HARD ROAD: Heaven Bound

by Terry McDonald

  “I can hear ya’ll talk,” Al said dopily. “This is going to hurt ain’t it?”

  “Sorry about that Al, I was getting all clinical there,” Agnes put her hand on his arm. “Even with the morphine this is going to hurt worse than when it broke.”

  “What if it hurts so bad I scream. People might hear me.”

  Jake gave him a pillow from another bed.

  “Hold the pillow over your mouth and scream all you like.”

  “How long will it take?” Al asked, addressing Agnes.

  “Not long once we get started.”

  “How hard do I need to pull?” Jake asked.

  “Damned hard,” she replied. His thigh muscles and tendons are tight with trauma. You’ll be surprised how hard it’ll be to stretch them.”

  “What do I need to do?” Beth asked.

  “Hold against his leg opposite where I push. When the bone is set, the muscles will pull back and hold the ends in place. We’ll have Jake keep the leg stretched, and you can help me wrap these padding strips, and hold the splints in place while I bind them.”

  “Are we ready to do this?” Jake asked.

  “Why don’t we stretch and breathe a minute before we start.”

  “Good idea,” he said. “How many bones have you set?”

  “None,” she replied, “I’m only a nurse, remember. I’ve assisted in several, though, and I know what I’m doing.”

  “We believe you,” Jake said. “This is the first time for me too.”

  “Pay close attention to what I do,” she said grimly. “This may not be the last bone you have to set.” She stretched once more, lifting her arms over her head and arching. Her back popped with a loud snap. “That felt good. Let’s do this.”

  Jake positioned himself at the foot of the bed and grasped Al’s leg just above the ankle with both hands while Agnes positioned herself beside Al’s leg and began probing his thigh with her fingers.

  “Beth, I’m going to need you to wrap your hands around here above the break to hold against me while I push the other end in place. Be prepared to push back only enough to keep me from pushing you,” she instructed. “Okay Jake, when I say now, you start pulling. Don’t jerk the leg, just a steady pull.”

  “Got it,” Jake replied.

  “Get ready with your pillow, Al. Okay Jake, ready…now.”

  Jake braced his knees against the foot of the bed and began pulling while Agnes busied her fingers probing Al’s thigh. The pillow jerked to Al’s face and muffled his cries as he squirmed.

  “You need to hold still, Al ... You’ve got to pull a lot harder than that, Jake,” Agnes chided.

  “Okay Beth, hold against me. I know this hurts, but you need to breathe, Al.”

  Agnes’ forehead broke into a sweat as she pushed at the bone. Al’s body quivered as he tried to obey her command not to move.

  “Harder Jake,” she almost shouted, “just a little more, we’re almost there.”

  Jake put his might into it and heard a soft nerve-jangling scraping sound followed by a barely audible click.

  “That’s it,” Agnes shouted. “Ease the pressure off slowly, not much, only enough to keep the ends together. The poor boy passed out during the last bit, but he’s breathing normal.”

  Jake eased off but was still in a strain. Agnes removed the pillow from Al’s face and went back to probing the leg until she was satisfied they had it right.

  “Okay, it’s over but the wrapping and tying,” she said, obviously happy with herself.

  It took nearly a half hour for Beth and Agnes to wrap several layers of ripped padding smoothly from Al’s foot to his crotch and to bind the homemade splints into place. Jake's arms were burning and trembling with the stress of having to maintain traction the entire time. When she finally told him he could let go, he spent a minute flexing and shaking the kinks out. Still working his arms, he went to the porch to check on Janie.

  “Al’s fixed now,” he told her.

  “I know. I could hear you in there.”

  “Wow, you do have good ears.”

  “That’s not all I heard,” she said. “I heard sounds like a truck way back the way we came from. It sounded very far away. I looked in to tell you, but ya’ll were busy with Al, so I just kept listening.”

  “Did the engine stop?” he asked, very concerned.

  “Yes it did,” she replied. I checked my watch. It was stopped for twelve minutes. Then it went back the way it came from, and kept going until I didn’t hear it no more.”

  “Are you sure it went back the way it came from, it didn’t keep going in the same direction?”

  “My ears told me it went back.”

  Jake breathed a sigh of relief. “You did an excellent job of watching, especially checking how long they stopped. I’m very proud of you.”

  Janie’s face beamed in response to the praise. “Can I go see Al now?”

  “Absolutely you can, but he’s asleep.”

  A short time later, Beth and Agnes, joined him on the porch. Agnes had a steaming cup of coffee in each hand.

  “We thought you might be ready for another cup,” Agnes said.

  Jake took it gratefully.

  “I have to tell you, I’m dead tired,” he said. “Beth and I were awake till dawn waiting for the relief truck to come.”

  “I am getting sleepy,” Beth agreed. “I was okay until we finished fixing Al’s leg.”

  “Beth, maybe you could make two more cots so you and Jake can get some rest,” Agnes suggested. “I can take guard duty for now.”

  “Okay,” she agreed. “Do we need to do anything for Al before we lie down?”

  “No, he should be out for a while,” she replied. “When he does wake, he’s going to be in a lot of pain. I left a morphine tube on the chair by his bed where he can reach it.”

  Beth left to make the cots. Jake and Agnes sipped their coffee in silence. Jake was deeply feeling the lack of sleep.

  “You’re about ready to fall over, Jake. I checked your boy’s rifle and I think the barrel is bent. How about you leave your rifle with me and go in?”

  “I don’t think I have a choice,” he agreed. He passed his rifle to her. “You know how to use this?”

  “I was born and raised in rural Georgia, what do you think?”

  “Just making sure. Janie said she heard a truck stop for a while back where the killing happened. You may want to be closer to the cut in case they dropped people off to search. Wake me if you notice anything odd.”

  “I’ve got this covered. Tell your little one she can keep me company if she wants.”

  Jakes fell asleep thinking about Agnes’ choice of words. His little one.

  CHAPTER 8

  Jake slept a long time, waking once to the sound of Al in agony. He started to get up, but Janie called out she was giving him an injection.

  When he next awoke, the light coming through the windows was dimmer. He smelled something cooking, and it smelled so delicious he had to join Agnes and Beth in the cooking area. They were much cleaner and Agnes was dressed in man’s clothing that was obviously brand new. She had a pistol holstered at her side.

  Beth had changed her bloody clothing and looked refreshed. She was turning slices of meat in a big skillet and Agnes was mixing vegetables into a bowl of rice.

  “I swear it smells like ham frying, or am I still asleep, dreaming of ham?”

  “Oh Jake,” Beth said, “Janie found a door over there none of us noticed because it’s just like the rest of the floor and guess what was in it?”

  “A pig and Janie killed it with her bare hands and you two skinned it, cut it up and now we’re having it for supper,” Jake said, smiling.

  “Funny, funny,” Agnes said. “Actually there’s a large basement full of goodies, but the best thing down there is shelf after shelf of irradiated canned foods, not to mention crates of MREs and irradiated freeze dried and dehydrated foods. There’s a bunch of firearms down there too. As you can see, I have
a pistol and I’ve got a shotgun out on the porch. Lucky for me there’s clothing down there too, mens’, womens’ and childrens’. We haven’t found bones anywhere. I’d bet a group was preparing this place as a refuge, and they died before they could get here.”

  “I think you may be right. This place is isolated enough.” Jake responded. “But what a find. Janie’s worth her weight in gold. Al woke me moaning and she’d already given him his shot. Now I hear she’s found the mother-lode of supplies. She deserves some kind of reward!”

  “You needn’t worry about that,” Agnes said. “She’s on the porch keeping watch with a big can of chocolate covered cookies. There’s another can open,” she said, nodding towards the table.”

  Jake glanced at the table and was tempted, but the smell of the frying ham drew him back.

  “Thanks, maybe after supper. How’s Al doing?” he asked, glancing towards Agnes.

  “He’s fine, but we’ll be out of morphine in a few days at this rate. There are only eight left. We need to start weaning him off it. I wish we had some antibiotics. His bruising around the break was deep. All we can do is pray an infection doesn’t set in.”

  “How long will it be before his pain lessens?” Jake asked.

  “I think we can wait longer between shots starting tomorrow and only give him a quarter of a tube each time,” she said. “Maybe day after tomorrow we dose him only when the pain gets so bad he can’t stand it.”

  “We’ll leave you in charge of nursing,” he said. “We need to get finished with this before it gets much darker,” indicating the food. “We can’t have any light showing while we’re still this close to the road.”

  “Reading you loud and clear boss,” Agnes responded. “The food will be ready in less than ten minutes. In the meantime, could you bring some cases of bottled water from the basement?”

  When the food was ready, he decided to keep Janie company while he ate, taking her plate with him. He found a very happy young girl with a chocolate covered face.

  “You got room left in your belly for some supper?” He asked, noting the empty can beside her chair.

  “I’m still hungry,” she said. “I’m always hungry.”

  “I know you are,” he replied, “you’re still skinny as a rail.”

  “I won’t be if we stay here and eat the food I found. I saw food down there I never even heard of... like the cookies, and there’s all kinds of preserves that Agnes says is just like jam. Can we stay here for a long time Jake, maybe thirty or forty-days like you said, until Al’s leg gets better?”

  As she was speaking, Agnes and Beth decided they would take their supper with them and were coming out the door.

  “That’s a good question,” Agnes said, taking a place beside Janie, on the decking boards. “Have you given it any thought?”

  “I have been thinking about it,” he replied, reaching to hold Beth’s plate for her as she sat beside him. “The way I see it, John Saint knows we took the truck after we killed that last bunch. My guess is he’ll figure we high tailed it out of these parts. It’s what a normal person would do. I don’t think it will even cross his mind we stayed this close to the ambush point.”

  “So you think we’ll be okay here?” Beth asked.

  “I think if we are very, very careful about noise and lights, we may be okay here.”

  “Then we’ll have to be careful,” Agnes, said. “I don’t think it would be wise to use the truck with his men out looking for us. It’s too noisy.”

  “I agree,” Jake responded, “and by the same token, there’s no way we can travel on foot until Al can walk. Maybe I can make him a pair of crutches, even so, it’s going to be weeks before he can use them.”

  “So it’s settled,” Agnes said. “I’d like to make a platform for Al’s leg tomorrow so we can keep it flat and elevated. We’ll also need some sort of frame to rig weights for traction.”

  “You draw me a picture and I’ll make it,” Jake said. “I’m not half bad at making things.”

  “Somebody’s bragging tonight,” Agnes said.

  “Not bragging, ma’am, just stating a fact.”

  “Okay, we’ll see tomorrow won’t we,” Agnes said, with a smile.

  “Hush a minute,” Janie exclaimed. “Did ya’ll hear that?”

  Faintly they heard a low rumbling in the distance.

  “It’s thunder,” Beth said.

  “You’re right,” Jake agreed. “I hope it means rain is coming. The best thing that could happen right now would be a good gully-washing thunderstorm.”

  In answer to his request, there was another roll of thunder a little closer, and moments later, a strong breeze blew in, bending the pines and rustling the branches of the hardwoods surrounding them.

  “Wow,” Jake exclaimed, “I think we need to finish eating, and get things ready for tonight. I believe my wish for rain is about to come true.”

  “Yes, let’s,” Agnes agreed, “and Janie needs to brush her teeth after eating those cookies, not to mention the chocolate on her face.”

  “Do I look like I been sucking a sow again?” Janie asked. The chocolate smeared around her smiling mouth gave her a clownish face.

  “You certainly do,” Agnes responded, laughing. “By the way, Jake, I checked the tower out back. It took me a minute to figure which valves to turn, but water comes out of the faucets and the toilet works. It’s too smelly to drink, but it’s plenty clean enough for a shower.”

  “Lord knows I could use one. I assumed the tank out back would be rusted through by now. The water’s been sitting for almost a decade. It will probably clear up as we use it.”

  “Beth and I washed while you were sleeping. We’re going to arrange the bed area and give Janie a good scrubbing.”

  The women took the empty plates and water bottles in with them. Jake remained outside, listening to the roll of the thunder getting closer. The wind was getting stronger too. After a few minutes, Beth rejoined him.

  “The beds are ready, and Agnes insisted on washing Janie. She loves mothering folks. It sure is sad she lost her kids.”

  “She had kids?” Jake asked, confused.

  “Two little girls she got from that Haiti place after the earthquake. At least, that’s two black orphans Saint didn’t bury alive. They died from the death, but her wife was killed.”

  “Yeah, she told me about her wife but I didn’t know she lost her children too.”

  “One was fifteen, and the other one was sixteen when they died. She said they were beautiful. It seems like everybody’s been hurt pretty bad.”

  “Everyone has,” Jake agreed. “The death, and the things that happened after, touched every living human on the planet.”

  “Do you really think Saint will think we’re not around?”

  “Yes I do. Logic would tell him, if we have a truck, we probably took off for parts unknown. I have no doubt he’ll send search parties out every road leading from the ambush site. We’ve killed a lot of his men. The only thing I’m worried about is they may notice the tire tracks don’t continue much further on the road, but maybe they’ll figure we went the other way. A good tracker could figure it out though.”

  “So they may be coming this way?”

  “If they do have a good tracker it should be soon. We’ll need to keep a strong watch for a few days.”

  “Was I cold-blooded enough with the killing this morning?”

  “You did a good job.”

  “I told you I was a better shot than Al. When he gets well, I don’t want him put where he can get hurt anymore. He’s not a killer like I am.”

  “Killing’s not something to be proud of, Beth,” Jake said, somewhat taken aback.

  “I’m not proud of killing, but it didn’t bother me none killin’ those men. I know what you’re worried about. You’re afraid I’ll get to liking killing as much as you do.”

  Jake thought about what she said. “I won’t deny what you said. I do enjoy killing scum. Every time I do, I feel
it’s one less person who will die like my wife and boys. I’d love to get to a place in my soul where I don’t think that way. I guess innocence died with the plague. I know you’re a grown woman, but in one aspect, I’m very much like Agnes, I want to baby the three of you. I am proud of the way you handled yourself this morning. You made every shot count and you picked the right targets. I take back what I said. I’m proud of the fact we killed those men. They deserved killing.”

  “Yes they did,” Beth, agreed matter-of-factly. “If you want, you can go wash. I’ll take over out here. ”

  Jake did as she suggested. Agnes was getting a squeaky-clean Janie dressed for bed. The thinness of her little naked body made him flinch. Agnes noticed his grimace, and nodded with understanding.

  “Use the women's.” she told him, “There’s a candle and matches on the lavatory. You’ll find shampoo in there too.”

  The flow of water from the showerhead was cold. He scrubbed fast and dried with a damp towel hanging from a hook, dressed quickly and left the bathroom. Agnes had Janie tucked in and was beside Al’s cot. He was awake and eating. Jake stopped to kiss Janie good night before joining Agnes beside his bed.

  “How you feeling Champ?” he asked.

  When Al answered, his voice was distorted. “My leg’s throbbing like a rattlesnake bit it, but I’m going to wait as long as I can before I get another shot. It makes the pain better, but I don’t like not knowing what’s happening around me. My jaw hurts where they hit me and it’s hard to eat because my teeth’s all loose. Agnes said we’re going to stay here awhile.”

  “Yes we will,” Jake responded, suppressing a resurgence of rage at Al’s condition.

  “I’m glad,” he said with relief. “Every time I try to move my leg it hurts like hell, and it itches like bugs are in there chewing on me.”

  “Does it feel like ants, and chiggers, and fleas under the wrapping?’ Jake quipped, unable to stifle a laugh.