The Tennessee Mountain Man

by Olivia Gaines

  “Okay, let me get a blanket to put on the bed, and a warm cloth,” she told her mother-in-law.

  “Can’t you just poke it with a needle and drain out the juice?”

  “No Ma’am. A needle will only make it worse. I have to apply a warm cloth to get it to open, then we clean it,” she said. “It may hurt a little, but in the end, you’ll feel better knowing it’s taken care of the right way.”

  “Thank you,” Honey said, no longer feeling ashamed.

  “Don’t fret any, Nurse Montgomery will take care of you,” she told Honey and set to work clearing the boil, or risen, as Honey had referred to it.

  An hour later, Honey was properly cleaned and bandaged, and Khloe tended to Albus’s hand. He thanked her for the work and spotted the two rocks she’d been given by Jud Rogers earlier in the week.

  “Hold on to those,” Albus said. “A good polishing and setting will make some pretty jewelry pieces.”

  “What are they?” Khloe asked.

  “Garnets,” Albus said. “They’re associated with the first Chakra, it’s the stone of physical love and relationships. Ma keeps one around her neck.”

  “I will keep it close to my heart once they’re cleaned and polished,” she said, giving him a smile.

  “Pretty smile. You should do it more,” he told her, hefting a box into his arm and heading out to his truck.

  Beau carried load after load to his parent’s pickup, leaving just enough to get them through the next week. He also emptied the majority of the freezers. She didn’t quite understand what he was doing or why, but held her tongue in case his parents needed food.

  “I have to ride up with them to unload the truck,” he said. “Be back soon. A storm is coming and we have to play it safe.”

  “Should I ride up with you, just in case the storm breaks before you get back?”

  “Naw, this won’t take long. Storms a ways out,” he said confidently.

  An hour and a half later, his confidence was shot as the storm broke along with the dam, snapping the levies and sending gallons of water pouring into the valley. The hunting hexagon of a lodge was directly in its path, along with poisonous snakes and creatures of all sizes that would wash up on his deck. From high in the mountains, from his parents’ front porch, he could see the birds flying from the trees indicating the water was on the move.

  “Pa, I’m taking your truck,” Beau said as he took off at a run. He had to get home. His wife was alone, several hundreds of gallons of water would be rushing her way and she would be scared. At that instance, he couldn’t imagine her being more afraid than he was at this very moment.

  Chapter Sixteen – Hang on Beau

  Three times in her life the feeling of dread had touched her arm and told her to run. Once in Afghanistan when an RPG came down on their location, again in Iraq when insurgents over ran their encampment, and the last time, she was in Chicago and a shootout happened on her mother’s street. Moving quickly, she ran to the closet to get her nursing bag and backpack. In the backpack, she kept a change of clothing, her laptop, a bottle of water, cell phone, and an extra pair of shoes. Sticking the keys to her vehicle in her pocket, she hustled her way to the Jeep and loaded up the items. Digging inside the backpack, she located her cellphone and turned it on to call her husband. She would drive higher up the mountain in the direction she’d seen Albus come down and that he and Beau had driven up. That was the direction she needed to go.

  The phone showed no bars.

  “Shit,” she said aloud, remembering that she’d forgotten to put the Montgomery Communications chip back inside it.

  “I have to go back in the house,” she said reluctantly, as she climbed out of the truck, running at a clip towards the deck.

  In the bedroom, she saw the Montgomery phone and grabbed it and the cords. A loud cracking sound came from the distance as she held the phone in her hand, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Goosebumps rose on her arms as she slid back the curtains to look into the distance, and she saw the tops of the canopies sway back and forth from the force greater than themselves, causing the trees to give way. A loud rush of power pushed over the ground as animals of all sizes began to appear from the brush of undergrowth in the forest.

  Furry neighbors that she didn’t know lived so close materialized and began to run. The ground moved as creatures, small and slithery, came out of hiding and all headed her way.

  “Oh fuck!” she yelled, running to the glass door she’d left open and closing it quickly.

  Deer ran with breakneck speed, trampling the garden beds, and wildcats ran with them, followed by a family of black bears. Up and over the hot tub, rabbits hopped, followed by squirrels, chipmunks, and furry rodent-looking creatures. The force from which they fled came shortly behind them in a large brown wave that claimed the residents of the forest that had failed to escape its wrath.

  Getting to the Jeep was out of the question without being trampled, mauled, or even killed by the sheer number of animals on the move. The ground rumbled from the amount of water coming in and the only thing she could think of was to get in the tub. She yanked the blanket off the bed, wrapped herself in it, and dove for the tub as the water made contact with the stilts on the hexa-house. The foundation rocked, and the house swayed. A heartbreaking snap reached her ears as the house leaned to one side.

  “Oh my God, hear my prayer,” she said softly, curling her body into a ball as the second crack reverberated through the noise and the house begin to tilt.

  There were so many things she wanted to do. Words she wanted to say to her husband and his family. All of the darkness held inside her would be trapped, along with her body, in the rubble that would be left of the new life she had tried to start with a large man covered in tattoos and a modified mohawk.

  “Beau, come find me,” she whispered as she squeezed her eyes shut and began to pray.

  THE FIRST THING HE was going to do when all of this was over would be to get his Pa a new truck. This one wasn’t fast enough to get him down the mountain to his home. To Khloe. His wife. The life mate he’d prayed to have. She’d shown up and married him, sharing a home that most women would not have considered sprucing up to their taste, but she did. His woman started a job caring for the people of the county and didn’t balk at any of it. Khloe had taken care of his mother without even blinking an eye and now she was alone, possibly scared out of her mind, and she didn’t know where to run from what was heading her way.

  He called her three times as he drove like a bat out of hell. Swerving, shifting gears, and putting his foot into the floor with the gas pedal, he tried to avoid the animals breaking through the trees like the migration of the wildebeest of the Serengeti.

  “Hold on, woman, Beau’s coming for you,” he said, gripping the steering wheel as he rounded the last bend to the clearing where the hunting lodge stood.

  The trees began to wave in the wind as the force of water rampaged through the wood line toward the house. Pressing the gas pedal harder, he made the turn too fast, bringing the truck around the bend on two wheels, and he leaned on the door, trying to use his weight to keep if from turning on its side. He spotted her Jeep but she wasn’t it. Animals of all shapes and sizes scampered over the deck, ripping through the screened porch and falling into the hot tub as others made a beeline for the truck. He couldn’t stop. He wouldn’t stop until he reached her.

  The water reached the house first. He heard the crack when the support stilt broke. The base of the stilts cemented into six-foot boots couldn’t withstand pressure hit midpoint on the wood, but the water hit the supports with such force, it snapped the legs of house and he saw it begin to tilt.

  “Khloe!” he screamed as he reached the parking pad on top of the hill. He didn’t bother to turn off the truck as he jumped out, coming face to face with a Momma black bear and her babies. He ran past her and a cougar, praying their need to live outweighed their need to attack him. He jumped over rabbits. Tiptoed through poisonous sna
kes and kept moving as a squirrel bounced off his shoulders. Beau didn’t move fast enough to avoid the sideswipe of a buck that threw him off balance, and he hit the glass doors with enough force to knock the wind out of him.

  Winded, but still moving, he slid open the glass door, letting himself inside the house, whispering her name as he tried to catch his breath. “Khloe!” he called out, as the house tilted to one side.

  He called for her again just as the second stilt gave way, forcing the house to lean forward. It threw his body to the floor and he, the couch, loveseat, and coffee table began to slide toward the kitchen island. The heavy wooden tabletop that he swore he was going to bolt down lifted into the air and came at his head. Covering his cranium with his arms he called out to her again.

  “Khloe! Khloe!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

  “Beau!” he heard her call back.

  The couch and loveseat pinned his leg between the island and the table top when he heard the snap. He howled in pain and knew his leg had just broke. The vision in his left eye blurred as things began to get dark. “Khloe,” he called out once more as the house fell in what seemed like slow motion, hitting the tidal wave of dirty water, filled with debris and God only knew what else. Shatterproof glass was a misnomer as the five sets of sliding doors around the house crumpled into millions of tiny pieces, allowing in the water and mud which all slid down around him.

  KHLOE HEARD THE SOUND of his voice as the house began to fall over. Clambering from the tub, she made it to the living room when the glass shattered to see Beau’s frame caught between the furniture as water began to pour in with mud and debris.

  “Hang on, Beau,” she said as she crawled towards him. The gash on the side of his head bled profusely. Khloe used the blanket to press against the wound as the house floated a ways and then hit an immovable object, wedging it between two ancient trees and a hill.

  Lifting his head, she grabbed pillows from the couch to elevate his noggin above the water and mud while she pushed at the couch and the heavy tabletop.

  “Don’t you die on me, you big mufucka,” she said as he pulled at him, but she was unable to move him. “Open your eyes, husband, open those eyes. Squeeze my hand so I know you can hear me!”

  Faint movement of his fingers told her he was still alive, but not doing well. Khloe pushed at the couch, getting it off his leg, and used her back with her feet pressed against the island to heft the tabletop off him. He was still lodged in between the love seat, which had wedged itself into the hole in the floor. Try as she might to move it, she had no luck. She pulled at Beau again, but he was too big for her to get out on her own.

  Tears streamed down her face as she tried three more times to get him out. Turning at an odd angle, she felt the keys of her vehicle press into her thigh. Looking out the opening of the house, she saw her Jeep still in place on the high ground.

  “Don’t try to move,” she said, touching the top of his head. “I’m getting my Jeep.”

  Crawling, scrambling through dirty water, debris and more, she managed to get out of the house onto what remained of the decking, the water flowing across it like an unwelcome river. Wading through the water, she used her fingers, snapping off her nails as her hands dug into the mud, climbing, scrambling, avoiding creatures trapped in the muck. It took nearly all the energy she had to make it to the top of the hill. Out of breath, but she being Beau’s only hope, Khloe pressed on, getting inside the Jeep and starting it up.

  Shifting to 4 x 4 mode, she backed up in the mud and turned towards the house, grabbing the gear shaft, downshifting to a low gear, making the descent towards the house. Thanking God for wedging the structure into a hill, she upshifted to make the climb, coming around the building and driving down, landing on what used to be the screened porch.

  “I’m coming, Beau,” she said, as she climbed out, grabbing the rope wench on the front of the vehicle, tugging hard. More water had come into the house as well as more mud, and Beau’s head had disappeared under the onslaught. Wading through the muck, her vision became blurry from the tears as she dug through the mess to find his head. She continued to feel down his neck, locating his shoulders as she lifted as much of his body as she could, running the rope winch under him and securing the line.

  “This is going to hurt like a son of bitch,” she said, looking for anything she could find to keep his head above the mush.

  Scrambling, crawling, pushing her way, she made it to the vehicle, activated the winch as it started the slow tug of a 250-pound prize. Khloe made her way back to house, holding the winch line as a guide as it pulled her husband from the debris. She pushed at the mud and water, reaching for his head, to protect him as best she could until his body was free. His face, brown from the mud and covered in blood, was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

  Khloe cleared away any items that would pierce his body while the winch dragged him from the temporary prison. His limp form lay immobile as the rope from the winch pulled him up the hill to the front of the vehicle. She hit the button to stop the pull as she reached for her husband, feeling for a pulse. Disconnecting the winch, she lay him on his back, leaning his head back and opening his mouth. Khloe checked his airway for potential air-blocking threats as she began CPR on him.

  “Breathe, Beau,” she said to his motionless body. “Baby, I need you to breathe for me.”

  Adding compressions to his chest, she moved to his mouth, pinching his nose and blowing air into his lungs. She repeated it several times until he coughed, spitting up brown water, gagging, and trying to move his legs.

  “That’s it, baby, spit it out,” she said, lying on his chest. “Nurse Khloe got you. Don’t fret. You’re safe, Beau.”

  She cried as she held on to him, knowing she needed to tend his wounds before anything got infected, but she was too busy being thankful that he was alive. Sprawled across the wide chest, her body wracked with tears as she held on to her husband. Her mate. Her lifeline.

  “Stop crying, Woman, I’m okay,” he said, trying to catch more air into the wet lungs. He coughed, which sent shards of pain down his leg. “Maybe not...my leg is broken and it hurts like hell.”

  Khloe looked at his face, all bloody as the red liquid seeped down the side of this head. She needed to stop the bleeding. His green eyes were slightly unfocused but able to see her. He could see the tears. A muddied hand touched her face. “You look a mess,” he said, wiping chunks of mud off her neck.

  “Yeah, but did you see the other guy?” she asked, adding a weak smile. “Beau, I thought I lost you. I’ve lost so much, so much, and if I had lost you too it would have been the end of me.”

  “I’m here, Khloe, I’m here,” he said, trying to reach out but his shoulder ached. “My shoulder. I think it’s dislocated.”

  “Let me,” she said, wiping away the tears but only making muddy streaks down her face. He winced in pain as she popped his shoulder back in place. Khloe worked quickly, getting water from her nurse bag and cleaning his cuts and wounds knowing she had to first stop the bleeding of his head. Next, using scissors, she cut away the pants leg to reveal the compound fracture. “This is going to hurt, so prepare yourself.”

  Beau didn’t have time to prepare anything before she snapped the broken bone into place. She cleaned the wound quickly as the wind started to pick up. Wrapping the wound, she looked at him. “I have to get you in the Jeep. We’ve got to get out of here,” she said.

  Together, they managed to get him on his feet, using the grill bars on the Jeep as an anchor to pull up his weight. Hobbling, he made it to the seat and got inside. He was tired. He wanted to sleep.

  “Beau, don’t go to sleep on me. You have a head wound plus I need you to tell me where to go and get us out of this valley,” she said. “We can’t go down the mountain.”

  “Go up,” he mumbled.

  “Up it is,” she said, double checking his seat belt, then starting the vehicle. She shifted gears, beginning the ascent up the mountain
. “Beau, where are we headed?”

  “Home, Wife,” he said as he leaned back in the seat. The pain coming in sporadic waves made him nauseous. “Follow the small road until it forks. Take the left fork and keep going up.”

  She did as he instructed, following his directions, driving slowly. She took the left fork and continue the climb up the mountain until she came to a clearing. A mountain chalet with a wraparound porch, two large dormers and front porch with rockers waited for them as a juxtaposition against the backdrop of the Smoky Mountains.

  “Whose house is this?” she asked, pulling into the gravel drive.

  “Yours,” he said as his eyelids fluttered. “This is our home.”

  Chapter Seventeen – Home Sweet Beau

  “Don’t fall asleep on me, Beau,” she cautioned as she pulled up to the front door of the house. “I need your to help to get us inside. That leg needs to be cleaned again, and I need to put a cast on it.”

  “Not sleeping, just a whole lot of pain,” Beau mumbled as the vehicle came to a stop.

  “I’m going to need the keys to open the door,” she said.

  “No keys needed, it’s open,” he said. “This is Montgomery land. No one would dare walk into my home uninvited.”

  She didn’t argue with him as she put the car in park and cut off the engine. Opening her door, Khloe walked around the front of the vehicle to the passenger’s side. Offering words of encouragement, the bulk of her big man rested on her shoulders while guiding him through the front. There was no time to look around the new place she would call home—her first priority was to look after her husband who was fading by the moment.

  They made it as far as a big chair in front of the fireplace, and Beau collapsed in it with a swoosh of air from the cushion, complaining about the wet weight. Khloe removed his socks and boots, then ran out to her vehicle to get the nursing bag. Being covered in mud from her head to her toes was irrelevant at the moment. Beau was the priority. Inside the house, he’d slumped in the chair while more blood ran down the side of his face.