Not Forgotten

by George Lee Miller

  “Drink some water,” I told him. I opened the lid and held it to his lips.

  He drank half in one gulp, then took a deep breath. “I’ll be fine,” he said.

  I was skeptical. I dialed 911. A female dispatcher from Fredericksburg picked up, and I explained the situation. I didn’t want the highway patrol or the local sheriff just yet, so I told her Skeeter had a puncture wound from falling off a hay baler.

  Skeeter rolled his eyes when he heard my explanation. He didn’t even know what a hay baler was, and he wasn’t likely to ever get near enough to one to find out. I explained that I couldn’t move him because he weighed three hundred pounds. She said the county rescue helicopter was four hours away taking a burn victim to San Antonio and asked for directions.

  I explained the complicated route to her. It was less than fifteen miles, but the narrow road at night would take an hour or more when they didn’t know where they were going. She wanted me to stay on the line to guide them to the ranch. I had things to do.

  “The ambulance is coming. Anybody else shows up, start shooting.”

  Skeeter nodded, holding up the shotgun.

  “If I don’t get to Marcus, he’ll come after you.”

  “I’ll be ready this time,” he said. He had learned his lesson.

  I secured Peterson’s M24 rifle around my shoulder and took off running to find Sylvia. It would be full dark in twenty minutes. The sky had turned from pale-pink to fire-orange. By the time I made it to where the road crossed the creek, there were deep shadows under the willow trees. The frogs had started their evening song. The water was only an inch deep, but the rocks were covered with moss and made the roughly ten-yard crossing tricky on foot. I jumped in without hesitation and slipped and slid my way to the opposite bank.

  I could see a light in Grandpa’s hangar. All my life that light meant that Grandpa was there working on his airplane. The light had always been a comfort. At night, I could see it from almost anywhere on the property. It was in the center of the ranch. If I was out late hunting or riding my horse, I always knew that light would be there to guide me. More than one night out on patrol in Afghanistan, I would see a light in the distance and imagine it being Grandpa’s hangar light guiding me home. That night it was guiding me to the bastard responsible for his death.

  I crept within fifty yards of the hangar, then slipped into the hayfield to increase my cover. I could hear muffled voices but couldn’t make out what they were saying. I lay flat between the rows of hay stubble and used the night-vision scope to scan the Quonset hut.

  I could see Marcus and Sylvia through the office window. She was sitting at the small table that Grandpa used as a desk. Marcus was standing by the window. He was watching the sky as if he were expecting a plane to land. She was watching him. I didn’t move. It was too dark for him to see me, but movement always caught a person’s attention at night. There was only a thin glass pane and a metal window screen between us. The fifty-yard shot would have been easy. I checked the round in the chamber and put my finger on the trigger. Using Peterson’s subsonic ammo, Marcus would never hear the shot.

  I flipped the safety off and pulled the slack out of the trigger. I steadied the crosshairs on his pompous face. The would-be king of Texas was about to take a bullet to the head.

  Sylvia got up and stood behind him. I eased the pressure off the trigger. I couldn’t risk it. One shot would kill them both. Then I heard the thump, thump, thump of a helicopter. At the same time, I heard sirens. At first, I thought it was the ambulance arriving for Skeeter. Then I realized there were too many of them. It sounded like every law enforcement vehicle within the county was on its way to Grandpa’s ranch. The helicopter would be SAPD.

  I kept the scope on the window. Sylvia put her hand on Marcus’s shoulder. She wasn’t tied to the chair. She wasn’t handcuffed. She was free to move around. I used the powerful scope to zoom in on her face. She didn’t look scared. She looked relieved. Marcus put his arm around her. She buried her face in his chest. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

  I adjusted the scope to make sure I was getting a clear picture. I searched for a gun or a knife in his hand—something that was forcing Sylvia to act. I had risked my life to rescue her. Skeeter was lying on the driveway with a bullet hole in his chest, and Grandpa was dead, yet there she was, clear as day in the night-vision scope, clinging to that evil son of a bitch.

  I forced myself to breathe and relax. The chopper sounds were getting louder. I needed to slow my heart rate and stop the scope crosshairs from jumping across their bodies. They were tight together. One shot would end the string of lies that led to this point. The truth was written on their contented faces.

  I let my breath out slowly and tightened my finger on the trigger. They were a breath away from death. Then I hesitated. Pulling the trigger would make me just like Marcus Lopez. I wasn’t ready to cross that line. I wasn’t a vigilante. I wanted Marcus to get his day in court so everyone could see who and what he was.

  The chopper noise burst over the hayfield. Running lights cleared the trees. Two spotlights speared Grandpa’s runway, then crisscrossed the field. One light crossed my back, then stopped and settled on me.

  An electronic microphone buzzed to life over the thumping chopper blades.

  A voice shouted: “SAPD. Drop your weapon!”

  If I was going to survive, I would have to run.

  I got my feet under me and slowly stood. Three men watched from the chopper: the pilot, the man with the bullhorn, and a sniper hanging halfway out the open rear door. His rifle was trained on me.

  “Drop the weapon,” Bullhorn shouted. The downward thrust of the chopper blades kicked dust and hay stubble into a cloud. The pilot was too close to the ground, cutting visibility for his sniper.

  My muscles contracted. I knew the sniper was adjusting his scope and steadying his crosshairs on the top of my head. The dust cloud would be reaching him, and he would be shouting at the pilot to pull up. A hovering helicopter was one of the most difficult places for a shooter to hit anything, especially one as small as the top of my head at night. There were sharpshooters who could hit a target at a thousand yards nine out of ten times, but never hit anything from a moving chopper. The odds were in my favor.

  I dived head first cradling the M24 to my chest. When I hit the hayfield stubble, I rolled to my feet and took off like Seabiscuit at the Santa Anita Handicap. I heard a shot over the chopper noise and expected the sudden burning punch from a bullet to knock me to the dirt, but nothing came. I kept running.

  The spotlight from the chopper waved across my path. I zigzagged each time the light hit me. Several more shots kicked up puffs of dirt near my feet. When I made it to the edge of the field, I plunged into the thick cedar brush. I knew what it looked like from above. I’d seen it many times from Grandpa’s plane. At noon on a sunny day, brush obscured the ground.

  I ran to the edge of the limestone cliff that surrounded three-quarters of the hayfield. The narrow notch I’d climbed down so many times as a kid, ironically pretending I was escaping bandits or Indians, was right where I remembered it should be. Halfway down the steep incline, my boot slipped and sent gravel raining down the cliff. It was narrower than I remembered, or was worn by time. I caught my balance and climbed the rest of the way with my side firmly pressed against the rough limestone rocks.

  It was only a matter of time before they found my trail. They would know I was armed. Marcus would tell them I was dangerous. They would remember Peterson as a fine upstanding member of the fraternity now that he was dead, instead of the asshole he really was. The SAPD chief would call Detective Ochoa and give her the bad news. She would vow to bring me in. Everyone in law enforcement would want a piece of me. Exactly what Marcus had planned. He had set a trap, used Sylvia for bait, and I had walked right into it. I was at the top of the Texas most-wanted list.

  I found the path at the base of the limestone cliff. It was a horse and gam
e trail older than the ranch itself, and the only connection between the Fischer ranch and our neighbor, Mr. Hoeffner, to the south. Deer and wild hogs had been the only recent users. Brush hung low over the path in several places, forcing me to run with my hand outstretched to catch limbs slashing my face.

  I heard the thump of the chopper linger at the edge of the field. They were searching the brush line, looking for my tracks. The law enforcement lights formed a pulsing dome over Grandpa’s ranch. I hoped the ambulance had gotten there first and taken Skeeter to the Fredericksburg hospital, and that I could get to him before Marcus’s thugs did. My next concern was for Kelly. Marcus knew I’d used her lab to match the DNA. I checked the bars on my cell phone. Zero. Warning her would have to wait. I wondered if the patron saint of lost causes was keeping watch over me. Maybe Marissa’s Our Lady of Guadalupe candle was still burning.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  After twenty minutes at a fast jog, I reach Grandpa’s boundary fence. The tough hog wire was in as good a shape as the last time I’d seen it, ten years ago. I grabbed a cedar post, swung myself over, and kept going. From there to the Hoeffner ranch house was downhill.

  I skirted a spring-fed pond and followed the creek for the next two miles. I slowed to a walk when I spotted the dark outline of Hoeffner’s barn. There were no lights. The place looked deserted. I stopped in the deep shadow of an oak tree and looked at the glow of my digital watch. Ten thirty p.m. I’d been running for an hour and forty-five minutes. When I caught my breath, I scanned the area with the night-vision scope. I didn’t expect to find anyone. Senior had been dead for six years, and his son Billy lived in Houston.

  I shouldered the M24 and jogged to the barn. Hoeffner Sr. always kept a surplus WWII Jeep for running around the ranch. I found the barn key where it always had been, stuck in a crack in the limestone block over the door.

  When I saw the Jeep, a flood of memories washed over me. Billy and I had pushed, pulled, and dragged that vehicle over every road in the county. I was asking it to make one more trip to town. I fumbled my way in the dark to the driver’s seat. The key was welded to the ignition so that when Hoeffner Sr. got drunk he wouldn’t lose it. When I turned the key, nothing happened.

  The next ranch house was another four miles south. I knew I could make it in a little over half an hour. I didn’t know the new owners and wasn’t sure there would be a vehicle. I was worried about Skeeter. He would be at the hospital very soon. If Marcus’s thugs got to Fredericksburg before I did, Skeeter would never wake up.

  I risked turning on the barn lights, then I pulled back the side-opening hood on the old Army Jeep. The battery was gone. I searched the workbench and found it plugged into a charger. I hoped that was the only problem. Vehicles left unattended for any length of time in the Hill Country were havens for mice and squirrels that loved to chew on electrical wires.

  I attached the battery, turned the key, and held my breath. The seventy-five-year-old Army Jeep cranked to life as if it was headed to the Battle of the Bulge. I cut the lights, closed the barn door, and put the key back in the crack. So far, it seemed, Saint Jude or Our Lady of Guadalupe was looking down on me.

  The wind in my face from the open top felt good. I sat up straight and let my sweat-soaked shirt air dry. I shifted into third gear. The road was curvy, but the Jeep’s top speed was fifty miles per hour downhill, so negotiating the turns wasn’t a problem. The problem was the gas gauge. It had been broken since I was in high school. Chewed to shreds by a family of field mice. I had no way of knowing how close to the hospital I could get.

  When I saw I had cell phone reception, I called Kelly. Her phone went directly to voicemail. I explained as briefly as I could that Marcus Lopez was behind Marissa’s killing and that she was in danger. I also told her I had killed an SAPD officer who was on Lopez’s payroll. If she was at work, she would hear my name on an all-points bulletin before she got this message. I only hoped she trusted me enough to believe I wouldn’t shoot without a reason.

  In seven miles, the road from Hoeffner’s place met State Highway 87, a major two-lane artery into Fredericksburg. I slowed and cut the lights on approach. An old Jeep might not arouse much attention in this part of the country, but the missing top didn’t give me much room to hide, and the inspection sticker had been out of date since my high school graduation. I decided to avoid the main roads as much as possible. When I didn’t see any lights, I coasted through the intersection and gunned the old engine across the highway.

  By the time I reached the hospital, it was five past midnight. I parked on the hill above the emergency room. I spotted a local police cruiser making its rounds. I ducked under the dashboard and hoped he wasn’t looking for an old Jeep. I watched the headlights through the rusted hole in the front passenger door. The cruiser turned left and went out of sight.

  The hospital grounds and parking lot were bright as day. I didn’t see any SAPD vehicles. There were two younger women smoking cigarettes and leaning against a blue minivan. From the butts on the ground, they’d been there awhile. I knew what they felt like. Grandpa and I had spent several weeks in this same parking lot while Grandma slowly wasted away. I jumped out and hustled toward the entrance.

  An older man in a silver cowboy hat locked his Dodge Ram near the entrance and turned toward the door. We nodded at each other. My clothes were torn and filthy from the ordeal. He looked me up and down when we reached the door. I recognized him instantly as one of Grandpa’s Texas-German rancher pals. It had been at least ten years since I’d seen him, and he seemed too wrapped up in his own thoughts to recognize me.

  “Trouble?” he asked. His raspy accent reminded me of Grandpa.

  “Accident on the ranch,” I said, keeping my voice calm. “Buddy shot himself cleaning his rifle.”

  His expression didn’t change. “That’s a bad one,” he said. “Name’s Helmut Geisler. My wife had a heart attack. The doctors try to get her stabilized.” I could tell he still didn’t recognize me.

  “I’m Nick Fischer,” I said, shaking the old man’s bony hand.

  “Otto’s Enkel?” he asked.

  I nodded. He used the German word for grandson. His face lit up briefly. I didn’t tell him Otto was dead. I didn’t have time to get into it, and he seemed to have trouble enough of his own. When I had Grandpa’s funeral, I knew he would be there along with most of the old-timers in the county.

  I followed Helmut to the nurse on duty at the reception desk. She looked about nineteen, with ginger hair and a peaches-and-cream complexion under a sprinkling of orange freckles.

  “Mr. Geisler, Dr. John just called,” she whispered. “He’s on his way. Stay as long as you want.” Her cheeks turned a shade darker as she made a note on a clipboard. I guessed this was her first week working the night desk. The experienced nurses dealt with ER tragedy too often to let it affect them personally.

  I stood a foot behind Helmut, close enough for her to think we were together. I gave her a knowing smile and nodded when he did. The young nurse waved us into the back rooms.

  “Y’all can go on back now,” she said.

  Helmut took his hat off, like any cowboy from his generation would. I followed him to the elevator, and we road in silence to the second floor ICU. He didn’t look at me. He was caught up in his own thoughts and anxious to see his wife. I saw the deep tan line a half inch above his ears. What hair he had was a shade lighter than his Stetson Rancher hat.

  “I hope she’s all right,” I said when we stepped out of the elevator.

  He looked at me with his hat in his hand and a certain resignation on his face. “This is the fourth one for her. The pastor comes tonight, I think. Give my regards to your grandpa. Halt dich munter.”

  “Halt dich munter,” I repeated.

  Helmut found his wife’s room and went in and shut the door. I paused for a moment to watch through the window as he took his wife’s hand when he stepped to her bedside. I wondered if I would have anyo
ne to call the pastor on my final night. I thought about Grandpa lying in the barn with no one to take care of him. He told me once that he wanted to be buried next to Grandma. I would honor his wishes.

  I continued down the hall, not sure where or if I’d find Skeeter. I saw a doctor in one room. She had straight blond hair and reminded me of Kelly. I wondered if Marcus had the resources to reach inside the Lubbock police force. I guessed he would. I hoped Kelly got my message and got the hell out of town. I checked my phone. Nothing.

  The next room was occupied. I took an anxious look. The patient was not a three-hundred-pound black man. I wondered why there were no police outside the hospital or in the ICU. There were only two explanations: Skeeter was already dead, or Marcus didn’t want local police watching him.

  I stepped to the last room. I had already lost a member of my family that day and did not want to lose Skeeter. Until that moment in the ICU, I hadn’t thought of him as my friend. He was a client at first. Today, on Grandpa’s ranch, he went as a volunteer. He could have walked away, but he had my back and took a bullet because of it. If we made it through the night, I would forgive whatever debt he owed me. He had paid in full.

  When I looked through the window, Skeeter was there. He was hooked to a heart monitor, two IVs, and an oxygen mask. I slipped into the room and breathed a sigh of relief. His systems looked stable. I had beaten Marcus’s thugs to the room, but I knew they wouldn’t be far behind. I stepped to the side of the bed. Skeeter’s eyes were closed and his breathing steady. Getting him out of here was not going to be easy. I pulled the oxygen mask down and waited to see if the action would trigger any alarm. Skeeter opened his eyes.

  “Don’t say anything,” I told him. “Marcus’s thugs are going to show up and try to finish the job.”