by Robyn Carr
“It needs a little tweaking. Want to hear it so far?”
She sat up straighter. “Lay it on me, Calvert!”
“I want to build a healthy, balanced family life in a beautiful place with the woman I love.”
“Awww, I like that very much,” she said. “What are you going to tweak?”
“Well, I think I know how I can help keep that life afloat. Since we’re not independently wealthy and I don’t want to live out my life in a rumpus room, work would be good. It appears there’s a local need for a multitalented attorney. I have to work in order to feel competent. I’m just waiting to see where you’re headed.”
“I’m not entirely sure yet,” she said. “I might do some part-time teaching.”
“Is that where you feel the most actualized?” he asked. “The most authentic?”
“Why do you have to ask me hard questions? We’ve almost got this nailed down. I think we’ll be happy every day.”
“I think we’ll be happy every day for six months and then you’re going to realize there’s a little something missing, that something that makes you your best self. It doesn’t have to be sixty hours a week as a neurosurgeon, but you do have to know what makes you happy.”
“Besides you? I might be my best self just loving you.”
He leaned close to her and whispered, “That’s what my mother’s doing.”
* * *
Maggie hated to admit Cal might be right. She had the slightest problem with needing to be right. But it was true, she’d been thinking about earning some money and when she wrapped her head around teaching med students it filled her with about as much excitement as watching a tree grow. She tried thinking in terms of fertilizing their nubile young minds with the exhilaration of making good medicine, academically, and there it was again—watching the tree grow. She did like feeling the excitement of thinking about work, however.
She’d been in the operating room a few times in the past few weeks, but she’d been assisting in pretty tame cases. When she even thought about emergency work it sent shivers up her spine. She couldn’t imagine another ordeal like that horrific MVA that took three young lives.
But there was one thing. Just scrubbing in got her a little jazzed. The nurses and techs were so happy to see her and kept asking when she was going to be back in the loop.
How Cal knew what he knew was a mystery. It was probably something his wife had taught him—he said she was an excellent attorney who had gone her own way, not seduced by the same things that drove him.
Maggie would like to have a daughter. She had very definite ideas about what she’d like that daughter to see while growing up—a mother with confidence and a skill, a talent she had worked at developing.
Then she had a sudden fearful thought. What if she wants a debutante’s ball?
Maybe we should adopt, she thought.
* * *
Maggie bought a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever actually read it before; she probably either bought the CliffsNotes or watched the movie. But in reading it, she moved into another world, the world of Atticus Finch. She saw him so clearly, dressed in a meticulous but threadbare suit, walking around his town, making time for every human being he passed, working laboriously yet never hurriedly, never impatient or judgmental. In fact, he granted the most understanding to those hardest to understand. Clearly the most admired of all men, rigid in his values yet tolerant. She saw him.
She saw California Jones.
If a man doesn’t know what port he is steering for,
no wind is favorable to him.
—Seneca
Chapter 18
Some very familiar emotions visited Maggie as the end of summer drew near—the feeling that something wonderful was coming to an end. It had nothing to do with Cal, except that her romance with him had begun in early spring. Labor Day weekend approached and that signaled the end of the heavy traffic at the crossing. They would still have some campers, mostly weekend visitors, and the coloring of the leaves in fall brought out the nature lovers. In just a couple of months snow would fall in the higher elevations; in a few months the lake would freeze and the ground would be covered with snow. Cross-country skiing and ice sailing would be in full swing.
The summer camps across the lake would close and the lake would fall silent. The lake cabins for rent would stay open a little longer, but they’d close from November through February.
In winter there would be a few RVs and the cabins would be rented on weekends, but tent campers? Hardly ever. Those hard-core campers who braved it built big, toasty fires at their campsites and spent a lot of time around the potbellied stove in the store.
Life at the crossing would slow down. There just wasn’t going to be a lot of activity, therefore not that much work to do. There would be little to fill the days.
Maggie felt she’d been levitating at the crossing for six months. Her week or two had become half a year. And the thought of going back to that insane pattern she’d lived in exhausted her. But the idea of a long, snowy winter with only Sully and Enid for company held little appeal. The days would be endless.
“You can do anything you want to do,” Cal said. “Listen, life’s short. Be sure whatever you decide to do fills your well.”
Most of her immediate problems had resolved themselves. Her economic issues were taken care of with the closing of the practice and selling off of equipment, furniture and supplies, leaving her portfolio intact. There had been a rather impressive credit card bill; while trying to conserve her cash, she’d charged everything from utilities to car insurance. She complained about that a lot.
“I’ll pay it for you, if you like,” Cal offered.
“I couldn’t let you do that,” she said.
“Maggie, I’ve lived here rent-free for six months. I’m still coming out ahead. And I have money, you know.”
It was more complicated than just a money issue—it was that whirlwind a woman can get sucked into, trying to deserve a man just because he’s nice sometimes. She’d rather be the woman he had to live up to. Or better still, meet him on equal ground.
Two days later he asked her if she was in such a grumpy mood because he offered to pay her credit card bill. “No, I’m in a mood because it’s the end of summer. Labor Day weekend is our last hurrah.”
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her neck. “Don’t panic. We’re not seasonal.”
That last holiday weekend of the summer was a full house, only two campsites left empty and the cabins in use. Just keeping up with the most mundane maintenance—from stocking toilet paper in the bathrooms to sandwiches in the cooler—had them hopping. Campers had started showing up for the long weekend on Thursday and all the camps across the lake were full to capacity, including the Christian church camp and Boy Scouts.
On Sunday in the early afternoon, Tom came driving up to the crossing from the south road, blowing his horn as he approached. By the time he stopped in front of the store, Maggie, Cal and Sully were already out on the porch.
“We got a missing ten-year-old back in the Patternix Mountain area. His parents lost track of him on the trail around there about three or four hours ago. They notified the ranger. Search and rescue has been activated—we have to get him before dark. I’m going to drive up to the ridge about five miles past the site and start down from there. Some of our crew has already started up that way. We’re setting up a perimeter.”
“Let me get together some stuff,” Maggie said. “Three minutes, tops. I’ll go with you.”
“I’ll go, too,” Cal said. “What do we need?”
“Let me gather things here. Run over to the house and get us each clean, dry socks, our hiking boots, backpacks, light jackets in case we’re out there late. And one blanket,” Maggie said.
He ra
n to the house while Maggie grabbed bottled water and bandages—more for possible blisters than injuries. She added a cold pack, compresses, antibacterial ointment, a small bottle of rubbing alcohol, aspirin, rolled gauze, thin tape and duct tape. She added a Swiss Army knife and binoculars.
Cal came back and they quickly loaded the packs. She put the blanket in Cal’s pack. “In case we find him and he’s cold or hurt,” she said. Then she grabbed her hiking boots and ran for Tom’s truck. They changed out their shoes in his truck as Tom drove. He told them the boy’s name was Justin Blaisdale, ten years old, kind of small for his age, blond, freckled, wearing a green shirt and khaki shorts.
“Green,” Maggie scoffed. “Why not just camouflage, for Pete’s sake.”
“Be better if he had a red shirt, right?” Tom said. “Weekenders.”
Tom took the access road that wended north of Sully’s and up the mountain, one of the few roads with several lookout points and wide enough to park the truck in some places. He went beyond the last sighting spot and pulled off to the side of the road to check his map and coordinates. He had a radio. The team was armed with walkie-talkies. “This should do it.” He radioed his team their location, gave Maggie a radio and told them to take it nice and easy, be alert and cautious. “We don’t want to be rescuing or hunting members of the search group,” he cautioned.
Maggie and Cal had been on this trail before and it was buried in trees and shrubs. In fact this was one of their favorite trails because of all the trees and the shade. But it was hot and steamy today, and if there was a little boy lost out there in the woods, he would have a hard time finding his way. He could stay on this particular trail for dozens of miles without seeing a campground, ranger’s station or road. They used the binoculars to scan the area beneath whenever there was a break in the trail and they saw other searchers at a distance, across the deep chasm. Tom and Cal were both looking in and around bushes and tall grass. The sun was blinding when it broke through the trees and there was chatter on the walkie-talkies but nothing of substance. The sun was high overhead as they continued on the downward route.
“We’re going to hate life when we’re headed up again,” Maggie said. “We usually start down there at the crossing, come all the way around this hill until we meet the road.”
“If you’re feeling like a real candy-ass, you can take the long way back to Sully’s,” Tom said. “It’s not uphill at least.”
As the trails were beginning to come together around the site where the boy was last seen, they spied more and more of the search team on trails in the distance. They all went up and down and around the hills, but the searchers had to veer off the paths to check behind trees and shrubs. The trail they were on was close to the edge in places and Cal, being a little worried about heights, hugged the hillside as the path curved around.
“He wouldn’t have wandered off the trail, would he?” Maggie asked Tom.
“He might’ve wandered off the trail before he realized he was lost. He’s ten. He could’ve seen a fawn or a squirrel or something. Maybe he wanted to pee. Then he could’ve turned around to go back to the trail and couldn’t find it. Half the time they wander around in circles.”
They’d been out about an hour and a half, logged maybe three miles of trail when the radio sputtered. We got him. Everybody come in.
“That was easy,” Maggie said.
“Up we go,” Tom said, turning on the trail.
“Can we have a minute to rest?” she asked.
“Not too long,” Tom said. “There’s a cold beer with my name on it, waiting for me at Sully’s.”
“Some men have a one-track mind,” Maggie groused, though her mind was on the same track.
They got in the truck and started down the mountain when there appeared to be a lot of activity along the road. Members of the search party had gathered on the side of the road above a steep and intimidating ridge. A couple turned and waved for the approaching truck to stop.
Tom pulled over. “Tom, it’s Jackson,” a man said. “There was a small rockslide and he went down! We called rescue—they’re on their way!”
Tom was out of the truck so fast it was as if smoke came off his shoes. He ran to the edge of the ridge and looked down. “Jackson!” he yelled. “Jackson!”
Maggie was right beside him. The hill was steep, too steep to walk down, but beyond that narrow shelf was a sheer drop. Jackson lay on a ledge about twenty to thirty feet below the road.
“He moved, Tom!” someone yelled. “He’s alive. We saw him move!”
“What’s rescue’s ETA?” Maggie asked.
“We don’t know exactly, but at least we have the access road. They’re going to need transport.”
Tom ran to his truck and began to dig around in the back for his ropes and climbing gear. Maggie followed him. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going down,” he said, stepping into his harness.
“And what are you going to do when you get down there? Move him and break his neck? No, uh-uh. I’m going down.” Then she ran back to the edge, looked down and thought, suicide. There were loose rocks along the ridge, part of what caused Jackson to slip and fall, and the drop to the ledge was sharp. And, beyond the ledge down the hill, deadly. She wiped her sweaty hands on her shorts.
She put her pack on the ground, dug around for her knife and asked Cal for the blanket. “Cal, cut this blanket in strips about one foot wide. Roll them up and put them in my pack.” She put on her gloves. “Faster!” she said to Cal. “Tom, do you have a drill?”
“A what?”
“A small drill, cordless.”
“Maggie, what the hell are you going to do with a drill?” Cal asked.
“Try not to think about it,” she said. Someone handed her a flashlight, then Tom gave her a drill and a plastic case holding bits. She stuffed her backpack. It was heavy. She hefted it, then put it on.
“Maggie, no,” Cal said.
She completely ignored him and grabbed one of Tom’s nylon climbing ropes, starting to wrap it around her waist. “I don’t have rappelling shoes and the pack is too heavy.”
“Let me go,” Tom said. “You can tell me what to do.”
“That’s not going to work. Get me down there. There isn’t time to talk about it.”
One of the other search-and-rescue members pulled the rope out of her hands and took over, making sure it was securely and safely tied around her waist. He fashioned a loop she could slip a hand through to hold on. Someone else handed her a helmet, which was just dumb luck—they didn’t typically wear helmets on the trails.
“Thanks. Let’s do this. I’m going down on a drop,” she said. “Way over here, the shortest distance to the ledge and the farthest from that weak spot that crumbled. I don’t have the right equipment to rappel and I don’t want to disturb any more rock and have it fall on him. You have to lower me. Take me down very slowly.”
She knew he probably had broken bones. She could tourniquet with a heavy length of double gauze or rope if necessary. She wasn’t wearing a belt but she had shoelaces and she could even take off her bra and use it as a tourniquet if necessary. He probably had a head injury; she could confirm or rule out. If there was an intracranial hemorrhage, he would die if it wasn’t relieved quickly. He could have a fractured skull, but if there wasn’t gray matter leaking, he had a chance.
She stood at the edge and sat down. “Tom! Get airlift support.”
“Done!” he said.
She turned, kneeling at the edge, facing the cliff. She edged backward and noted three men held the rope and slowly, let it out. It was the longest, most terrible twenty-five feet of her life and she didn’t remove that rope from around her waist when she felt her feet touch. She yelled up to them. “Hang on to the rope. In case...”
She squeezed into the very small area betwe
en Jackson and the ledge and removed her backpack. Remarkably, his legs seemed to be intact at first glance. Possible internal injuries. He was breathing; his respirations were good, his pulse stable. She wanted to know more about his spinal column and head. Right now she’d sell her soul for a real neck brace, but she thought she could improvise. She doubled a strip of blanket, slid it slowly and cautiously under his neck, over his shoulder to his chest. Then she did it again on the other side of his chest. She took a third strip, stabilizing his neck so she could carefully turn him. Then she reinforced that makeshift brace with the duct tape. He moaned. “Jackson, Jackson, don’t move, honey.”
Flashlight in hand, she looked into his eyes. She swore. The left pupil was huge; blown pupil. “Jackson, oh, Jackson,” she said.
His other eye opened, looking at her blankly.
She heard the sound of moving trucks, a helicopter in the distance. She dug in the backpack for gauze, alcohol, drill.
She prayed. God, I will trade anything for this kid’s life. Please, this once, make my mind clear and my hand steady.
“Gotta do this,” she said. She poured alcohol over his head on the same side as the affected pupil—that’s where the pressure would be. If she worked that drill bit too hard she could drive it right into his brain.
Trucks were moving, doors were slamming, rotor blades were spinning. She shut down her ears. She could only hear one thing, the inside of her head. She carefully turned him, lifting his shoulder and upper torso and holding him there, immobile. She fit a bit into the drill. The bit was bigger than she liked but she’d had patients in surgery with bullet holes in their head and pulled them through.
Zurrr, the drill said. Zurrr. Zurrr. Three tidy little burr holes. Thank God the current fashion was buzz cuts. She noted the discharge and crossed her fingers. She covered the holes with clean gauze, then a few seconds later, checked it. She was never so happy to see blood. Red blood.
And then his eyes popped open; pressure relieved.
“Jackson, do not move. We’re going to get you out of here but do not move.”