Love, Like Water (11 page)

Tucker was silent a moment, then said, “Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ. Where are you? Did you call Whitey?”

“Just now. I just found him. Jesus, Tuck, he’s burning up.” Eli had tucked the phone between his ear and shoulder and was fumbling through the first aid kit. He put the ear thermometer in Josh’s ear. “Shit, he’s at 104. I’ve got ice packs and water, and I’ve got a reflective blanket I’m putting on him… now.” He pulled the silver package from the bottom of the first aid bag and unfolded it, flipping it so it shaded both him and Joshua. Under the shelter from the sun, he could feel the heat radiating from Josh, and wiped his face again gently. He heard Tucker talking to someone, and then he came back on the line.

“Ray’s on the phone with Whitey now. The helicopter’s on the way. We’ve got your coordinates and they’ll be looking for the reflector. Sit tight. Just keep Josh as cool as you can get him.”

“Okay.”

“I’m gonna hang up now. The copter crew will have your phone number, so I want to leave the line open. They should be there in less than ten minutes, Ray says. We’ll meet you at the hospital.”

“You’ll meet Josh at the hospital. I’ve got to get Milagro back.”

“Good enough.” There was silence a moment, and Eli was just about to disconnect the call when he heard Tucker’s voice again. “Eli?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. You done good.”

“We’ll see,” Eli said, and hit the button. He put the phone back in its holster, then turned back to Josh.

He shifted the ice packs so the skin didn’t freeze, trying to keep them places where the blood flow was strongest. When that was done, he tried lifting Josh’s head to hold a bottle to his lips to see if he could swallow. The water ran from the sides of his mouth and he didn’t respond at all. Eli set the bottle down carefully and held Josh in his lap under the silver blanket, waiting helplessly, his heart breaking. “Oh, baby boy,” he whispered, “don’t do this to me.
No me hagas esto, mijo.
Please don’t. Please don’t.”

The flick-flick-flick of the approaching copter warned him, and he caught the edge of the blanket before it could blow away. He heard Milagro shift nervously, but then Billy’s voice said, “Easy up, Milo old boy,” and Milagro chuffed in response. Billy lifted the edge of the blanket and said, “I was with Whitey when the call came in. Figured you’d be ready for a break, old man,” and then the paramedics were there, pulling off the blanket and taking Josh from Eli’s arms.

They wrapped Josh in a cooling blanket and carried him to the copter. One of them came back, held a hand out to Eli and pulled him to his feet. Eli felt like an old man, like he’d been sitting there forever instead of for a mere ten minutes or so. “Good job with the ice packs, man. Good thinking.”

Eli nodded dumbly.

Billy said, “You go with ’em, Eli. I’ll get Milo home. You look wrecked.”

Rubbing his face with a still-wet hand, Eli nodded again. He bent and picked up the gloves he’d peeled off when he’d started working on Josh and tucked them into his belt. His hands were shaking. Silently, he followed the paramedic to where the helicopter waited.

Chapter 9

“T
EMPERATURE
’
S
102.6. Coming down,” one of the paramedics reported. “How’s that drip coming?”

“Nearly ready, but Jesus, this guy’s veins are all fucked up. Arms like a junkie. Gonna be hard to get a line in him, with the dehydration.”

“Just keep trying.”

“He was,” Eli said, his voice cracking. “He’s recovering. It’s why he came out here.”

The paramedic’s voice softened. “We’ll do our best to make sure he has the chance—Eli, was it?—Eli. What happened? He don’t look like he’s in any shape to go hiking.”

“I don’t know for sure. He took his backpack so I guess he was walking to town and got lost. Must have lost his backpack out there somewhere.” He didn’t know why he lied, but it seemed the right thing to say at the moment.

“Hell and gone from the road, but I know damn well how confusing it can get. Report said he’d been missing since before dawn—easy to get off course in the dark with no lights and no road signs.” The paramedic finished setting up the drip and started to get Joshua ready for the insertion.

But the moment the needle touched Josh’s skin, he woke and started screaming in Spanish, and thrashed his arms wildly. The paramedics grabbed for him but he just kept screaming, “
No! No lo quiero! No lo quiero!
”

Eli caught his arms, murmuring, “
Basta, chico. Basta mijo. Mijo valiente. Mijo bonito.
”
Enough, my boy. My brave boy. My beautiful boy
. “
Confía en ellos, yo nunca dejaría que nadie te hiciera daño. Yo nunca dejaré que nadie te haga daño. Nunca te harán daño.
”
Trust them, I wouldn’t let anyone hurt you. I would never let anyone hurt you. I will never hurt you
. The words came automatically, as easily as English—the ranch he’d grown up on had had plenty of Hispanic cowboys on it, and after ten years in New Mexico, Eli’s Spanish was as good as his English.

The paramedics waited impatiently as Eli crooned to Joshua, keeping his own fear from his voice and just focusing on calming him. Josh moaned and cried, his body jerking in semiconscious protest, his legs flailing weakly. Finally, Josh lay panting, his eyes blank and his body trembling. He whimpered a little when they set the line for the drip, but he suffered it passively. “Joshua?” Eli said.

He didn’t answer, just lay in Eli’s arms, limp and unresponsive; if his eyes hadn’t been open, Eli would have thought him unconscious again. But he was breathing, at least, and it might have been Eli’s imagination, but he thought Josh seemed cooler. He said so to the paramedic, who nodded, but then reached out and closed Joshua’s eyes. “Why did you do that?”

“So his eyeballs won’t dry out,” the paramedic said. “He’s still not conscious, really.” He checked to make sure the saline was flowing easily, taped down the line, and got more ice packs out of a case. “He’s doing pretty well, though considering his poor condition overall, he’s far from out of the woods. The hospital’s been notified and will be waiting to admit him.” He put a hand on Eli’s shoulder. “I gotta warn you, man—your friend’s in a lot of trouble. He’s gonna be sick for a while, and there can be a lot of effects from heatstroke as severe as this. Be prepared. I’m really sorry.” The look in his eyes was compassionate. “It’s gonna be hard. He got family?”

“His uncle’s on his way to the hospital. I guess we’ll wait to see what’s going on before calling his mom.” Eli felt numb, far more exhausted than an hour’s ride and the quarter hour since he’d found Joshua would seem to warrant. He wanted to curl up beside Josh on the cooling blanket and just go to sleep, but instead, he tucked the blanket closer around Joshua and sat on the floor of the helicopter beside him.

T
ONIO
drove Tucker to the hospital in the Silverado. Tuck sat in the passenger seat with his eyes closed, the air conditioning blowing on his face, and him feeling every bump, every turn, every slight swerve, the very texture of the roadbed beneath the tires. He felt sick, in that strange, horrified way one felt when things are happening too fast to absorb. It wasn’t hard to figure out that Josh hadn’t gotten lost on his way to town and just wandered off the road—the coordinates Eli had called in were nearly twenty miles northwest of the ranch, and a good thirty miles from the road, in a completely different direction. Where the hell did Josh think he was going? Santa Fe? Over the mountains?

The helicopter was just settling on the roof of the hospital in Miller as they pulled into the parking lot. Some of the locals had put up a stink about the increase in county taxes to expand and update the hospital as a trauma center, but Tucker hadn’t been one of them, and he was glad now. He slid out of the truck almost before it had stopped moving and lurched into the lobby, feeling every bit of his fifty-nine and a half years.

“Tucker?” The nurse on duty was Ellen Pacheco—she’d gone to school with Hannah. “What’s wrong? One of your hands get hurt?”

“No—my nephew. That’s him on the roof, in the copter. Can you tell me where they’ll be taking him?”

She punched some keys on the computer screen. “He’s been preadmitted through Emergency. They’ll be taking him right to the Heatstroke Center for treatment. Hang on—I’ll see if you can go on up. Says Elian Kelly’s with him?”

“Yeah, Eli found him.” Tucker went to rub his head and his hat fell off. He bent and picked it up, then held it awkwardly. “Does it say how he’s doin’?”

She shook her head. “Sorry, no. But Dr. Castellano is on ER duty today—he’s in very good hands.” She picked up the phone, murmured something, then hung up with a smile. “Go on up to Four, turn left off the elevator and through the doors there. There’s a desk and Graciela will meet you there. She’s the nurse on duty for that department.”

“Thanks,” Tucker said, and headed for the elevators.

G
RACIELA
was a smiling middle-aged woman, who came around the desk and took his arm. “They’ve just arrived and are assessing the situation, Mr. Chastain. Mr. Kelly is in the waiting room. Would you like some coffee while you’re waiting?”

“Yes, please,” he said numbly, letting her lead him to the small, carpeted room a bit past the desk.

Eli was there, twisting his big gray hat in his hands. When he saw Tucker, the hat fell to the floor. Tucker looked at it. “Lot of that going on these days,” he said, and tossed his own hat onto one of the chairs.

“Tuck….”

“Eli, I owe you an apology,” Tucker said. “I know I came off too strong, ’cause I was worrit about Josh and looking to blame someone. I’m sorry. I just….” He flapped his hands wordlessly.

“If you hadn’t, he mighta been dead by now.” Eli shook his head. Picking up his hat, he dropped it next to Tucker’s and sat down beside them.

“How’s he doin’?”

Eli shrugged, but his face was drawn and frightened. “Unconscious. When he wasn’t unconscious, he was delirious. Thought the paramedics were trying to give him heroin, I think. He kept yelling ‘
no lo quiero, no lo quiero
.’ Figure that musta been what it was.” He looked back up at Tuck. “You think that’s how he got hooked? They made him do it?”

“Makes more sense than the boy seeking it out. You didn’t know Josh as a boy, Eli. He had a will of iron. I’ll never forget the summer he was about eight, I think. There was a horse he wanted to ride in the worst way, but my dad wouldn’t let him. Thought it was too much horse for him. Too wild. Josh got up every single morning at the crack of dawn and spent it with that horse, talking to it, getting it used to him, until that damn horse would do anything he asked. One morning he lets it out of the corral, walks up to my dad with the horse following him like a dog, and sez, ‘He don’t seem real wild to me, Grandpa.’” Tucker snorted. “My dad just laughed and laughed, and said that right there was proof the boy was a Chastain through and through.”

“What happened to the horse?”

“Had to sell it—one of our regular rodeo customers was looking for a horse just like it. ’Bout broke Joshua’s heart, but he took it like a man. Dad explained to him that they were a working ranch, and they couldn’t afford to keep an animal just for a pet, especially when we had all the working stock we needed, and Josh was only on the ranch two months out of the year. He promised that the next year he’d start teaching him how to train horses. And he did, for the next two years. Then he died, and Hannah didn’t come out any more. But it’s more than just that, Eli. He finished college a year early, was a full FBI field agent at twenty-five, and spent three years undercover in what hadda be a pretty dangerous situation. And when he got away from it, he went right into rehab. He mighta quit the Bureau, but he’s not a quitter. He ain’t weak. That’s why… that’s why….” He stopped, his throat full of tears.

“That’s why nothin’, Tuck. He got lost is all. He was heading for town, and he got lost.” Eli’s voice was fierce. “And if the doctors ask, that’s what we’ll tell ’em.” His voice dropped. “If they think that he meant to lose himself, that it was deliberate, they’ll commit him. Josh don’t need a hospital. He ain’t crazy. He’s tired and sad and needs time and work to get over it. Yeah, maybe he needs a shrink some—I don’t think you’ll mind if he needs to go to the city once a week or so. Hell, I’ll drive him if you want. But he don’t belong locked up. Nothing good ever came of keeping an animal locked up.”

“You and your animal comparisons,” Tucker snorted, but at least he wasn’t on the verge of crying like a baby anymore.

Elian shrugged. “Animals are a sight easier to deal with than people, I reckon.”

They sat there in companionable quiet, just as they might on the porch on a summer evening, neither with anything to say and no need to say it. It was maybe a half hour later that the doctor came in, the little paper mask down around his neck and a clipboard stuck under one arm.

“Hey, Tuck. Hey, Eli.”

“Jack,” Eli said.

“Jack, what’s going on? How’s Josh doin’?”