Precarious Summer

by Lyn Cote

  TRISH TURNED WEST ONTO Cross-cut. Mist was beginning to form in the low spots—cool autumn air brushing against still-warm earth. She sharpened her watchfulness. Twilight was the most dangerous time to drive through the forest. She kept a watch out for the reflection of her headlights onto deer eyes, sometimes the only way to see them in time. A man in a gray hooded sweatshirt was walking west, his back to her. The man turned and lifted a hand with his thumb out.

  Hitchhiking was illegal. Trish nearly passed him by but it was best to let a transient know that the Winfield Sheriff’s Department was vigilant. Normally she’d have been driving her own red SUV home, but it was in the garage till tomorrow. So she slowed and pulled off to where he’d paused.

  Trish got out and motioned him to come to her. He stared at her and didn’t move. “Over here,” she ordered in her cop voice.

  With halting steps, the stranger approached her. The hood shadowed his face. Was he a wanted man? She rested her hand on her sidearm and took up the defensive stance that had become second nature to her.

  The man halted a few paces in front of her.

  “Do you have ID?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “May I see it?”

  He reached into his back jeans pocket and pulled out a battered wallet. He handed it to her.

  She opened it and stared down at the faded photograph and the name, Grey Lawson. Her hand trembled as she stared at the photo. This is creepy. Why would I have to be the one to drive past Grey Lawson here tonight?

  The dread that had started her hands shaking, quivered inch by inch through her whole body. Finally one-handed, she flapped the wallet closed and handed it to him. Did he see her shivering? “Where you headed?” she asked in a gruff voice that didn’t even sound like hers.

  “My aunt’s house. Elsie Ryerson.”

  She’d known this would be his answer. A feud seethed in Trish’s breast. This was the man who was going to make her life hell for the foreseeable future. Yet he was Elsie’s nephew and Elsie was at home, probably watching anxiously out the window for him. Trish swallowed down a pulsing knot of bitter words. “Get in. I’ll drive you there.”

  “I can walk—”

  “Get in,” she ordered, hustling back behind the wheel, her eyes avoiding his. Let’s just get this over. Lord, I wouldn’t do this for anyone but Elsie.

  Grey ambled over, let himself in and then settled gingerly onto the passenger seat as if it were spiked with tacks.

  Without a word, Trish pulled back onto the road. Her face burned upward from her neck to her roots. Dear God, don’t let anyone see me driving with Grey Lawson in my car. My father will explode if he finds out.

  As she drove west on Cross-cut, the mist wisped upward on both sides of the road. The dark evergreen forest crowded close on both shoulders of the road. Grey Lawson’s presence unfurled in the oppressive silence wedged between them. She could smell his soap and hear him draw breath. The narrow road began to wind near a small lake. The silence pressed down on her lungs, making it hard for her to breathe.

  And then she heard squealing tires. The crunch of an impact. A loud one.

  She eased off the gas pedal, slowing around a blind curve. Her neck tightened with apprehension about what she’d find. Ahead on the road, her lights highlighted the accident. The nose of a blue pickup truck was perched into the soft shoulder. A large deer covered its front windshield. Trish snapped on her radio and called the accident in to dispatch.

  “Anyone hurt?” the dispatcher asked.

  “I’ll let you know.” Trish switched off the radio as she parked beside the accident. Her blue lights rotated, warning any oncoming vehicles. But the road was deserted. She got out and suddenly, she recognized the truck. She sprinted toward the vehicle. “Andy!” she shouted. “Andy!”

  She wrenched open the driver’s side door and gasped. Her eldest brother was pinned to his seat by the deer’s head which had come through the windshield. Blood from the deer or Andrew, or both, smeared the window and dash.

  “It’s Andy Franklin,” Grey said right behind her.

  “My brother,” she blurted out.

  “Is he breathing?”

  Grey’s no-nonsense words snapped her back to routine. She pressed two fingers to Andy’s neck, feeling for the carotid pulse. She found it. “He’s breathing and his heart’s beating.”

  “That antler looks like trouble.”

  Trish followed Grey’s hand motion and saw that it was true. One of the antlers was piercing Andy’s chest dangerously near the heart. She pulled out her cell phone. Before she could speed dial, the truck shifted and the antler came out of her brother’s chest. A tiny thread of blood spurted and pulsed again and again.

  Grey shouldered her out of the way. He pressed his large hand down over the wound. “I bet it’s nicked an artery. Here.” He began shrugging a shoulder out of his sweatshirt. “Take this off me. We can use it for a pressure bandage.”

  Trish didn’t waste any time disputing. She helped Grey out of his shirt. She tugged the sleeve over his hand that pressed down on the wound. When he signaled with a nod, she yanked it over and off the rest of the way. His hand immediately returned to her brother’s chest. Deftly she folded the main part of the shirt into a large pad. She put it right next to Grey’s hand, right next to the widening, frightening scarlet stain on Andy’s shirt. At Grey’s nod, she slid it under his barely raised hand and then his hand came down, staunching the blood flow.

  “I don’t think we should wait for the ambulance,” he said. “Even with me exerting pressure, he’s losing a lot of blood. I’ll get in the back of your Jeep and with your siren blaring, you can drive us to the hospital faster.”

  Trish hesitated only a moment. “Right.” Any delay could cost her brother his life. “Can you carry him?”

  “No problem.”

  “Ease him out. While you carry him, I’ll apply the pressure.”

  “Right.”

  The two of them maneuvered Andy to the edge of the truck’s front seat. At the last moment, Grey let her get into position so she could press down on his chest wound while Grey carried Andy to her Jeep.

  “Now!” Grey commanded her. They changed places. Then she was pressing down hard and jogging to keep up with Grey as he hurried to her back door. Warm blood wet her fingers. Grey managed to back into the rear seat with Andy’s upper body in his arms. “Okay!” Grey hoisted Andy all the way in and then pressed down on the bloody shirt. “Drive!”

  She leaped into the driver’s seat and switched on her siren. A quick U-turn and she was barreling down the road, back to the highway toward Ashford. She smelled her brother’s blood from her hands that now slipped on the steering wheel. But she didn’t look down or pause to clean them. Her eyes on the road, she couldn’t afford to hit another deer or a heedless driver. “Is he all right?”

  “The same. Just get us there. Fast.”

  The fog was rolling over the highway as she raced south and then east. She radioed dispatch to alert the hospital. And then she pressed down harder on the gas pedal. She ignored the speedometer. And she prayed, “God, get us there in time. We can’t lose Andy, too. Please. Help.”

  “Yes, Father, please,” Grey agreed from behind her.

  She hadn’t realized that she’d spoken aloud.

  But Grey took up the prayer and began reciting what she recognized as one of the Psalms—the Twenty-Third Psalm. The words, “valley of the shadow of death,” strangled her. She pressed down harder on the gas pedal. Someday Andrew would dwell in the house of the Lord forever. But she didn’t want it to be today.

  Finally, the lights of the hospital in Ashford glowed through the mist. She screeched to a halt in front of the Emergency entrance. Hospital staff streamed out of the automatic doors. Within minutes, Andrew was inside, with doctors and nurses swarming around him.

  Trish stood outside the treatment area, feeling as if the top of her head wanted to lift off. Or conversely, everything inside her might
drain out through her toes. A crazy muddle of sensations and emotions.

  “You need to sit down.”

  She glanced up at Grey who stood looking down at her. “I...”

  He pulled her by the arm to a blue molded fiberglass chair. “Sit.”

  She sank down, waves of nausea pounding her. She usually didn’t react like this to blood, to accidents. But this is Andy.

  A receptionist came over with a clipboard. “Do you know the patient’s name?”

  “Andrew Franklin. He’s my brother.” Trish lowered her head farther, fighting the aftershock faintness.

  “Do you know if he has insurance?”

  “He teaches school in Washburn.” Trish’s lips felt as if they were freezing up on her, making it harder and harder to reply.

  The receptionist nodded. “Has he been a patient here before?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do we need to do all this right now?” Grey asked.

  “That’s all I need. I can take it from here.” The woman walked away.

  Trish pressed her face into her hands. But the smell of blood was too strong. She looked up, responsibility nagging her. “I should call my dad.”

  “ Wait until—”

  Her brother’s gurney was pushed out into the hall. “We’re on our way to surgery,” the nurse who was rolling the IV pole called to her. “Notify his family.” And then they were eaten up by the closing elevator doors.

  Trish turned to Grey. “Please pray.” She forced out the words through lips taut with fear. “I can’t bear to lose him.”

  Grey nodded and bowed his head.

  Stepping outside briefly, Trish punched her father’s phone number into her cell phone and she gave the news to her younger brother who’d answered. Afterward, she returned to sit side by side with Grey—for how long she didn’t know. Her gaze kept shifting to the silent man beside her. Now she noted that his blue-black hair was liberally threaded with silver. His eyes were gray, too. Now his head was indeed bent in prayer. Grey Lawson praying? But his words in the Jeep on the way here had resonated with honest faith. Her mind couldn’t wrap itself around this idea. It just didn’t fit.

  The automatic doors parted and her family surged inside. Her father, Noah, and Andy’s wife were at the front. “Trish! Where’s Andy?” Noah barked. “Is he all right?”

  Trish rose, grateful to see her family, but suddenly wary as if watching a match flare near a pool of gasoline. What if her father recognized Grey and demanded to know why she’d sat near him? She should have anticipated this and separated herself from him.

  She hurried forward away from Grey, hoping to distract her father. “Andy’s in surgery.”

  The receptionist stepped around the counter. “Why don’t all of you go up to the surgical waiting area? After the surgery, the doctor will go there to report the patient’s condition.”

  Trish shepherded her family toward the elevator, telling them about Andy’s accident. As the door closed, she looked out. Grey Lawson had vanished.

  IN THE HARSH FLUORESCENT lighting, Grey examined himself in the men’s room mirror. He looked like something out of a horror flick. He pulled his knit shirt over his head. Saturated and sticky with blood, it made a slapping noise when it hit the sink. He began rinsing it in cold water. Finally, it was blood free. After washing his face, hands and upper body over the small sink, he moved to the hand dryer and dried his body and then his shirt enough so that he could bear to put it on.

  Worry about Andy Franklin nipped him. Why had this happened? He recalled praying the Twenty-Third Psalm in the Jeep. Why had he been thrust into the “presence of my enemies” as David had been? Was it a sign of what was to come, what he faced now? But most of all, what kind of woman was this Trish Franklin? A female deputy in Winfield? That was different. And had she really tried to give him a ride home? His impression of her, a neat feminine form and the way the top of her head had fit right under his chin, lingered in his mind.

  Outside in the hall, he went to a public phone and called his aunt. Her worried voice came on and he assured her he was okay but would be home later than expected. After her soft goodbye, he hung up and went out to the police Jeep. It was unlocked. He hadn’t expected that, but had wanted to check first. He didn’t want to go anywhere near Noah Franklin. Maybe Trish figured this was a safe area or maybe she’d been so shook up she hadn’t thought of locking it. No matter.

  He reached in the front seat and pulled out his duffel bag. The chill evening made him shiver. He shed the damp shirt and donned a T-shirt and another sweatshirt from his bag. Then he started walking. He had many miles to walk before he would see home tonight.

  For a second, he recalled the glimpse of Noah Franklin, who fortunately hadn’t looked his way. He thought of Trish Franklin again. What had possessed her to offer to drive him to his aunt’s house? Noah Franklin was a hard man. Every soul in Winfield knew that. Helping Grey would pit Trish against her own father. Andy’s little sister had guts all right. He’d give her that.

  Grey had missed a bullet tonight all right. But he couldn’t avoid Noah forever. Then again, he pictured the Franklin girl’s bright copper hair under her deputy sheriff’s hat. He hadn’t recognized her at first. She was at least a decade younger than himself. He’d recognized Andy, though. They’d been in high school together.

  So this was coming home. Seeing familiar faces once more and dreading what hostile words might issue from those faces. Sick dread at the thought of more of the same funneled through him. He quickened his pace. His aunt would worry till he knocked on her door.

  WHILE HER FAMILY WAITED for the doctor, Trish went to clean up in the upstairs women’s restroom. Watching the blood wash from her hands and face down the sink shook her. She pulled at her khaki deputy shirt where blood was making it stick to her body. She shuddered and took in air. How could she take care of getting Grey to his aunt’s house? She didn’t want to repay him for his assistance tonight with either a long chilly walk home or an unpleasant dose of her father’s anger. And if Noah discovered Grey was here, that’s what would happen. Maybe if she called the sheriff, he’d have someone pick up Grey and take him home.

  Damp, but cleaner, she returned to her family—her other two brothers, her father, Andy’s wife and Trish’s godmother, Florence LaVesque, who was the sister of one of Trish’s late aunts. Widowed, she and Trish’s dad often fished and hunted together.

  Now Florence looked up and asked the exact question Trish had wished to avoid. “What was that bad penny Grey Lawson doing sitting next to you in the waiting room?”

  Every face turned toward Trish. There was a dazed silence in the room.

  Trish stared back at her godmother, who was famous for always saying the wrong thing. Or at least almost always.

  “Lawson?” Her father reared up. “Grey Lawson? Here? When did he get out of prison? Is he on the run?”

  Trish’s brothers shifted uneasily in their seats. Trish frowned at Florence. But her godmother had only spoken the truth, the truth that they’d planned to reveal tonight anyway.

  Trish faced her father, who suddenly reminded her of a bull about to charge. “We—” she nodded toward her brothers “—were coming to tell you that Grey Lawson has been released on parole. And he’s come back here to help out his aunt.”

  “Parole!” Noah began striding back and forth, his hands fisted.

  “Yes, he’s served seven years of his sentence.” Trish recited all she’d dug up in the two days since the sheriff had received the letter, announcing Grey’s imminent release. “And evidently Grey has been a model prisoner. The parole board had no problem in releasing him on extended supervision.”

  Her father began cursing under his breath.

  Her next-oldest brother, Chaney, rose and tried to rest a hand on Noah’s shoulder. “Dad—”

  Noah pulled away like a petulant child. “What was Grey Lawson doing with you downstairs?” he repeated Florence’s question, but coated each word with loathing.
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  Trish braced herself. “I’d just picked him up for hitchhiking when I came on Andy’s truck.”

  “You were taking him in for hitchhiking?” Noah sounded pleased.

  “No,” Trish replied honestly, steeling herself, “I was taking him to Elsie’s. I knew she’d be waiting for him—”

  Noah’s face turned red and he sputtered for words.

  The surgeon in green scrubs strode down the hall toward them. “Franklin family?”

  Penny Franklin rose and stepped forward. “I’m Andrew’s wife.”

  “Your husband will be fine. The antler just nicked an artery. He’s got abrasions and lacerations and he’s bruised pretty bad. But a deer hitting a windshield can do a lot more damage. He was lucky someone was there. Someone that knew what they were doing and was able to get him here in time.”

  “Yes, Grey Lawson,” Trish said, knowing how her father would react but unable to keep back the truth. “If Grey hadn’t been there to help me, I couldn’t have gotten Andy here in time.”

  Her father growled with intense incoherent anger.

  The doctor looked from her to Noah, wary now. “The patient will be in recovery for a while.” He held out a hand toward Penny. “Would you like to come and sit beside him?”

  Penny assented and followed the surgeon. Trish turned and headed toward the elevator.

  “Where are you going?” Noah demanded, his harsh voice slapping her from behind.

  She stepped inside the elevator and then turned to face her father. “I brought Grey here and now I have to get him home to Elsie.” The elevator doors closed, cutting off her father’s furious reaction. Alone, she leaned against the rear wall. Let her brothers deal with their father. She’d done the worst task. She’d announced the fact of Grey’s release.

  Downstairs, Trish looked around for Grey in vain. Finally, she asked the receptionist, who said she thought he’d left. Trish hurried outside to her Jeep. She’d forgotten to lock the Jeep and Grey’s duffel was gone. The mist had ripened into a heavy fog by now. Trish started her Jeep and headed down the drive toward the highway. She’d probably find Grey hitchhiking home.