Authors: Shawn Grady
I
smashed the rear window with my axe.
It was too small of an opening to fit in with an air pack. I cleared the glass around the edges, leaned my axe against the bumper, and pulled the air bottle off of my back. I fed it in first and then crawled in on my belly. Metal squeaked and popped at the passenger door. Timothy, in a crouch, worked the jaws. Julianne looked to the side through her mask, trying not to move her head.
“That’s good, hold still.” I twisted into a sitting position in the backseat, her spare air bottle next to mine between my feet. I leaned close and placed my gloved hands on either side of her head. “Keep looking forward. Don’t move your neck.”
“Okay.” Her voice wavered.
“You’re going to be okay.”
“Aidan—”
A metallic groan let out above the car.
I glanced at Waits, who looked up at me. He shook his head. That noise was too loud to have come from the spreaders.
The groan shot out again, the car roof caving in places. Julianne screamed.
I scanned through the windshield. The trailer had shifted. Waits grabbed his radio, shouting something about support struts.
“Aidan,” she said.
I reached around for a recline lever on the left part of her seat.
“Aidan, I can’t feel my legs.”
The groaning crescendoed. The Mini’s frame strained under the weight.
I searched for the lever next to her door.
God, let me find it.
Steel whined. I knelt on the floor, leaning close. Her eyes met mine.
Where is that lever?
Steel whined. Her lips pressed tight. She didn’t blink.
I found it and pulled up, lowering her seatback with my other hand.
The roof buckled.
A tornado of sounds spun around the car—tools and metal and urgent efforts.
“Get that strut in there!”
Motors rumbled with elevated voices.
We lay hard-pressed, separated by masks, only inches of clearance from the roof above. My hand rested on her hip. Her fingers grabbed my coat sleeve. Tears ran down her face. As the smoke in the air started to dissipate. I could see her legs trapped beneath the dash, the lower left one deformed midshaft at the shin.
“Can you feel anything?” I said.
She frowned. “My head. Not my legs.”
Sorrow pulled on my insides. She wasn’t just a patient. But right now she had to be. “Okay.”
Focus on the job, Aidan.
“Try not to move your neck.”
She swallowed.
I found her fingers and gripped them. “We’re going to get out of this.” Through small slits in the window I saw firefighters working without air bottles. I stripped off my mask. “They’ve knocked down the fire.” I loosened the straps on her facepiece. She winced as I slid it off.
Her jaw trembled.
“Hey.” I would process my cascade of emotions later. “Come on now.” Right then I was her hope. “You think this is the first time we’ve done this?”
The roof bent farther with a wrenching dissonance. It pressed down on my back, forcing my face next to hers. Her cheek felt smooth and hot and wet with tears. Her respirations quickened, and she squeezed my fingers like a vise grip.
She whispered something. In quiet, split sentences. “White. Van. Cut me . . . off.”
“The white van?”
“It crossed. Three lanes.”
Her hair matted dark with blood. It smelled of salty cruor.
The passenger door screeched and then snapped open. Outside voices and sounds poured in.
“There she goes.”
“Cut the hinges.”
“Get two more struts back there. Aidan?” Sower’s voice.
“Right here, Cap.”
“We’re stabilizing the trailer. Once that’s set, we’ll cut the roof, roll the dash, and get you out of there.”
“All right.”
“How’s our patient?”
“Cap . . . it’s Julianne.”
Silence followed. “Is she stable?”
“Conscious. Left leg fracture. Head lac—”
“Good. We’ll go ahead and—”
“Ben.”
“Yeah?”
“She can’t feel below her waist.”
A moment passed. He leaned in. “Julianne, it’s Ben. We’re getting you out of here. You hang on, all right?”
She grimaced. “Please hurry.”
Something like large steel hinges creaked overhead, this time relieving pressure off my back. The noise repeated and the roof relaxed. The work of breathing lightened.
“What’s happening?” Julianne said.
“They’re lifting the trailer.”
She was quiet, and then said, “They can do that?”
I smiled, fighting to keep my appearance of confidence. “Yeah. They can do that.”
Sower commanded the scene. “Cut those A, B, and C posts all the way through.”
Someone threw a red wool blanket over us. Sheet metal squeaked and the car jerked as tools cut through the roof supports. Beneath the covering we lay removed, in wine-colored light and humid breath and the smell of sweat. Bedlam and twisted-metal mayhem all torqued about. But within was respite, the eye of the storm.
“Any changes?” I said.
“No. I’m glad you’re here.”
I looked at her legs. “I wish I—”
“No, Aidan. You’re here. I’m not scared now. We’re together.”
I nodded. “That’s right.”
“Lift,” came the command outside. “One, two, three. Lift.” The car shifted.
“There you go.”
“Can you get across?”
“One second.”
“Okay. Good.”
Light shone brighter through the wool. My arms felt freed. I pulled away the blanket.
Sower stood and pointed. “Set it down there.”
Five firefighters carried the Mini’s roof and placed it on the hood of the pickup truck.
I rolled away from Julianne. “Hold still.”
“Don’t leave.”
“I won’t.” I placed my hands on either side of her head. “Just keep your head still.”
Waits went to work with the cutters near the open passenger door.
Julianne stared upward. “Tell me what’s happening.”
“Waits is making a relief cut at the base of the dash.”
Timothy moved in with the spreaders. Plastic cracked and squeaked until he found a solid purchase point under the dash, widening the tool from the bottom of the doorframe up.
“Timothy Clark is working to lift the dash now.”
“I can’t feel it,” she said.
“It’s lifting. I can see it. Take my hand.”
A deep groan let out from the car’s front end. The spreaders grunted.
“That’s all it’s got,” Timothy said.
Her legs looked clear. “That’s good,” I said. “We should be good to go.”
Timothy stepped aside as guys brought over a backboard. We slid it under Julianne’s shoulders and pulled her torso straight back. Her face looked stressed but composed. We secured her to the board, immobilizing her neck and spine, and lifted her away from the car and out from under the trailer.
We wound across the freeway toward the ambulance. I walked next to her, carrying the board. She brought a hand to my coat. “Come see me. In the hospital.”
I leaned down. “Of course.”
She squeezed the jacket fabric. “We’ve got to find who did this.”
“I know. I know we do.”
“We have to, Aidan. It can only get worse.”
T
he freeway mess took hours. By the time we left, only four cars had been towed. The rest sat taped off in place with fire line, lit by a portable diesel-powered light plant for the highway patrol investigators.
We ordered pizza by phone on our way back to the station. I showered and changed and sat on the bed in my cube with head in my hands. Visions of a wheelchair-bound Julianne coursed through my mind. Sorrow melded with anguish, and from that caldron anger spawned.
Butcher agreed to let us take the rig to County. Once everyone had eaten, we took the drive and parked by the ER.
I’d begun to hate the place.
Julianne was in CT on our arrival. And the charge nurse was insistent that she not have any visitors. But Julianne had already requested that I be allowed to see her, so as my crew waited in the lobby, I made my way back and stood by the empty space on the floor where her bed had been.
A nurse pushed a gurney down the hall, Julianne in it, cervical collar still in place. I helped roll the gurney back into position.
Julianne looked up. “Hey.” Her voice was raspy, her face pale. She held up a hand.
The radio clipped to my belt squawked until I spun down the volume. I took her hand in mine.
“Come down here,” she said.
I leaned on the rail and she put her hand on my cheek. Her eyes looked peaceful. I wanted to ask her how she felt, but it seemed like such an inept question. I didn’t know what to say. So I did what just felt right.
I brought my fingers to her hair and brushed it back behind her ears. I let my hand trail to her cheek, and she brought hers up and held mine there, closing her eyes and breathing deeply.
“Aidan.” Butcher’s voice startled me. I straightened and turned to see him at the doorway to the room.
I cleared my throat. “Hey, Cap.”
He ran his fingers along his moustache. “We, ah, arranged for your replacement to come in for the rest of the shift. You’re free to stay here as long as you need.”
I felt like someone had lifted a hundred pounds off my back.
“That’s . . . that’s great. Thank you.”
He shrugged and waved. “It was Kat’s idea.”
I looked back at Julianne. She kept hold of my hand and smiled.
I handed my radio to Butcher. “Thank you.”
He nodded and stepped backward. “Give us a call if you need us.”
I woke in a chair and brought into blinking focus the walls of a windowless ICU room. IV pumps clicked metered drips through tubing. My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. Julianne held a yellow legal pad in the air, scrawling notes.
I stretched, sore from the sleeping position. “Hey. What are you up to?”
“One sec, I’m thinking.”
“On paper?”
“Shh.”
The ICU was dimly lit and calm, each room secluded.
I yawned, covering my mouth. “You should be resting.”
Her eyebrows lowered in concentration. “I’ve got too much going through my mind.”
I caught a glimpse of a wall clock. 5:55 a.m.
My cell phone vibrated again. I had a new voice mail.
It was staffing. The BC said that Engine One had left an hour earlier with a strike team of engines to a fire about forty-five miles west into California. The heavy timber was ablaze off of Interstate 80 and was now threatening about three hundred homes on the edge of Truckee. Station One needed bodies to fill spots, and I was next up on the mandatory list.
Julianne laid the notepad on her covers.
I stood by the bed. “I have to go.”
Her eyes flicked a brief moment of protest. She looked to the side.
“It's mandatory. There’s a big fire in Truckee. They need people downtown for anything that might crop up.”
Her eyebrows pinched together. She brought her bottom lip up. “It’s all right. They’re taking good care of me here.”
I didn’t feel right leaving her. “Maybe I can find a way out of—”
“It’s okay. There are some things we need to talk about, though. So I’ll call you, all right?”
Those eyes held a story. “Okay. I’ll talk to you later, then?”
She mustered a smile. “Bye.”
I turned to leave.
“Aidan?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad you were here for me.”
The heart monitor beeped its steady rhythm, green lines tracking across the black-faced screen. I rubbed my chin. “Funny you’d say that. ’Cause I’ve been thinking of it as the other way around.”
A blanket of burgundy hung high in the clouds. The sun shone from the east, illuminating a pall of smoke that seemed to wash an apocalyptic aura over Reno. Traffic ran lighter. Folks walked with empty stares.
“It can only get worse.”
I knew a time of reckoning fast approached. And even though I stood on the shore of a brand new country, with sound footing for the first time in a long time, before me lying a continent of possibilities, I considered that what I had here and now might be all that it ever got to be. That the future for me might soon be cut off, and no matter how adamantly I clung to my hopeful timeline, frayed and loose in space as it were, the end might soon slip from my grasp, irretrievable and unalterable.
I felt so ready to build. For a change. Ready to establish and root into life’s soil. Had I ever really made anything in my life? Anything that would last and not burn? I’d been running for so long. Death had become my god. And I was tired of fighting. Tired of just corralling chaos and stopping loss. I wanted to lay down my arms and proclaim a truce.
My faith was eternal, I knew that much. But, as irony is fitting, just as I’d found peace in the here and now, I sensed that my life soon would be asked of me.
A
t Station One the reserve ’79 Seagrave sat parked in Engine One’s spot. No air-conditioning apart from the wind. No heater in the open-cab backseats save for the engine cowling against your leg. No AM/FM radio. The only music it made was the mechanical grinder wailing under the weight of the captain’s boot.
My dad had loved that rig.
I could hear him and Sower joking.
“Great name for a fire
engine. Bad name for a boat.”
I was appointed acting captain on it. Apparently any warm body would do when it all hit the fan. I checked and rechecked my air pack, shut the cabinet door, and climbed up into the front of the cab. The dash was broad like a coffee table; the floor, flat and spacious diamond-plate steel; the grinder button conspicuous in the far right corner. I reminded myself to avoid stepping on it later when I climbed in, though inevitably, I knew I would, and it was sure to be at two in the morning and down in the app bay. I held the black cardboard-bound Central map book on my lap and reviewed the streets, their familiar grid pattern, reciting the order of roads moving south along Wells. Roberts, Thoma, Cheney, Taylor, Crampton, Burns. I wanted to be ready when the time came.
Tom Flannigan came in on overtime to drive. Despite his twenty-eight years with the department, he refused to bump up to captain. Perhaps I should say
because
of his time—wisdom coming with age. The Seagrave was familiar territory for him, an old friend, battle-tested and true. He was happy to drive and not shoulder the responsibilities of the officer’s seat. As he walked past the rig and saw me flipping through the map book, he chuckled to himself.