It seemed he was able to navigate the heavy woods much easier than the women had, and he almost caught up to them.
But then again he was a former Marine.
“Daddy!”
Lind hadn’t called Dave “Daddy” in years. But then again this was a special occasion. And special occasions should be remembered in a special way.
Her yelling “Daddy” to him and running at him full steam reminded him of the way she did the very same thing as a small girl.
Now she was on the cusp of womanhood. Yet she didn’t worry it might make her look ridiculous behaving in such a manner.
That didn’t matter. What mattered was that her father was home.
It wasn’t until she was almost in his arms it dawned on her that Beth wasn’t with him.
She hugged his neck and refused to let go, even when he was struggling for air.
For his part, that was okay. Even if he passed out, it wouldn’t be forever. He took the hug gratefully and returned it, and for a full half minute father and daughter were the only people on earth.
Then, “Dad, where’s Beth? Did you not find her? Is she…”
She didn’t finish the sentence. She couldn’t say the word.”
Dave answered her question immediately. He wouldn’t torture her by dragging it out.
“She’s fine,” he said. “She’s at the boarding house in Ely. I didn’t want to bring her here until I knew it was safe.”
“What about Parker and his men?”
“If they were the men in the bunker they’re all dead, honey. They’ll never torment you again.”
She hugged him again, finally letting loose all the tears she had pent up inside of her.
It was over. Her father and sister were back home safe.
Their long nightmare had finally ended.
Sarah and Karen stood side by side on the other side of the pasture.
They were arguing… debating… about the whole Parker thing and whether it was a secret better left buried.
They saw it from two completely different points of view.
Karen saw absolutely no reason Dave should know that his wife carried on a brief affair with her captor.
“Sarah, it was a period of what… two weeks or so, when you were lonely and vulnerable and grieving the loss of our friends. In high stress situations like that we sometimes react in behaviors we wouldn’t normally exhibit.
“It was a one-time thing that was very brief and that never has a chance of repeating itself. There’s absolutely no reason to hurt Dave by telling him about it. John Parker and his men caused enough pain and turmoil while they were alive.
“You can stop it… the pain, right here and now, just by agreeing that Dave has no reason to know.”
Sarah didn’t see it that way.
“Karen, I’ve been a faithful companion to Dave for over twenty years. In all that time I’ve never wanted another man. Not even for an instant.
“I was a faithful girlfriend, then a faithful wife.
“And I threw it all away.”
“You threw nothing away, Sarah. You just…”
“Karen, I heard you out. Please let me finish.”
“Sorry. You’re right. Go ahead.”
“What I did was totally out of character for me. It’s not who I really am. I can’t explain why I did it, but Dave has a right to know.”
“Says who?”
“Says everything. The Bible says I’m an adulteress. He has a right to know that. And to know that if I cheated on him once I could cheat on him again.”
“You don’t really believe that do you? That you could do it again?”
“No, I honestly don’t. But then again, a month ago I didn’t think it possible I’d cheat on him once.”
Karen was beaten.
She knew her sister couldn’t be talked out of keeping this dreadful secret, even when she thought it best to spare Dave’s feelings.
“At least do me one favor.”
“What’s that?”
“Wait a few days. What you tell him is going to destroy him. Let him have a joyous homecoming first.”
Chapter 4
It was indeed a joyous homecoming. The three of them sat in Karen’s den for almost an hour, going on and on and on about how much they loved and missed each other.
They held hands. They hugged.
At one point Lindsey, now seventeen years old and more woman than girl, actually sat in Dave’s lap. She told him she prayed each morning and each evening that he’d come home safely and bring little Beth.
“It took them taking Beth to make me realize how lucky I was to have her,” Lind confessed. “Before she left I considered her just a royal pain in my butt. But I truly missed the little runt. I also prayed that you’d find her, that she’d be safe and healthy, and that you’d bring her back. I felt our family couldn’t truly be a family again unless you did.”
Dave cautioned the women ahead of time that Beth wasn’t the only one he brought back.
“Don’t think too harshly of Sal,” he said. “He’s an old man and he took her, yes. But he was tricked by someone named Sanchez into thinking she was an orphan. The money he paid for her wasn’t to buy her. It was for what he believed to be adoption fees.
“He told me if he knew Beth was being taken away from her mother he never would have gone ahead with the deal, and I believe him.
“As for his character, I can attest to that too. He’s a good man. A very good man, and Beth loves him like a grandfather. She even calls him Grandpa Sal. They’ve become best friends.”
“So…” Lind replied. “Does that mean we’re taking him back to San Antonio with us?”
“It’s up to your mother.”
Dave turned to Sarah.
“I understand you almost certainly hate the man,” he said. “You were told he outright bought her, knowing he was taking her away from you.
“I hope that now that you know the truth you can find it in your heart to forgive him.
“I want to take him back to Texas with us. So does Beth. We talked about it several times on the way back. But we agreed it should be your decision. We don’t want to presume it will be okay with you. If you say no we won’t take him.
“Before you make your decision, though, I’d like for you to meet him.”
“Why?”
“Because he wants to apologize to you personally.”
“Why? So he can sway my decision?”
“No, not at all.
“When we set out from California his intention was to bring Beth and me here and to apologize to you and beg for your forgiveness for taking your daughter away from you.
“He has a home in California, on a sprawling ranch his brother Benny owns. It’s a comfortable life.
“He didn’t have to leave there. He could have just bid farewell to Beth and me and stayed behind.
“Instead he came a thousand miles to apologize to you. His plan was to drop us off and to return to his brother’s ranch. It wasn’t until we were on the road and Beth mentioned out of the blue that he should come to Texas with us and become part of our family that we started to discuss it between the three of us.
“And there’s something else, too.”
“That’s not enough?”
Sarah half-smiled. She was teasing him.
“He’s not in good health, Sarah. He’s got a bad heart and high blood pressure. He suffers from light-headedness and dizzy spells.
“There were several times on the road when I thought he was going to pass out and fall right off the driver’s seat and beneath the wheels of his rig. I worried about him each and every day.
“On top of that, his horses are starting to wear out. One of them, Shiloh, has developed arthritis. I don’t think he’ll make it back to California. As his arthritis gets worse the other horse, Cody, will have to carry more than his share of the burden. That’ll cripple him as well.
“The humane thing would be to retire them both. And t
hat would mean Sal would be stranded here.
“I know it appears I’m trying to make your decision for you, honey, but I’m really not.
“I’d like for you to meet Sal. Let him apologize to you. Then after you hear him out I’d like for you to decide whether to let him be a part of our family. If you don’t want him I swear I’ll do or say nothing to sway you. I’ve already gotten a commitment from Beth not to either.”
“What if I don’t want him to join our family, Dave? What will happen to him?”
“I’ll give him a choice. I’ll try to talk him into staying here and making a new home in Ely. If he chooses to return to California instead I’ll try my best to find some new horses for him. I’ve got some gold and silver I’ve been collecting on the road and should be able to get him some good ones. And we’ll get him on his way and hope he makes it.”
He looked at Sarah. She was looking at her hands.
He wasn’t sure if she was pondering his words and trying to decide whether to give Sal a chance, or was trying to find her own words to keep Sal away from her.
Finally she said, “I’m in no position to judge anyone for their actions. Not anymore.”
Dave didn’t understand what she meant.
He said, “I’m going into Ely to pick up Beth and bring her home.
“I can either leave Sal there, or I can bring him with me so he can apologize to you. He’s come over a thousand miles to do so, but if you don’t want to see him you don’t have to.”
“No,” Sarah said. “Bring him to me. I’ll see him.”
Chapter 5
Dave wasted no time.
He had his marching orders, and none too soon by his reckoning.
He’d been worried about Beth, even knowing she was in as safe an environment as could be found in the new world.
After all she’d been through, and after all he himself went through trying to find her and bring her back, he was no longer comfortable when she was out of his direct sight.
“I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” he said as he hooked up his gun belt.
He kissed Sarah and headed for the front door.
But he forgot the front door was boarded over. He opened it to find himself facing a sheet of plywood.
“Oh yeah,” he said.
He lifted the tape on one of the peep-holes and peered out to make sure the coast was clear and then opened the window and crawled through it.
Lindsey lowered and locked it after him.
To get back to Sal’s rig, hidden in the forest almost a mile away, he had to cross not only Karen’s farm but also the Dykes farm.
That, of course, took him right past the still-smoldering bunker.
He made himself a mental note to come back and clear the mine field before he left for Texas.
He hated land mines.
He understood the Dyke’s reasons for using them. They were a very effective way of protecting a valuable asset.
But there was a reason NATO banned the use of them in most applications.
Their ability to kill or maim didn’t end when a conflict was over. These killers lasted for generations. Long after wartime transitioned to peacetime.
Long after combatants all moved on and innocent civilians returned to their lands.
Not long before the blackout he’d read an on-line article about Vietnamese peasants losing limbs at an alarming rate, many years after the conflict in Vietnam ended.
In France, demolition experts were still clearing mines from World Wars I and II, and all over Europe mines and unexploded bombs were found on a regular basis.
Unfortunately, sometimes such explosives were found by children playing or by family pets, with disastrous results.
Dave didn’t know what would become of this land in the years ahead.
Since the Dykes were all dead now, in all likelihood a new family would move onto their spread and take it over.
They’d find the pillbox and would know a serious battle once took place there.
They’d likely try to clear the rubble so they could plow up the clearing and use it for farming.
And, not knowing the mines were there, would almost certainly discover them the hard way.
By detonating one.
Dave didn’t plant the mines.
He could just go off and leave them; consider them somebody else’s problem.
But Dave wasn’t that way.
Dave was the kind of guy who always pulled over when he saw someone stranded by the side of the road.
He was the guy who always opened the door for ladies and asked if they needed help with their groceries. Who always intervened when he saw a man abusing a woman, a child or an animal.
He was the one who, five years before, tackled a man he saw running from police.
It turned out the man had just raped an elderly woman. The city offered Dave a citation for that incident.
He turned it down.
“I didn’t intervene because I wanted anybody to make a big deal about it,” he told them. “I intervened because I’m a citizen and saw it as my duty.”
That was just the way Dave was.
One of his favorite sayings was also the background on his computer.
Back in the days when there were such things.
IF NOT ME, THEN WHO?
It summed his philosophy on life perfectly.
He didn’t wait around for somebody else to fix a problem. He fixed them himself, even when he had nothing to gain.
The mayor of San Antonio, when he turned down the citation, suggested he run for office.
“The city could use someone like you,” he said. “Heck, why stop here? Run for state or federal office instead.”
Dave merely smiled and said, “Sorry, but I’ll pass. I’m not crooked enough to be a politician.”
Such a comment, directed at a career politician like Mayor John Myers, wouldn’t normally have gone over well.
But Dave knew how to temper a seemingly harsh remark into something more palatable. He said it with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eyes.
While being technically accurate it was offered as friendly banter and taken that way.
Without missing a beat the mayor replied, “Well, if you ever come over to the dark side, let me know. I’ll introduce you to a couple of men who’d love to become your campaign managers.”
It took half an hour to make his way back to Sal’s rig.
Then another twenty minutes to find Shiloh and Cody, who he’d set free to graze in his absence, and another ten minutes to get them back to the rig and hooked up.
Then, at long last, he was off to Ely to collect Sal and his baby girl.
Chapter 6
Monica Martinez was frail and weak.
And getting weaker by the day.
She was diagnosed with leukemia five years before and told the disease would eventually kill her. But that there were several medical options which would extend both her life and her standard of living.
The problem was, she was on the outside of the American health care system looking in.
Her husband was finishing up a prison sentence for drug trafficking.
He was no help, financially or otherwise.
She’d been sick for awhile before her diagnosis.
So sick, in fact, she could only manage a part time job at barely more than minimum wage.
Part time minimum wage jobs do not offer health plans.
She could have purchased a health care plan, but her wages barely put food on the table for herself and her two small children as it was. She simply couldn’t afford it.
Monica learned the sad truth about health care in America: that it’s based solely on one’s financial stature.
Were she a monied individual it wouldn’t have been a problem. She could have purchased the best health plan money could buy, seen the best doctors, gotten the best treatment from the best hospitals and presumably live much longer.
Were she not already sick and
able to work a full-time job, she might be lucky enough to work for an employer who provided a health plan as part of her benefits package.
She wouldn’t have been able to see the finest quality doctors the monied people saw. But she’d receive adequate care at an adequate facility using adequate drugs and medications.
But Monica was at the bottom tier.
The “all others” class.
She applied for and received federal assistance through the Medicaid program.
She received care by doctors who agreed to participate in the program, and who received far less than their counterparts who chose not to participate.
For the same procedures.
Now, many doctors who accept Medicaid are fine doctors who give their patients the best care they can provide. Many others aren’t.
Monica’s doctor was a man of less than stellar qualifications with a spotty professional history who accepted Medicaid because he couldn’t get hired by any reputable hospital or clinic in the area.
Medicaid didn’t cover the best drugs and medications. They provided second tier drugs and medications which were “almost” as good.
They didn’t allow for all twelve of the chemotherapy treatments Monica’s doctor recommended for her.
They authorized six.
When Monica’s cancer metastasized and started to spread they didn’t allow for all ten radiation sessions her doctor recommended.
They authorized four.
By all accounts the United States of America is one of the finest nations in the world. Most Americans say it’s far and away the best.
But rich Americans who can afford good health care get it.
Poor Americans can’t.
It’s nobody’s fault, necessarily. It’s just the way a capitalistic society works. Poor people accept their lot and resolve themselves to dying sooner than the man in the big house on the hill.
The man in the big house seldom worries about it because it doesn’t concern him.
It just is what it is.
Monica was dying, and there was nothing she could do about it.
If it was just her she’d have given up long before, placed a gun to her temple and ended it all.
Texas Bound: Alone: Book 11 Page 2