by Jack Tunney
“Cam!”
He turned in astonishment, not daring for the first two or three seconds to believe what he was actually seeing. Margie was racing across the roof of the other building with a cop -- Joe Collins, who had the neighborhood beat -- close behind her.
“Momma!” Lori screamed, wiggling so violently in Cam’s arms he had to squeeze to keep from dropping her.
“Lori, sweetie,” her mother called.
“Momma!”
“Stay back, Margie,” Cam shouted. “The heat’s too strong.”
They could both see it now, shimmying on the alley’s updrafts like some kind of deadly, exotic creature.
“Reed,” the cop hollered.
“Keep her back, Joe.”
Joe took Margie’s arm, but she’d already stopped, was peering cautiously into the smoky abyss of the alley, her loose hair lifting and falling in the drafts, her waitress’ uniform smudged with soot and slush.
“Wait there,” Joe called, and immediately took off in search of some means to bridge the gap between the two buildings.
“Momma, it’s hot.”
“I know it is, sweetie. Stay with Cam. He’ll get you across.”
Margie’s words tore at Cam’s heart. He wanted to yell at her, to demand that she take it back. Didn’t she know he’d already exhausted every possible idea? Their only hope now lay with Collins, but the officer returned after a couple of minutes, shaking his head ominously.
“I got nothing to work with over here, Reed. What have you got over there?”
“A dead bird and a busted whiskey bottle,” was Cam’s somber reply. “Joe, we’ve got to find a way. The roof is getting hotter. I can feel it through the bottoms of my shoes. It’s going to catch any minute now.”
“The fire department’s on its way. Maybe they’ll have a net.”
“We can’t wait that long, and besides, the fire is too hot,” Cam replied tautly. “They couldn’t get close enough with a net.”
“Let me go back down, see if I can find someone with a ladder, or a board of some kind.”
There was a whoosh from behind them, and Cam turned to watch a metal roof vent blast off like a rocket. Flames roared from the opening, and the tar near the vent began to smoke and curl.
Cam turned back to stare into Margie’s face. She didn’t say anything, but he could read her thoughts, could see the pleading in her eyes. He smiled, and said: “I’m coming across, Margie. I’m not going to have much time, so you be ready to catch Lori when I get there.”
“Cam, what are you going to do?”
“I’m coming,” he repeated, more firmly this time, more confident. “I’ll get her to you, but you’ll have to catch her.”
“You can’t throw her, Reed. It’s too far.”
“Stand back, Joe. Help Margie catch Lori when I get close.”
He turned away, his arms tightening around the girl’s slim form. “Lori,” he said, speaking softly.
“What, Cam?”
“I need you to do something for me, honey. I need you to trust me again, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I want you to put both arms around my neck and hang on real tight, all right?”
She nodded against the side of his face, her tears warm against his cheek. “What about Janey?”
Cam took the doll from her hand and turned toward the other building. He tossed it easily across the distance, and Margie caught it. She was crying openly, terrified but determined to do whatever it took to save her daughter.
“There,” Cam told the girl. “Safe and sound. Now I want you to do one more thing, will you?”
She nodded.
“I want you to close your eyes real tight, and don’t open them until your mom tells you to. Will you do that for me?”
She nodded again, her tears increasing. He felt her bury her face deep into his neck, and he turned his face ever so slightly and kissed her behind her ear.
“One more thing,” he whispered. “I want you to know that I love you.”
Lori pulled her head back, her eyes snapping wide. “Really?”
He nodded, and she touched his cheek in confusion. “Cam, you’re crying.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Just remember that no matter what happens, I love you, and I love your mom. Okay?”
“I love you too, Cam.”
He smiled. “Thanks, turnip. That’s good to know.” Then he put his hand over the back of her head and guided her face into the niche of his neck. “Remember, keep your eyes closed just as tight as you can, and don’t open them until your mom says you can.”
“I will,” she promised, and clamped her arms tighter around his neck. Cam started across the roof, away from Margie and Joe. His gait was uncertain, his knees screaming in protest.
“Reed,” Joe called, but Cam continued on. He walked all the way across the building, then turned to study the distance between where he stood and the far side of the tenement. Twenty yards, he thought, and wondered if he could do it. If he could bull through the pain long enough to save a child’s life. Then he let the cane fall and carefully flexed his knees, his stronger right one first, then the left. He could feel the bones grating inside their sockets, the microscopic debris that floated in the soft cartilage of both joints. Then he pushed the pain aside to stare fixedly at the parapet above the alley.
“Hang on, honey,” he said softly. “Here we go.”
He took a step, then another. He leaned forward, broke into an awkward, lumbering run. His knees shrieked. They howled and cried and grated like crushed gravel. A sick, brackish taste coated the back of Cam’s throat, and his sinuses ran. But he didn’t stop, and after ten yards he broke through to the other side, to a place where the pain was still there, but far enough back that it could be ignored. He crossed the roof in seconds, in the blink of an eye, then stretched his stronger right leg for the parapet and lifted, flew … screaming.
Halfway across, he pushed Lori away from his body; with one hand on her back and the other under her hips, he shoved with everything he had. The girl’s eyes opened and she stared, wide-eyed but silent, as the two of them parted in midair. Cam saw Margie leaning forward, saw her grab the girl around the waist and fall backward out of sight, a bare instant before his own body slammed into the side of the lower building. He grunted loudly and nearly blacked out as the air rushed from his lungs. He felt himself tilting into the alley, the heat rising to embrace him. Then a hand clamped around his wrist and he bounced back against the side of the building. Gasping, he raised his head to see Joe Collins hanging over the lower parapet, his dark blue cap with its shining badge tumbling past Cam’s shoulder.
Joe was yanked forward with the weight of Cam’s body, nearly coming over the side with him, but he didn’t let go. He hung on with one arm curved over the parapet, a leg as well, the other cocked straight out to counter the pull of the man swinging from his right hand.
Staring into the cop’s red, straining face, his puffed cheeks and bulging eyes, Cam suddenly realized that it did matter. That despite his shattered knees and broken body, he wanted to live. He reached for Joe’s hand with his free one, but even as he did, he knew the cop couldn’t do it alone. Cam was too heavy, his legs all but useless after his race across the top of the burning building. Then he saw another hand hanging down, and reached for it with his free one. Looking into Margie’s eyes, he saw a desperation to match his own and smiled his gratitude.
“Pull,” Margie grunted to Joe, and between them they hauled him up and over, landing him like a giant, fight-worn fish.
Cam’s eyes were closed, his body cold. For a moment he wondered if he was dead. Then he felt her hand on his face, her fingers slim and gentle, and looked into her eyes a second time, but there was no longer any fear in them. She smiled at him and he reached up and took her hand and squeezed so gently she barely felt it.
MICHAEL ZIMMER
Michael Zimmer writes Western and historical fiction. His work has been prai
sed by Booklist, Library Journal, Historical Novel Society, and others. Born in Indiana, and raised there and in Colorado, Zimmer now resides in Utah with his wife, Vanessa, and two dogs.
ON THE WEB:
http://www.michael-zimmer.com/
ROUND 8
ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS
MARC CAMERON
If I told you the fight between Hunt and Santini was over a girl you’d call me a liar – until you found out that girl was Brooke Slaughter.
In all my eighteen years I’d never met a female so dangerous. The little blond had a figure that wobbled you right out of the corner and the prettiest little mole above her lip that could keep any guy on the ropes – but it was her eyes that did the real damage. Sparkling, agate-brown things, they smacked my roommate hard. Bam! Out of nowhere, like a wicked left hook.
Just months before, I’d endured a hellacious Beast Summer at the Air Force Academy with Cadet Fourth Class Nicholas Hunt. We’d crawled through mud, run countless miles, endured spit-slinging correction tirades from upper-class cadre, and had our bells rung with pugil sticks more than once – but I’d never seen Hunt wobbled until this brown-eyed blond girl threw him a glance at the Superintendent’s dinner.
There were forty-two of us stuffed into the foyer of the palatial Carlton House for a reception in our honor because of our academic, military and physical achievement that semester. Absent our normal Academy blue uniforms, everyone was allowed to dress down for the evening in khaki slacks and white shirts – which, with everyone wearing the same thing, turned out to be just another uniform after all.
“These mushrooms are good,” I said, happy not to be eating at attention in Mitchell Hall for a change. Hunt stood beside me, completely still, like some sort of blond statue, gazing out over the sea of white-shirted Air Force cadets, all trying their best to appear relaxed in the home of a three-star general.
“Is that right?” He mused. Which was two words longer than the answers he usually gave me. Nick Hunt was nice enough, but he could be a pretty stingy dude with conversation. He’d been enlisted before his appointment to the Wild Blue U. At twenty-three, he was older than many of the Firsties. To the rest of us doolies he was ancient, possessing old-man strength and the wisdom of a sage. There were rumors that he’d had a pretty rough deployment to the Middle East, but he offered no words on that subject at all.
About the time I took the last bite of mushroom, I looked up to see Brooke Slaughter catch Hunt on the chin with her gaze. She was across the room, talking to some other cadets, but there was no doubt she’d focused on Nick. He blinked a couple of times, swallowed hard, and then blinked again. “She could leave a hickey on a man’s soul,” he whispered, offering the longest sentence I’d ever heard him speak.
Brooke gave another flutter of those eyes and started toward us. I nearly choked and she wasn't even looking at me. Most girls I knew traveled in packs, or at least pairs, but this one worked alone. I couldn’t help but think it was because she didn’t want any witnesses. The fact that Brooke Slaughter was eighteen with legs that went all the way to her neck like some kind of twenty-five year old supermodel made her mysterious. The fact that she knew it, made her dangerous. We happened to be standing in her father’s house – the Lieutenant General in charge of the United States Air Force Academy – and that made her deadly. A sign over his oak desk perfectly illustrated the three-star’s personality: You can’t have Slaughter without laughter.
Brooke bumped Nick’s arm as she sidled up next to him, sloshing his sparkling cider.
“Oopsie,” she said, nodding at the glass.
I got the feeling she probably said the same thing when she crushed a guy’s heart. “Oopsie, sorry I wrecked your life…” Still, a guy could overlook certain things in a girl with agate-brown eyes.
She brandished her own plastic glass of cider toward everyone else in the room as if she was giving a toast. “Daddy calls your group the Academy Brain Trust,” she said, invoking the name of her father right out of the box. I stood by like a good wingman should at times like these, that is to say invisible, like wallpaper. She continued her assessment of the cadets gathered in her home. “The brightest young minds of the brightest young minds.” She offered her hand to Nick. “I’m Brooke.” She smiled sweetly but let him have it again with the agates.
“Cadet fourth class – “
She cut him off.
“I know who you are. Before you came here, you were Staff Sergeant Nicholas Hunt, Tactical Air Control Party assigned to the Eleventy-Forty-Teenth Army unit out of Somewherebad, Afghanistan.” She gave her perfect blond hair a toss, then looked him up and down, smiling as if her intel was correct. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be glib. Daddy talks about you a lot, actually.”
“Is that right?” Hunt said, hands clasped behind his back as if at parade rest.
She waited a beat as if to give him a chance to say something else, then plowed ahead again when he did not. “Anyway, Cadet Fourth Class Nicholas Hunt,” she said, enunciating the T in his name with the tip of her perfect tongue. “There’s this thing coming up at my school – “
First Class Cadet Scott Santini rushed past at that exact moment, head down, as if he was late for something so important it trumped everything else in the known universe. He was tall, nearly six two, trimly built-like nearly all the cadets here at the Academy. Dark to Hunt’s Nordic blond look, a black superman curl hung down in the center of his forehead. Always in a hurry, he expected his subordinates to be as well. Santini was the type of guy we called AANCH – All Afterburner No Compass Heading. He was also a flaming jerk.
Brooke Slaughter put her foot out, pretending to trip him as he rocketed by.
“Oopsie,” she said.
He pulled up short, glaring, and started to pop off with one of his trademark corrections until he noticed she wasn’t another cadet.
“Oh,” he said once he saw it was the general’s daughter. “Good evening, Miss Slaughter.” He smiled at her before regarding Hunt and me like we were road kill. “Hello, Smacks,” he said, beaming at the opportunity to remind us of our lowly station in front of Brooke. There were plenty of derisive names for freshman cadets but Smack was clearly Santini’s favorite. What are you thinking, Smack? Explain yourself, Smack! On your face, Smack!
I preferred doolie, but he didn’t ask me.
“Good evening, Cadet Captain Santini! Tough Twenty Trolls!” We barked the mascot of our squadron, as was the custom when addressing upperclassmen. Respectfully rigid with shoulders back, we tucked our chins as a sign of apparent, if not actually felt, respect. As squadron commander and captain of the boxing team, this pompous SOB had the power to focus all his attention on us throughout the day. He’d surely been the kind of kid who burned up ants with a magnifying glass just to watch their little butts go up in smoke.
“Relax, my smacks,” the upperclassman said. “We’re at a party.”
Brooke reached and touched his arm. “I was just telling Nick about that dance at UCCS…”
“Smacks don’t have time for dances,” Santini said, eyeing Hunt with the light of a thousand suns. For a minute I thought he might put him on his face to do pushups right then and there, just to remind everyone he had the power.
Brooke left her hand on the senior’s arm. “And Firsties do? Have time for dances, I mean…”
Santini gave Hunt a dismissive smirk, then looked at Brooke with a dead calm smile. “As a matter of fact – “
Lieutenant General Rex Slaughter had the uncanny ability to appear out of nowhere. He sauntered up from behind us and cleared his throat, causing Santini’s jaw to slam shut in midsentence. All three of us fell into a sort of modified spinal rigor mortis. The father of an obviously headstrong daughter, Slaughter kept a weather eye on his girl and every cadet knew it. Bald as an egg and wearing the same non-uniform uniform khakis and white shirt, he was not much taller than Brooke – but the three stars made up for his size. He threw his arm around her shoulder, as if to
shelter her from the clouds of testosterone in the room. She wore him comfortably, like a piece of jewelry she wanted to show off.
“At ease, men,” he said, nodding politely. Brooke had inherited her gaze from the general. None of us caught fire on the spot, so I decided he wasn't angry. Whereas her eyes were drop dead gorgeous, his looked like they could split an atom.
Slaughter turned to Hunt, and extended his hand. “And how is our young mustang?” A mustang was someone who moved from the enlisted ranks to become a commissioned officer.
“I am well, General Slaughter,” Hunt said, sounding like he meant it.
“And is Brooke slobbering all over herself talking to you?” The general winked. His head gleamed under the light of the crystal chandelier.
“Daddy!” Brooke half spun under his arm, her lips forming a gorgeous mock pout, accented by the little black mole.
“I’m afraid I might have painted a picture of you for my daughter that’s a little difficult to live up to.” Slaughter shrugged. “But you are a damned impressive young man and I don't’ mind saying it – going through what you did, then jumping through hoops to get back here. I don’t mean to be indelicate, but dodging landmines in the Hindu Kush must make Beast Summer in Colorado seem like weak sauce.”
Cadet Captain Santini pursed his lips like he’d been kicked in the nuts. He’d been in charge of our Beast Summer – done his best to make it worse than anything we could imagine.
Hunt gave a knowing nod. “Training is much different than life, General Slaughter,” he said.
Brooke’s lips parted, more than a little awestruck, imagining. “I’ll bet it is,” she said, quiet and a little breathy even though her father was standing right there.
The general sighed – making up his mind about some grave decision – and then gave a conspiratorial wink to Hunt and Santini. “Might I have a word in private, gentlemen?”
“Of course,” both said in unison.
“I’ll see you later this evening, Brooke,” the general said. He glanced at my nametag. “Carry on, Adams.”