Wake the Dawn

by Lauraine Snelling

  “No.” He was scowling, and Ben, standing close to the radio with his head cocked, was scowling as well. “No, tell her she mustn’t touch the car door. If she touches the metal car door it could fry her. Did you?” Gabble gabble. “No. Ask Jeff; I think he’s on. Where’s Harry?” Gabble gabble. “No.” Gabble. “I’ll be there as quick as I can. No, no one else around to take it. Thanks, Jenny.” Gabble gabble.

  Ben pulled the stethoscope off from around his neck. “I’ll go.”

  “I want you to stay here. I think we need a doctor on this one. Sick kid. Esther, get your traveling bag.”

  Esther gasped. “I can’t leave here! Injured are going to start coming in, like the last time, and—”

  “There’s no crises here right now and Ben can handle it until you get back. Come on.”

  Ben spread both hands and took a step back. She interpreted that as “Not worth trying to argue.” Ben knew Chief better than she did.

  She caved and got her kit. It was stocked. She always kept it stocked, basic medicines, inflatable splints, even a toothbrush, in case she got pinned down somewhere overnight. She followed Chief out to his squad car, the heavy overcast obscuring the border patrol insignia decal on the door. When she tossed her bag in back and slid into the passenger seat, she was wet already, and she hadn’t been out in it but for a few seconds. The wind was whistling above the building, thumping something in the rooftop air handler.

  They left the lee of the building and the wind hit them full-force, actually moving the car sideways a couple of inches. The windshield wipers splacked frantically and couldn’t keep up with it. And the old, familiar horror boiled up inside her as if it were brand new. She was going to have another episode, she just knew it. This was not the time, not the place with a major law enforcement figure seated beside her.

  She must focus. But on what? “What’s going on?”

  “A woman and kid trapped in a car with power lines draped across it. Still sparks and dancing, so they haven’t been able to cut the power to it yet. She was told to stay in the car and not touch anything. Always a dicey situation.” He fumbled in his shirt pocket, brought out a fresh roll of antacid mints, opened the roll to extract one, and popped it. “She was headed for the clinic. Her kid is having some kind of sickness episode.”

  I can relate to that. “Did she give any of the child’s symptoms?”

  “Don’t think anyone asked.” He turned off onto Sayre Street past a gorgeous little house that Esther always wished she could afford. It was a picture-perfect bungalow with a picket fence and a huge, stately oak tree in the front yard. So cozy, comfortable, inviting. She longed for such a safe retreat where she could withdraw from everything and everybody. But as they passed, she saw a ragged, torn-off oak limb sticking out of the front picture window. It struck her like a punch in the stomach. People injured and dying in these storms, but a tree branch in a window slammed her! How stupid was that?

  The chief poked buttons on his radio and picked up the mike. “Hey, Jenny?”

  But Esther’s mind was now flying in all directions like a flock of frightened birds. George Jacobson. Dead. A former couch potato, he was getting out and walking every day like she had suggested, saying he felt so much better. But what if he was out walking, according to her orders, when the tree fell on him and crushed him? What if she sent him to his death? What if…? Her heart was beating so hard it threatened to bounce out of her chest.

  What if Robbie Alstrup’s bump on the head caused a brain injury she hadn’t caught on the X-ray? Tamponade, contrecoup fracture, all sorts of things go wrong; she could have missed it. What if the olecranon in Ben’s elbow was cracked? He could really mess up his arm, permanently mess it up, if it wasn’t taken care of. But then, he was able to flex the elbow. He couldn’t if it was broken. On the other hand he was one tough dude, maybe he’d just kiss off the pain because he had a job to do. She shouldn’t even be practicing when she was this tired, this addled, this terrified. And here she was, out in driving rain and howling wind that threatened to break right through the windshield and attack her, beat her to a pulp, drown her…

  Chief roared, “I said, ‘Do you think so?’”

  “What?” She swallowed. They were miles away from her damaged little dream bungalow, somewhere out along the river road, with trees slamming around overhead. “I—I’m sorry. I was thinking of other things. What?”

  To their left, the river was rushing along up to its very brim, thundering and plunging. It threatened to overtop the banks any minute, to swirl out across the road to engulf their car.

  “Why someone with Illinois license plates would be out here. It’s not even a numbered route. Any guesses?” He popped the last antacid in the roll and tossed the empty foil on the floor.

  Something to focus on. “Uh…uh…” Focus, Esther! “The bridge on the main road has been out for hours; maybe they were looking for another crossing. Maybe they’re just lost.”

  “Lost! Would you drive a remote, unpaved country road during a storm?”

  “Uh…I guess, but only if I knew the area well. But you said Illinois tags. You said they were headed for our little clinic in town here? How would they know about that? Why not the other direction, toward the Cities?”

  “Hm.” The chief lapsed into sudden, uncharacteristic silence. He swung the car wide of a tree limb on the road, crashed and crunched through its end branches, driving almost automatically.

  The river. Look at it! Rushing, roaring, right here. She wanted to curl up in the foot well, to hide from this insanity. Make it quit happening! Make it end! I can’t do this!

  Ahead there, one headlight. A motorcycle? Lightning flashed. No, not lightning; it was a loose wire flailing and arcing. The tip end of it sparked again, out on the road surface this time.

  From the radio speaker, “Chief? She says she sees headlights ahead of her. Could that be you?”

  “I only see one headlight in front of me.”

  “She says her right front wheel is in the ditch.”

  “Then we’re there. Ask her about the kid. And call my cell. I’m hanging up the mike.” His eye on the wires along the road, he stopped and parked. His headlights illuminated a little gray car tilted off to the right with its whole right side buried in grass and brush. The hot wire, still flapping wildly about, thunked on its car roof and bounced away. Esther could hear it hit.

  His cell phone rang; he already had it out and in his hand. “Jenny!” he barked.

  Jenny’s voice on the cell was distant but audible and understandable. “She says the child is strapped in the backseat and unresponsive. She can’t see the boy and it’s dark, she says, except for lightning.”

  He turned to Esther. “Sit with your heels up on the seat and wrap your arms around your legs. Don’t let your elbow touch the door and don’t touch the dashboard or anything.” He spoke to the phone. “Jenny? She’s under a live wire and it’s dancing all over. The power is down on our side; the live wire is being powered from the Cotter Crossing substation. Get someone out there now—and I mean now—to shut it down. Shut down the whole station!”

  “That’s not in our county!”

  “I don’t care if it’s in Iraq! Shut it down!” He was sweating and he looked just plain frantic. Suddenly he leaned forward and vomited; he got the steering wheel, his side of the dashboard, and the floor between his feet.

  Esther was ready to lose her stomach, too. “What is it? What’s wrong!”

  He wagged his head. Took deep breaths. Straightened back against the seat. If you didn’t notice the roar of the swollen river, or the howling wind, or the stage whisper of wind-thrashed trees, or the rain drumming on the roof, it was quiet. Peaceful, almost.

  He took another breath. “My daughter, Amber. Amber Marie. Beautiful girl. Beautiful young woman. Graduated with honors, all set to go to college, be a doctor or something. Loved kids. Then she got tied in with a bunch of yay-hoos over in Duluth. Quit college in the middle of her first semes
ter to run around with them. Here I am heading up an agency where interdiction is a priority, and my own daughter’s a drug addict. I told her, ‘You’re not going to live here until you clean up your act,’ trying to force her. Know what she said? ‘That’s for sure.’ Walked out.”

  “I’m sorry.” What else could she say?

  His voice was shaky, very unlike him. “I’m law enforcement. I have resources. Traced her car. She sold it in Duluth. Did a trace on her. Last known address is the house where I live.” He smirked. “That’s what comes of talking shop at dinner, Esther; your kid knows all your methods by the time she grows up. She knew how to disappear.”

  Esther asked the question she really should not have. “Are you certain she’s still alive?”

  “Almost got a finger on her in Chicago, but the lead dried up. That was a little over a year ago. No option. I have to assume she’s still alive.”

  “Chica—” Two and two suddenly made four. Chicago. Illinois plates.

  He sounded so plaintive, so vulnerable. “That could be her, right there.”

  Jenny’s voice broke the unsilence. “She says she has to get out of the car and come to you. Her baby’s having trouble breathing.”

  “Tell her not to!”

  Esther squirmed around and pulled her bag out of the backseat. “Have you noticed that when that live wire jumps, it never comes down in the same place? I’m going to try to get there. Tell Jenny to make sure the woman’s doors are unlocked.”

  He was going to refuse to let her; she could tell. Instead he said, “God be with you.”

  She grabbed her door and propelled herself out quickly. Driving rain instantly struck her in the face, the drops coming so fast they stung. The wire beside their car lay still. She watched the other, the dancing one, the sparking tip end of it, approached the car in the ditch, still watching.

  The car’s single working headlight shone pretty much along the roadway, but it was turning yellow as the battery died.

  The wire rose ten feet up, like a striking cobra, and slammed down. Esther screamed and leaped straight back. It danced around a bit, sparking. Her rubber-soled shoes were still dry. If they got wet, she could be electrocuted during the next dance. Or if that wire touched her.

  She bolted forward, grabbed the door to the backseat, and flung herself into the car. The door slammed behind her. “I’m a doctor.”

  The driver cried out, “Oh, thank God!” She was sitting on the passenger side.

  So well prepared was Esther that she also had a flashlight, one of those little LED things. She flicked it on to see the child. It was a beautiful child, winsome, maybe three years old. He was wheezing so badly he was barely wheezing at all. Even in the sallow LED light, she could see he was blue from lack of air. “Is this a chronic problem?”

  “Asthma. Yes. I’ve never seen it this bad. Is he going to die?”

  “Not if I can help it. When did—”

  The end of the wire struck the car hood, cannon-loud. Esther screamed and went straight up.

  She grabbed a couple of deep breaths. “Sorry. I don’t do sudden noises well. When did this episode begin?”

  “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I just don’t know. I’ve lost track of time and everything else. Hours, but I really can’t say how many hours. I’m a bad mother, aren’t I?”

  “You’re a good mother!” She pulled an ampoule of epinephrine and loaded a syringe. “Does the child have a nebulizer?”

  “In the trunk. I should have had it up here. But he’d been so good these last few months, no problems; I didn’t even think I’d need it, I just keep it in the trunk as a precaution.”

  “Good foresight. We’ll get it later.”

  Esther’s nerves were shot, her mind a train wreck. Could she even do this? She must, so she would. She’d go for subcutaneous first, and if she couldn’t manage that, go for intramuscular. She poised the needle, took a deep breath, and pushed. It slid in beneath the skin and she closed the syringe down slowly, slowly, watching; she deliberately inhaled when she realized she’d been holding her breath.

  Success.

  The mother called, “I can’t hear him breathing! Did he die? Did he die? Oh, God!”

  “God is taking good care of him so far. Yes, he’s breathing.”

  Reason would suggest no one wanted to hear wheezing in a three-year-old, but when the child drew a deep, wheezy breath, Esther rejoiced. He had been so far gone, this was an improvement. He coughed. He spit up. He wheezed some more. Esther whipped out her stethoscope to get vitals.

  The driver’s voice seemed firmer now, less shrill. “I didn’t see that broken line until I was right on top of it almost. It was bouncing around on the road right in front of me and I swerved to miss it. Right into the ditch. I tried to back out and couldn’t. Tried driving forward. When I realized I was permanently stuck, I tried my cell. Two bars, enough of a signal to get out. The woman on the desk said she was sending help and told me to stay away from anything metal. Sit on the passenger side; you know, because of the steering wheel. But he was wheezing worse and worse, and I got scareder and scareder. I was about ready to jump out and run with him when your headlights appeared.”

  And Esther asked what was none of her business. “Is your name Amber Marie?”

  “Why did you ask that?” It was a demand more than a question, and a harsh one.

  “Just a guess. You heard that the bridge into town was out, so you crossed the river down at Centennial Bridge and came north by the back roads on this side. Then your son had an unexpected asthmatic attack and you had to get to a clinic. Your father last heard of you in Chicago. And here you are with Illinois plates on an unpaved back road no one but a local would know about; and only a local would know it’s a good way to town on this side.”

  “So you think you know my father.”

  “If your father is Paul Harden, yes, I do. He brought me; he’s sitting in that patrol car.”

  She gasped, drawing in enough air to implode the windows. “Who are you?”

  “The clinician. A border patrolman, Ben James, is minding the store while I’m out here.”

  “Ben…” She buried her face in her hands. “I should never have come. This was so wrong. I shouldn’t have returned.”

  The little boy started squirming, so Esther released him from his car seat. She curled him up and passed him across the seat back to his mother. She wrapped around him and he clung to her, wheezing and coughing and crying. The crying eased off. The dancing wire slapped the car roof. Esther jumped. Her shriek was even louder than the boy’s. He began crying again, sucking in great breaths, breathing vigorously without realizing what he was doing.

  Esther leaned over the backseat and turned the flashlight on him. “Good. He’s getting his color back. All the same, I want him to spend the night at the clinic, please, just to make sure he’s doing well.”

  “I was going to stay at the Sunrise Motel. That’s close enough to the clinic that I can get there if I have to.”

  “The Sunrise Motel burned down two years ago. Suspected arson, but never proven.”

  “Oh.” She looked crushed. “Things just keep getting worse and worse.”

  Half a mile up the road, the sheets of wild-flying rain began to glow in streaky flashing red. Esther pointed. “Look! Reinforcements!”

  As the ambulance approached, the rain-blurred flashing red lights turned into regular flashing red lights.

  That dancing wire lay limp on the road. Dead? Or about to leap up any second to zap someone?

  The driver’s-side door of Chief’s vehicle opened, cream-colored in the yellowing headlight of this car. He stepped out and stood in the road, gripping the door, looking their way. He held his cell to his ear; it made a glowing blue mark on his cheek. He flipped the cell shut; the glow disappeared.

  He took two steps forward, hesitated, hung on to the car door. “Amber?”

  Esther had guessed it right.

  The driver cried out, shoved on her
door. It unlatched but wouldn’t move, blocked shut by the ditch berm. Frustrated, she swore and butt-scooted up the seat to the driver’s-side door. She shoved it open. “Daddy!” She leaned on the door to keep it open as she crawled out, let it slam shut behind her. “Daddy! Oh, Daddy!”

  Leave the child in the car or bring him? Esther thought a moment and decided to bring him. They could tend him in the ambulance. She left her bag in the car, scooped up the little boy, and squirmed out. She ran toward Chief as Amber was also running to him, but not for the same reason. He hung on to the car door without moving, looking ready to fall over. Minutes ago he had vomited. That said much. Too much. He was in deeper trouble than the child right now, cardiac trouble, Esther was certain, and the big oaf wouldn’t even admit it.

  Yvette and Dennis tumbled out of the ambulance and they were coming toward Chief, too. At least they had their rain gear on. Esther should tell them to bring a gurney. Esther was instantly soaked to the skin on the windward side; her leeward side was hardly damp.

  Amber was soaked through, too, her clothes clinging, her hair stringing down over her shoulders. She sobbed, “Oh, Daddy! I’m so sorry!” And she hugged tightly around him.

  He had abandoned the car door and was wrapped around her, both arms. He pressed his head down against hers. “Amber, Amber, I was afraid you were gone. I’m sorry I drove you away, baby. I’m sorry! Please forgive me! Please don’t go!”

  She said something that Esther didn’t hear because she could see Chief’s face turned toward her and it seized her full attention. Highly emotional, yes, the facial expression one would expect. But it changed to a shocked expression. He exhaled loudly. His eyes went wide. He sucked air in, a What-in-blazes look on his face. His eyelids dropped to half-mast, his face lost all expression. As if his very bones had suddenly melted, he slid gracelessly down through his daughter’s hug, collapsing in a pile on the ground.

  Did Esther set the little boy down or simply toss him aside? She didn’t remember, she didn’t care. She darted forward—“Cardiac! Get the defib! The defib!” She grabbed Chief’s ankles and straightened him out, rolled him to his back, ripped his soaked shirt away, the buttons flying. “No!” She screamed it as she tapped his xiphoid process to locate it, centered her palms on his sternum, leaned directly over him to keep his heart going with CPR compressions.