might have to…”
“Look, what about bedpans? Couldn’t I just get one of those icy cold things slid under my butt?”
“I guess we could do that. Lachlan has to be catheterized because he’s uncooperative.” He twirled an invisible moustache. “You, Lieutenant Grant, you vill cooperate, yes?”
“Oh, God, yes!”
After Terry called to say he was on his way home, Dee went all domestic and cooked a meal in the apartment, the first since they’d been forced out of their home by the hurricane. It wasn’t
so bad, she decided.
She was peeling potatoes and thinking about Terry. He would be gone all day tomorrow, too. Taking on HAWCO was going to take him and she wondered if he realized how much time he was going to have to devote to that company. She hadn’t tried to influence him one way or another. He didn’t have to do it. They were still solvent despite all that had happened with NanoCorp. He wasn’t financially obligated to Linda in anyway…except for what she’d done for the family. That was the biggie and she knew Terry well enough to know how he felt about that. Having him in the K&R was bad enough…he could be gone for months.
She looked up immediately missing the window over the sink. There was nothing but a tiled
wall. “I need to go back to work…I do.”
“Ok, Zack, now we’re going to wheel you back in and you’re going to have to look out of it again…just briefly.”
“I don’t like this.”
“It’s for a good cause.”
“That’s what they all say.”
“Well, I’m saying it and it is for a good cause. You’re helping him. You really are.”
“Yeah, well, I heard him yelling for you bastards to bring me back.”
Canfield patted Zack’s arm. “Just means he’s started caring about what happens to you.”
“He thinks I was tortured.”
“Well, when you need to release your bladder and you can’t, that can be quite like torture,” Canfield smiled. “Now close your eyes and open your mouth a bit. You’ve had a lot of practice being unconscious. You should know how to do it.”
“When I’m unconscious, I have no idea what my face is doing, Doc.”
“Very true. But now you are consciously unconscious and that’s a different matter altogether.”
Zack did as he was told, but then cracked open an eye half way. “Should I drool?”
“Not necessary.”
The gurney was wheeled back into Lachlan’s room and instantly Lachlan tried to lift his head enough to see Zack. “What did you do to him?” he growled.
“Nothing, Lachlan. He merely had to use the bathroom.” Canfield decided to tell the truth
and see where it got him.
“Use the…? My, God, man, do you expect me to believe that?”
“Not really,” Canfield smiled. “I thought it was worth a try, though.”
“What the hell is going on now?” John wanted to know. He’d seen a gurney go by with Zack
on board.
"You know he's helping with Lachlan."
“Is Zack a doctor now?”
“No, but a fellow Aussie might do Lachlan some good coming to his senses.” Bethany took his hand.
“I’ll be glad when he gets there,” John sighed. “It’s bad enough lying here with my head split open and having to listen to that racket.”
“He asked you if you wanted to be moved down the hall and you said no, that was your brother next door.”
“I’d like to throttle him.”
Bethany smiled. “Need some meds, John?”
“No…a nap maybe. IF THAT BASTARD WOULD SHUT UP!” he shouted.
“John! Oh, now that’s gonna help your head.” She rubbed his arm and touched his face,
cupping his cheek in her hand. “Patience, darling.”
“My leg hurts.”
“All right, that’s it.” She pushed the button for the nurse and waited. When the nurse came in, she said, “Give him something strong enough to knock him out for awhile.”
It occurred to Bud that no one had checked on the condition of the blue house on the NanoCorp property yet. Lachlan and Hope had been staying there but neither had been back since the hurricane. The long drive was blocked in several places by tall pines that had fallen across it,
so he pulled off onto the shoulder and walked up to the house. It had practically been flattened by the tank of the NanoCorp water tower. He stood there a while just staring at what was left
of it…which wasn’t much. There were pines across the remnants, too, and it was so destroyed he couldn’t tell what had got the place first, the pines or the water tower. No one had even
begun to clear the wreckage away.
“So much for NanoCorp,” he breathed. At least no one had been inside when it happened. Pulling out his cell, he called Terry. “As the CEO of what used to be NanoCorp, Terry, I guess you should know the fuckin’ water tower took out the blue house. Good thing you weren’t handcuffed…anklecuffed…to the top when the fuckin’ thing came down.”
“Is that so? Now, it’s all gone.” Terry took a breath. “I can’t say I’m sorry to hear the water tower is down. That was one of Sid’s favorite torture chambers.”
“Lachlan and Hope had most of their stuff here. I’m going to poke around a bit and see if there’s anything I can save for them. Yeah, yeah, I’ll be careful.”
A couple of pines had taken down the front porch, squashing it flat, effectively blocking the front entrance, so he skirted around the wreckage to the back where there was a door to the kitchen. He knew the downstairs bedroom where they’d been staying was just across a small hall from that and from the way the water tower tank lay in the center of the structure, he hoped he might be able to reach the bedroom and maybe round up some of their clothes and personal possession.
As he stood outside the kitchen door, he called Cort, to let him know what had happened to the blue house, aware of Cort’s close connection to the place.
“Look, Bud, I don’t think you should try to go in. I appreciate you wantin’ to get some things for Hope an’ Lachlan, but it’s too dangerous.”
Bud had gone up the few steps to the back door. “Door back here I can get through, Cort. I’ll be fine.”
“Bud, don’t…or at least wait until I get there. I’m at the hospital an’ I can be there in ten minutes. Wait for me.”
“I’m in the kitchen,” Bud said, “or the third of the kitchen that still has any resemblance at all to a kitchen. I can get through here to the bedroom. I’ll call you back when I’m outside again. Need both hands to push some stuff aside.”
“Bud…” But Bud had closed his cell.
“Damn it!” Cort sighed, grabbing his jacket and heading for the elevator.
Alex arrived back at the ranch and found Linda sorting through some legal papers in her office. Her attorney had just left a few minutes ago.
“Hey, baby, did you have a good flight? Did they get the helicopter up?”
“Yep, it’s up and running.” He wandered around her office and picked up a book and put it down.
“What was wrong with it?” She looked up at him.
“Leak in the fuel tank. Um…I talked with Terry and Dino…they’ve offered me a job.”
“A job? You don’t need a job, honey.”
“Not for the money, I don’t. I need it for me.”
“I don’t understand. You’re a writer, you’re pulling all this stuff together for a book.”
“I can’t spend the rest of my life writing about your asshole of a father. They need an inside man, somebody to mind the store and that’s what the job is.”
“I…I thought they worked out of Houston. You can’t go to Houston, Alex.”
“Their Houston office got blown away.” He sat down in the chair across from her desk.
“They’re looking to open here…open a new office.”
“I was going to find something in HAWCO for you. I’m still trying to sort out the..."
“I don’t want to work for HAWCO.”
“Alex, I don’t understand why you…” She sat back in her chair, trying to ignore the cold fear gathering in her stomach.
“I need to do this for me, Linda. I can’t be a man who lives off his woman, lays around watching TV until she walks in the door and wants something of him. I feel like the worst kind of lackey. I love you, doll, you know that. But I also know that if I don’t take a step out of this fantasy world I’m living in, it’s going to keep building until we have real problems. I don’t want to do that to you. I don’t want to do that to me. I need a little space…a little independence.”
She didn’t see it that way. She saw it as a first step away from her. How long would it be before he walked away? “You can have…whatever you need. Space…” Linda felt her eyes sting. She looked down at the papers; they blurred before her. “I have to go over this and…sign some..."
Alex got up and went around her desk, pulled her from her chair and held her. “Hey, it’s nothing but a job and it’s in town. Please, baby, understand what I’m trying to say. It’s nothing to do with you or how I feel about you. I’m a man and sometimes I think you forget that. I’m
not a pet on a leash.”
She leaned into his chest. “I’ve never had anyone like you before. I’m so afraid, Alex, so afraid that one day you’ll walk out of here. You need space and independence of me…what am I to think?”
“Think I love you and I always will and forget that part about me walking out on you. That
ain’t gonna happen. Never, ever.” He tilted her chin up and kissed her. “Never.”
As he ran to his car in the hospital lot, Cort called Terry. “Terry, did you know Bud’s at the blue house?”
“Yeah, he said the water tower demolished it.”
“Ok, but did you also know he’s gone inside?”
Terry had just sat down to the dinner Dee had cooked. “For what?”
“I’m gettin' in my car at the hospital as we speak. He said he had to try and salvage some clothes an’ stuff for Hope an’ Lachlan. I tried to talk him out of it but he wouldn’t listen. I don’t know where you are or what you’re in the middle of, Terry, but I wanted to let someone else know what’s going on. Gotta go!”
Terry pursed his lips and tossed his phone on the table. He only sat there for a moment before picking it back up and stuffing it in his pocket. “I’ve got to go,” he sighed audibly.
“What now?” Dee’s eyes rounded.
“That was Cort. Bud’s, scrambling around in the blue house that’s about to finish collapsing.” He left the table. Dino watched after him.
“Need another hand?”
“Might.” Terry looked at him as he slipped into his jacket. “It never ends, Dino.”
“Well, considering…I hope it doesn’t.” He left the table too and found his leather jacket.
Dee sat with her head in her hands over her plate.
The door to the first floor bedroom was stuck because the ceiling there was at an angle. Bud pulled on it hard and got it open enough to push through into the room. The large bed was
covered in debris from the second story and he stepped over some fallen furniture and boards toward the closet. With a big sweep of his arms, he grabbed everything that was on hangers. His cell rang again but he ignored it since his arms were full.
“Damn it!” Cort smacked a hand on the steering wheel. Bud wasn’t answering. He pressed down harder on the accelerator then turned up the drive. The familiar drive was nothing he recognized any more. He parked behind Bud’s car and sprinted around fallen trees, vaulted over remains of the legs of the water tower, heading for the back door since Bud had said that was where he was going in.
“Bud!” he shouted, coming up the rear steps.
Just then the house seemed to shift and he was flung backwards onto the lawn. He lay there,
the breath knocked out of him for a minute, watching in horror as the remains of the second floor came down on the first, pancaking the whole thing.
The bedroom ceiling began to collapse and Bud dropped the clothes, diving under the king-sized bed. Then the floor fell away and he and the bed plummeted into the basement together. Clouds of pulverized debris clogged the air and he coughed and coughed. It was pitch black where he was except for one small shaft of light angling in from somewhere above.
“Fuck!” he growled, trying to move. He didn’t feel really hurt but he couldn’t seem to do more than wriggle slightly. Because of the darkness, he didn’t realize that the bed was angled above him and had blocked the debris from the collapse. The box spring and the mattress covered nearly all of him and a load from the second floor rested atop them. The heavy wooden frame
of the bed kept it from crushing him but the side bar was starting to split and more and more of the box spring was beginning to press down on him so that his lungs were being compressed and he began to have a hard time getting his breath.
As Terry was speeding up down the road and coming to the drive of the blue house he saw it collapse. “Ah…shit!” He and Dino were out of the car in a second helping Cort to his feet.
“Where’s Bud, Cort…where’s Bud?”
“In…in there,” Cort gasped, shaking his head, trying to clear it.
“Bloody hell!” Terry exclaimed.
There was no way in through the back door any longer. The rest of the kitchen had collapsed under the second floor and a small crack had opened along the side of the tank of the water tower and water was beginning to mist out through it. It was a cylindrical tank with one of
those conical tops, and the top had broken fully away now and lay in the front yard atop some
of the downed pines.
Cort and the others went slightly to their left where the bedroom had been. There was a bit of an opening near where the rear wall of the house had been and Cort leaned over it shouting, “Bud! Can you hear me?”
“Down here,” came the reply, not very loudly. Bud couldn’t get enough breath to shout. “Bed…under bed...I think.”
“I heard something.” Dino cocked his head.
“Oh, God, we have to hurry! Look how that crack in the tank’s opening up. If he’s down there when it goes, he’ll drown.” Cort began pulling at some debris, trying to widen the opening.
By the time they got down to Bud, they were soaked. Now that they could see his situation it became a race against time. The debris had been cleared off the bed but the mattress, now wet, took all three of them to shift it only to find the box spring beneath it.
Terry could see his face now and it seemed to be changing colors as he looked. “Hang on Bud.” He turned to the other two who were still trying to drag the mattress free of the box springs, over the bed side rail.
“Bud? Terry, he’s turnin’ blue! We’ve got to get this weight off his chest!”
Pulling and tugging, they got the mattress off. Water was beginning to descend from the tank
in the beginnings of a waterfall and the basement was rapidly starting to fill. The box springs came off more easily. Cort and Dino tossed the side rail off just as Bud closed his eyes and his head tipped to the side.
Terry felt he didn’t have time to find out how Bud was injured. He grabbed him by the shoulders and began to pull him out of the rubble. They had to get him out of there before they drowned.
With Dino throwing debris from their path, Cort took Bud’s legs and they began slip sliding through the boards, wet insulation, nails and what consisted of a house demolished to get him
up and out on the grass.
They’d no sooner laid him on the grass than the tank burst and the basement where they’d been was completely flooded. When it was full, the water spilled over the edges of the ruined foundations, a small wave of it knocking all three standing men off their feet, sending them several yards across the lawn. Bud was carried along in it, too. Sopping wet, Cort flung himself on his knees on one side of Bud while Terry did the same on his other. “He’s not breathin’, Terry!”
Instinct took over and Terry rolled him over on his back, tipping his head back, and began mouth to mouth resuscitation.
“Breathe, man!” Dino crawled over.
Terry pumped his chest and again breathed into Bud’s lungs. He could feel Bud move a little beneath him and he raised up. Bud’s eyes were fluttering open.
“Don’t make me kiss you again,” Terry half laughed with joy to see him breathing on his own. He moved off of him, gasping for breath himself as the full implications of what had just happened hit him.
“Wh…what? Kiss?” Bud touched his face. “I’m wet. How did I get wet?”
“Tank, Bud,” Cort sighed. “Water tank burst an’ we all went for a swim.”
“But…but…basement. I was…I think…basement.”
“You were, yes,” Cort smiled, wiping some grass and a few bits of paper off Bud’s chest.
“Under the bed. That’s what saved you when the house flattened. Are you hurt anywhere? How do you feel?”
“Chest hurts…heavy.”
“Yeah, you had a couple tons of house on that bed you were under.” He looked across Bud at Terry. “I think we should take him to the hospital. Let Canfield check him over.”
“I agree, Cort. Can you sit up, Bud?” Terry was poised to help him.
“I’m all right,” Bud protested, trying to sit up, but grimacing and lying flat again.
“Maybe we need to call an ambulance out here. We don’t know what’s going on inside of him.” Dino wiped his face.
“Bud? How do you feel? Do we need to do that?” Terry asked.
“Don’t…don’t think so. Just help me sit.”
Cort took Bud’s left arm and Terry his right and they got him sitting up. After a minute or two he asked them to help get him on his feet, then between Cort and Terry, they slowly made their way around to the driveway, settling him in the front seat of Cort’s car.
“Don’t want to leave my car here.” He fished in a pocket, handing his keys through the window to Dino. “Drive it to the hospital for me, buddy.” Then he leaned his head back against the rest and closed his eyes.
Cort studied him from the driver’s seat. “Bud White, if you die on the way to the hospital I
hope you know I’ll never forgive you.”
“Not gonna die.”
Cort started his engine and turned his car around, heading back down the drive. “You have
any idea how close you came to buyin’ the farm back there?”
“Not into cattle,” Bud replied, not opening his eyes but smiling a little.
Terry pulled out behind Dino, who was driving Bud’s car. Back to the hospital they were going. It occurred to him they should all contribute a little money to the hospital’s building fund…maybe they should just rent rooms there, private nurses and Dr. Canfield. He pulled his wet jeans out of his crotch a little. Uncomfortable.
As he drove Cort called Marie. “I’m bringin’ Bud into the ER.” He explained what had happened. “Wanted to let you know so you could meet us there if you can.”
“I’ll be there. My shift’s just ended.”
As Cort pulled up to the ER entrance after the short drive, he saw Marie waiting there with a wheelchair, which she immediately brought up to the passenger’s door. “You almost lost your life over a dress and a pair of PANTS?”
“Seemed like a good idea at the time.” He grimaced again as he moved from the car to the chair.
She was trying to be mad at him but she had to turn her head away, tears gushing from her
eyes, and clamped her hands over her mouth.
“Ah, baby, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
She turned back again. “Do you know how many people die every day, not meaning to?”
Canfield was waiting inside. “Eager to get back in here, eh, Bud?”
“No fuckin’ way, Doc. You check me out but I’m goin’ home with my personal nurse.”
Canfield looked at Marie, seeing all the emotion in her face as she stood behind Bud’s wheelchair. Sighing, he said, “X-ray.”
ON TO PART 14
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