Wolves in the Night: Wrath & Righteousness: Episode Seven

by Chris Stewart

  Sara motioned toward the motherless child, beckoning with her hands. The little girl hesitated, then ran to her, throwing her arms around her shoulders and burying her head into Sara’s neck. The child cried for a few moments, wetting the back of Sara’s jacket, then fell into a whimper before dropping off to sleep, her breathing interrupted with involuntary sobs. Sara stood up carefully, holding the little girl’s head against her shoulder, and walked through the emergency room, questioning everyone she saw, “Is this your child? Do you know who she belongs to?” Blank stares and impatient gestures. No one knew. No one cared. She adjusted the child’s weight against her weary arms and returned to the small chair.

  Sara sat in silence for a long while. The chaos bustled all around her, but she didn’t seem to notice anymore. As time passed, her eyes creased in worry. Ammon watched her, seeing the anxiety fall upon her face, clouding her eyes and tightening her lips. He knelt down beside her. “What is it, Mom?” he asked.

  She looked up, tried to shake it off, but the cloud remained.

  “What are you thinking about?” Ammon asked again. He kept his voice low, not wanting to wake the sleeping child.

  Sara thought for a moment, not looking at him. “It’s not right,” she answered slowly. Ammon could see she was talking mostly to herself.

  “What’s not right, Mom?”

  “Your dad warned me.” Her voice was quiet.

  “Warned you? About what, Mom? What did Dad warn you about?”

  “About him. About what’s going to happen.” She shook her head.

  “What are you talking about, Mom? Dad knew what was going to happen to him? He knew about the bomb in Washington? About the EMP?”

  “No, no. Something else. Something with the . . .” her voice trailed off again.

  “What Mom? What’s going to happen?”

  She looked at him, her eyes pleading. She wanted to tell him. She wanted to get it out. But she couldn’t. Not yet. Maybe never. She finally looked away.

  “Mom?”

  She brushed him off with a lift of her hand. “I can’t talk about it. It’s probably nothing anyway.”

  Ammon sensed the inconsistency in her answer. “Mom, it can’t be something you can’t talk about and still be nothing. Those two options are kind of mutually exclusive.” He tried to smile at her.

  She looked around the crowded emergency room. “I’m thirsty.”

  Ammon didn’t bite on her attempt to change the subject. “What did Dad warn you about?” he asked again.

  “It’s nothing, Ammon.” She was determined now. “If it is, or if something changes and I think it is, then I will tell you.”

  “Mom?”

  “I’ll tell you, OK?”

  Ammon looked at her, waiting, his face impatient. He wanted to press, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good. She could be as stubborn as any of her children and far more stubborn than his dad. He watched her awhile, then stood and walked away, searching for a doctor or a nurse or an attendant or anyone who might be able to tell him where his brother was.

  *******

  They waited for almost seven hours. By that time, Sara was exhausted, hungry and scared—scared of the scene around her, scared of what was outside the brick walls of the hospital, scared of what might be ahead.

  But mostly she was scared of what her husband had whispered to her on the last night they were together on this earth.

  Looking around, she took a breath and thought about her son, who was lying on a bed somewhere in the bowels of the enormous hospital. Thinking of him, she felt a warmth inside her heart.

  The only thing she wasn’t scared about was Luke. That was the only thing she knew would be OK.

  Ammon checked his watch for the thousandth time, purely out of habit, but of course it wasn’t working, frozen on the moment a little more than five days before when the world had been thrown back a hundred years. Sara watched him, then held her arm out, her old windup still telling time. Ammon glanced toward it: 2:16 A.M.

  Reaching out, he tapped her silver watch. “Kind of quaint.”

  She looked down at her wristwatch. It was dirty now and worn.

  “I know you’ve told us before, but I can’t remember. Where’d you get that old thing?”

  Sara smiled wearily. “Right after we were married, your father and I went hitchhiking around Europe. He was stationed in Germany at the time. He had seven days’ leave. We bummed around, staying in student hostels, bed and breakfasts, getting every mile we could out of our Eurail pass. Sometimes we’d get on the train and just ride it until we felt like getting off, not even knowing what country we were in. On the last day, he bought this for me at a tiny shop in this little village on some huge mountaintop in Switzerland.” She moved her arm, holding the watch a little closer to her, fingering the silver band. “An old windup. Hardly impressive. He always apologized, thinking I’d prefer something more modern or expensive . . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  Ammon watched her. He didn’t want to think about his dad. “Nice to have something that doesn’t run on batteries or electronics,” he said.

  Sara pulled on the band, looked around, then stood up. “There’s the doctor!” she said to Ammon.

  The young doctor, his face pale with exhaustion, was walking quickly toward them, his crumpled blue cloak unbuttoned, the tails trailing behind him. Moving through the crowd, he was inundated with pleading questions. “Dr. Mortenson, what about my daughter? Doctor, can you tell me . . . ? Doctor, you’ve got to come and look at this right now! Doctor! Doctor!” Everyone had a crisis. Everyone needed his attention. Everyone had a sick or dying husband, mother, daughter, son, all their needs legitimate, and all of it far more than he could do. He worked his way through the crowd, gesturing to some, offering a calming word or two to others. Ten feet from Sara and Ammon, he motioned for them to follow. They moved quickly toward him, following as he turned. Getting to the hallway, Sara stopped and turned around. What to do with the sleeping child in her arms? With no one around to offer the child to, she found an empty gurney and laid the little girl down. Patting her back, she covered her with the bedsheet, pulling it up around her neck, then kissed her cheek. It wasn’t right to leave her there alone, but what else could she do? There had to be someone who knew her; a relative or friend had to be somewhere amid the chaos. She couldn’t just take the child with her.

  Stepping back, she patted the little girl’s back again, moved a strand of dark hair from her face, and turned to follow Ammon, who was chasing after the doctor down the hall.

  The doctor passed through a double doorway, pushing the heavy electric doors back manually, then turned right and moved into a patient’s room. Sara and Ammon followed. Four beds were crammed into a room that should have held two. Luke was sleeping on the first bed. The doctor stopped at the foot of his bed and turned. “Tell me again what happened to your son,” he said.

  Sara started. “We were out in the country, what, south of here. We were stranded, like everyone else. It was night, last night, I guess—no, two nights ago.”

  Ammon watched the exhausted doctor grow impatient. “He was shot,” he interrupted, cutting to the chase.

  The doctor turned and looked at him. “He was shot?” he repeated skeptically.

  Ammon hunched his shoulders. “Yeah.”

  “Did you see it?” The doctor spoke rapidly.

  “I was standing right there.”

  He turned to Sara. “You’re the mother, right?”

  She nodded but didn’t speak.

  “Did you witness the shooting as well?”

  Again, she nodded as an answer.

  The doctor looked at them both doubtfully. “Hmmmm,” was all he said.

  “What is it, doctor?” Ammon asked, his voice tight and weary. He, like the doctor, had not slept in more than two days: one night of holding Luke in the backseat of the car, another day of hiking cross-country dragging his brother on an improvised litter, another night to make it through the city,
and then waiting another day in the emergency room.

  The doctor studied him, thought, then turned and lifted an oversized folder that was hanging at the foot of the bed. Every motion was quick and efficient, not wasting an ounce of energy or time. “We have emergency power, enough to run a few of our instruments, and this is what I found.” He lifted a multicolored image and pointed as he talked. “A quick MRI of Frank’s abdomen.”

  “His name is Luke,” Sara started to correct him.

  The doctor clearly didn’t care. He pointed with the tip of his pen. “We have an entry wound, four centimeters below the lower thoracic cage.” He moved the pen. “We have an exit wound, just below the costal cartilage.” He moved the pen again, pointing to a lighter image on the MRI. Pausing, he stared thoughtfully. “An entry wound below the front rib cage. An exit wound near the center of the back, six centimeters from the spine.” His voice trailed off again. “But nothing in between them.”

  The doctor rubbed his eyes. It couldn’t be right. He was too tired. Too tired to think. The MRI must have malfunctioned. Poor imaging. Poor technical support. Everyone in the hospital was running on fumes, all the doctors, nurses, technicians, staff. It simply couldn’t be. It had to be a mistake.

  But it wasn’t. It simply wasn’t.

  He’d done his own exam.

  Ammon watched him. “Doctor?” he asked.

  The young physician looked at him. “Everything is going crazy. It can’t be what it seems.”

  The overhead loudspeaker called the doctor’s name, ordering him to room three. He glanced quickly down the hallway, nodding toward a colleague, but didn’t move.

  Ammon stared at him. Everything is going crazy. Yes it was. But he still had no idea what the doctor was talking about. “Crazy. Yes, sir, it’s crazy,” he said. “Tell you something else that’s crazy. That’s my brother lying there with a hole inside his chest. Now, we need to know what you’re going to do to help him—”

  The doctor raised a hand to cut him off. “Are you certain?” he demanded. “You actually saw him shot?”

  Ammon swallowed hard, dumbfounded at the persistence of the question, then glanced toward his mother. “Yes. We both were there.”

  “And he was shot with what kind of gun?”

  Ammon stared at the doctor, wondering what could be going through his mind. “I don’t know!” he answered in exasperation. “A handgun! BANG, BANG. A regular pistol. I’m not an expert.”

  “Look at this!” The doctor jabbed the pen again. “I’ve got an entry wound. I’ve got an exit wound. A hole here,” he moved the pen again, “a hole here. But no damage in between.” He turned to face Ammon and his mother. “Nothing. You understand that? The bullet should have passed directly through his pancreas and torn it to shreds. But it didn’t. The pancreas is undamaged. Clean as a whistle. Functioning perfectly. The metal should have perforated his small intestine. But it’s like the bullet entered, turned into water, passed through his intestines and pancreas, and shot out the back, all without doing any internal damage. I don’t know, I’m just a doctor, but that seems kind of strange to me.”

  Ammon stood there, his eyes wide. Sara’s hands shot to her mouth and she gasped quietly. The doctor leaned against the wall, his face impatient. The loudspeaker called his name again. Several nurses and technicians moved quickly up and down the hall. Constant noise. Constant motion. Constant stress and urgency. Ammon knew that people were sick and dying all around them and the doctor had to go. He took a quick step forward, focusing on the doctor. “There’s no internal damage?” he quickly questioned.

  “Nothing. I’ve examined the patient. There’s no damage except the entry and exit wounds. I’ve brought in a couple of colleagues. They’re as dumbfounded as I am. He’s got two flesh wounds, which will be painful, but they’ll heal quickly, I presume, unless you guys exercise the same magic that healed the internal damage, in which case I’m sure your brother will jump up any time and go waltzing out of here.”

  Sara took a step back. “Are you certain, doctor?”

  “Of course I am.” He almost seemed angry. It was frustrating and mystifying and it bothered him that he didn’t have an explanation. Doctors were supposed to have the answers. Doctors were in charge. He was the trained physician, master of the emergency room, lord of his kingdom, speak a word and it was done.

  But not now. Not with this case. He had no explanation, not a thing to offer. He was just as confused as the two people standing there with him. Turning, he dropped the medical chart in a green plastic box between the two beds.

  Case closed. Time to move on.

  Sara watched him, not saying anything, though her eyes conveyed every emotion in her soul. The doctor studied her, trying to read the look on her face. Surprise? He didn’t see it. It was almost as if she had expected what he’d told her. Confidence? Peace and acceptance? The doctor didn’t know.

  She held her hand against her mouth again and stared at her sleeping son.

  Ammon walked to stand beside her. “What do we do now?” he asked.

  The doctor nodded to the hallway. “He doesn’t need to be here anymore. A week ago we would have kept him, but that isn’t an option today. We need the bed. We can’t spare the nurses or any attention from the doctors or other staff.

  “So take him. Keep him down. Keep the wound clean. Change the dressing twice a day. That’s about all I can tell you. You need to take him home.”

  Home, Sara thought, and in an instant she was transported to the old plantation home back in Virginia. The huge, tree-lined yard. Shutters. Hardwood floors. The sounds of her husband walking in his bare feet, not wanting to wake her up as he made his breakfast at 4:30 in the morning, the sounds of her three sons sleeping in their rooms, the smells of Sunday morning.

  Home. No, she couldn’t take him home. They’d have to take him somewhere else. She glanced toward the doctor. “We will take him then,” she said.

  Ammon moved toward the bed and took his brother’s hand. Luke’s eyes fluttered and he woke up.

  “How you feeling, buddy?”

  Luke seemed to test his body, slowly arching his back. “Pretty good,” he said.

  “That’s good, man. That’s really good. You’re going to have to help me.” Ammon put his hand underneath his brother’s back. “We need to lift you up.”

  Luke slowly raised up to an elbow. “What we doing?” he asked.

  “Getting out of here.”

  Luke looked wearily toward his mother. “We’re leaving the hospital, Mom?”

  Sara moved to his side. “Yes, Luke, they don’t have room for us. But you’re going to be OK.”

  Luke was confused and disoriented. “But where we going to go?”

  “I don’t know,” Sara said.

  THREE

  East Side, Chicago, Illinois

  Captain Samuel Brighton stood at the apartment window. It was growing light now, the sun just barely breaking over the horizon, illuminating the dirty high-rise buildings in a golden hue. It had been a long night. The sun was comforting to him now, and he almost opened his arms to embrace it as it rose.

  It was completely quiet, though he thought he could hear the women breathing behind the thin bedroom doors. The morning grew brighter and he stood there motionless, watching, listening, thinking, sometimes praying. He thought of the last two days: the parachute jump, the night run through the darkness, not knowing where he was going, only knowing he had to run. “Go!” the Spirit had told him. And so he had run. He thought of finding his family, his brother’s stomach bleeding, his mother in tears, Ammon in shock, almost unable to move, the black woman and her daughter in whose home he was now standing. He thought of the mud, the rain, and the peace. He thought of the blessing, the miracle, the unseen hands upon his own. He brought his palms together, still feeling the unseen hands’ heat. Was his father with him? He didn’t know. It didn’t matter. The experience was too sacred to talk or wonder about. He thought of the day and nighttime walk a
cross the country, through the outskirts of the city, the improvised litter holding Luke. He thought of his mother, who had stayed with her youngest son back at the hospital, an old, chaotic, brick-and-mortar complex on the other side of the city. He thought of his best friend, Bono, another brother, wondering if he had found his family. Sam shuddered, thinking of him. Was he OK?

  The morning passed in silence. He didn’t hear Azadeh’s footsteps and he started when he realized how close she was behind him. Whirling, he turned to face her, his hand instinctively moving for the holster at his side. Seeing his reaction, she pulled back and lifted her hands, palms out, face bowed, a signal of submission. He looked at her, took a breath, and forced himself to relax. “Hi, Azadeh,” he said.

  “I frightened you. I am sorry.”

  Sam blushed. He was embarrassed. No way that would ever have happened in the field. “No, no, it’s OK. I was just thinking.”

  She looked at him as if waiting. “Good morning,” she then stumbled, trying to think of the word, “officer,” she finally said.

  Sam laughed. “Officer! Really! You don’t have to call me that.”

  She glanced around, embarrassed. “Cap . . . tain Brighton . . . .”

  “Sam. Just Sam, OK?”

  She smiled at him again.

  He watched her intently, and for a fleeting moment the world seemed almost right again. Balanced. On track. Everything OK. The feeling came and left him in an instant, and he almost shook his head. Where had that come from?

  “You found me again?” she said to him. It was a question, not a comment, and there was wonder in her eyes.

  “I didn’t really find you,” Sam weakly explained. Still, he half smiled. It was an amazing coincidence, one that had befuddled him. “It does seem that fate has cast us here together.”