THE CAVERN OF DEEP HARMONY
PART THIRTY-SEVEN:
Marshall woke in
the morning, feeling fingers on his wrist. Someone was taking his pulse.
"Marcy?" he asked warily, his pulse speeding up just a bit.
"No, Maria," came the reply.
"Thank God," he murmured.
"She give you a hard time in the night, Dr. Sinclair?"
"Three inch nails. All over."
"Ah, yes, that would be our Marcy."
"She said people would be coming to pound me. Is that true?"
Maria chuckled at his phrasing. "Not for you. Not yet anyway. Drainage, um,
pounding therapy is, um, contraindicated by pleural effusions and empyema. So
you're safe."
"You mean they can't beat on me because my chest leaks?"
"Something like that."
He relaxed a bit. "Any chance Marcy's not working the night shift tonight?"
"She's on, but I think you'll be in a private room in plenty of time, so you'll
miss out on her company, I'm afraid."
"Poor me," he sighed.
"Poor me, you mean," she came back. "I'll miss your Greek."
"Did I really do that? Much?"
"A lot. You have quite a memory."
"It's compensation from the gods."
"Compensation?"
"Yep. They felt guilty."
"Ah!" she said, actually understanding what he meant. "What else can you do?
Besides the Odyssey, I mean."
"I can do The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere."
"In Greek?"
"I'd have to think about that," he chuckled.
"Well, if you come up with it, please let me know."
"So how'm I doing?"
"Fever's down more. 101.8. The miracle of modern medicine."
"Look, Maria," he said, suddenly serious. "I can feel my body from the inside
but I can't see it. Would you tell me what's going on with my hide?"
"You are black and blue over about, oh, 60 to 75% of yourself. You know black
and blue?"
He nodded. "In my own fashion, yes."
"Some of the bruises are just light and superficial, but others are really deep
into the muscle, especially on your legs. Your right knee is swollen and a
rather glorious purple. You have a lot of scratches, none terribly deep, on your
face, neck, and wrists. I think the leather jacket you had on probably prevented
a lot more of those to your body. The jacket itself, by the way, is a total
loss. The only thing you might be able to wear again is the flannel shirt. The
pants were fairly well shredded and the shoes, well, just forget the shoes."
"Anything else?"
"You have a slight concussion where it looks like something fell on your head
and then scraped
a bit down your
temple and cheek." She'd heard the stories about the possibilities of how the
convicts had left him but didn't want to comment on it in case he had no memory
of it.
"That would be the tree branch," he sighed, touching his face with his hand.
"There are a lot of reporters, Dr. Sinclair. I don't know if you're aware of
that or not, but there are a lot of people who want to hear your story from
you." A frown passed over his face. "But they can't get to you while you're in
here. I just think you should know what's facing you when
you get out, though."
He sighed. "Blind guy left in woods by rabid convicts, eh?"
"Afraid so. You're big news."
It truly hadn't occurred to him. He wished it hadn't to anybody else, either.
"A lot of people from Duquesne have been calling the hospital, too. Dean,
President of the University, Chairman of the Literature Department. Folks like
that. Not all just the media."
He didn't want to talk to anybody, though, nobody at all...except Eden.
Eden sat on the side of her bed, phone in hand. "Yes, Mom. Everything's going
pretty good now. Yes, he's doing better now. No, I didn't hurt myself. Well, I'm
still not sure. Whenever he comes back to Pittsburgh. Just like I told Connie.
I'll let you know. Ummm hmmm. Yes. Sure, sure, Mom."
She lay back on the bed, her feet still dangling to the floor, the phone pressed
to her chest. It
was always a bit
awkward talking with her mother. She'd never been able to pinpoint precisely
why, maybe just that her mom was so entirely different than she was. Now that
her parents had left Pittsburgh and retired to St. Petersburg, Florida, she
didn't see them so often and most of the keeping up was done by phone. It was on
the phone that the conversational awkwardness seemed to be at its height. Her
Mom's sister, Edith, who was Connie's mother, still lived in Pittsburgh and Eden
had always found her the one she could talk to. In fact, she'd spoken with both
Edith and Connie before calling her parents this morning.
A light tapping sounded on her door. "Eden, honey," Martha said, "Mike's here.
He's walking Wadsworth but seems to be in more of a hurry this morning. Are you
about ready?"
"Be right there," she called, grabbing her purse.
Mike was already in his truck with the engine running as she hurried out the
door. "My, you ARE in a rush today, aren't you? You late for something?"
"Not really," he said, getting the truck in gear rather than looking at her.
He drove down the road, his eyes fixed out the windshield. She studied his
profile. Something was different. "You ok, Mike?" she asked softly.
"Just fine," he replied, neatly avoiding a bag of some sort that had blown onto
the road.
He didn't say more than those four words all the way to the hospital. When he
pulled into a parking space, he didn't cut the engine. "You're not coming in?"
she asked.
"Not this morning."
She'd had her hand on the handle ready to open the door, but paused. "Did I do
something, Mike? Have I presumed too much on your friendship, expected you to do
more than I should have?"
He still didn't turn his eyes toward her. "Nope," he said. "Not possible for you
to do that."
"Then what is it?"
"Just got a batch of stuff on my mind today. That's all."
"Anything I can help you with?"
He pressed his lips tightly together briefly, then one corner curved into a
suggestion of a wry smile. "Don't think so, Eden."
His manner worried her. She realized she missed his sparkly blue eyes and the
calm, efficient way he handled everything. "Mike?"
"I'll get your car here by lunch," he said. "Park it over there near that tree
so you'll know where to look. Be good for you to have your own wheels back
again." His eyes finally flickered sideways, but only very, very briefly. "Best
be getting on, now."
She sighed and got out of the truck, watching as he drove around the corner.
When he knew he was out of sight, he pulled over, folded his forearms on the
steering wheel and rested his face on them. He couldn't do it any more. Couldn't
be close to her like that and not want her. The scent of her still filled the
cab of his truck. It was why he'd made sure Herb would do a hurry-up job on her
car, why he was paying for it himself just to get it back to her. Herb was not a
charitable sort of guy. It just sounded good that he'd want to do that for her
because of the general feeling in the small town over what had happened. No way
Herb'd do
that for nothing, though. After this morning, he wouldn't have to pick her up again, wouldn't have to have her scent in his cab like this, have her sitting so close he could reach out and touch her when he had no right to be touching her, when all in the world he wanted to do was touch her. Be better if he just stayed away. Better for everybody.
Marshall was dozing when she came in, but woke at the sound of her steps. She
leaned over the bed, lightly kissing his lips. "Sleeping Beauty," she whispered
fondly.
"Hardly," he said. "I asked Maria to describe me a bit ago. Evidently I'm
rather...colorful."
"Positively psychedelic," she said, "but you're beautiful to me."
"It's so good to hear your voice," he sighed, reaching for her hand. "Sometimes
I start to feel
cut off from
reality in here."
She pulled the chair close again so he could comfortably hold her hand. "I saw
Maria on my
way in. She said
your fever's down more. Any news about the darn chest tube?"
"I'm not supposed to touch it," he whispered conspiratorially. "Night nurse
threatened beheading if I did." The fingers of his left hand, however, were
slightly curled over it even as
he spoke.
"And I can see how well you paid attention to her." It was Dr. Hersholtz.
Marshall's hand fell guiltily to his side.
"Here, let me have a look at it." In a moment he straightened and said,
"Drainage rate has slowed considerably overnight. Might even get it out before
evening. We'll just have to wait
and see how the day
goes." He looked at the entries that had been made on the chart. "Good, good.
Fever's down." He lifted Marshall's left wrist, taking his pulse, then listened
to his chest sounds. "Ok," he announced. "I'm going to arrange a private room
for you this morning. The orderlies will be by for you in, oh, about an hour,
I'd say."
He stopped in the doorway, looking back at Eden. "And he needs as much rest as
he can get, young lady. You keep that in mind, all right?"
Hersholtz had only been gone a moment when Marshall coughed several times,
having to hold his left hand across his chest as he did and a wad of tissues to
his mouth. "Sorry," he said, "lung-stuff still coming up."
She saw how it hurt him to cough and he explained how it wasn't just the
pleurisy and all,
but the combination of all the bruises and pulled muscles that made it so hard. "And then they turn me," he said. "Not good for me just to lie in one position all the time. But they have to do
it for me. Can't
even roll on my side or anything right now by myself." He grimaced, remembering
how much even a simple turning hurt.
"Marshall?" she said, her voice low. "Is it all right, darling, if I ask you
about the tree? The
one at the top of
the ridge where they left you."
"It's ok, Eden," he smiled. "I can talk about anything I remember. It's really
ok."
"Did....did they...?"
"Yes, they did. I heard a couple of the orderlies out in the hall talking about
what the police think happened. They actually have it fairly right."
"How...was...that? To be left there like that? When I got up there, I couldn't
imagine anyone would do something like that."
"You were there? All the way up there?" He hadn't realized that somehow.
"I went everywhere you did. Mike, Wadsworth, and me. We trailed your whole
route. Well,
not down into the
big hole left by the fallen tree, but everything else."
"You...you saw the fallen tree? You went that whole way?"
"I had to. You'd gone that way. I had to."
"Oh, Eden, I didn't know."
"I couldn't just stay there by the bridge and let everybody else try to find
you. Besides, they started off looking in the wrong direction. But Waddy knew.
He knew all along which way
you'd gone. So Mike
and I and some officer named Barry, we went the other way, the right
way." She paused, remembering. "But tell me about the tree on the ridge."
"Not all that much to tell. I was on my knees in the snow. I had this sense that
the bigger one
of the convicts wanted to get rid of me. I was coughing and slowing them down and he didn't
like it. I don't
know what he was doing, but the other one said something that made him
stop." He closed his eyes, trying to take a deep breath, but it hurt his chest
too much. Then
he held up both hands about a foot apart. "They'd tied me," he explained, "with about this
much leeway between
my wrists, and suddenly the big one just pulled me up and yanked
the rope over a branch and I could hear them leaving."
She put her hand up to her mouth and kept it there as he continued. "Couldn't
get the rope to move forward or back, so I just jumped a couple of times and the
branch broke. Fell right on me," he said, his fingers going to the side of his
face. "But it worked. Then I just kept going
down hill from
there, trying to find the stream again." He coughed some more and felt really
tired afterwards, so she suggested he nap a bit until the orderlies came and
she'd go get some coffee.
As she stood by a glass section of the wall, sipping the hot liquid, she noticed
an EMT vehicle backing up to the emergency entrance a bit off to her left. Mike
got out, striding quickly around to where his men were unloading a gurney with
an elderly man who was having symptoms of a heart attack. His gaze passed
briefly over where she was standing, but if he saw her there, he gave no sign of
it and soon disappeared into that section of the hospital.
She sighed. "What happened, Mike? Where did my friend go?"
ON TO PART 38
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BACK TO PART 36
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INDEX