The best time to do it was first thing in the morning, when the east facing windows of the storage room got direct light from the rising sun.
“Five thirty comes way too early,” he said. “Good night. And if you guys are up early and want to come help, feel free to.”
Red and Russell looked at each other, then back at Butch, and said simultaneously, “No thanks.”
Russell started a roaring fire in the fireplace, then said he was feeling lightheaded and sat in his recliner to relax.
“Oh, you poor baby,” Red said as she rubbed his temples. “Are you still queasy after watching us slaughter the steer?”
“Well, yes. A bit. And I have a headache from standing over the fire while I was cooking the steaks.”
“Well, you just sit here with your eyes closed. I’ll bring a damp towel to put over your face and a couple of aspirin. Then I’ll boil some water on the fire for hot chocolate. Since it’s obviously going to be cold tonight, I’ll blow up the big air mattress and we can snuggle in front of the fire tonight.”
The tiny ears playing on the other side of the room picked up on some of the key words.
Specifically, “Hot chocolate” and “snuggle.”
He wanted in.
“Me too, me too,” he shouted.
Red looked at Russell. He looked disappointed, and she suspected she knew why. So she asked him.
“I’ll leave it up to you, honey. Is the little guy invited too?”
Russell had a soft heart when it came to his son.
“Yeah, I guess. I’ll just attack you another time.”
“I’ll be sure and remind you, in case you forget.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t.”
Red dragged the air mattress from the hall closet where they kept their camping gear and took it out of its bag. It wasn’t until she got it laid out on the floor in front of the fireplace that she remembered a critical element of the process.
They normally used a small electric air pump, plugged into their truck’s cigarette lighter, to inflate the mattress.
She scratched her head.
If she blew it up by mouth, it would take her until sunrise. It was as big as the mattress on their double bed.
Russell just watched her. He knew something she didn’t, but he wasn’t ready to tell her just yet.
She finally saw no other way and started blowing up the monstrosity, now regretting she’d had the idea to begin with.
After fifty or so hard breaths, her face started to turn red. She paused to take a break and noticed Russell snickering at her.
“What?”
“We have a foot pump in the garage.”
“Where?”
“On the shelf overlooking my workbench.”
“And just when were you gonna tell me?”
“After you were finished. I figured by then you’d be so tuckered out you wouldn’t be able to resist, and then I could have my way with you.”
“You, sir, can be a real ass sometimes, you know that?”
Little Rusty put his hands on his hips and said, “Mommy! My Daddy not an ass.”
Then he turned to Russell and whispered, “Daddy, what’s an ass?”
“Never mind, son. Take a break, honey, and catch your breath. I’ll go out to the garage and get the foot pump. It’s the least I can do to make up for laughing at you.”
“No. You’re not feeling good.”
She winked at him and continued.
“I’ll think of some other way you can make it up to me later. Right now you just relax. I was going to go get a couple more logs for the fire anyway. I’ll get the pump while I’m out there.”
Rusty deserted his Tonka truck and jumped up.
“Mommy, can I go with you?”
“No, little man. The porch light doesn’t work out there and it’s awfully dark. I don’t want you to fall and hurt yourself. You stay in here and make sure your Daddy doesn’t get himself into any more trouble, and I’ll be back in a minute, okay?”
“But Mommy, Daddy is always in trouble.”
Russell struck a “who me?” pose.
Red laughed and said, “Out of the mouths of babes…”
She kissed Russell on the forehead and headed out the door, carrying a candle to help her see her way around the garage.
The foot pump was right over the workbench, just like Russell said. Odd that she’d never noticed it before.
Back outside the detached garage, Red went to the woodpile located about eighty feet from the house. She made a mental note to start gathering wood for the winter by mid-summer, and to store it a little closer to the back door.
In the winter, when the fireplace was their only source of heat, she didn’t want to be walking eighty feet to the woodpile several times a day for wood.
Red was tiny, but strong for her size. Her dad called her his “red-headed tornado” while she was growing up, and she always tried to live up to the name by proving she was stronger and tougher than any of the guys.
It was a habit she’d carried into womanhood. Instead of taking two trips to carry four logs, she’d stack them high and take them all at once.
Even when she was also having to balance an air pump as well.
The candle was of little help in the outdoors, where there were no walls to reflect the light. She finally blew the candle out, stuck it in the back pocket of her Levis, and felt her way around the wood pile until she found four good-sized logs.
She’d put two of them on when she returned to the house, and the other two just before they went to sleep.
The fire would burn itself out sometime during the night, of course.
But not before the three of them were toasty warm beneath a quilt and a blanket, sharing the heat from their bodies to keep everyone comfortable.
Red was within fifteen yards of the back porch steps when a horrific explosion lifted her off her feet and blew her back another ten yards.
In a way, the explosion saved her life by throwing her far enough away to escape the intense heat of the flames.
The logs went flying, and Red came down hard on the back of her head.
She was knocked out instantly.
She would later say she never even saw the flash. Never even heard the blast. Didn’t even remember being thrown through the air.
Mercifully, she couldn’t remember it at all.
As for Russell and little Rusty, they never had a chance.
Chapter 47
The explosion could be heard for miles, and two dozen of the town’s citizens came running.
Butch was the first one there.
But there was nothing anyone could do.
The blast was so severe it tossed debris for more than a quarter of a mile.
Six sticks of dynamite packed a very powerful punch.
Within thirty seconds, what little was left of the house was fully engulfed in flames.
Butch thought he’d lost all three of them until a neighbor saw a body in the back yard.
The body turned out to be Red, who was unconscious and bleeding severely from the back of her head.
Blanco had a volunteer fire department, but none of its equipment worked.
The well on the property had an electric pump, which didn’t work either. It could be pumped manually, but wouldn’t provide enough flow to come close to putting the fire out.
All bystanders could do was watch it burn itself out and grieve for the lost souls who were inside.
Blanco was too small to have a hospital. It had a small clinic, operated by a nurse and an aged doctor who’d always sent the tough cases by ambulance to Austin’s Mercy Hospital.
That was no longer an option after the blackout.
Butch remembered from the limited medical training he’d received in the Air Force that head wounds always bled profusely. Even the minor ones.
That was enough to keep his hopes alive.
He picked his daughter up, and couldn’t help but notice how her head flopp
ed limply as though she were a rag doll.
“Somebody, please wrap something around her head. See if you can slow the bleeding.”
Someone, Butch wasn’t sure who, took off a t-shirt and wrapped it tightly around Red’s forehead, and the back of her skull.
It seemed to help. But she still needed medical care.
“I’m talking her to the clinic,” Butch yelled to no one in particular. “Someone please fetch Doctor Munoz.”
Butch was escorted by several of Red’s friends, who were desperate to help but didn’t know how. They had to resort to following Butch in case he got tired of carrying her.
But of course, he didn’t. Red was twenty five years old now, but she was still his baby. Still the one he once held in the palms of both his hands.
Still the one who melted his heart.
Still the one he’d lay down his life for without a moment’s hesitation.
So he wouldn’t get tired. He’d carry her to the ends of the earth if he had to, to get her the help she needed.
They reached the clinic before the doctor did, to find the doors closed.
Pete, an old boyfriend of Red’s who still pined for her, was prepared to kick the doors down when someone else suggested trying the knobs.
The doors were unlocked and opened easily.
Butch carried Red to an exam table and several of the others searched for candles and lanterns to light.
There was an eerie glow in the room, and almost total silence, as Butch dressed his daughter’s head wound.
The bleeding had slowed to a trickle, But Butch knew that meant nothing. He’d had enough medical and first aid training to understand that it was the wounds one couldn’t see that could be most dangerous.
With a severe blow to the head came the possibility of a concussion. Or of bleeding and swelling of the brain.
Or irreversible brain damage.
He had someone place a pillow beneath her feet to elevate them, and covered her in blankets to treat her for possible shock.
He turned her head to the side to keep her from choking if the wound made her vomit.
Then he held her hand and wept for her. She was all he had left in the world. He’d lost his only grandson and son-in-law on this night.
He couldn’t bear the thought of losing Red too.
Chapter 48
Jesse Luna had screwed up.
Badly.
He committed a rookie mistake, and let his own discomfort get in the way of doing his job properly.
Normally, he’d have waited in the woods until all the lights had gone off in the house and he was sure everyone was sleeping.
Normally, he’d have positioned himself far enough back, and facing the side of the house. That way he could have seen someone come out into the front yard, or the back yard, and could have waited a bit longer until they went back inside.
Even if he couldn’t take that position due to a lack of cover, he could have taken a vantage point looking directly toward the corner of the house.
Had he looked toward the southwest corner, he’d have been able to see Red entering the detached garage behind the house.
Had he looked toward the southeast corner, he’d have seen her collecting logs from the wood pile.
But no.
He’d decided to post himself in the woods directly south of the house. Because there was a bitter wind coming out of the north, and he wanted the house to block it.
He could only see the front of the house, and never saw Red go out the back.
He’d detonated the dynamite thinking that all three of his targets were still in the house.
All because he was cold and wanted to get finished and out of the weather.
Immediately following the explosion, Luna made his way through the woods back to the boarding house.
Once there, he’d fall in with the other boarders who were rousted from their beds by the explosion. And who were now standing out in the street, watching the orange glow of the flames in the distance and wondering about the cause.
When the boarders would go back into the boarding house he’d go with them.
At another place and time, before the world went to hell, he might use the boarders as an alibi. He might call upon them to testify on his behalf that yes, on the night in question, Mr. Luna was at the boarding house watching the burning house with the others. Not one of them knew that he didn’t come downstairs as they did, but instead snuck into their midst from the woods.
Had Luna not been cold, and not been in such a hurry, he might have held his position long enough to see Butch and the others attending to the wounds of a survivor behind the house.
As it was, he didn’t even know he’d screwed up until he met with Savage the next afternoon.
“What do you mean, she’s alive? I saw the house blown into tiny pieces. And then the pieces burned to a crisp.”
Savage was pissed, but was still deathly afraid of Luna, so had to choose his words carefully.
“I don’t know how it happened, it just did. She’s over at the clinic, being treated by Doctor Munoz.”
Luna’s jaw dropped.
“She must have walked out of the house just before the blast. But where the hell was she, and why didn’t I see her?”
He knew the answer, of course. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to admit his sloppiness to someone like John Savage.
He was lucky his client wasn’t someone else. He’d done jobs for very powerful men in the past who wouldn’t have tolerated such a mistake.
Men who would have punished Luna for his folly by putting out a contract on Luna himself.
“What did she see? What did she say?”
“Nobody knows. She’s still unconscious. Why in hell did you have to use dynamite, anyway? Why didn’t you shoot them like you did the others? Make it look like a murder-suicide, like you did the Cullens?”
“You said yourself that the father would never have believed the suicide angle, and would have started asking questions. Dynamite was a much better choice. It’s easy to say it was an accident. A gas leak. A faulty water heater. A stove left burning. Explosions are easy to explain away, and they leave very little evidence.”
But Luna could sugar coat it all he wanted. He could rationalize in his own mind, and maybe others, that it really wasn’t his fault. Sometimes the best plans don’t work out the way they’re intended.
He pretty much convinced Savage that it was just a minor setback.
But in his own mind, he screwed up and he knew it.
Maybe he really should start thinking about retiring.
Chapter 49
For five days Red lay sleeping. Butch sat vigil at her bedside night and day, refusing all his friends’ offers to relieve him.
“I’ve got to be here for her when she wakes up. The first question she’s going to ask is where her husband and son are.
“And news that bad is better left for loved ones to deliver. It’ll still hurt her more than she’s ever been hurt before. But at least I can share some of her pain and we can cry together.”
Judge Moore himself led the recovery party.
He knew that if he didn’t collect the remains before Red regained consciousness, that she and Butch would eventually do it.
When the judge asked for volunteers at the afternoon meeting he said, “Having to pick up the charred bones of your husband and only son is something no human should ever have to do. We need to do it for her.”
Butch wouldn’t even leave Red’s side to attend the memorial service.
“Those bones you’re putting in the ground no longer belong to my grandson and son-in-law. They’re just what remains of the empty vessels that once carried their souls. I know they’re in a much better place now. And I know they’re both looking down and telling me I’m doing the right thing by being here for Red.
“Red and I will go and visit the grave together, as soon as she’s able. Until then, my place is by her side.”
Butch ref
used to use the word “coma.”
It sounded so… permanent. In Butch’s mind it described someone who would never wake up again.
And that wasn’t his Red. His Red was just resting while she let her body heal. So let the doctor use that word, he maintained. Let the others hear him say it and repeat it. Let all of them believe it. He and Red would prove all of them wrong when she awoke.
When she awoke and suddenly it was she and Butch all alone. All alone against the world, just like it was when her mom died so many years before.
Doctor Munoz tried to explain.
“She hit the back of her head with such force that she broke the back of her skull and it was driven hard into her brain. From the burns to her face, she must have been very close to the blast when it occurred. She must have been thrown back from the force.
“The skull did what it was designed to do and absorbed most of the impact.
“But the brain, it was never designed to be hit that hard, and it’s badly swollen.”
“Is there anything you can do, Doc?”
“Well, if she were in a hospital and it had power, they would probably remove the piece of damaged skull and smooth out the edges, and let the brain expand through the hole the skull section left behind.
“That would reduce the pressure on the brain and lessen the damage. However…”
“Yes?”
“However, we don’t have a clue what the situation is at the hospitals in Austin. We don’t know whether there are any brain surgeons left alive, or whether or not they’re still doing procedures. And my guess is they don’t have power. That their generators were not protected and were ruined at the same time as everything else.”
“So?”
“So, I wouldn’t give very good odds on a surgical procedure that drastic without electrical power. They’d have no way to monitor her vitals, her oxygen level, and her brain activity. They’d have to do it outside in the daytime because that kind of surgery has to be very precise. You just cannot do it in a darkened room by candlelight.
“And, of course, doing it outside in the sunshine has its own risks. Chief among them is a vastly elevated risk of infection.”
“Then what can we do, besides pray for her?”
Red: The Adventure Begins Page 14