A Piece of My Heart

by Sharon Sala

  Mercy leaned back with a satisfied sigh. “Pig thieves. We live a dangerous life, don’t we?”

  “Not often, thank goodness, but now that we have the date to look forward to, time will drag. When it comes to you, Mercy, waiting is a hard thing to do.”

  Mercy nodded, but she had another fear. Now that she’d said the date aloud, she’d given the universe a shot at taking her down. She’d survived every bad thing in her life, and she liked to think this time was for her and her cop. She’d lived through so much, surely there was a downtime for sadness. Surely she’d paid her dues many times over for the privilege of stepping into a happy life. He winked, and she smiled, even as her stomach began to knot.

  Then the drive became somber and startling with vivid evidence of water damage almost everywhere. A cattle guard had washed out at the entrance to a pasture, fencing down in several places. They were about a mile from the east bridge when Lon heard Avery’s voice on the radio. “Dispatch to Pittman. Over.”

  Lon heard the panic in Avery’s voice. “This is Pittman. Over.”

  “Switch to the other frequency, Chief.”

  Lon knew it must be bad as he switched and keyed in to let him know. “Pittman here.”

  “Okay. Now, we just got a call from the school. When one of their buses didn’t show up this morning, they began making calls. While they were trying to find out what had happened, the bus driver on that route finally called in a panic. The east bridge washed out beneath them in the midst of crossing. Fifteen kids and a driver are in the river.”

  Lon’s heart sank. “Who’s been contacted?”

  “County Search and Rescue and Blessings Fire and Rescue.”

  “I’m less than a mile from the location. I’ll be on scene. Over and out.”

  He switched the police radio back to the dispatch channel and pushed the accelerator all the way to the floor.

  Mercy’s stomach was in knots. “Oh, Lon! Fifteen children. Oh my God, what can we do?”

  “Hopefully, we’ll figure that out when we get there,” he said, and turned on the siren and lights.

  A couple minutes later, they drove up on the scene, and it was a nightmare. The water was a rushing torrent of power and debris. The bus was in the river, hung up on a piece of the bridge, or it would have already washed downstream. The windows were all down, and they could see the horror-stricken faces of the children inside. The driver was barely visible, but seemed to be trying to keep them all calm and seated. Any sudden movement, and they’d be gone.

  “Merciful God,” Lon whispered.

  “What do we do?” she asked.

  “I have rescue ropes in the trunk, and that’s it. If I can figure out a way to get them to the bus, the driver can tie them through the windows, and I’ll tie the other end up on shore. If we get enough ropes tethered from shore to bus, we might be able to get everyone off before it gets swept away.”

  They jumped out of the police cruiser and ran to the trunk. It didn’t take long for Lon to see how limited his options were. He hoped to God the rescue squads got here fast. “There are four lengths of rope in here, and I’m pretty sure they’re long enough, but I need some way to get one end of each of the four ropes to him.”

  Lon dragged coil after coil of rope onto the ground, while Mercy dug through the rest of the items in the trunk, looking for a miracle. As she pushed things around, she caught a glimpse of red all the way to the back of the trunk and realized it was a blanket. And when she leaned farther in, felt something rolled up inside. She couldn’t pull it loose from where she stood, so she crawled into the trunk and shoved things aside.

  Lon turned around and saw her in the trunk. “What on earth are you doing? You’re going to hurt yourself.”

  She pulled until the blanket came free, and when she unrolled it, she gasped. It was a loaded spear gun with three extra spears. “Lon! Does this work?”

  “I didn’t even know that was in there,” he said. “It must have belonged to our old chief. If this works, maybe I can shoot the rope to the bus. We might be able to stabilize it long enough to get everyone out.”

  She handed him the spear gun, and then got herself out of the trunk as he began tying each rope to a spear. But then he realized he couldn’t tie a knot tight enough to keep it from slipping off the bare end of the spear when the spear left the gun.

  Mercy saw the problem and crawled back into the trunk. “I saw duct tape somewhere in here,” she said, and moments later found it between a fire extinguisher and a stack of all-weather ponchos. “Here!” she yelled and pitched it to him.

  He caught the tape and rectified his problem by taping the knot and part of the rope onto each spear below each spear point. Then he grabbed a bullhorn from the trunk and ran to the river’s edge with the gun, hoping the driver would hear enough to understand what he needed to make the kids do. “Hey! Can you hear me?”

  The driver leaned out a window and waved.

  Lon held up the spear gun and the rope. “Shooting them into the bus.”

  The bus driver nodded and waved.

  “Thread it through two windows, and tie it off.”

  The driver gave him a thumbs-up.

  “Everybody down. Kids under the seats.”

  The driver gave Lon another thumbs-up to reassure the chief that he’d heard and understood, and when he began moving the kids away from the windows, Lon loaded the first spear and waited until no kids were in sight, waited for the driver to give the okay and then disappear from view.

  Lon’s stomach knotted as he got ready to shoot the first one. “Please, God, let this work,” he muttered. He eyed the bus, took aim, and fired. The spear flew across the floodwaters like an arrow from a bow and hit the bus about six inches above a window.

  Moments later the driver appeared, leaned out the window on his back, reached up, tore away the duct tape, and pulled the rope off.

  “Please, God, let this work,” Mercy echoed.

  “Hey, angel, say an extra prayer for me while you’re at it.”

  They waited, watching as the driver threaded the rope out one window and then in the next, before tying it off inside. They heard sirens as Lon ran to a stand of trees along the bank and quickly tied off the other end of the rope.

  Mercy was white-lipped and silent as she held ropes, spears, and duct tape, working hand in hand with Lon. Hearing the terrified shrieks of the children trapped inside was gut-wrenching. It was all she could do to stay focused.

  Lon fired another spear from shore. It hit the bus again, and he waited as the driver tied off the river end to another section of windows before he ran with the shore end to tie it to a different tree farther down. He was ready to fire the third spear when the county search and rescue units began to arrive. By the time Lon had fired the last spear and tied it off, all the units were on site.

  But there was another problem now. Once the children saw so many people to help them and still knowing they were just out of reach, they waved arms out the windows, screaming and crying, and the bus driver couldn’t silence their fears.

  Mercy sat on the ground with her back against a tree, her knees pulled up beneath her chin, and her face hidden against her knees. She could hear the babies screaming, “Mama, Mama,” and crying “Daddy help me.” Pleading over and over “Don’t let me drown,” while the men upriver came to terms with what they faced.

  “We’ve got a chopper en route,” the sheriff said. “If those ropes hold the bus, we might be able to get everyone off.”

  “How long?” Lon asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Lon was sick to his stomach. He’d seen a lot of devastation in the years since he’d gone into law enforcement, but nothing got to him as fast or dug as deep as when children were involved. He shoved a hand through his hair and turned around, only to realize he couldn’t see Mercy. He started back toward hi
s cruiser when he spied her sitting by the shore.

  He knew before he got there that she would be crying, and when he stopped and knelt beside her, she looked up. Her face was streaked with dirt and tears, but there was a wild look in her eyes, like a trapped animal with no way out. “Mercy? Honey? What’s wrong?”

  “Can you hear them?” she whispered.

  “Hear what?”

  She pointed to the bus. “The babies. They’re crying. They’re scared, so scared. They’re going to die, aren’t they, Lonnie? They’re all going to die.”

  “No, we don’t know that. We have to stay positive.” Then he heard the chopper and looked up. “There! Look there! We’ve got a rescue chopper on site. You say prayers while we get set up. If God is with us, we’ll airlift everyone out, including the driver, okay?”

  She nodded, but when Lon turned and ran back to join the others, she got up and ran toward the shore.

  While the rescue took shape on-site, the news spread in Blessings. Frantic parents in outlying farms to the east knew their children were on the bus. The parents of the children who had not been picked up counted their blessings. Phone calls came in to the school, to the Blessings police, to the county sheriff’s office, all with the same request. Where is my child?

  A Savannah news crew flew the TV station’s chopper over some of the flooded areas to use as backfill footage for the evening news. It was pure luck when they happened upon the rescue in progress, and immediately went live on air. Now they flew back and forth over the rescue area, catching everything on camera and relaying the information as it unfolded.

  When the feed went national, viewers all over the country became caught up in the ongoing drama.

  * * *

  Tina Clark was in the Curl Up and Dye when Vera turned up the volume on the television so they could all hear. “What’s happening?” Tina asked as she came out of the bathroom, pausing to pull out a debit card to pay for her appointment.

  “A Blessings school bus was on the east end when floodwaters swept away the bridge.”

  Tina froze. “What? Where did they take the children? I think that’s the bus my Callie would be on. She spent last night with the Fretwell girl.”

  Ruby came up behind Tina and put an arm around her waist. “They’re in the act of rescuing them now,” Ruby said.

  Tina moved closer to the screen. “You mean they’re in the river? They’re still in that bus? My God, someone save my baby.”

  Ruby held her tighter. “Look, honey! See the chopper. They’re bringing them out of the bus one at a time. Vera, how many did they say they’d taken off?”

  “I think they said thirteen, and there are fifteen and the driver.”

  Tina went to her knees. “Help my baby. I need to help my baby.” She moaned, and then started to shake.

  “Call her husband,” Ruby said. “Tell him to come get her. She’s in no shape to drive.”

  Vesta ran to the phone while the rest watched.

  * * *

  The back door of the bus was open. All of the children were safe on shore, and the chopper had come back for the driver. He stood in the doorway watching the harness swing in the wind as the chopper hovered over the bus one last time.

  He looked behind him, scanning every seat to make sure there were no more children on board, and then turned and waited to make the grab, just as he’d done before. The harness was caught in the downwash from the rotors, swinging like the pendulum on a clock, and it took two tries before he finally caught it.

  Everyone on shore had been holding their breath, and when he finally snagged it and pulled it inside the bus, their sighs of relief were clearly audible.

  Mercy had watched the entire rescue in silence. She saw Lon in a way she’d never seen him before—on duty, calm, and competent. Even in the face of imminent failure, he had stayed focused on what had to be done, and now it was nearly over.

  She watched the driver dangling high above the river as the chopper took off one last time. He looked up at the underside of the chopper and didn’t glance back at the bus. He didn’t see the little girl who came crawling out from beneath a seat and then stood in the open doorway, crying for someone to come get her, except the water rose by the hour. The river had yet to crest. And the bus had begun to rock.

  At that point, Mercy looked away from the driver and saw the child silhouetted in the open door of the bus and screamed. “No, baby, no! Get back!”

  Lon heard her scream and then looked to where she was pointing. His heart nearly stopped. “There’s one more!” he shouted and ran toward shore.

  All of the rescuers were horror-struck. Just when they thought they had averted a disaster.

  The information was immediately relayed to the chopper pilot. He made the quick decision to turn around and fly back, lowering the driver close enough for him to grab her and take them both to shore.

  When the driver saw her, his relief turned to agony, believing he had cost a little girl her life. And then the bus began to sway. It rocked to one side and then swayed to the other, and when it did, it ejected the girl from the bus.

  Mercy screamed. She saw the panic-stricken look on the child’s face just before she hit the water, and didn’t think. She acted on instinct, the same way she’d lived her life—she took three running steps and dived into the flood.

  Lon saw her go, and even as the water swallowed her, he ran, screaming, “No, Mercy!”

  But she was already gone.

  Chapter 24

  The news crew in the overhead chopper caught it all, from the child flying out of the bus, to the woman on shore going after her.

  Tina Clark knew it was Callie from the moment the camera focused on her face. And just as her husband came through the door to get her, Tina watched their child disappear beneath the flood. At that point, she gave her up to God and fainted.

  Hope was on duty at the third floor nurse’s station, and like everyone else who could catch a moment, would run back to the television from time to time to watch the drama unfold.

  She saw the little girl fall, and then suddenly, another camera had picked up on the woman running toward the river. Hope knew without seeing her face that it was Mercy, and when she dived into the water, Hope cried out. “No, Mercy.”

  But it was too late.

  * * *

  Lon saw Mercy go under and started running, trying to keep her bobbing head in sight, and even as he ran, his heart was breaking. He didn’t believe there was a chance in hell of either coming out of that water alive. Then all of a sudden, he heard men shouting on their two-ways, saying over and over they were alive. The woman had the child in her arms and hung onto a logjam.

  Lon was so overwhelmed he could barely breathe as he stopped to ask directions. “Where are they?”

  The captain pointed. “About a hundred yards around that bend. She’s hanging onto debris with the kid in her arms.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” Lon muttered, and started running.

  The moment he rounded the river bend, he saw them. Mercy clung to a tree trunk caught in a jam, holding the child. He ran to the shore, waving where he stood, until he knew Mercy saw him. He saw her lips move, but he couldn’t hear what she’d said. And then the rescue chopper swept into view once more, flying above the river like a bat out of hell. Then it stopped in a hover position over the people below and dropped the harness.

  Lon’s heart pounded as he watched Mercy make a grab for it as the pilot sent it down. When she caught it on the first swing, Lon doubled up his fists and shouted with joy.

  * * *

  Mercy couldn’t believe she was still alive. When she saw the little girl fall in, she didn’t think, she just reacted, but the moment she hit the water, she knew that she would die. The force of the flood kept pushing her forward and pushing her down, and no matter how many times she tried to surface, the debris
was so thick she couldn’t push through.

  No, no, no. Not now, please, not now.

  Life had finally made sense, and now it was over? Then she heard a soft voice in her head.

  Don’t quit, Baby Girl. Don’t quit.

  She didn’t know who it was, but she felt the love and power behind it, and while she was trying not to drown, a huge rush of water pushed her forward so fast that she popped into the air like a cork, and in the moment she was airborne, saw the little girl’s body in the water. She reached out to grab her, knowing this would be her only chance, and caught a handful of her hair as they went under. When they popped up again, Mercy grabbed onto a passing limb, moving so fast in the water that holding onto that ride was like a surfboard in rough seas.

  Seconds later, they were swept toward the left bank of the river to become part of the floating debris. Just as suddenly as they’d been swept away, the jolt of hitting the jam stopped all forward motion. They were caught between the shore and some rocks, still afloat, and this time above the racing, raging water.

  The survivor in her wanted to believe the child was just unconscious. As she tried to untangle her, she heard a cough, and then a moan, and Mercy thought she felt the child’s chest move.

  She slung her over her shoulder and pounded her on the back, and when she heard another cough and then a retching sound, she was so elated that she screamed, and when she did, the child moaned again. Before she could rejoice, new panic set in. The debris jam was shifting. If it broke apart, they would die before they drowned. In a desperate move to keep their heads above water, Mercy shoved the child upon the trunk she was using for a float just seconds before a wall of water engulfed them. The water lifted Mercy up just enough that she was thrown on top of the child, and when the wave passed, she still held on.

  The child was breathing because she could feel the slight rise and fall of her chest against the palm of her hand. She was so focused on keeping their heads above water and dodging the swift-moving debris that she almost didn’t see Lon on the shore. But when she did, she also felt the crushing blow of separation. She was so in love that sometimes the simple sight of his face brought tears, and to think he might witness her die was a nightmare. He kept waving, but she couldn’t let go of anything to wave back.