The Walking (4 page)

Miles smiled. "Yeah. He's quite a guy."

Marina cleared her throat embarrassedly. "He mentioned something about 'reasonable rates." I don't know how much you charge, but we can't afford too much. If you could give me an... estimate, let me know what we're looking at..."

"Don't worry, about it. We"

Naomi stuck her head around the corner of the cubicle. "Miles, phone."

He raised his hand. "I'm with a client. Get a number and tell them that I'll call them back."

"Miles, it's an emergency. Your father. He's in the hospital."

He was instantly up and out of his chair. "Take care of her!" he shouted to Hal, motioning back toward his cubicle as he ran up the aisle toward the front desk. His heart seemed to have stopped, and his chest hurt by the time he reached Naomi's chair because he'd been holding his breath. He let out a huge exhalation of air, reached over the desk, and grabbed the phone, pressing the blinking light on the console. "Hello?" .... "Mr. Huerdeen

His heart was pumping again. Not just pumping, pounding. He could barely hear over the sound of the blood thumping in his head. "What is it? What's happened?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Huerdeen, but your father has had a stroke."

Stroke.

It was not something he had expected, not anything he had ever thought about or even considered. Miles' mouth felt dry, and for a second he was afraid that he'd forgotten how to speak, but the words finally came out, weak and fearful. "How... how did it happen?"

"He was at a grocery store when he collapsed. The manager immediately called the paramedics, and they rushed him here. We found your name and this contact number in his wallet."

"Oh, God," Miles breathed. "Oh, Jesus." He leaned back against the wall for support, closing his eyes. He had a sudden picture in his mind of his father reaching for a can of soup and failing on the linoleum floor, taking shelves of groceries down with him, dying among strangers who had come

to the store to buy food and were now dispassionately watching an old man take his last breath on their way to the produce department.

"He's stable right now, but he's not conscious, and we're keeping him monitored in the CCU. He's most likely suffered some brain damage, although we won't know the extent of it until--- ..... "What hospital?"

Miles demanded.

"St. Luke's on--' ....... I'll be right there." Miles slammed down the phone just as Naomi reached her desk. "Have Hal take over that client for me." He hit the elevator's Down button. "I'm not sure when I'll be back."

"Is your father all right?"

"He's had a stroke." Miles slammed his palm against the button again, as if trying to hurry the elevator, but when there was no immediate response, he sprinted toward the stairwell door. "I'll call!" he yelled back to Naomi.

And then he was in the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time, leaping the last few to each landing. On the ground floor, he dashed through the building's lobby and out to his car in the 'adjacent lot.

St. Luke's. That was over on Winnetka, close to home. His dad had probably been shopping at Ralph's.

Somehow, knowing where it had happened, knowing the physical layout of the location, brought it home to him, made it more immediate, less abstract, and the panic flared within him. Thankfully, though, it did not seem to impair his judgment or coordination. He did not have to fumble through his key ring to fred the car key, did not have to work with shaking hands to get the car started. If anything, he seemed to be thinking clearer than usual. Everything seemed to be in sharp focus, he had total control over his movements and thought processes, and he sped out of the parking lot, past

a Salvation Army Santa, and onto Wilshire, zooming effortlessly into a convenient hole in the traffic.

His luck did not hold.

All of the streets leading to the Ventura freeway seemed to be under construction, and it was like one of those horrific stress dreams. He'd sit in congestion for two blocks, then finally turn down a side street until he hit another major thoroughfare, only to have the same thing happen all over again. It took him twenty minutes to drive six miles, and by the time he reached the freeway, he was a nervous wreck. His jaw hurt from clenching his muscles, and through his mind ran the dozens of death scenarios he'd imagined while waiting for stoplights to change.

It was clear sailing from then on out, however, and ten minutes later, he was in the hospital elevator, heading up to the Critical Care Unit.

His chest felt tight, and though he knew it was only from stress, he could, not help thinking that if he was having a heart attack, this was the best place for it to happen.

There was a nurses station backed by a wall of monitors just past the elevator, and Miles quickly walked over to the one person who looked up at his entrance, a young Asian man wearing blue scrubs. "I'm lookhg for my father, Bob Huerdeen. He had a stroke and he's supposed to be in the

CCU."

It came out as a single frightened sentence, and he was half expecting to be told the worst, but the man was nodding before he'd even finished speaking, walking quickly around the counter to join Miles. "He's in room twelve. Follow me."

Room twelve was halfway down the hallway and, like seemingly all of the other rooms on this floor, had a big window opening onto the corridor so that the medical personnel passing by could do instant visual checks on the patients inside. Miles saw his father before he even walked

into the room. The old man was hooked up to machines, IV tubes had been inserted into one extended arm, and he lay there, still and unmoving, eyes closed, as though he was dead.

Miles followed the--intern? doctor? nurse? attendant?--through the open doorway into the room. He'd steeled himself for an onslaught of emotion, but none came. There was no sadness, no tears, no anger, only the same fear, dread, and panic that he'd been experiencing since Naomi first told him his father was in the hospital.

Inside, the room was silent, the only sound the persistent beep of heart-monitoring equipment. Miles cleared his throat before speaking, and the noise was deafening in the stillness. When he spoke, his voice was a reverent whisper. "Are you the doctor?"

The other man shook his head, whispering also. "I'm an intern. The doctor is on his rounds. He should be back in fifteen minutes or so, but I could get him if you want."

"So there's nothing.." life-threatening? I mean, my dad doesn't have to have emergency surgery or something?"

"Your father almost died. Could have died. As it is, he may have suffered some serious brain damage. But we have him on a blood thinner, and he's being given medication that will break down any clots."

Miles shook his head. Look I don't understand. Is that what caused the stroke?"

"A stroke usually occurs when blockage in one of the arteries breaks off, travels through the bloodstream, and becomes lodged in one of the blood vessels of the brain. This is what happened to your father.

There's not much we can do about the stroke that already occurred, although the doctor will talk to you more about that when he sees you.

The anticoagulant and blood thinner he's being administered are to prevent additional strokes. They often come in waves, the clots dislgdging sequentially or in pieces, or dislodging other

blockages farther down the line, and this hopefully will prevent that from occurring."

Miles was listening, but he was looking at his father. He turned back toward the intern only when the other man stopped speaking.

"Would you like me to get the doctor?" "Yes," Miles admitted. "Would you?"

The intern smiled. I'll be back in a few minutes." There was a chair against the wall by the foot of the bed, and Miles pulled it to his dad's side, sitting down. Lying there, eyes closed, a tube shoved up his nose, the man on the bed did not even look like his father. Not only did he seem older and thinner, but the features of his face appeared to be altered. His nose looked larger than it did ordinarily, his chin longer and more pointed. The teeth that were exposed between pale, partially open lips were much too big and much too white, out of proportion with the rest of the face. Only the single exposed hand, connected to the arm in which bottled nutrients and medication were being intravenously fed, seemed familiar.

He recognized that hand. The sight of it, for some reason, brought on the tears that previously wouldn't come. Looking at the veined, mottled skin, the bony, excessively lined knuckles, he could conjure up images of the past that were not prompted by the still face, the sheeted body. He saw that hand helping him climb the metal ladder out of the YMCA pool, spanking him when he shot the Werthers' dog in the butt with a BB gun, showing him how to tie knots for his Boy Scouts merit badge, dribbling a basketball.

It was this that made him cry, that triggered the emotional outburst for which he'd been prepared .......... He touched his dad's hand, patted it, held it.

And when the doctor came in, five minutes later, he was still crying.

Then

The girl sat trembling in the darkness, her frightened features only partially illuminated by the flickering orange glow of the fireplace.

Her hands were clasped tightly together, and though her fingers moved nervously, they did not leave her lap.

"There is nothing to be afraid of," William said kindly. He smiled at the girl, trying to calm her nerves, but this only seemed to make her more agitated. "It will not be painful," he told her. "It is a very simple procedure."

The girl's hands clenched and unclenched in her lap. Under any other circumstances she would probably be very pretty. Now she just looked troubled and scared. She took a deep breath, a sound audible even over the crackle of the burning log in the fireplace. "Will" she began. She coughed nervously, cleared her throat. "Will you have to see me?"

William shook his head. "Not if you don't want me to," he said softly.

"But I must warn you that it will come out. I can take care of that for you, but if you do not want me to see you, you will have to get rid of it yourself." He paused for a moment to let his words sink in. "It will be embarrassing for you, but it will be easier if I do it all. I promise I will not look at you as a man. If it makes you feel any better, I have seen many other young women the same way."

"Who?" the girl asked, her fear temporarily overtaken by curiosity'.

William shook his head. "I cannot tell you."

She thought for a moment, then met his eyes for the first time. "You will not tell about me, either?"

"Not upon pain of death." He stood, went to the window, parted the curtain. The land outside was empty, tall grasses swaying in the chill winter wind that blew across the plains. In the distance, the flickering gaslights of town shone like yellow stars at the edge of the horizon. He let the curtain fall and walked across the room to the series of shelves next to the bed. Taking out a match, he struck it against the log wall and lit a candle.

He had a bad feeling about this. As he'd told the girl, he'd done this many times before, but this was different. He could sense it. He'd been run out of towns in the past, had been whipped and beaten. But that was not what was coming here, that was not what he foresaw happening. No, this was something else.

And it frightened him. -The girl's name was Jane, and, like all of them, she was in love. She had given herself to the boy, though her father wanted her betrothed to another--perhaps because her father wanted her betrothed to another--and thanks to that one encounter was now with child. She was not yet showing, but: she had not been visited by the menses twice now, and a, innocent as she was supposed to be, she knew what that meant.

Like many of them, she had en on the verge of kinin herself when a friend of a friend told Jane about him, an

William had received a hurriedly written note the next day a badly misspelled missive begging him to put an end to her condition. As always, he had agreed to do so. And that had led her here, to his hut, in the middle of the night.

He knew that what he was about to do was illegal. And he had been beaten and chased in the past not only for per

forming such an act but for the way in which he performed it.

For using magic.

He looked around his little room. He had been here for over a year. It was the longest time he'd spent anywhere since leaving the East, and he liked the place, liked the people. He'd become a member of this community, and the suspicions that had always seemed to grow up around him elsewhere had failed to materialize here. He had helped some girls, even helped a few men, but this was a strongly Christian town, and those mores had kept people from talking.

That was about to end. He knew it, he sensed it, and that made him sad.

It was also going to end badly.

Violently.

And that scared him.

William forced himself to smile reassuringly at Jane, who was still sitting primly in the small chair, her hands clasping and unclasping nervously on her lap.

"I'd like you to move over to the bed," he suggested. "And you'll have to remove your clothing."

Jane nodded, stood. Her hands were trembling. She took off her coat, took off her dress, took off her undergarments. She was crying as she placed her clothing on the chair, sobbing by the time she lay down on the bed. Her legs and feet were pressed tightly together, and standing to the side of the bed, William cleared his throat to get her attention and motioned with his hand that she was to spread her legs open.

She did so, sobbing loudly now, her hands held over her face so she could not see him, as if, by shielding her face she could shield the rest of her body.

He set the candle on her stomach, carefully placed a rag between her legs. Closing his eyes, he concentrated for a moment, gathering the strength he needed. As always, it started with a tingle deep in his midsection, a fluttering of

the heart that grew into a warm vibration and spread outward through his body, through his limbs, into his head, lighting up the world inside his brain.

He opened his eyes, and the room was tinged with extra color.