Saving Thomas

by A. L. Moore

  “What is it?” His eyes were wild as they darted up the stairs to the door and back. Spinning on his heels, he started back through the kitchen. “Thomas!”

  “It’s the coyotes.” The emptiness in his voice sent a chill through me. Something bad had happened. Daddy, still pulling a shirt into place, bypassed us both, the screen slamming behind him.

  “Oh no, did they get one of the chickens?” I asked, reaching around Thomas as he stood transfixed in front of the back door, for my boots.

  “Not this time,” he said, nervously glancing back toward the chicken coop.

  But if it wasn’t the chickens, why was he looking in that direction. The only other animals… “The horses!” I said, pushing my way through him and taking the slick steps two at a time.

  “You don’t want to go out there, Breelynn,” he said, close on my heels, grabbing my arm. “Just wait inside.”

  I twisted out of his hands and nearly fell before sprinting across the yard. The barn was empty, every stall. It looked like the horses had gotten out. They’d done that before. Breathing a sigh of relief, I turned to help Daddy. Thomas probably had him worked up into a panic over nothing. Then, I saw the blood. The bright red trail started in Addy’s stall and went out the double doors.

  “Catch her,” Daddy yelled to Thomas, but I was already sprinting, the cool morning dew brushing my legs as I cleared the field.

  Not Addy. It couldn’t be Addy. Not my horse. The blood had to be from the coyotes. Addy probably got a good kick at one of them. She probably knocked it into the rake or something. I was well into the trees before I stopped, listening for movement. All I could hear was Thomas, closing in on me quickly. I took off before he could catch me and headed to the water. That’s where we’d found the horses before. I could almost hear the water when I tripped, landing on the soggy pine needles. I pushed back to my feet, ready to dart away from Thomas when I heard her whimper. It was Addy. She was lying on her side. Even in the darkness of the overhanding trees, I could see her leg was in bad shape. I ran to her head, rubbing her thick mane.

  “It’s okay, Addy,” I soothed through the tears that streamed down my nose and onto her face. “I’m here now. It’s going to be okay.”

  “Where’s she hurt,” Thomas demanded, coming up behind us and kneeling at her opposite side.

  “Her leg,” I sniffed. “It’s hard to tell where else. There’s so much blood.”

  “Hold her head,” he said, pulling his shirt over his head. “I’m going to soak up some of this blood and see how bad it is.”

  I was prepared for her to jerk or to kick at him, and when she didn’t, I lost it. She had to be pretty bad off to let him touch her like that and not move. He pressed up higher, and I turned my head. I couldn’t bear to look in her eyes. She was in pain and there was nothing I could do. Suddenly there were gun shots and voices in front of us. Katy’s dad. “Marshal?” his voice yelled in our direction.

  “No,” Thomas called back. “It’s Thomas.”

  “Come quick!” he said. “I’ve got one of them, but they’ve driven one of the horses into the water.

  I looked at Thomas panicked as his eyes moved from me to Addy, “Go!” One final look to my face and he reluctantly showed me where to apply pressure to the wound before sprinting toward the riverbed.

  I took his place at Addy’s leg, tying his shirt around it, but I could see it wasn’t going to do any good. The blood was a pool beneath her, soaking through the cotton faster than I could wrap the shirt. As I rubbed through the matted hair, she stopped moving.

  “Addy,” I said, darting to her head, but she was already gone, her eyes fixed in the direction Thomas had disappeared. “Oh no, Addy,” I cried into her mane.

  “Breelynn!” Thomas called. “Go get your Daddy, quick.”

  I ran toward the overflowing river, the water rushing quickly downstream. Thomas had managed to get a grip on Allendale, but he was losing his footing. The mud was sinking in around his boot, up to his knee already. Mr. Johnson was on the other side trying to get the other horses out of the mud before they met the same fate.

  “Just let him go,” Mr. Johnson yelled. “You’ll get yourself drown, son.”

  “I’ve got him,” Thomas said through gritted teeth.

  Then, his boot slipped. The branch holding his foot snapped like a twig under the pressure, and he was gone. The force of Thomas’s body shoved Allendale close enough to the bank to gain traction with his front legs. Without thinking, I dove into the water. The rapid current took me by surprise, the floods had made it much more forceful. I flailed my arms, trying to keep my head above water. I could see Thomas several yards in front of me. It didn’t look like he was swimming anymore, like the muddy water was washing his body away instead. I immediately thought of Addy, lying there lifeless. That wasn’t going to happen to Thomas. I fought harder, forcing my arms to plunge ahead, racing the current instead of being carried. When I looked up again, he was within reach. I wrapped my arm across his back and tried to turn him over. It was nearly impossible to turn his head and keep my legs moving, but somehow, I managed to get his face out of the water.

  “Grab the rope,” Mr. Johnson yelled, stretching over the muddied bank.

  I hadn’t realized he’d been running beside us. Daddy was there, too, watching in horror and trying to get his footing on the muddied riverbank. “No!” Mr. Johnson and I both yelled at him at the same time. I reached for the rope, but I couldn’t get it, and keep Thomas’s mouth out of the water. He was too heavy. It was all I could do to keep us above the surface.

  “I’m going to throw it again, Breelynn, get ready.” Mr. Johnson called.

  Thomas’s skin was slippery from the muddied water. I had to use my nails to grip him. The rope was behind me before I saw it. I pushed back with all my might, but I just couldn’t get it without letting go. “I can’t!” I gritted my teeth.

  Daddy was lying on the ground, his face drawn tight as his arm stretched for my hand.

  “Get Thomas first,” I insisted in gasps.

  He looked horrified. “Breelynn get my hand, now!”

  “Not until you get Thomas out,” I said panicked, pleading as more water rushed into my ears and covered my mouth. Kicking harder, I managed, “He’s not breathing. I can’t hold him much longer.”

  Daddy’s face was boiling, but he did what I asked. I towed Thomas as close as I could manage before the rock I was standing on turned, and I lost my footing. Luckily, he’d managed to get a hand under Thomas’s arm. It took Daddy and Mr. Johnson to pull him out. Daddy’s hand was back in a flash, never stopping to check Thomas. I took it this time and he heaved me out of the water with more force than necessary. He hugged me tightly to his chest, but I pulled away and ran to Thomas. Thomas’s face was a bluish color that made my knees buckle. Mr. Johnson was already doing mouth to mouth. Thomas’s cold fingers pressed tightly between mine as I begged God not to take him from me again. Not this way. “Breathe, Thomas, breathe,” I begged him.

  Katy’s dad fell back on his knees. I looked at him half mad, ready to take his place when I heard Thomas cough. My heart started beating again. I lifted Thomas’s head into my lap.

  “Oh, thank you, God. Thank you,” I repeated breathlessly. By now Daddy was hovering over us. “He’s okay,” I said, shifting my weight to the other leg when Thomas sat up, and feeling the piercing pain in my knee. My legs were so discolored with red mud it was hard to tell if there was blood. I tried to get back to my feet, but the pain was too much. I sank back to the ground and watched as Daddy worked with Thomas. Thomas’s voice was gruff, but he sounded more like himself now. He didn’t like being fussed over and kept pushing Daddy’s hand away when he tried to check the gashes on his chest. They looked bad, which made me feel even worse. There were five of them. I glanced down at my nails; all evidence of his skin washed away with the river.

  “You hit your head going in,” Mr. Johnson was telling Thomas, breathing heavily as he leaned against
a massive tree trunk. “I was on my way in after you, but Breelynn beat me to it. That girl saved your life, son.” He paused to glare at me. “She had me scared to death, her head like a bobber on a fishing line. It was the good Lord that helped her catch you. I still don’t know how she managed to tow you in.”

  “She’s a little thing but she’s strong,” Daddy spoke up proudly, able to gloat a little now that I was safely on the bank.

  They were all staring at me like I’d grown three heads, but it was Thomas I couldn’t take my eyes from.

  When it was clear Thomas was going to be okay, Mr. Johnson ushered John Tyler and the boys, who’d showed up after the excitement was over, back to their house, and then came back to help Daddy get the horses to the barn. Thomas was on his feet now, though he still looked like he might faint any second.

  “Are you out of your mind?” he croaked, his throat clearly raw from the water as he reached for my hand. “You could’ve drowned, Breelynn. What the hell were you thinking?” Not exactly the words I expected.

  I pushed against the ground to get up but the pressure on my knee was too much, even with his help. “I was thinking that I didn’t want you to die,” I said sharply, wincing in pain.

  “You’re hurt,” he said alarmed, his brow furrowing as he stooped down in front of me.

  I crossed my arms over my soaked chest. “Don’t worry about it,” Daddy will be back in a few minutes.”

  “Where?” he insisted, swatting mosquitos away from the blood on his chest.

  “It’s just my knee,” I said dismissively. “I must’ve hit it when I dove in.”

  I was determined not to let him help me, but he already had my leg in his hands. It looked bad, worse than I’d thought. It was already swelling. The purple color was dark, almost black in places like a ripe avocado.

  “You busted it up pretty good.” He shook his head with a frown. “If you’d have just listened to me…

  “Can you walk on it?”

  If I’d listened to him, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. The only conversation he’d be having would be with St. Peter.

  “It’s not your problem,” I said stubbornly, pushing against his mud streaked shoulders as his arms reached beneath my knees. The wound on his chest started bleeding again when he scooped me up.

  “Would you rather sit here and feed the mosquitos?”

  “I’d rather do that than be stuck with you,” I shot back. “Come to think of it, I haven’t tried crawling. Put me down!”

  “Ten minutes ago, you risked your life to save me and now, you can’t stand me. You really should make up your mind.” His lips mashed together as he towed me closer to the house.

  “I’m starting to rethink my decision,” I said evenly, my nails pushing into his shoulder.

  “Are you going to give me a matching scar for the other side?” I scoffed. Was he seriously complaining about how I’d saved his life? “Are you sure you weren’t trying to kill me?” he asked, no humor in his voice. “If the water hadn’t taken care of me, bleeding to death would?”

  Addy, I thought suddenly. He’d kept me talking until we’d passed her body. I tried to look back, but he sped up.

  “I’ll bury her,” he said, the edge gone from his voice.

  Chapter 18

  Mama decided my knee was bad enough to warrant a trip to the emergency room. It was after dark before we made it back home. The house was quiet when I walked in, but I could see the glow of a cigarette from Daddy’s chair through the opened back door. He loved Addy as much as I did. We all did. She was our first horse. Mama had told me during our third hour of waiting that Mr. Johnson had killed a mountain lion. It wasn’t a coyote after all. She said it must’ve come to the farm looking for food. That certainly explained the broken fence post around the chicken coup. I hated to think what would’ve happened had it been able to break its way inside.

  I’d never been much of a hunter, but I’d gladly have mounted that lion’s head on my wall.

  “Is Daddy okay?” I asked, leaning awkwardly on the crutches. My knee was only sprained, but the doctor recommended keeping my weight off it for at least six weeks.

  “He’s just worried about you,” she said quietly, giving my shoulder a tight squeeze. “What were you thinking jumping in after that boy?”

  “Would you have rather he drown?” I asked incredulous, placing my hand on top of hers.

  “Better him than you,” she said without apology.

  “Mama!” I said, unable to think about what she was suggesting.

  “You’re my baby, Breelynn. I don’t care if you are nineteen years old,” she said, kissing my forehead. “You’ll see one day when you have a kid of your own. I could watch the world die around me as long as you and Jenny are okay, but if something happened to one of you girls…” She couldn’t finish her sentence.

  I was glad Daddy was outside. If he was thinking as irrationally as Mama, I didn’t want to see him.

  “Can you make it up the stairs?” she asked as I started through the doorway.

  “I can manage.” The medication they’d given me was keeping the pain at bay for the most part.

  The stairs were tricky. I thought about calling Mama for help, but I knew if Thomas heard, he’d come. The only thing he needed to be doing was taking it easy. When Mama had called earlier to check on him, she'd found out he’d insisted on burying Addy before he’d even come inside and tend his own wounds. He'd buried her right at the trees edge, where we always raced, so she’d be near the house.

  The hall was dark now except for the nightlight we kept plugged in for Jenny. I could see her princess bed, one of her legs sticking out from under the blanket. I pushed through my door and eased the crutches against the wall, hopping over to my unmade bed. The medication started to wear off with the hopping. The floor seemed to ricochet up through my leg. Hopping was out, indefinitely. I lifted my leg into the bed, not bothering to turn on the light, and adjusted the pillow behind my back just as the door creaked open.

  “How’s the knee?” Thomas’s rough voice came from the dark hallway as he appeared in my doorframe. He looked better, from what I could make out with the moonlight coming through the window, the color back in his cheeks. The gashes on his chest were covered by a large white bandage.

  “Just a sprain,” I said, shaking out the blanket across my legs. “How’s your chest?”

  He smiled a little at my question, glancing down at the bandage before answering. “It wasn’t so bad after I washed off the blood.”

  “If you’re waiting for an apology, you’re wasting your time.” I pulled the hairclip from my hair, letting my heavy hair fall over my shoulders and leaned my head back against the pillow. It had been the longest day, and I felt drained in more than one way. Too much had happened. All I wanted now was for this day to be over.

  “I didn’t come for an apology,” he sniffed, glancing down the hall when a noise sounded outside the door. “Do you think it’d be okay if I came in?”

  “Suit yourself,” I said, wincing as I tried to pull my knees closer to my chest.

  “Don’t move,” he said, putting his hand on my leg to keep me still as he sat down on the end of the bed, looking around the room. The scene was so familiar it nearly took my breath. “Room still looks the same,” he noted, giving me a sideways glance.

  Taking a moment to remind myself that time hadn’t backtracked four years, I frowned, “I’m surprised you remember.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head, staring down at the floor between his knees. “Are you still leaving?”

  “Do you really want me to stay?” His voice came out pained, more so than just from a scratchy throat. I didn’t answer. I didn’t know how. My reasonable, rational side knew I should let him go, but the other side, the louder side, remembered the pain from the last time all too vividly. His dark eyes watched me intently as if trying to see through me. As if trying to see inside my mind. “I’ve tried to keep my distance from you,” h
e sighed. “I didn’t want this to happen.”

  My jaw dropped. “You kept your distance?” I asked aghast, leaning forward against the pain. “You came back here. To my house. After four years. On what planet is that keeping your distance?”

  “I didn’t think you’d go jumping in the damn river and nearly killing yourself. Do you have any idea how incredibly stupid that was? What if you hadn’t been able to get out, Breelynn?” He was shaking, the vibration hurting my leg. “Did you stop to think what that would do to… your parents?”

  The tension in the room was unbearable, making the pain worse. I wanted my pain meds, but they were down the stairs in my raincoat by the door.

  “Why did you do it?” he asked fervently. His eyes searched my face, waiting for my answer. I wanted to tell him but recalling the scene in the barn last night stopped me. He didn’t want to hear it.

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged, turning my face away from him and toward the window. It made it easier to lie. “It just felt like the right thing to do.” It was the biggest lie I’d ever told. He’d seen through much smaller. Turning the tables on him, I crossed my arms and demanded, “Why did you come back here, and don't tell me it was for work?”

  “I don’t know,” he said mockingly, the bed jostling when he stood and started for the door. “It just felt like the right thing to do.”

  So, we were both going to lie tonight. That was fine. I was in too much pain to argue and for once, it had nothing to do with him, not directly anyway.

  He had just enough time to get to his room before Mama showed up at my door, a bottle of relief in her hand. I swallowed down the two ginormous pills and settled back into my pillow, waiting for the numbing to start. It wasn’t long before the shape of my window became distorted, and I closed my eyes.

  The pain was worse in the morning, crippling. Every muscle in my body ached when I stretched, and I quickly shrank back into myself. My knee was still by far the worst of it. I moved the sheet back to find the skin peeking out the brace completely black now. It looked like Jenny had gotten ahold of me with her finger-paints again. Mama helped me into the bathroom and back to my room. There was no way she could carry me downstairs. I probably outweighed her, or came close to it, and Thomas and Daddy were already working the fields. I forced down a glass of orange juice and half the scrambled egg she'd left on my bedside table before she’d give me more pain meds. She sat with me for a while, telling me about all the people who’d called to check on me. Apparently, Daddy was painting me as a local hero. She was still talking when I nodded off to sleep.