A Man of Honor

by Loree Lough

  “Well, if your penance doesn’t lull you to sleep, why not try scribbling a couple hundred ‘Clear your mind and go to sleep’ lines on the blackboard of your brain?”

  Actually, that wasn’t a half-bad idea. “I might just give that a shot, preacher.”

  The glowing blue digits of the alarm clock had read 11:37 when Dusty climbed into bed. It said 2:07 when the phone roused him from a deep, dreamless sleep. “This better be important,” he grumbled into the mouthpiece.

  And it was.

  Bob Crutchfield, friend and 9-1-1 dispatcher explained how an arson fire took down three row homes in historic Pig Town. “Engine No. 8 boys worked for hours to get things under control, and it cost ’em. . . .

  Heart pounding with dread, he sat on the edge of the mattress and clenched his teeth. “How many?”

  Crutchfield paused long enough to exhale a gravelly sigh. “Two gone, one critical over at Hopkins, couple more still coughin’ up smoke back at the house.”

  “On my way,” he said, and hung up.

  It took all of five minutes to get dressed and look in on the boys, then he stopped in Mitch’s room at the end of the hall. “Hey,” he whispered, nudging the younger man’s shoulder, “heads up . . . I’m heading over to the Number Ten.”

  Without opening his eyes, Mitch groaned. “How many?”

  Dusty was halfway to the door when he said, “Two.”

  Levering himself up on one elbow. “Any names yet?”

  “I’ll stop at Hopkins on the way home from the station. Hopefully, to let you know the number’s the same.”

  “Well,” he said around a yawn, “don’t worry.”

  “I won’t. You’re an old hand at holdin’ down the fort.” With that, Dusty closed Mitch’s door and jogged down the stairs, praying with every step that Gonzo didn’t have one of his goons out front, watching the place; last thing Mitch needed was a face-to-face confrontation with the gang leader. He was a lot of things, but diplomatic wasn’t one of them, and the lack could literally get him or the boys hurt. Or worse.

  He didn’t turn on any lights. Why draw attention to the fact that he was leaving? And instead of firing up the Harley in the driveway as he would if the sun was up—and Gonzo hadn’t paid him that little visit the other night—Dusty walked the bike to the end of the block. Only a few restaurants and shops down there, so no worries that some harried mom would pelt him with her bedroom slipper for waking her sleeping baby.

  The ride between the shelter and the engine company took all of five minutes, and Dusty used every one to pray. He’d been with comrades who died in combat—a different kind of war, to be sure—and he understood the agony of loss. Still, that didn’t mean he’d walk in there equipped with the words they needed to hear tonight.

  The big door was up when he arrived, and the bright glow of the overhead lights silhouetted the guys out front, slouched in sagging, aluminum lawn chairs. Their still-damp hair was proof they’d tried to wash off the soot and stink, but the scent of smoke had worked its way into the gussets of their turnout gear, and clung to the boots and Nomex hoods, lined up along the far wall. He parked the bike and hung the helmet on the left handlebar as Max greeted him with a nod.

  “Where are the rest of the guys?”

  “In the head, or in bed,” Max said. “Better question is, what brings you to this part of town?”

  He shrugged. “Coffee pot’s on the fritz. Thought maybe I could sneak a cup of Charlie’s fancy imported brew.”

  “What!” Charlie grated. “Aw-right . . . which one of you good-for-nothin’s told this long-haired, Harley-riding, tattooed hoodlum where I hide my special beans?”

  Earl laughed. “Special beans,” he echoed, drawing quote marks in the air. “Next thing, he’ll announce he’s dating Martha Stewart.”

  “I’m hurt, Earl. I told you that in the strictest confidence, and now you’ve gone and spilled the beans. I declare, you’re a worse gossip than my grandma.” Hands in the air, he sent Dusty a look that said, See what I have to put up with! Instead, he said, “You know where everything is. Help yourself.”

  Nodding, Dusty started inside as one of the guys hollered, “Tell ’em Charlie sent ya!”

  Memory of the old Starkist Tuna commercial and the guys’ laughter followed him into the kitchen, where he grabbed a mug from the bright-yellow pegboard above the sink. He could still hear them, hee-hawing as if everyone who’d climbed aboard the ladder truck had come back with it. Their tough, take-it-on-the-chin mentality was all part of the job, and they didn’t much care for all the warm and fuzzy “share your feelings” stuff suggested by department trauma experts. Every man—to the last—was doing his level best to hold it together for the benefit of his brothers. At least, here at the station. Sooner or later, they’d get into their pickup trucks and SUVs and sports cars and go home, where there wouldn’t be so many things and people to distract them from the agony of knowing they’d just lost two of their own.

  It was up to Dusty, then, to listen for the right opening, because for all their bluster and blow, the ache of seeing their brothers die in the line of duty went deep. He’d let them know they could talk to him, whenever they were ready, because whether they wanted to admit it or not, the only way to ease the pain was to get the ugliness of this night out in the open. If it took telling them what clamming up cost him, then he’d cluck like an old biddy until they got the point. And until they were ready, he’d pray with—and for—them.

  When he went back outside, he carried his mug in one hand, the stainless carafe in the other. “Anybody up for a refill?”

  “You can hit me again,” said Aubrey.

  Max held up his mug, and so did Charlie, but Earl shook his head. “So how’d you get wind of what happened over in Pig Town tonight?”

  “Don’t tell me,” Charlie said as Dusty put the pot on a low table, “Bob called you.”

  Dusty shrugged. “Doesn’t he always?”

  “I know he means well,” Aubrey said, “but sometimes, I wish he’d keep you out of stuff like this.”

  “Why?” He’d been through similar things with them before—not death, thank God—but enough that they should have expected he’d show up to offer support, lend an ear. . . . He took a sip from the mug. “You want to tell me about it,” he began, staring at the silvery reflection of the fluorescent lights, rippling on the coffee’s dark surface, “or should I start guessing?” He took another drink to give them time to mull that one over, and when no one spoke up, Dusty said, “How many spectators this time?”

  “Just neighbors, mostly,” Aubrey said. “Guys in PJs, and women in flowery robes.” He frowned. “Not nearly as many as usual, and that’s unusual.”

  “Anybody get any pictures of them?”

  Max snorted. As the youngest—and the smallest in stature—Max felt he had to prove how rough and ready he was. “Seems Ansel Adams was busy with a shoot at the Inner Harbor. . . .”

  “Pipe down, pipsqueak,” Earl said. “You know what Parker’s getting at. Besides, that guy’s as dead as Keith and Tucker.”

  He didn’t know which caused the alarm on their faces . . . hearing the men’s names, or acknowledging that the arsonist might have stood between some beer-bellied guy in boxers and his curlers-in-her-hair missus, watching as the EMTs carried their fallen brothers into waiting ambos.

  The story poured out like rain from a gully washer: from the start of the primary search, choking smoke all but blinded them. Its source? A turpentine-soaked pile of rags, burning on the attic floor. Hot water bottles, nailed to the rafters directly above it, each steadily dripping more of the accelerant through pinhole leaks. In one blink, they were on their feet, dealing with the low-rolling smoke swirling around their ankles. In the next, the flashover put them all on their backs. No time to wait for the pumper; those who could scrambled to their feet, shouting Rapid Intervention Crew instructions into their radios as Max grabbed Keith and Aubrey shouldered Tucker. Simon, dazed and badly burned,
managed to stay with them until they hit fresh air, then collapsed in the street. Keith was pronounced DOS, but Simon fought like a champ all during the bumpy ambo ride to Hopkins, where the ER doc’s quiet apology didn’t make it easier to hear “DOA.”

  Was it West Virginia grit or firefighter determination that helped Aubrey get all that out without blubbering like a baby? Dusty knew this much: if he had possessed a sliver of the man’s willpower back in Iraq, he might still be on active duty.

  He’d been waiting for God to tell him what these good men needed to hear, and finally, he knew what to say. He drained his mug, then sat it on the table beside the carafe. “I, ah . . . would you guys mind doing me a favor?”

  Charlie bent forward and leaned his elbows on his knees. Hands clasped in the space between, he grinned. “Spit it out, Easy Rider, and we’ll let you know.”

  One hand up, traffic-cop style, he cleared his throat. “I read this poem a year or so ago. Don’t know why, but I memorized it. So I—”

  A round of grunts and groans circled the group. “Never would have figured you for the roses-are-red type,” Max kidded.

  “Yeah,” Earl agreed. “I always wondered how you spent your time in that big house once those juvenile delinquents of yours are sawin’ logs.” A dry chuckle punctuated his comment. “Guess now we know.”

  Charlie aimed a forefinger, first at Max, then at Earl. “Knock it off you two, and let the man talk.” Smirking, he added, “The sooner he gets this Wadsworth thing out of his system, the sooner we can hit the hay.”

  A chorus of snickers raised the man’s eyebrows. “What?”

  Earl said, “It’s Wordsworth, you dunderhead.”

  And Aubrey wasted no time adding, “And they say West Virginians are uneducated!”

  “Wordsworth, Wadsworth . . . potato, poe-tah-toe. The floor is yours, you hog-riding versifier.”

  It would have seemed inappropriate, reciting the poem on the heels of all that cheerfulness . . . if Dusty believed for a minute any of them meant a word of it. “Rumor has it this was written by the mother of a firefighter, but it said ‘Author Unknown’ at the bottom of it.”

  “You know what that means. . . .”

  Dusty looked at Max, and waited for the explanation that was sure to follow.

  “Whoever wrote it didn’t know how to spell anonymous.”

  More grunts and groans, and then Dusty began:

  “ ‘He is the guy next door—a man’s man with the

  memory of a little boy. He has never gotten over

  the excitement of engines and sirens and danger.

  He is a guy like you and me with wants and

  worries and unfulfilled dreams.

  Yet he stands taller than most of us.

  He is a fireman.

  He puts it all on the line when the bell rings.

  A fireman is at once the most fortunate and the

  least fortunate of men.

  He is a man who saves lives because he has seen

  too much death.

  He is a gentle man because he has seen the

  awesome power of violence out of control.

  He is responsive to a child’s laughter because his

  arms have held too many small bodies that will

  never laugh again.

  He is a man who appreciates the simple pleasures

  of life—hot coffee held in numb, unbending

  fingers—a warm bed for bone and muscle compelled

  beyond feeling—the camaraderie of brave

  men—the divine peace and selfless service of a job

  well done in the name of all men.

  He doesn’t wear buttons or wave flags or shout

  obscenities.

  When he marches, it is to honor a fallen comrade.

  He doesn’t preach the brotherhood of man.

  He lives it.’ ”

  Somber silence shrouded the station house, and when Dusty got to his feet and clasped his hands, every head bowed. “Almighty God, bless these brave men with strength as they mourn the loss of their brothers.” It took every bit of Dusty’s strength not to ask the Almighty to help authorities find the less-than-human-being who’d caused destruction and misery and deliver an equally brutal punishment; what kind of shepherd would he be if he allowed the guys to witness the fury-born vengeance burning in his heart? “We ask that You watch over Simon, who still fights for his life. Heal him, Lord, and comfort his wife and children. Amen.”

  The men sat quietly, nodding and fighting tears. After a moment, Charlie cleared his throat. “I’d forgotten how good you are at that.”

  “But you’re done now, right?” Earl wanted to know.

  “Yeah, I’m done.”

  “Well amen to that!” Aubrey said. And then he blew his nose.

  Dusty walked toward the Harley, and as he strapped on his helmet, Max stepped up beside him. “Next stop, Hopkins, right?”

  “Right,” he said, straddling the bike. “Anything you want me to tell Simon?”

  A moment of somber silence shrouded the space, and Charlie filled it with “Yeah. Tell that lazy slob this won’t get him off the hook.”

  Max hit the button to bring down the big door. “You got that right. It’s still his turn to swab the head.”

  Whatever else they said as they stepped inside was drowned out by the Harley’s engine.

  And as he roared through the quiet streets, Dusty wondered what he’d say when he arrived at Johns Hopkins, and stood face to face with Simon’s worried wife.

  Except for the short list of ways he could dole out a honking dose of “eye for an eye” to the pig who’d started that fire, nothing came to mind. Maybe he wasn’t cut out for this chaplain stuff, after all. Wasn’t cut out to act as hospital liaison, either.

  The hospital’s iconic dome came into view, reminding Dusty that beneath it stood Christus Consolidator, the imposing eleven-foot Carrara marble statue of Jesus. A dozen times—maybe more—he’d seen visitors and patients, and even a white-coated doctor or two, rub the feet of Christ in much the same way as tourists buff the nose of the Bronze Boar in the hope it would bring them back to Florence one day.

  Dusty didn’t believe in luck. But he intended to stand at the feet of Christus and ask for help in reassuring Simon’s family and, in the days to come, Keith and Tucker’s loved ones, too. He’d pray that his boys would stand strong in the face of Gonzo’s threats, and that whatever happened between him and Grace was in God’s greater plan for both of them.

  He had to laugh as he parked the bike, and he was still laughing when he got off the parking garage elevator, because only an idiot thinks he’s in love after two—three hours at most—in a woman’s company.

  Well, nobody would ever confuse you for Einstein, he thought as the enormous revolving doors spit him into the main lobby. He stopped at the desk and asked where he could find them in the ICU, and after showing his I.D. to the guard, made his way to the dome.

  If there was any truth to the report that God watches out for drunks and fools, he had a pretty good shot at catching the Big Guy’s ear.

  8

  Are you sure I can’t help you get situated back there?” Grace asked as Gavin stretched his white-casted leg across her back seat.

  “No, no, but thanks. This thing makes me slow and clumsy, but you’re better off if I tuck myself in.”

  “I’m better off?”

  “If I bang my bare-toed foot on something, you’ve got nothing to feel guilty about.”

  He wouldn’t have to worry about banging his bare-toed foot, she thought, if he’d let me do something to make him more comfortable. But she knew better than to argue with the man.

  When at last he’d buckled his seatbelt, she closed the rear door and slid into the driver’s seat. “I don’t know which was the bigger shock,” she admitted, punching the address into her GPS, “hearing that you’d been in an accident—one serious enough to total your car—or finding out that your cousin was one of th
e firefighters who died in that horrible fire.”

  Gavin nodded. “Yeah, though it’s unfair to call him cousin when the truth is, we were more like brothers.” A shaky breath, and then, “It’s sad, but now that Tuck’s gone, there’s no one to pass on the family name.”

  Until today, she’d only seen the upbeat, “there’s a solution for every problem” Gavin. The hitch in his voice plucked a distant, almost forgotten chord in her own heart. The fact that he’d let down his guard and let her see and hear his grief told her that, although she really hadn’t done anything to earn it, Gavin considered her someone who could be trusted with his very personal grief. Since his quiet admission, though, he’d grown quiet. Was he back there wondering what she might do with the information? He didn’t know it yet, but he had no cause to worry. In time, she’d prove how well she could keep a secret. And until then, she’d simply be his friend.

  The preprogrammed GPS voice, Stephanie, said, “Please follow highlighted route.”

  “Arrgh!” she said, giving it a flick. “I really need to dig out the instruction manual for that thing, because ‘Australian Stephanie’ drives me nuts. Especially when she mispronounces Baltimore. And Maryland. And just about every street I could name!”

  When she heard his quiet chuckle, Grace felt it was safe to direct Gavin’s thoughts back to something he’d said a moment ago. “I think you’re forgetting someone.”

  “What?” He sat up a little straighter. “Who?”

  “You, silly!”

  “Grace. Give an old guy a break. I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

  “When you said that with Tucker gone, there’s no one left to carry on the Martin name.” She paused. “Why can’t you do it?”

  That roused a chuckle. “Now you’re being silly. With no kids or a wife—and none on the horizon—I’m afraid Tuck really was the end of the line.”

  She guessed Gavin to be in his early fifties. If Tony Randall and Anthony Quinn could father children in their seventies and eighties, why couldn’t he? A broken heart? Guilt over one he’d broken? Some rare disorder that he didn’t want to hand down to the next generation? “Didn’t I read in his obituary,” Grace said, “that he has two daughters?”