by Jodi Thomas
Cody thumbed up his cap, revealing worry lines across his forehead. “Bart’s trying a new stunt this morning. When he does the loop, he’s going to come out close to the ground and fly between those two barns.”
“Is it very dangerous?” A brush of apprehension tickled its way up her spine.
“Not unless the wind gets up,” Wheeler answered as they all turned toward a plane’s roar.
They watched as Bart came out of the clouds and began his circle. The spectators on the field held their breath as he flew nearer. The roar of the engine grew louder, shattering the peace of the air. No one spoke, as though a whisper might distract the pilot. All eyes were on the delicate machine as the wind moved across the land like an invisible angel of death, a wind that crept up so slowly Katherine didn’t notice the curl drifting across her cheek or the rustle of her skirts.
The plane’s shadow passed directly over them, darkening their world for a moment.
“He’s coming in too low!” Cody shouted and broke into a run toward the barns.
Katherine watched in horror as Bart’s plane twisted in the air. “No!” she shouted as if her words could correct the error the wind had caused. “No!”
The plane gracefully spiraled once more like a dying swan and flew straight into the barn as if unafraid to face doom. The screams of the crowd and the sound of wood exploding burned into Katherine’s brain as she lifted her skirt and ran toward the crash.
The thunder of feet replaced the noise of the engine. The smell of fire drifted across the cold air even before Katherine could see the flames.
When she reached the crash, the barn suddenly erupted into a blazing inferno. Smoke filled the air and blended with the cries and tears of the crowd. Katherine searched for Cody. She screamed his name over and over. He was nowhere in sight. Frantically she pushed her way deeper into the smoke, covering her mouth with her muff.
The fire burned white hot, but Katherine pressed a few inches closer. “Cody!” she cried. Her eyes watered as smoke filled her lungs. The sickening smell of burning flesh assaulted her. She could hear Wheeler, in his thick French accent, yelling for her to go no farther.
Katherine ignored his calls. She couldn’t just wait among strangers. She had to do something. Cody was somewhere in that ocean of smoke, and Bart was beyond in the flames. Katherine moved a step farther and lowered her muff enough to yell their names, but only the crackling of flaming timber answered her call.
Out of the black floating death she saw them, Cody’s lean form moving toward her with Bart’s lifeless body beside him. Cody had Bart’s arm around his shoulders and was dragging the bigger man forward. Cody’s face was black with soot, and his jacket sleeve was smoking. He seemed to weave toward her, struggling under the weight of Bart and the lack of air around him.
Running toward them, Katherine lifted Bart’s free arm. His flesh was hot, crisp, and bloody at the same time. She balanced beneath the extra weight and forced her legs to move. Bart’s foot scored the ground as he dragged it behind him at an unnatural angle.
Cody staggered, but stubbornly kept moving one foot blindly in front of the other as they dragged Bart’s body between them.
For what seemed an eternity without air, they moved away from the barn. The first clean breath drained the last ounce of Katherine’s strength, and she collapsed to her knees as others took Bart from her. The smell of burning flesh was even more suffocating than the smoke had been. Bart’s jacket was burned completely away, as was his face around the goggles and leather cap. Red exposed flesh was patched with charred skin all across his chest and arms. Katherine had to fight herself to keep from vomiting as she looked for a place to touch Bart to comfort him. But his bare chest no longer had skin to keep the blood from dripping out.
Cody dropped beside her and rolled onto his back. Suddenly other men were all around them, shouting, crying, cursing, helping. Katherine couldn’t bring herself to look at Bart and hated herself for her weakness. She was a nurse. She saw people in pain daily, but not people she knew, not strong, hard Bart.
A man with a black bag stepped out of the crowd, and someone ran for a stretcher. People were crying and screaming and praying all at once until all she heard was a rumble.
The man with the bag yelled, “Cover him quick!”
Several men pulled off coats and placed them over Bart’s body.
Katherine looked at Cody, unable to think of anything to do to help Bart. “Are you all right?” she asked. His face looked sunburned beneath the black stains. His eyes watered from the smoke. Or was he crying?
Cody nodded and lifted his hands, burned and already blistering. “I had to pull part of the engine off him to get him out.”
“I’ll get you some medicine and bandages for your hands.” She looked toward a supply truck parked by the road.
“No!” Cody shouted. “I have to stay with Bart.”
They both watched as the doctor frantically worked on their friend. He had cut most of the charred clothing away and was trying to wrap the worst burns so that Bart could be moved.
“Bart!” Cody yelled. “Bart!”
The doctor shook his head sadly. “He’s too far gone to hear you, son. We’ll get him to the hospital and do what we can.” The doctor looked at Cody’s burned hands. “You’d best come along with us.”
Cody climbed into the back of the truck that had been set up as an ambulance. He crossed his arms at the elbow and held his hands in the air. After settling in beside him, Katherine put her cape around them both to keep them warm in the open air. Bart lay stretched beside them, showing no sign of life. Katherine thought that at least that was a blessing, for if he’d been conscious, the pain would have been unbearable.
No one spoke during the ride to the hospital. As they pulled into the driveway, the entire hospital staff seemed to be waiting. Katherine remembered how excited everyone at Miss Willingham’s hospital had been when they’d treated a pilot once. Now there was no thrill or curiosity in her.
As they unloaded Bart, Katherine turned to Cody. “I have to find a telephone and call Sarah.”
“No!” Cody snapped at her, unaware of how sharp his voice sounded. “Wait until we can tell her he’s fine. It would take her hours to get here, and there’s nothing she can do but wait.”
Reluctantly Katherine nodded, knowing it would be better to tell Sarah in person that Bart was burned. Silently they moved past the nurse’s station and into a small hallway leading to Bart’s room.
Katherine explained to the doctor that she was a nurse, and the staff seemed happy to let her help them treat Cody. They brought cold water, and Katherine gently bathed his hands. She applied antiseptic and loosely wrapped them to keep infection from setting in. Cody didn’t make a sound as she worked, but she could see deep pain in his dark eyes. When she finished, she saw he wasn’t even watching her; he was staring at the room where they’d taken Bart.
“It’ll be a while before they know,” Katherine told him. “Since your hands are bandaged, would you like me to wash your face?”
Cody looked at her for the first time. A slow smile touched his lips but never reached his eyes. “Only if you’ll wash your face as well.”
Katherine glanced at the wall mirror and saw hers was almost as black as Cody’s.
“No matter what happens,” Cody said, his voice sober, “thanks for your help back there. You used your head and didn’t pull back, as a lot of folks would have. I don’t know if I could have made it out of the barn without your help. I couldn’t have carried Bart much farther, and I wouldn’t have left him.”
Katherine realized what he was saying. Slowly, uncontrollably, tears began to roll down her cheeks. Cody could have died in the fire.
He raised his bandaged hands, and Katherine moved toward him. She laid her cheek on his shoulder and cried. She cried because she’d almost lost Cody before they really got to know each other, because she’d been so frightened in the smoke, because in a few hours she’d have to tel
l Sarah that Bart was hurt or, worse, dead.
How long she wept, Katherine didn’t know, but finally the tears stopped and she rested against Cody’s arm. They sat on a long bench outside Bart’s room and waited in silence, afraid to speak, afraid to hope.
The afternoon shadows were long when a nurse finally stepped out of Bart’s room. “Cody?” she asked. “Are you Cody and Katherine?”
Cody stood up. “Yes.”
“He’s asking for both of you.” When they hesitated, the nurse hurried to explain. “The man who was burned, he’s asking for you. As soon as the doctor is finished, you may step in for a few minutes.” Without another word she disappeared back into Bart’s room.
Cody gently kissed Katherine’s forehead, willing her to be strong. “I wish I could hold you.” He lifted her hands so that she could feel his words against her fingers. “This may not be easy.”
“I know.” She nodded, wishing the hospital and the world would disappear. It seemed like years, not hours, since the crash, but still a million words needed to flow between them. In only a few hours they’d somehow aged, forever scarred by one morning’s events.
His dark eyes drank in every detail of her. “God, how I want to hold you, Katherine.” All the laughing youth was gone from his gaze, leaving only a raw need.
Katherine stood beside him unable to think of the right words to ease his pain as they waited for the nurse to open the door to Bart’s room. She’d dreamed of his arms around her for four months. She needed him to hold her tight and make all the world step back a pace, but now was not the time. The nurse was waiting for them to walk into Bart’s room. Cody’s hands were burned so badly Katherine’s slightest touch would have caused him even more pain. But she could see her need to be close to him mirrored in his eyes.
“I understand,” she whispered.
Tenderly he laid his bandaged arm over her shoulders and pulled her to him. “I’ve dreamed of you in my arms.” His words drifted in a whisper through her hair. “Sometimes I couldn’t sleep for thinking of you, and at other times you invaded even my dreams.”
She rested her fingers lightly on his chest. “I’m here now.”
For a long minute he looked at her before he straightened and nodded slightly toward Bart’s room.
Without another word they followed the nurse into his room.
Katherine had seen burn victims before, but never had the injuries so totally covered a patient’s body. Even William at the state hospital had some flesh unburned. She’d seen men near death, but never someone she knew. She moved to one side of the bed while Cody stood at the other. Reaching out to touch Bart’s hand, she realized how painful that would be for him and clasped her hands behind her.
“Cody?” Bart’s voice sounded dry and raw.
“Yeah, pardner.” The lightness in Cody’s voice was obviously false.
“Thanks for pulling me out back there.”
Cody smiled, “You would have done the same for me.”
“Don’t bet a week’s pay on it. I’ve never been as crazy as you.”
Cody nodded in agreement. “But you’re always there when the chips are down. We’ll fly side by side again soon.”
Bart was silent for a long while. “The doc says my flying days are over. I just joined the land-huggers.”
Cody opened his mouth to argue, but the doctor standing at the foot of Bart’s bed nodded his agreement with his patient. Cody knew it would only be cruel to hold out false hope.
“Red?” Bart said from beneath the layers of gauze around his face. “Are you here?”
Katherine smiled. For once the dreaded nickname didn’t sound so bad. “I’m here, Bart.”
There was a long pause. “Kat, I want you to promise me something.” His words were thick with pain.
“All right.” He would probably tell her to look after Sarah if he didn’t make it. “Anything.”
“Swear?”
“I swear,” Katherine answered.
Bart’s voice calmed slightly as if in relief. When he spoke his words came slow and direct. “Katherine, tell Sarah I died.”
“Oh, no!” Katherine couldn’t believe what he was asking. “No, Bart, that would break her heart.”
Bart sounded very tired. “Better to break her heart than to let her destroy her life by tying herself to me. If I live, the doctor says it’ll be months before I can even sit up. My leg is so badly smashed up that I may never walk again.” He tried to raise his arm, but straps kept him in place. All his pain came through in each word. “Tell Sarah I died. Don’t let her see me like this!”
Tears spilled over Katherine’s lashes as she shook her head, refusing to hear him say the words again. “No, I can’t.”
“You have to.” Bart’s voice faded, and the nurse hustled Katherine and Cody out of the room. Her hurried manner left no doubt she thought the burned man was about to make his statement fact.
Katherine tried to shove her way back in to argue with Bart. “I can’t tell Sarah that, Bart.” She fought to pull out of Cody’s grip. “I can’t crush her like that. I can’t!”
Cody held her, blocking her way back to Bart. “We can’t stay, Kat,” he said as he almost carried her into the hallway.
She shouted at the closing door. “I can’t tell Sarah such a lie. I can’t!”
A long silence hung between them. Kat fought for air as if she’d run for miles.
Finally Cody’s words came through to her as he pulled her into a hug despite the pain to his hands. “You have to do what Bart asked both for his sake and for Sarah’s.” His voice was hard, echoing down the long hall like the call of doom.
Kat’s tears were blinding her, “I can’t.”
“If Sarah knew about Bart, she’d stay beside him. It would eat away at him worse than the fire did.” Cody whispered words of reason into her hair as she cried on his shoulder. “Bart loves her too much to tie her to a cripple.”
Katherine could see the distorted logic of Bart’s request, but she would never lie to Sarah. “We swore when we were children always to be true to each other. I gave my oath in blood.”
She tried to pull away, but Cody held her against him. “It’s the only way, Kat.”
“No, I can’t. Sarah’s my friend and far more. I’ve never, ever lied to her.” She wished she could hit him hard and make him feel a fraction of the pain he was putting her through by even asking such a thing. “I won’t do it.”
Cody’s anger surprised Katherine. “Bart’s my friend.” He held her shoulders lightly. “And I’m calling in my marker. You said once you would do anything I asked if I took you flying.”
“But I meant doing your laundry or cleaning your quarters.”
“Well, I’m asking you to tell Sarah that Bart’s dead.”
Katherine felt trapped. “So it’s simple: I break my word either to Sarah or to you and Bart.”
“That’s about the size of it.” Cody let his hands fall to his sides but he didn’t move away.
“This will ruin Sarah’s life.”
“No.” Cody’s voice was now low with anger. “You’ll ruin her life if you don’t do as Bart asks. Don’t you see? She’ll never leave Bart if she knows he’s alive, no matter how seriously crippled he is.”
Kat fought the urge to run. “I wish I’d never met you and Bart. I wish I’d never gone flying.”
“How can you say that?” Cody yelled, but Kat was too angry to hear.
“I wish I’d never talked Sarah into climbing that hill and watching you take off that first morning. I’d give anything if I didn’t have to do this to Sarah.” Her words broke her heart as she said them.
Turning away from him, she pressed her forehead against the cool wall of the hospital hallway. “I’ve always been an honest person.” She spoke to herself now. “I swore to do what Bart asked before I knew the task. It’ll rip me apart every time I look at Sarah.”
Cody tried to turn her to face him, but she jerked away.
She
knew she could never look at Cody again without reliving this day and all its horror. Without being reminded of her lie. How could she hold him and talk of the future when she was about to shatter Sarah’s life forever?
All at once the weight of a lifetime of unfairness crashed down on Katherine. Sarah had never asked for much; she’d always only given to others. Now the first man who’d made her happy was being taken from her, not by force but by a lie.
“It’s not fair,” Kat murmured. “Sarah loves Bart. She never had a father or a brother. She deserves this one man. She deserves to be happy.”
“It has to be, Kat, fair or not.”
“But you don’t understand. Sarah’s never had anyone but me. Life should be kind to her this one time. I’ll break her heart when I tell her.”
“It’s not your decision; it’s Bart’s,” Cody answered. “He must love her a great deal to do this.”
“But she’ll never know that. I can’t be part of this.”
Cody placed his hand beneath her chin and forced her to face him. “Would you rather someone else told her?”
“No,” Katherine answered.
“Someone has to. If you don’t, I will.”
Pride flickered in her eyes. “No! She’s my friend. I’ll tell her. She wouldn’t want others to see her in pain.”
“Then tell her.”
Katherine lifted her head and faced Cody with cold green eyes. There was only one answer, no matter how unjust. “I’ll tell Sarah that Bart died in the crash”—she braced herself for the final tie that had to be cut—“but I never want to see you again as long as I live.”
“No!”
“It has to be. If I’m to sentence Sarah to a life without Bart, I can’t see you again.”
“You’re not making sense.” He reached for her, but she stepped away.
“Don’t touch me!” Kat held her arms up as if to block him from her. “Nothing has made sense today.”
“Let me hold you?”
“No!”
“We can talk about this later.”
“There will be no later for us, Cody.”
“But—”