by E. C. Marsh
But the man was unruffled, and just turned to Tom and Ralph.
“Sir, how long have you been on the river now?”
Tom was undecided. Should he get equally nasty, or play along? He decided to go along with the questions, at least for the time being.
“You talking to me now? Oh, I guess since about daybreak.”
“Have you noticed any other people?”
“No.”
“That's what we came here for, asshole!” Sandy just couldn't back off now.
“Did you notice anything unusual at all?”
“No.”
“Yeah, you showed up.”
“How many are in your party?”
“Just us. Count,” Tom invited.
“If you know how to count.” Sandy was in rare form.
“Where did you start?”
“A little ways upriver”
“Where do you plan to end?”
“A little ways downriver.”
Sandy giggled.
There was a pause while the man took notes on his clipboard. Tom was starting to get irritated.
“Just a few more questions, sir, if you don't mind.”
“I do mind,” Tom said calmly, but with conviction. “You stand there with the sun behind you and those damned mirrored visors over your eyes and interrogate me like some low life scumbag. You don't extend me the courtesy of an introduction and now you want me to answer more questions? Screw you.”
He picked up the rope and started walking on. Sandy, never one to be outdone, flashed a smile and extended her middle finger as she grabbed her rope. Together, they moved on toward deeper water. Fortunately, the shallow part ended and up ahead they could see the river narrowing and beginning to look deeper.
“Hurry up” Tom hissed between his teeth. “Come on Sandy, move it.”
They did not turn around. They just moved on, leaving the man standing in six inches of water, his clipboard dangling from his left arm.
They were just entering deeper water and picking up the rhythm of stroke after stroke, when Tom turned back and saw the helicopter leave.
Back in the helicopter, the man was already talking on the radio when the pilot lifted off. When he ended his conversation, the pilot said: “Sir, we need to get back to base. I am having some abnormal temperature readings and need to get that checked out.”
“Come on, Lieutenant! Let's go downriver a little further. We are just getting started. Didn't you just check this bird out this morning?”
“Yes I did, and no we can't. This is not the type of problem I can just ignore. I'm sorry sir, but we're headed back.”
Chapter 25
“Dave, Ken here. Can you find a way to patch me through to Jeff?”
“Jeff? Hello?”
“Go ahead, Ken, we're on a secure system.”
“I sure hope the scrambler is functioning properly. Jeff, we have a problem at my end. I just taped three dead men. These were supposed to be young guys, but what I saw were three dried out and mummified corpses. The medics on duty said the men came in sick, looked like heat stroke. Then they just shriveled up and died. But that's not all. The bodies continued to dry up right before their eyes. At the moment they are waiting for an Army pathologist to perform autopsies. Families have not yet been notified.” There was silence. “Jeff? You still there?”
“I'm here, I'm just thinking. I just got back to the base myself. I didn't get much done. The chopper developed engine problems. But I did connect with some people on the river. They were okay, healthy. Just pretty nasty-tempered, and no babe in a pink bikini among them.”
“If we really had civilians on the river, they are dead by now. Based on what I saw, their bodies are decaying at an accelerated speed. How do we explain this to their families?”
“We don't. You heard what Jonathon said. SERPAC has very, very deep pockets. We need to find the bodies, and we need to take control of them. In the end, it'll be just a couple of people who had an accident. Happens all the time. After the dust settles, we resume AMAG and we still win. I'll talk to Jonathon. He is friendly with this Colonel. Maybe he can take over the military end of this clean-up, and you and I can concentrate on the civilians.”
“Listen, Craft. Are you telling me that if we find these people, and if they are not yet dead, we'll detain them and just watch them die?”
“That's precisely what I'm telling you.”
“Well, count me out. I will not be a participant. These people need to be found, I agree. But if and when we find them, we need to help them. No Jeff, I'm out. This has gone too far. I'm done. I'll head back to the airport. Tell Jonathon he'll get my resignation from Seattle.”
“Ken, don't do this. You can't just jump ship in midstream. I can understand your reservations, but what do you think we can do to help these people? You saw the soldiers, you tell me.”
“Nope. I told you, I'm done. I don't want to have anything to do with the deaths of those people. This has gotten way out of hand. I'm outta here.” He hung up the phone.
Jeff Craft stared at the dead phone in his hand, then he dialed another number. It was promptly answered by a familiar male voice.
“Jeffrey, I hope you have good news.”
“Not really, Sir. Messer has been to the base dispensary. The three soldiers are dead and Messer’s got cold feet and jumped ship. He said you'll get his resignation from Seattle.”
“Is that so.”
“Yes, Sir. I've not been able to locate those civilians on the river. Based on what Messer described of the soldiers' deaths, I do not believe that the civilians are alive anymore. Messer said the soldiers' bodies continued to decay at an accelerated speed after death occurred. I think if we just wait this out and let nature take its course....” He paused for a moment.
“You didn't see any sign of the civilians? No boats or such?”
“I did run into a small group, but these were most definitely healthy people. When I tried to talk to them, they were pretty hostile. I don't think these were the people we're looking for.”
“Well, don't be too sure. I've had an opportunity to view the tape of your joy ride right after the IMPB burst. You all buzzed a nice looking young woman. She was sunbathing in a small boat of some sort. Put that tape into your machine and view it one more time. When you get to the young woman, look closely. You have to enlarge it a bit, but focus on the shoreline. You'll see her boat tethered to something, and you will see two more canoes full of gear. Jeffrey, you are looking for three canoes and however many people can be packed into them. Call me back when you have news. And don't worry about Messer, it'll be okay.”
Jeff Craft had already slipped the disc into the player.
More than five hundred miles away, Jonathon Brooks signaled his servant to bring him another drink. He dialed a number. A male voice answered.
“There is a situation that needs cleaning up. Messer has become a liability. His services are no longer needed. He is headed back to the airport, take care of him. Let me know when you're done.”
Chapter 26
The rocking motion of the truck changed, and my head hit the back window. It woke me up.
“Where are we?” I asked, sitting up and rubbing the back of my head.
“We're going to stop off at the Vet's,” Sam said. “I thought it would be interesting to hear what he has to say, and we still have plenty of time. Besides, the Vet's bound to have a phone and we need to get help.”
“I just want to get to the car. I don't want Tom to get there and we're not there.” I knew I was whining, but I didn't care. I was hungry, and suddenly very thirsty, and my head ached and my feet ached worse. I wiggled my toes. Oh man, were my feet sore!
“Hang on,” said Elmer-call-me-Ben. “We're almost there.”
He turned off the blacktop onto an unmarked gravel path, then turned to the right and into the driveway of what looked like a neat, clean, little farm. The house was a small white frame bungalow with pink flowers and a big welco
me sign on the front door. Ben just pulled up to the big, red barn, honked his horn and got out.
Sam and I followed. A slender figure, maybe 5’6 tall, emerged from the dark of the barn. The visor of the baseball cap covered much of the face, and I was surprised to see a long brown ponytail sticking out of the back of the cap. A bit unusual, I thought, to see an old farmer-veterinarian with long hair.
“Howdy, Ben. What brings you out here?”
“Mornin, Ginny. You real busy this mornin'? I got a problem with my cows and I was hopin' you could look at this calf and maybe tell me what you think.”
How could I have done that? I asked myself. How could I just automatically assume the doctor would be a man.
“What kind of a problem, Ben? And who are these folks with you?”
“Oops, I'm sorry. These are some folks I know, Sam Evans and Chris Landly. This is Ginny Page, she's not only the best vet anyone could want, she's also a very dear friend.”
We said hello and shook hands, but it was obvious that Ginny didn't warm up to strangers easily. Sam and Ginny unloaded the little calf from the back of the truck onto a cart and wheeled it into the barn where a nice, neat and clean examining room had been set up. I was impressed, but not knowing much about animals, dead or alive, I just stood in the background.
“Well,” said Ginny looking at the calf. “Why don't you all help yourselves to some lemonade back there in the fridge. You look hot and thirsty. Then you might wanna go ahead and tell me what happened.”
I had forgotten how thirsty I was until she mentioned something to drink. Sam and I emptied the pitcher in record time, then found the lemonade mix and made another pitcher. Taking off his cap and wiping sweat off his forehead, Ben took a long gulp of the cool, wet delicacy.
“I was out checking my cattle yesterday evening, you know, down by the river. Well I have to go past ol' Joe Bennett's pastures to get to mine and I could see right away that there was something wrong with his cows. Actually most of them were dead. I couldn't find mine right away, but when I did find them, they all were pretty sick. Since it was getting dark outside, I decided to spend the night down there.”
He paused and wiped his forehead again.
“I'm kinda glad I did. Wouldn't believe it otherwise. Ginny, I watched my cows die. I had thirty-three head of cattle down there on that pasture by the river. All of them's dead now, and I want to know how come.”
Ginny continued to check the calf. “What did you see, Ben?”
“That's just what was so odd. These cows were too quiet. They didn't move around or nothing. The calves I had, they didn't run and play. They just all laid down and stayed down and then they died. I went looking to see if there were any injuries to any of them, but I couldn't tell. There wasn't any bleeding or anything like that. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that I just had a bunch of old cows that finally died of old age. But that herd, heck, none of them was over three years old, not counting the calves.”
Ginny didn't answer right away, she was touching and poking on the calf.
“Sam, go ahead, tell her what happened to you all,” said Ben. Sam told Ginny of our float trip, how Marty had gotten sick, how Marty died and how he and I had walked through the woods to get help. Since I don't really know that much about animals, let alone cows, I was kinda left out of the conversation. The others talked and talked for what seemed to be an eternity while Ginny examined the little calf.
I was beginning to feel strange. I was just standing there, right next to them, but their voices were drifting to me through an invisible fog. And there was this nagging buzzing sound. I turned and looked at Sam, and it seemed that I was looking down a long tunnel. I felt sort of numb all over and started to look for a place to sit down. I couldn't see one, and the buzzing was almost overwhelming.
Suddenly everything went black around me. I could hear Sam's voice call my name, and I could hear a female voice say, “Just ease her on down to the floor. Probably got too hot. Stay here, I'll get some cold water.” The next thing I remember is feeling a cold cloth on my forehead. Slowly, the buzzing in my head faded.
When I opened my eyes I looked straight into the greenest eyes I have ever seen and a very warm, friendly face. “Feeling better?” asked Ginny the Vet.
I struggled, trying to get up. My legs and arms felt like rubber and seemed to get tangled up, and I wasn't able to coordinate any movement.
“What happened?” was all I finally brought out, and the raspiness of my voice surprised me.
“I think you were trying to pass out” said Ginny the Vet, “but these guys here kept you from hitting anything vital, and you came around again once we had you horizontal
“I'm sorry,” I didn't know what else to say. I looked at Sam and at Ben and they were smiling.
“Just stay down for a little while. You're not missing anything.”
“But I feel like an idiot.”
“Okay, so you feel like an idiot. Just stay down while you feel that way.”
They just laughed and went on discussing the calf. I pulled the cool wet cloth over my eyes and adjusted the pillow under my head and decided to take the advice and just rest for a moment. I felt I had no choice. Sure I would have rather been with Tom, who suddenly seemed so very far away. The relative coolness of the barn, the steady humming of the conversation, and my exhaustion, all suddenly hit me and I felt myself drifting off to sleep.
An unmistakable urging woke me up after what seemed to have been an eternity.
“Sam, we have to get to the river.”
I felt panic, and I know my voice must have been full of it. But Sam just said, “Relax, Chris. We've only been here a moment and we have several hours yet.”
“And I really need to use a bathroom.”
I couldn't think of anything more intelligent to say. Everyone was smiling at me and I felt pretty embarrassed. With a little help from the vet, I managed to sit up.
“Thanks Doctor,” I said finally, with a more normal voice, and she just winked at me.
“To the folks around here I'm just Ginny. Please call me Ginny.”
Ginny helped me into the house and to the bathroom. I instantly fell in love with the little house. It had shiny wooden floors and flowered wallpaper. There were lots of antiques and plants. It smelled of spices, cinnamon and cloves.
The bathroom was very white, very bright and very clinical looking. It had a huge, tiled walk-in shower and a separate tub, white with a neat dark blue trim. From the looks of it, that must have been a whirlpool tub. The room's only window had been extended outward in a greenhouse-like bubble. This space was filled with plants. I recognized spider plants and a red flowering hibiscus, but I didn't recognize any of the others. The window area could be closed off on the inside with white wooden shutters, should privacy ever be an issue out here. I decided that someone had spent a bit of money on the restoration of this house, and had done a great job.
I splashed some water on my face and washed my hands with soap and warm water. Ahhhhhhh. I felt so much better. I took some sips of the sweetest-tasting cool water I could recall.
The little house was truly as beautiful as it had first appeared. One wall of the living room was build of rocks, with a fireplace in its base. There were exposed wooden beams in the ceiling, and comfortable-looking, overstuffed couch and chairs. Lots of windows let in lots of sunshine and, although I could not detect the humming of an air conditioner, it still felt comfortably cool. I felt completely intimidated and out of place. I had to move slowly, since every movement made me dizzy. I managed, though, and rejoined the others in the barn.
Chapter 27
Tom was satisfied with the progress they were making. They had finally reached a section of the river that was deep enough and fast enough to give them a little respite from their labor. They continued to paddle along. Tom deliberately stayed slightly behind Sandy. He didn't want to let her out of his sight. After all, every bit of disaster on this trip seemed to originate with San
dy. Ralph didn't care. He was stretched out in front of Tom, in pain every time he moved, and tensing up at the slightest hint of motion. But Sandy was doing okay. She worked the paddle just as hard as Tom did and, to his surprise, maintained their pace. Finally, she pulled onto the bank.
“Okay, that's it. I have got to go to the little girls' room. You guys may have ten-gallon bladders, but I don't.” With that, she disappeared into the woods.
Tom and Ralph looked at each other. Ralph shrugged.
“I wouldn't mind that myself, but I can't make it into the woods.”