The Healer (18 page)

“That girl’s right arm is broken, and she has a cut on her head. Get her out next,” he said, as he pointed to a child who was lying beneath the seats.

Two men quickly knelt to the task as another appeared at the back of the bus.

“Hand one to me!” the man yelled, then took the next child that was pulled free.

“What about Beau?” one of them asked, pointing at the driver.

Jonah shook his head.

The man flinched as if he’d been slapped. “Lord have mercy. He’s my wife’s uncle. This is bad.”

Then Georgia appeared at the back of the bus again.

“Susie! Did you find Susie?”

“No, ma’am. Not yet,” Jonah said.

When she realized there were no more children on the bus, she began to wail.

“Oh Lord, Lord, is she under the bus? Please God, don’t let her be under it.”

Jonah jumped past Georgia as he got out of the bus. He glanced toward the injured children, who had been carried a good distance away from the accident. The rescuers had taken off their own coats and put them over the cold and injured children while waiting for medical help to arrive.

At the moment, everyone there was being cared for. It was the missing child that had Jonah worried. He began to circle the wreck on his hands and knees, trying to see if anyone was trapped beneath. Just when he was beginning to fear the worst, a hawk circling overhead suddenly screeched. The sound echoed down the mountain.

Jonah heard.

He stood abruptly, then looked up just as the hawk screeched again.

Suddenly he turned and began running back up the way they’d come.

“Wait! Wait!” Georgia screamed. “You said you’d find my Susie. You promised me.”

But Jonah wasn’t listening to her. He was following the cry of the hawk leading him to the missing child.

One minute he was holding on to the underbrush in an effort to pull himself up, and the next thing he knew, he was looking down into the face of a little girl with a green hair ribbon in her red hair.

He fell to his knees, then pulled her out from under the mass of broken trees and scrub brush. Her face was a mass of cuts and bruises, and there were long, ugly gashes on her tiny little legs. The blue corduroy jumper she was wearing was black with her own blood.

Jonah’s heart was pounding as he ran his fingers down the side of her neck, searching frantically for a pulse, and when he found it, he went weak with relief. It was faint and thready, but it was there, and it was all he needed. Unaware of the people gathering around him, he laid his hands on her body and closed his eyes.

Within moments, the air began to vibrate, then the trees, then the earth. An aura of white spilled from Jonah’s body, down his arms and into the child, like water going over a falls.

Georgia’s mother was still screaming and climbing, following the Indian who’d promised her a miracle. Then she saw her little girl, lying broken and bloody on the ground. Before she could scream her child’s name, she felt a vibration around her and thought it was an earthquake—or the end of the world. But then she saw the light surround the man and her child, and her heart began to pound. She tried to move and fell to her knees instead. All she could think was that an angel was among them. She began to pray.

A paramedic was coming down the hillside dragging a stretcher, when he came upon the sight. He stopped in midstride as if he’d been nailed to the spot; he stared in disbelief, watching as the cuts on the little girl’s face began to disappear. He saw the gashes on her legs closing, saw her eyelids begin to flutter and her chest begin to rise. He didn’t know he was crying until the tears ran across his lips and he tasted their salt.

One after the other, people saw but didn’t understand—not completely—not until the little girl opened her eyes and saw her mother kneeling a few feet away.

“Mommy…the bus broke.”

Jonah picked up the child and laid her in her mother’s arms. And while Georgia was praising God for the angel, Jonah headed back down the mountain to the other injured children.

An EMT was putting a brace around Travis Mize’s neck when Jonah returned. Jonah knelt beside the medic and then touched his arm. “Please?”

The medic started to order Jonah out of the way, then found himself staring into eyes the color of a hot summer sunset. He felt an odd loss of focus, then rocked back on his heels.

Jonah slid between the man and the child, then laid his hands on the little boy’s chest. “Travis?”

The little boy was wailing.

“Look at me, son. It’s going to be all right.”

Again the air vibrated, the trees quivered and the light enveloped them both. One man fell to his knees and began to pray, while others were convinced they were losing their minds.

After Travis sat up and announced that he’d lost his baseball glove, Jonah moved from him to another child, then another, calming, healing, doing what he’d been born to do. When the last child had been touched, calmed and healed, Jonah stood up, then looked around.

Sheriff Mize was holding Travis.

“Is he yours?” Jonah asked.

Mize couldn’t speak. His face was pale, and his eyes held a wild, frightened expression as he clutched his little boy close to his chest.

“Did we get a head count?” Jonah asked.

Mize shuddered, swallowed twice around the knot in his throat, then took out his handkerchief and blew his nose loudly before he could pull himself together.

“Ten.”

“Was that counting the driver?”

Mize couldn’t quit staring at the Indian. He’d seen what he’d done with his own eyes and still couldn’t wrap his mind around it.

“Uh…yeah, counting Beau.”

“I’m sorry about him,” Jonah said. “If they’re dead, I can’t help them.” He looked back at the children, taking a mental head count. Eight. Nine counting Susie, who was still above them with her mother. They’d accounted for all of them.

“Then we have them all,” Jonah said.

Mize’s lips went slack. “God Almighty, man. Who are you?
What
are you?”

Jonah sighed. “You know who I am. I’m going to go now. Lucia will be worrying.”

“Uh, no…someone told her you were here. She hitched a ride with Earl. I think she’s up on the road waiting for you.”

Jonah nodded, then quietly walked away.

As he started back up the incline toward the road, the rescuers stared. One reached out to touch his arm. Another backed away from him, yielding to his presence.

He wouldn’t let himself think about the repercussions of what he’d just done. None of it mattered as long as the children were okay. All he wanted now was to get away from this place and go home.

When Jonah was fifteen minutes late, Luce had started to worry. Then, when a few more minutes came and went and she began to hear sirens, then saw people in cars driving hell-bent for leather out of town toward the mountain, she got scared.

Despite Harold’s arguments, she got her coat and purse, and started walking. Something was wrong. She just needed to make sure Jonah was all right.

Halfway out of town, Deputy Farley saw her walking and picked her up on his way toward the scene. By the time she got there, she knew what had happened to the bus, just not what had happened to Jonah.

When she saw his truck, she panicked. She jumped out of the patrol car before it had stopped rolling and ran to the side of the mountain. When she looked down, all she could see was the back end of the school bus, and people running back and forth, carrying children in their arms.

But when she saw Jonah jump out of the back of the bus, she knew what was happening and that he was risking his life to make it happen. By healing the injured children in front of all those people, he was giving himself away.

But there was nothing she would do to change what he was. She sat down on the side of the road to wait. Jonah was doing what he’d been born to do. The rest would have to take care of itself.

A short while later, a couple of news vans pulled up. She saw them setting up cameras and interviewing first one person, then another, trying to piece together what had happened. When they shoved a camera into one weeping parent’s face, she looked away in disgust, having come to the conclusion that reporters descended on tragedy like vultures on carrion.

An hour passed. The sun was only minutes away from setting when Luce saw a man with dark hair coming slowly up the slope.

She stood, willing him to look up, wanting him to know she was waiting. Then he did, and when she saw the look on his face, her breath caught on a sob.

Jonah saw her standing at the edge of the road, waiting—waiting for him. It was all he could do to keep walking, but he knew that if he got to Lucia, everything else would work out.

His mind was exhausted, his body on the verge of collapse. He’d never healed so many at one time, but there had been no choice. It had been all of them—or none of them. No way could he have chosen who should live and who should die.

His face felt stiff, his skin burned from the cold. When he looked down at himself, he realized he was covered in blood and there was a button missing from his shirt. Then he heard Lucia call out his name.

“Jonah.”

He focused on her face and found the strength to keep walking. Somehow he found himself standing before her. She opened her arms.

“My clothes…the blood…I’ll get you all—”

“Hush,” she said softly. “Just come here.”

He took a step forward, letting her arms enfold him—letting the beat of her heart steady his own—and knew he was home.

“I’m sorry about the driver,” she said.

Surprised that she understood the depths of his regret at not being able to save them all, he bit his lip to keep from weeping.

Unaware that a camera had been trained on his arrival and had captured their reunion, Jonah finally pulled away.

“Bridie is at Ida Mae’s house. I need to get her before we can go home.”

“Then let’s go,” she said.

Together they drove past the emergency vehicles and patrol cars, weaving through the onlookers who’d gathered at the sides of the road.

It was dark by the time they got Bridie in the truck and started back up the mountain.

At first Bridie was full of her day, and then she saw Jonah’s face and the condition of his clothes. “Are you in one piece, boy?” she asked sharply.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m fine,” Jonah said.

“Then what on earth…?” Bridie muttered.

Luce glanced at Jonah, then patted Bridie’s hand.

“There was an accident. The school bus went over the mountain. Beau Davis was killed.”

Bridie gasped, then muttered a soft prayer.

“Lord, Lord, had he delivered all the kids?” she asked.

“There were nine still on the bus,” Jonah said.

“Oh, no. What about…were they—”

“They’re all okay,” Jonah said.

Bridie shook her head. “That’s a miracle. A plain miracle that none of the children were hurt.”

Jonah just nodded. He didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

Luce saw the exhaustion on his face and began talking to Bridie about her day with Ida Mae, so Jonah could have a few moments of peace.

After they finally delivered Bridie to her house and Jonah was satisfied that she was safely locked in for the night, he started back to the truck to tell Luce he still had chores to do. But she was already out and heading toward the back of the house.

“I did this plenty of times before you came,” she said. “You just tend to Molly. I’ll get the chickens put up.”

Jonah was thankful for Lucia’s help, and since Molly’s milk was slacking off, he was only milking her once a day. For that he was also thankful. It meant he didn’t have to milk her tonight.

As soon as the animals were fed and housed, they headed back home. When they drove up to the cabin, Hobo was waiting for them on the porch. He bayed a welcome as they got out.

Jonah helped Lucia out of the truck; then they walked hand in hand into the cabin. Once inside, Luce began taking off Jonah’s bloody clothes, dropping them right where he stood.

“I can—”

“No,” she said, as he started to take off his shirt.

“Let me.”

He stood, unable to think. Unable to argue.

Somehow Luce knew not to talk. When she had him undressed, she led him into the bathroom, turned on the water in the old tub and then stepped back.

Jonah just stood there, numb to his surroundings.

“Jonah. Sweetheart.”

He blinked, then realized Luce was talking to him and that there was water running in the tub.

“Get in, honey,” she said softly. “You need to wash off all the dirt and blood. You’ll sleep better if you do.”

He looked down at his hands, then shuddered. “Oh. Yes. Thank you,” he mumbled, then stepped into the tub as she shut the door behind her.

Luce quickly gathered up his clothes and threw them, coat and all, into the washing machine. As the water was filling, she went to the sink and washed her own hands, scrubbing them over and over, until there were no traces of the blood left on her, either.