Remembering August (Triple C Ranch Saga) Read online

“Holy crap!”

  “Don’t react, Josh, just tell me what you see,” said Doyle over his shoulder.

  “Got a contusion above the patient’s left breast, approximately twelve by fifteen centimeters. She took a pretty good hit. The collarbone is fractured and raised about three centimeters.”

  “Copy,” said Doyle. “What’s the pulse-ox?”

  “Ninety-three.”

  “Good. Keep calling out vitals. Try getting a verbal response again.”

  Joan stomped the gas pedal to the floor as the ambulance disappeared down the concrete drive. The rear tires made a loud screech as they spun against the smooth concrete garage floor. “Whoa!” Joan said as she eased off of the accelerator.

  As he approached the end of the driveway, Doyle switched on the siren and headed toward the freeway.

  “Colleen, can you hear me?” the rookie asked loudly. Colleen let out a muffled moan, but did not open her eyes. Josh brushed Colleen’s hair back from her forehead with his right hand, and called her name again. No response.

  CHAPTER 2

  Joan hit every stoplight from the Triple C to Las Palmas Hospital. She applied the brakes full-force and the tired El Camino skidded to a halt in front of the driveway. Multi-colored temporary signs were everywhere. The newly-constructed expansion that Joan read about in the newspaper was nearly completed, and the old signs were gone. Tears filled her eyes as she remembered the last time she found herself at Las Palmas Hospital. Images of the events from that horrible day a year ago flashed through her head.

  “She’ll be okay,” she said aloud, sniffling and wiping the tears from her bloodshot eyes. The power steering pump whined as she turned sharply toward the entrance. “Employee parking spaces full. Use remote parking lot,” she said as she read the first sign that caught her eye. “There it is.” She ignored the stop sign and maneuvered into a parking spot marked COMPACT ONLY. The El Camino was a bit larger than compact, but she didn’t care. She squeezed the car Colleen referred to as “The Bitch” into the spot, and turned off the ignition. The ignition wouldn’t let go of the keys. She forgot to shift the transmission into “Park” before shutting off the engine, a habit of hers.

  “Damn it,” she said. In a blur of synchronized motion, Joan freed herself from the El Camino and pushed the door closed with the heel of her boot. Her hurried footsteps echoed through the parking structure. The thick concrete pillars looked like an obstacle course that made no sense. She followed painted yellow footsteps on the sidewalk, nearly running into a young Hispanic woman pushing an empty stroller as she rounded the corner.

  There in the space marked COLD ZONE was Unit 23, its strobe lights still flashing bright beams of red and white. Joan skidded to a halt and peered inside Unit 23’s open double doors. Neither Colleen nor the paramedics were anywhere in sight.

  “Shit.”

  The loud clicking sound of automatic doors caught Joan’s attention. Dewey Doyle guided the empty gurney through the doors with Josh.

  “Ms. Caldwell?” called Doyle as he made eye contact with Joan.

  “Y—Yes!” Joan answered as she slowed to a stop.

  “Ms. Caldwell, Colleen’s gonna be just fine. They’re already prepping her for surgery on the leg,” Doyle announced.

  Joan put her hands to her mouth.

  “She’s in good hands,” Doyle continued. “Her vital signs are stable, and she didn’t lose much blood, thanks to you.”

  “Me? W—”

  “You did a really god job on her leg,” Doyle interrupted.

  “N—No… the cowboy must’ve…” Joan stuttered.

  “The cowboy?”

  Joan took a deep breath and let it out, calming herself a little. “There was a man. A cowboy. He must’ve done it.”

  “Is he here with you?”

  “No. I don’t know who he is.”

  “Well, whoever he is, he sure knew what he was doin’. Doc says he couldn’t have done it better if he were in the field himself.”

  Joan was growing impatient. She started toward the patient entrance again, and then stopped suddenly.

  “Thank you. Mister…” Joan turned toward them again.

  “Doyle. Dewey Doyle. We met a year ago when your son… I mean… when I was… and this is my partner Josh Tyler.”

  “At your service, ma’am,” Josh said with a wave of his still-gloved hand.

  Joan placed her right hand over her heart. “I remember you now. Thank you,” she said meekly, choked up with emotion.

  “You’re welcome, Ms. Caldwell. That’s what we’re here for.”

  Joan resumed her course. The double doors swung outward and she disappeared into the heart of Las Palmas.

  †

  Camorrista rattled the bath stall chains nervously as Carlos Guzman rinsed her soapy withers. Carlos thought about Colleen and how the day would have turned out differently had he been more careful with the show ring gate. A Sunday afternoon at the Triple C was typically reserved for lazy card games in the bunkhouse, open-pit barbeque, and Joan’s special sun tea, but Carlos wanted none of that. He thought instead of his father, and how he would be ashamed of Carlos if he were alive. Countless times his father reminded him that twenty generations before him knew the business of horses, and that Guzman forefathers trained Lipizzaners at the Spanish Riding School of Vienna in the late sixteenth century.

  Carlos did a Sign of the Cross and turned his thoughts back to Colleen. He swallowed hard.

  †

  Religion was not Joan Caldwell’s strong suit, but she prayed silently in the waiting area of the hospital. “Please, God,” she said softly, “Help Colleen.” She recited what she knew of the Lord’s Prayer, and stumbled through the parts she couldn’t remember. “Something about trespasses… For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.”

  Joan felt a warm hand on her shoulder and looked up. An elderly priest performed a Sign of the Cross with his eyes closed. Joan bowed her head again and closed her eyes.

  “Bless this child in her time of need,” he said. “In your holy name we pray. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Joan repeated. She looked up again. “Thank you, Father,” she said. “I need all of the help I can get.”

  “The coffee cart outside is only open during the week, but we can find a pot of the good stuff around here somewhere. Can I buy you a cup?” he said.

  “No, thank you.”

  “Well, there’s a gorgeous little garden out there. It’s a perfect place for a prayer or two.”

  “Well, I’m not Catholic or anything.”

  “You don’t need to be Catholic to appreciate a beautiful garden,” he said. “And besides, Shakespeare said, ‘Sweet flowers that grow slowly should be enjoyed, but you should never sit in the weeds or they’ll grow so fast that they’ll hastily overtake you’.”

  “Shakespeare said that?” asked Joan.

  “Well… sort of. That’s two quotes kind of mashed together.”

  “All right. I’ll be sittin’ in the weeds for a while after today anyway.” Joan wiped a tear, gathered herself, and followed the priest.

  †

  “A pack of Marlboro Reds in the box, please,” the shirtless cowboy said to the gas station cashier.

  “Just one?” replied a Hispanic man in his early twenties.

  “Please.”

  The cashier noticed the dirty blue bandage on the cowboy’s left hand. “You okay?”

  “Yeah… Cut myself shavin’.”

  The cashier chuckled as he retrieved the cigarettes from the bin above him. “That’s funny, man. Anything else?”

  The cowboy leaned forward and peered through the small security window. “Nah, that’ll do… John,” he said as he read the cashier’s name tag.

  “Four eighty-five, Mister…” John waited for the cowboy to fill in the blank with his name, but got no reply.

  The cowboy reached in the right pocket of his faded jeans, and pulled out a five. “Keep the change, John
.”

  “Gee, thanks a lot, Mister…” John tried for a response again.

  The cowboy turned his back and began to open his pack of smokes. “Jim,” he said without looking back. “Just Jim.”

  Jim’s broad, well-defined back was covered in a large, colorful tattoo of the Christ nailed to the cross.

  “Wow,” John said, surprised.

  “A friend of mine did that for me. Not bad, huh?”

  “Incredible.” He noticed a leather pouch attached to Jim’s belt in the small of his back. He guessed that at one time it held a fairly intimidating blade. After a pause, he said, “Better have that hand looked at. The hospital is just up the street on Lynn.”

  “Thanks. I will.” The cowboy held the pack of cigarettes with his bandaged hand, and removed a smoke with his right. He tapped the filter on the pack twice, put it in his mouth, and pulled a shiny, copper-colored Zippo from his pocket. He snapped his fingers, and the lid of the lighter flew open. He cupped the end of the cigarette and was about light it when a large, black Suburban pulled into the handicapped space in front of him. Jim closed the lighter, put it back in his pocket, and removed the cigarette from his mouth.

  Behind the wheel of the Suburban was a man in his mid-twenties. He had curly, shoulder-length hair that stuck out from beneath a beige Gatsby-like hat.

  Jim placed the cigarette behind his right ear and took a step forward. He scanned the license plate and rear view mirror for the handicap sticker. The Gatsby man kicked open the door, hopped out, and whipped the door shut behind him. He trotted toward the curb and did a quick hop to the concrete sidewalk, but Jim stopped him with a quick stiff-arm to his chest. Gatsby stood speechless, blinking.

  Jim was a few inches shorter than Gatsby, but outweighed him by at least fifty pounds. “Where’s your handicap sticker?” he asked calmly.

  “Why, were you gonna park here?”

  “No… and neither are you.”

  “I’ll be done in a minute, dude.”

  He started up the curb a second time, but Jim sent him back to the asphalt. “You’re already done,” he said.

  Gatsby tried again. “Who are you, the Good Samaritan now?”

  He tried to squeeze between Jim and the soda machine, but Jim cut him off and hit Gatsby in the stomach with an uppercut. Gatsby doubled over and cradled his stomach with both arms, but couldn’t make a sound. Jim stepped off the curb, raised his right knee, and drove his heel into Gatsby’s left kneecap. He collapsed to the hot, oil-stained pavement.

  “Now you can see your doctor,” said Jim as he stood up and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “He’ll give you a sticker.”

  Gatsby was in the fetal position on the asphalt, holding his knee with one hand, and his stomach with the other. Jim took the cigarette from behind his ear and was about to light it again, but Gatsby screamed in pain. A few bystanders gathered around them. He wedged the cigarette behind his ear again and buried his left hand in his pocket to hide the bloody bandage. He stepped over Gatsby and landed his boot squarely in the middle of his hat, and then continued toward the intersection.

  †

  Joan Caldwell rarely shared her troubles with close family, let alone a priest she hardly knew. Father Francis Jones, a staple at Las Palmas Hospital, always knew just the right things to say to get people to spill their guts. It was a gift he always had, and helpful for a priest who hears hundreds of confessions every week. Joan hadn’t met many priests in her sixty-one years on God’s green earth, but this one seemed different from the ones she had met as a young girl. There was something calming about him. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she knew she could tell Father Francis anything… and she did.

  Tears flowed from her eyes as she told the story of what happened to Colleen that morning, and the story of what happened to Chase nearly a year before. She said things that no other person alive had ever heard before. She talked about Chase’s father, who drank heavily and was a notorious philanderer up until the time of his death fifteen years ago. Even Chase didn’t know most of the things about his father that Joan told the priest. This “confession” in the small, beautifully laden rose garden was something that Joan needed desperately. It was just what the doctor ordered.

  The flurry of tears rivaled the trickle of the fountain at the garden’s center. One by one, memories came to the surface and were released like doves at the beginning of an Olympic ceremony. Pages and pages of memories were ripped from Joan’s novel of a mind, and were thrown into the wind. Everyone in the world disappeared except Joan and the seventy-one-year old priest.

  Father Francis Jones heard many confessions in his nearly thirty years of priesthood, but never had he heard so many different stories from one person in one hour’s time. Unbridled guilt flowed from the woman sitting next to him like champagne flows at a wedding reception. Guilt from Joan’s many miscarriages before Chase was born. The baby daughter she lost to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome two weeks after bringing her home from the hospital, and the guilt Chase’s father placed on her shoulders because of it.

  Joan spoke of how Colleen filled the emptiness that only a mother can feel in her heart following her son’s death, and how Colleen became the daughter she always wanted. She talked about Chase and Colleen’s fairytale wedding as if it happened yesterday, and how complete she’d felt when the bride and groom both said, “I do.” Joan brought Father Jones up to speed, so to speak. He listened intently as she went over the events that happened less than two hours ago, which brought her back to the present. Tears stopped. Joan sat up rigidly as if she found new strength. She was a rock again.

  He smiled as Joan looked him squarely in the eye. “How many people have you told this to?” he asked with a weak smile.

  “Not many,” she replied, her tone more calm and confident.

  “God listens to all his children. Sometimes people get lost and forget that he hears everything, sees everything, and forgives everything he hears and sees.”

  “Thank you, Father. I… don’t know what came over me. I feel like I should apologize to you for all of my ranting and raving. You have sick people that need you, and I took up so much of your time.”

  “Anytime, my child,” he said. “Let’s pray together. Just a quickie,” he said with an even wider smile, which Joan found comforting.

  “I’m not very good at that part, Father.”

  “That’s okay,” comforted the priest, who stood up and faced Joan. “I’ll say some words about asking the Lord to help you find strength, I’ll touch your head a few times, and then I’ll make it look like I’m swatting flies or something when I talk about the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Like this.” Father Jones demonstrated a rather loose sign. It was different than the one she saw him do while she was praying in the lobby. “Sound like a deal to you?” he asked.

  “Deal,” she said as she began to bow her head, fold her fingers together at her chin and close her eyes like she did before.

  “Amen.”

  “Amen?” Joan said as she looked up again, confused.

  “Yup! Ahh-men. See how quick that was? We were praying together and you didn’t even know it. I’m sneaky that way.”

  “You’re not like any other priest I ever met before, you know that?” Joan said with a chuckle as she touched Father Jones on the arm.

  “You know, you should never touch a priest,” he replied in a serious tone as the smile instantly disappeared from his face.

  “Oh my G—” Joan caught herself. “Really? I’m sorry. I had no idea—”

  Father Jones interrupted with a loud belly laugh. “I was kidding.”

  Joan swatted at his arm, but missed as the agile priest pulled away quickly, much like a grandfather playing “gimme five” with a toddler before saying, “Too slow!”

  “You cause too much trouble, Frank,” a man’s voice with an Asian accent announced from the double doors of the lobby.

  “Doctor Nguyen,” Father Jones said as he stuck out his
hand in greeting.

  “Hi. I Doctor Nguyen,” replied the man dressed in scrubs and a surgeon’s cap.

  “I know who you are, smart Abraham,” Father Jones replied, replacing the word ass with something more biblical. “But have you met my friend?” he asked and motioned toward Joan.

  Joan stood up, and all of the balled-up tissues from the “garden confession” fell from her lap and onto the ground at her feet.

  “Sh—” Joan quickly covered her mouth with her left hand.

  “That okay. I swear in Vietnamese in operating room all time. Nurses not know what I say,” Doctor Nguyen said as he stuck out his right hand to greet Joan.

  Joan bent over to one side, gathered the tissues, and shook Doctor Nguyen’s hand. “Joan Caldwell. Nice to meet you, Doctor Nguyen,” Joan said as she stood up, towering over the short, fifty-something doctor.

  “You the one I come out to see. It okay if I talk in front of priest who make too much trouble?”

  “Yes,” replied Joan. “You’re Colleen’s doctor?”

  “Yes, I just finish with her,” he said, turning suddenly serious.

  “How is she?” Joan asked, returning both hands to her mouth as was her habit. Her heart suddenly raced again.

  Father Jones stood with his feet apart about shoulder width, grabbed his elbow, and touched his chin with his fist as if bracing himself for bad news.

  “She doing fine,” replied Doctor Nguyen. “She have broken collarbone on left side. Not much we do for that. We put her arm in sling.” He paused and took a breath as he slid the blue surgical cap off of his head, revealing patches of salt-and-pepper gray hair. “She have a few bruise on her ribs, so she hurt there for a while.”

  “How about her leg?” Joan asked, fearing the worst.

  “We do surgery on the leg to put larger bone back. It was a straight break, so that make it easy,” replied the doctor. “She will have cast and four pin. It hold both bone like this,” he said, demonstrating with his index fingers.

  “Can I see her yet?” asked Joan.