by John Saul
A tiny wail of anguish tore itself from Judith’s lips, but she quickly bit it back, determined not to let herself come apart. Jed, feeling dazed by what he’d just heard, stared anxiously at the doctor.
“But … he’ll be okay, won’t he?” Jed asked, his voice taking on a desperate tone. “I mean, people can get better after strokes, can’t they?”
Banning chewed at his lower lip, choosing his words carefully before he spoke. “Yes, they can,” he said at last. “And Frank’s got a lot going for him. He’s comparatively young, and he’s strong as an ox.” Then, as both Judith and Jed appeared ready to grasp at the straws he’d offered them, he added: “The problem is that we don’t yet know how serious his head injuries are. They looked pretty minor until last night, but now I have to tell you that he’s in grave danger. Apparently he has some blood clots in his brain. We’re analyzing the possibilities of trying to relieve the pressure in his head surgically—”
“You can do that?” Brown Eagle asked. “You can operate on him?”
Banning spread his hands helplessly. “We don’t know yet. We’re trying to lower his blood pressure, and then we’ll do another evaluation. But if he should have another hemorrhage while he’s on the operating table, it could be pretty serious.”
Judith’s eyes closed for a moment, as if to shut out the implications of the doctor’s words, and suddenly her mind filled with another image of Frank, this time sitting bolt upright in his bed, his face scarlet as he raged at Otto Kruger.
“Kruger,” she breathed. “If he hadn’t been here—”
Banning held up a restraining hand. “I thought about that,” he said. “And of course if I’d known what was going to happen, I wouldn’t have let him see Frank. But it isn’t necessarily related.”
Jed’s eyes darkened. “I don’t believe that,” he said, his voice trembling with anger. “If you ask me, he came just because he knew it would piss dad off—” He cut off his own words, and his shoulders slumped. “What the hell difference does it make?” he asked hollowly. Then his eyes went back to Banning. “Can I see him?”
Banning hesitated, then nodded. “But don’t be surprised if he doesn’t recognize you,” he said. “And don’t stay long.”
Jed nodded, then stood up. For just a moment his legs threatened to buckle under him, but he steadied himself and pushed through the doors into the east wing. He paused outside his father’s room, took a deep breath and let himself in.
His father, lying flat on his back now, with a Levine tube in his nose and an array of wires connecting his body to a bank of monitors on a portable rack next to the bed, seemed to have shrunk since Jed had last seen him. His face was a pasty white, and his arms, lying limply by his sides, looked like the flaccid limbs of a man nearly twice his age. As Jed came in, Gloria Hernandez glanced up at him and gave him an encouraging smile.
“You’ve got a visitor, Frank,” she said, motioning Jed over to the bed.
Jed stared down at his father’s sallow face, and his eyes flooded with tears once again. He tried to speak, but his voice failed him. Then he saw that his father was trying to smile, and heard a garbled sound bubble up from his lips.
Jed leaned closer, and Frank’s lips worked spasmodically. When he finally managed to speak again, the words came out slowly, one at a time.
“I … said … I … really … blew … a … fuse … this … morning.”
The words seemed to break the tension in Jed. He reached out and touched his father’s hand. “Gee,” he said, forcing his voice not to tremble, “out there, they told me you were really sick I guess they don’t know what they’re talking about, do they?”
Frank’s head moved in a tiny nod and he managed to wink approvingly at Jed. “Good boy,” he whispered, his words barely intelligible. “Never let ’em see you sweat …”
He gasped for breath, the effort of enunciating the words seeming to have drained him. Jed felt a knot of fear grip his stomach, and he squeezed his father’s hand. “It’s okay, Dad,” he said. “Don’t try to talk.”
But Frank’s head moved again, and as his lips began to work, Jed leaned close. “Take … care … of … Judith.…” He winced slightly, then strained to speak once more. “They’re … killing … me.…” He whispered, his voice all but inaudible. “They’re—”
Frank’s voice strangled and his fingers tightened on Jed’s hand like a vise. Jed’s head jerked up and he instinctively looked at Gloria Hernandez just as the nurse roughly pushed him aside.
“He’s having another stroke,” she said.
But this time it was over almost as soon as it began.
Frank’s body went rigid for a moment, and his face twisted into a brief grimace of pain. Then, quite suddenly, he relaxed. His body went limp and his head rolled to one side. Jed, terrified, stared at his father.
“Dad?” he said. “Dad!”
The door flew open and Bob Banning, followed by an orderly, rushed into the room. “What’s happened?” Banning asked, his eyes scanning the machines.
“Another stroke,” Gloria told him. “It didn’t last long, but it looked real bad.”
“Damn,” Banning cursed quietly, his eyes fixed on the monitor that displayed Frank Arnold’s brain waves.
The lines running steadily across the screen were jagged and uneven, accurately reflecting the chaos that was occurring in Frank Arnold’s brain.
Given what was happening to him, Banning could only believe that it was a blessing that Frank had sunk deep into a coma.
Judith sat in her car, trying to gather her wits together. She still wasn’t certain what it was she hoped to accomplish by coming to The Cottonwoods. But as she’d sat waiting for Jed, then heard about Frank’s third stroke, she’d known she had to come out here and at least try to find out exactly what had happened to Reba Tucker. Not, really, that she expected much, but at least she felt like she was doing something.
She stared at the place, slowly realizing that she’d subconsciously expected to see something quite different; perhaps even something sinister. But there was nothing about it that was out of the ordinary at all. It seemed to be nothing more than an old frame ranch house, together with what had apparently been a stable, a small barn, and a few smaller buildings that might have been guest quarters or bunkhouses, all of them scattered through a large grove of cottonwoods that was nestled against the canyon’s northern wall. It was quiet here—birds chirped softly as they hopped among the branches of the trees, and the stream, flowing lazily in its bed along the south wall, was nearly silent; only a faint babbling sound revealed its presence at all.
She got out of her car and walked toward the main building, enjoying the coolness of the canyon. A few moments later she stepped through the front door, and almost immediately a woman she didn’t recognize appeared from an office in the rear. The woman greeted Judith warmly enough, but when Judith told her she was there to see Reba Tucker, the welcoming smile was replaced with a small frown.
“Are you a relative?” she asked, eyeing Judith doubtfully.
“No, I’m not,” Judith told her. “My name’s Judith Sheffield. I—I used to be a student of Mrs. Tucker’s.” She wasn’t sure quite why she hadn’t told the woman she had also taken over Mrs. Tucker’s job at the school, but something in the back of her mind told her to reveal as little as possible.
“Well, I don’t know,” the woman mused doubtfully. “Mrs. Tucker doesn’t have many visitors …”
Judith’s nerves, already frayed from the hours at the hospital, snapped. “Is there any reason why I can’t see her?” she demanded.
The woman appeared flustered. “Well, no,” she began, but Judith, sensing that she was about to qualify her words, let her go no further.
“In that case, why don’t you just tell me where she is?”
The woman, looking trapped, glanced around as if hoping someone might appear to relieve her of the decision as to whether or not to allow Judith access to the patient. When no one appea
red, she sighed heavily. “She’s in Cabin Three,” she said. “Just follow the path around the back, then keep to the right.”
Moments later, as Judith gazed curiously at the small cabin that was set in a grove of cottonwoods, she realized that from the woman’s attitude, she’d half expected to see heavy wire-mesh panels covering the windows of the building, or perhaps even bars. But there seemed nothing odd about the cabin at all. It was simply a square frame building, maybe twenty feet on a side, painted a neutral shade of beige with dark brown shutters flanking the windows on either side of the door. Unconsciously drawing herself up straighter, Judith walked up to the cabin’s door and rapped sharply. The door opened and a heavyset woman whose features had all but disappeared into the puffy flesh of her face looked at her suspiciously. The woman wore a rumpled white nurse’s uniform, and a badge on her ample bosom identified her as Elsie Crampton.
“I—I came to see Mrs. Tucker,” Judith stammered uncertainly as the nurse said nothing to her at all. “Is this the right cabin?”
Elsie Crampton shrugged. “This is it,” she said. She held the door open, and Judith stepped into the cabin. Its walls were paneled with knotty pine, and a worn carpet covered most of the wooden floor. A hospital bed sat next to the window on the far wall, and by another window there was a worn chair.
In the chair, staring out at the canyon, sat the huddled form of Reba Tucker. In the ten years since Judith had seen her, the woman had aged terribly, though Judith had no doubt that most of the aging had taken place in the last few weeks.
“Mrs. Tucker?” Judith breathed.
There was no response from the figure in the chair. Judith glanced at the nurse. “Can she hear me?” she asked.
“Hard to say,” Elsie replied. “The doctor says she can, but you couldn’t make me swear to it. They say she’s had some kind of stroke, but if you ask me, she’s just gone senile.”
Judith felt a flash of anger toward the nurse, but did her best to conceal it.
“Well, I got some things to take care of,” Elsie Crampton went on. “If you need me, there’s a bell there by the bed,” she added, her tone clearly implying that she hoped Judith wouldn’t use the bell. Turning her back on Judith, she walked out of the cabin, pulling the door shut behind her.
Judith stood still for a moment, then moved over to the chair by the window. Kneeling down, she gently touched Reba Tucker’s arm. “Mrs. Tucker?” she asked again. “It’s me. Judith Sheffield. Can you hear me?”
As if from a great distance, Reba Tucker heard the voice speaking to her, and a memory stirred within the fragments of her mind.
This was a voice from the past, not one of the voices she knew from the endless expanses of time since she had awakened and found herself in this frightening place. Concentrating hard, she turned her head slightly, and her eyes examined the face that seemed suspended in front of her.
She recognized the face too. It was from somewhere long ago, before she’d died and gone to Hell. “Judy …” she breathed, her own voice sounding strange and unfamiliar to her.
A surge of excitement welled up in Judith. Mrs. Tucker could hear her; had even recognized her. “I came to find out what happened to you, Mrs. Tucker,” she said, enunciating each syllable slowly and distinctly.
Reba felt her mind drifting, saw the image of the face fading slowly away. She concentrated harder, struggling to keep the image intact and to make sense out of the words Judy had spoken.
“Dead,” she whispered at last. “Hell …”
Judith’s heart sank. Had Mrs. Tucker completely lost her mind after all? “No,” she said. “You aren’t dead, Mrs. Tucker.”
Reba’s mind grappled with the words. “Live?” she gasped. Then, her eyes flooding with tears, she shook her head.
“You are alive, Mrs. Tucker,” Judith insisted. “You’re alive, and you got sick, and they brought you here. They’re trying to make you well again.”
Reba’s shattered brain picked at the words, then, once more, she shook her head slowly. “Hurt …” she breathed.
Judith frowned. “Hurt?” she repeated. “They hurt you?”
Reba Tucker’s eyes clouded and her head moved slightly as she nodded. Then her voice crept forth from her lips again, and her hand reached out to seize Judith’s own. “Smells,” she managed to say. “Bad. See things … Bad …” She paused for a moment, then gasped one more word. “Hurts.”
Judith felt tears in her eyes as she saw the pain and suffering that was etched in Reba Tucker’s face. The woman’s fingers, swollen with arthritis, clutched at Judith again, and she watched helplessly as Reba struggled to speak once more.
“Night,” she managed to whisper. “Night … hurts.”
Judith looked at her helplessly, but there was something flickering in the depths of the woman’s eyes that told her that whatever had happened to Reba Tucker, she was certainly not senile. She seemed to be trying to reach out, trying to tell Judith what had happened, but finding the task nearly impossible. Desperately searching for something that might help her understand, Judith’s eyes scanned the room.
And there, hanging at the foot of Reba Tucker’s bed, was a metal clipboard.
Gently extracting her hand from Reba’s grip, Judith hurried to the bed and took the clipboard off its hook. Her eyes ran down it quickly, trying to comprehend all the abstruse words and phrases that were jotted there in a nearly incomprehensible medical shorthand. She flipped through the pages, and then her eyes stopped at the last entry. In a sloppy handwriting—a scrawl that Judith automatically matched to Elsie Crampton—was a single word. “Seizure.” Next to the word was the time: 12:15 A.M.
Judith’s lips tightened and she put the clipboard back on its hook, then went back to kneel by Reba Tucker once again. “You had a seizure last night, Mrs. Tucker,” she said. “Can you tell me anything about it? Anything at all?”
But Reba Tucker’s eyes had glazed over, and she was once more staring out the window. Judith spoke to her again, then gently stroked her hand.
There was no response from the old woman.
Judith stood next to the chair for a few minutes, trying to think of something—anything—she might be able to do for Reba Tucker. But she knew there was nothing. Indeed, if it hadn’t been for that strange, desperate light that had come into Reba’s eyes, and the fact that she had spoken the name that Judith hadn’t used for nearly a decade, she would have tended to agree with Elsie Crampton’s judgment that Reba Tucker had turned senile. But that flicker of intelligence she’d seen had told her that Reba had been struggling to tell her as much as she could, or at least as much as she understood, of what had happened to her. And what had happened to her, as far as Judith was able to see, was that her mind had been destroyed.
Turning away, she moved to the cabin door and stepped outside. She spotted Elsie Crampton standing under a cottonwood tree a few yards away, smoking a cigarette. Making up her mind, Judith walked over to her.
“I saw her chart,” she said. “I—I hope it’s all right.”
Elsie shrugged. “It’s all right with me,” she said. “I don’t guess it’s any big secret, if they leave it hanging there.”
Judith nodded. “I was wondering what happened last night,” she said. “I saw that she had some kind of seizure or something.”
Elsie took another drag on her cigarette, then dropped it to the ground, grinding it into the dirt with her toe. “She started screaming,” she said, her face setting in disapproval. “She went to sleep right after dinner—not that she ate much—and then in the middle of the night she just started yelling her head off. Don’t know exactly what happened. By the time I got there, it was all over with.”
Judith stared at the woman in disbelief. “You mean she’s in there all by herself at night?” she asked. “How can they do that? She’s helpless!”
Elsie shrugged. “Don’t ask me,” she said. “I don’t make up the policies around here. I just do what they tell me.” But her eyes darted
toward the main building and her voice dropped a notch. “If you ask me,” she said, “it doesn’t seem like anyone around here really cares if the patients live or die. ’Course,” she added, “that’s the way most of these places are, isn’t it? The checks come in, and nobody pays much attention to what happens.” She shook her head. “Seems like a crappy way to spend your last years, though, doesn’t it?” She looked at Judith. “She say anything? Mrs. Tucker, I mean?”
Judith hesitated, then shook her head. “No,” she said. “I’m not even sure she knew I was there.”
Elsie Crampton nodded. “Yeah, that’s the way she is, all right. Just nothing left of her at all.”
Judith nodded absently, already thinking of something else. “The seizure,” she said. “On the chart, it said it happened at a quarter after twelve.”
Elsie shrugged. “Well, that’s what time I got there, I guess,” she said. “Actually, I think it hit her just about midnight.”
Judith felt a chill run through her.
It was at midnight last night that Frank had suffered his first stroke.
Gina Alvarez stood outside the Sparkses’ house, hoping she wouldn’t lose her nerve. But why should I? she asked herself. After all, Randy was the one who broke the windshield. Why should Jed have to pay for it? Especially after what had happened this morning.
She’d called Jed earlier, and when he hadn’t answered the phone, she’d called the hospital. But when Gloria Hernandez let her know what had happened to Jed’s father, Gina told the nurse not to call him to the phone. “I’ll come over after a while,” she’d said. “There’s something I have to do first.”
Finally, summoning up her courage, she went up to the front door and pressed the bell. A few seconds later Mrs. Sparks opened the door a crack, looked suspiciously out, then opened the door wider.