Ms. Got Rocks (15 page)

Her Dad came through for her again; there was a grappling hook in the truck. Rocky had scraped her hand twice on that sucker loading groceries into the truck but never really paid attention to it before.

With the grappling hook tied to the line, Rocky could attempt to throw it around anything on the closest pontoon and perhaps if it caught well enough she could just pull the dredge over to the riverbank away from the river current.

“Okay, I have the plan, let’s do it,” Rocky muttered into the soft summer air.

Later, lying on the hot sand with her eyes closed, she talked to her sister in law on the cell phone, Rocky rested. She had tried a dozen times to sling that damn grappling hook over the pontoon. She was in such pain in her chest, she did not think she was going to die, she really truly wanted to die.

Calling Margie to ask Devlin to come to the bridge when he got off work, Rocky knew she would be in the same spot on the sand burned to a crispy critter. When they disconnected, Rocky snuggled back onto the sand and asked God to please let the dredge stay where it was for a few more hours. She let the warm California sun wash over her, and tried not to breathe too deeply.

Sirens were coming that way; Rocky wondered what was happening, maybe there was a grass fire. The sirens were getting louder and she forced herself up into a sitting position.

The sirens were screaming closer, Rocky saw a county rescue truck and a fire truck racing over the bridge.

“Are they coming for me?” Rocky wondered.

Within moments EMT’s and fire crews surrounded her. While she was being given the once over by the EMT crew, she watched as the fire crew set the grappling hook on the dredge. Rocky’s truck was moved out of the way. The firefighters then pulled the dredge out of the water and halfway up the beach with the fire truck. They accomplished within minutes what Rocky had been working on for at least an hour. The dredge looked scraped up, but no structural damage was apparent as the crew went over it.

This fire crew was admiring the mining equipment. Somehow, Rocky didn't know why she thought that was funny, but it hurt like heck to laugh. She guessed that people growing up in gold country learn early that cool dredges make more money for cool men than cool cars.

The news was not good on her side of the lollipop. The woman EMT looking at her leg was making clucking noises and the man listening to her lungs was looking worried. Rocky looked on the bright side, that they always looked this way. Out of all the people and engine noises, she heard that one familiar voice.

“Rochelle Siobhan Clancy, what the hell have you gotten up to this time?” her brother Dev was yelling at her as he ran down the riverbank. When he was worried, and the Irish brogue rolled out of him, he sounded just like Grandpa Clancy.

The EMT was giving them the word, Rocky probably had at least one broken rib, and even though her leg was not broken, the contusion was severe. Rocky didn’t want to go to the hospital, she was insisting that Devlin could drive her home.

“I’ll go to bed and tomorrow I will be fine,” Rocky pleaded her case.

“No, you won’t be fine.” Margie was now rounding the crowd standing assessing Rocky’s swollen red scraped leg.

“Load her into the rig guys, she is going to the hospital, and I won’t take any sass from you, girl,” Margie commanded.

“Rocky, if you don’t do what she tells you when she puts on that nurse voice you are going to be sorry for a long time. Get in the truck, you are going into the hospital,” her brother told her.

Margie patted Rocky on the shoulder. “I’ll drive my car right behind you and stay there with you.”

The head honcho nurse, who was disguised as Rocky’s sister in law most days, watched the EMTs get her on the gurney and loaded into their rig. Her protests that she could have walked were falling on deaf ears. Rocky was going in the rescue rig and she was going to like it.

The battalion chief and Dev were conferring about the dredge and before someone closed the vehicle door on her view of the scene, Rocky watched the dredge being rigged up to sit on Dev’s truck bed.

The ride to the hospital was not the most comfortable thing ever. She hurt more than when she whipped into the gigantic rock.

The wait in the ER was forever and by then she was not only hurting, but also hungry. Margie went to the rescue and soon she reappeared with some sandwiches and soda pops from the cafeteria.

“Margie, you should have seen all the gold bearing black sand on the backside of that rock. I can hardly wait to get home and see if it's on my claim. Tomorrow I‘m going to move all the high banking equipment over there and start working that side,” Rocky was excitedly explaining her plans.

At that moment the doctor appeared at the door, and waved a hello at Margie.

He said, “From the looks of that leg, you are not going to be shoveling any sand tomorrow. The bad news is that the X-rays are showing two broken ribs, the good news is that your leg isn’t broken. The bruise is deep, down close to the bone and I want you off of it. Tonight, I want ice packs twenty minutes on and twenty off, for swelling. I want you off your leg for at least forty-eight hours, but I know that you won’t do it, stay off it until tomorrow afternoon.” the doctor continued.

“The ribs will heal on their own, and when it hurts you will know you did something that you weren’t suppose to. Rest, do anything that you know how to do that you can rest doing."

"Do you know her?” the doctor asked looking at Margie.

“Oh, yeah, she is my sister in law,” answered Margie. “She doesn’t know how to sit still. I’ll do my best to hold her down to a small whirlwind.” promised Margie.

“Margie, here are two scripts for her. Rocky, I’m writing you a prescription for an antibiotic that is for your leg and the ribs, and a pain med.”

He gave Rocky the directions for the medicine usage,a pat on the arm, told her she was in great shape and would be fine in a month or two. Giving Margie a mischievous wink, he whirled out of the room.

While Rocky gathered her gear, Margie called Devlin to let him know she and Rocky were on the way to their house for the night, with one stop at the pharmacy in the hospital.

"We are just at the pharmacy waiting to pay."

Dev reported. "Great, tell Rocky not to worry. We got the dredge off the river bank, it's back to the cabin. The guys put it into the shed. I put a padlock on it, but it is rusty I'll get a new one tomorrow. Tommy drove the truck back to the cabin, he made sure all the gear was back home." "Justin made sure the doors and windows were locked. Tell Rocky that the dredge looks better than she did for the day’s work." Dev wasn't laughing.

Dev pulled the gold bearing carpet and miners moss out of the dredge flume and put it into the kitchen sink for safety and to drip water.

“Tell her I saw some color when I pulled the carpet out of the flume,” he said knowing it would make her feel better.

The plan for the night was to lock up the cabin, water the garden, pack up the dogs and bunny, a bag for Rocky and meet the women back at the Auburn house for dinner.

The dogs would be thrilled to get to go with Dev and for a night playing with Pokey the Border Collie.

By the time they got to the house, Rocky was stiff and hurting so bad, that she was darn glad for the big reclining chair. She was especially glad for the painkiller. That was saying something regarding the quality of the pain, the Clancy crew are not a pill gulpers. Rocky slept through Dev getting back home with the dogs and her pajamas and she slept through dinner.

The sun was blazing into Rocky’s eyes and Phoebe pawed her hand.

Rocky thought, “Phoebe must be checking if I’m still alive.” Rocky hobbled to the back door and let the three dogs out and hobbled into the bathroom. She eased herself into the shower, where even the water hurt. Margie had a cotton robe on the door. The painkillers made her too loopy to think.

The house smelled like fresh coffee dripping and cinnamon rolls. Margie grinned at Rocky as she shuffled into the kitchen and eased her aching body onto the kitchen chair.

Devlin fresh out of the shower and ready to hit the road for work, pulled three fresh cinnamon rolls onto his plate and poured all of them fresh coffee. Margie was having a fruit plate.

They sat and ate with the silence that comes of knowing your companions. Margie kept looking at Rocky, though, like she was a specimen that Margie had never seen before.

“Do I pass inspection, or are you going to throw me into the reject pile?” Rocky asked her.

“Actually, you are looking pretty good all things considered, but I should have gotten your temp. before you swallowed that hot coffee,” Margie had her hand on Rocky’s forehead, taking her temperature the old fashion way.

Dev said to Margie, “It looks like she plans on living, so I guess I’ll have go to work.”

As Devlin reached for the plate of pastry, Rocky asked, “You really aren’t going to eat that last cinnamon roll?”

“Yeah, I was kinda fixing to take it with me, one for the road.”

Rocky was trying to keep a straight face.

“That stuff is so full of fat and preservatives; they won’t have to embalm you when you die. Straight from dead to The Mummy.” Rocky stated.

Devlin put the cinnamon roll back onto the plate and pushed away from the table.

Rocky popped the rejected roll into her mouth, with a big evil, food smeared over teeth grin.

“Thanks Bro,” she muttered around the roll.

Her good arm got a playful punch and Margie got a playful kiss. Devlin let the dogs in and banged the screen door on his way out to work. He was a good man, Rocky’s brother.

The next weekend Deputy Justin Dixon and Devlin had a swell time getting the water running into the kitchen faucet. Even though Rocky was racked up, on crutches and in the way, they worked around her. Rocky hobbled around a little on Friday and made veggie soup in the crock-pot, it was wonderful for lunch on Saturday with the sourdough bread that Justin brought.

The three old friends barbequed steak and corn on the cob in the moonlight. Rocky added the potato salad and coleslaw from the deli.

They didn't remember how many times they all trooped into the kitchen and turned on the faucet. The trio admired once again the skill, brains, extreme talent and good looks of the two plumbers, Justin and Devlin. Rocky was buzzing from the painkillers, the guys, well, they were buzzed. The beer and picnic lunch kept them fortified. Between the mutual admiration group excursions to the faucets, Rocky called to her new friend Jazz Harris in Boston, they planned a gold dredging weekend for Jazz before the season was over.

The dynamic trio did some serious business, while the day went on. They each speculated about the cutting of the dredge tie downs that sent Rocky spinning into the huge rock, the dead body on the monolith and where Mom’s furniture had disappeared.

At the bottom line, sitting around the fire circle as night fell; they all agreed that the most probable bad guy was Callaghan.

C
hapter 15

C
old, running, fresh water was beautiful. The waste water ran into a five-gallon bucket under the sink, which Rocky had to carry out and pour onto the veggie garden. No matter how you look at it she was still hauling water, but that was a too negative way of thinking.

Rocky ungracefully clumped through a whole week of lying around,that healing kind. On pain, of further injury from Margie, Rocky lazed about at the cabin. All she did was feed everyone, knit, take the dogs for walks. She also lazed around by rigging up a new anchor system for the dredge out of gallon milk jugs to drag in the water, watering the barely thriving garden, taking photos of the river birds and stupid pet photos to get to know her new camera.

Resting up also included, the not to be missed daily medical report to Margie. After her daily report, Rocky climbed into the attic on hands and knees.

Every day she patched the holes in the attic from the inside with spray foam insulation. It was really fun stuff to squirt, but messy. Rocky got as much of it falling down on her as she applied into the holes. It made a girl glad to be wearing her ball cap, this stuff would be impossible to get out of long curly hair. Rocky finally figured out that if she laid scrap window screen over the holes first than sprayed the goop on, it stuck better.

Rocky did not tell Margie the part about climbing up on the stepladder, and the part about raising her arms over her head. God, it hurt, but cripes, sometimes you gotta do, what you gotta do. Rocky was glad to have an attic with a  roof and without holes. One more week of relaxing at recuperation should have the all the windows in the house insulated.

Resting on the bottom step, Rocky considered that she was permanently living at the cabin. She had not received one interview date from all the resumes she sent out to the airlines.

There had been too much time for thinking and no ability for doing that week. Rocky was going to have to dredge like a woman possessed next week to make up for it. No stupid pet pictures or cookouts with the gang. If she was staying in Whiskey Gap she had some hard money issues to address.

Whiling away her healing time, she found the website of a photo processing plant that did a snail mail business. In a few days, Rocky should have a mailer and send in the stupid pet pictures and see what the camera and the processor could do. After selling those photos of the baby rattlesnakes a few weeks ago, she was encouraged that she may have a side income in wildlife photography.

After dinner, Rocky cleaned out the walk-in closet off the living room. Without too much effort it could be a darkroom. Rocky had always wanted one and now was as good a time as any to get it done.

Rocky hauled most of the gear in the closet to the storage shed out back while it was still light. The rest went into the dump run pile on the back porch.

There was a pair of shelf brackets in the storage shed; she used them for a shelf on the back wall.

“Is the darkroom a serious commitment to Whiskey Gap?”she asked the afternoon sun on the porch.

A darkroom could be used on vacation time, if she ended up working in the city. She wanted the darkroom, whatever happened.

It was after ten when the groaning Rocky finally eased her aching body into bed. She wanted the world to know she was even breaking down and taking a painkiller.

Groggy, she felt very icky, why were the dogs barking? They seem to have been barking for hours, but probably have not been barking long at all. She had to do something about that. Her head was filled with fog. She tried to think, but could not. Rocky rolled over in her sleeping bag and slugged herself out of bed. At least into a semi upright position. The dogs continued to bark, Rocky sat still and listened.

She could hear nothing over the frantic barking. Rocky had never heard Phoebe with that tone in her bark. Rocky’s head hurt, it was swimming, nevertheless, she cannot let the dogs bark like that without seeing what was wrong.

Probably Phoebe was looking at her first raccoon family and they were scaring her to bits. Rocky’s head was floating on the painkiller as she staggered down the hall.

“Wait a minute. What if this is a bear?” Rosky said stopping herself.

She stopped at the little broom closet that Dad called the gun safe and pulled out the double barrel shotgun.

“Where did I put the damn shells?”

Her fingers felt like sausages, in what seemed to be an ice age in length, she slammed in two rounds of buckshot.

She continued her stumbling down the hall. The dogs were at the front door. Rocky did not turn on the lights.

The dogs finally quieted down when she touched them. The three of them stood there in the dark of the late night and listened. The dogs heard something, but Rocky heard nothing. She checked the lock on the front door and moved to each of the windows and checked what passed for locks and the three friends moved into the kitchen.

Looking out the window facing the rock wall behind the house, there was nothing in the yard. No bear or raccoons. Nothing was waiting there. The dogs were making low growling noises; whatever was scaring them was still out there. Leaving the lights off, the faint star shine was enough to show the yard was empty.

As she stood looking out the window on the kitchen door, Rocky saw something on the top of the rock face. Something had moved up there, black in color against the gray of the granite. Watching for maybe a minute though it seemed like ten, Rocky saw or heard nothing. The only thing that moved was the early morning breeze picking up and waving the pine branches around. Wait, there it was again, not really movement, but more a sort of flash of light.

Rocky thought, “I’ve been reading too many spooky novels.”

It was nothing. Rocky talked to the dogs, but they were not buying the raccoon idea or that nothing was wrong.

After checking the latch on the kitchen door and putting a wooden spoon into the slider of the kitchen window, Rocky followed the dogs into living room.

They stood at the locked front door, and after awhile she again saw that small flash of light, but this time it was further down the side of the mountain, closer to the driveway. It was like starlight flashing off of a mica-laden rock, or her overly vivid imagination.

Leaning against the wall, shivering in her pajamas, with the sweat rolling off her, she was trying hard not to panic. The dogs were becoming more agitated, pacing back and forth. Phoebe was circling Rocky, Lovie was patrolling the area in front of the door, and stopping only long enough to turn, looking at her, clearly asking to be let outside to challenge whatever was there.

Then Rocky heard it, way down the driveway, probably on the county road.

A vehicle started, grating against the starter, the engine didn’t want to turn over. Rocky ran as fast as she could into the bedroom and stuffed her feet into boots, not even bothering to tie them. Again running, but not turning on the lights when she reached the front door, Rocky paused for a brief moment and listened, yes, that truck was not starting.

Rocky opened the front door and the dogs high tailed out and she followed as fast as she could. The dogs were powering down the driveway in the direction of the truck noise. They were not making any sounds now. They know where and what they were after.

Rocky could only hear the heavy running noise of the big dog. They must be close to the bottom of the driveway. Rocky tried to go faster, but she cannot. She cannot go any farther, her lungs were about to burst, her ribcage burned and she could not breathe.

“I’m going to die right here, and I don’t give a shit,” Rocky whispered to the night air. Her chest hurt that badly.

Dropping to her knees in the middle of the driveway, if that truck started up the hill, it would have to hit her, because she could not and would not move.

There it went, the motor caught. The truck roared off very close to her, Rocky was farther down the driveway than she thought. The truck was heading back toward town. The dogs raced back up the driveway,Rocky could hear them panting. They were winded from the exertion and anxiety. They dropped to the ground next to her and the trio tried to catch their second wind.

Her broken ribs burned as she listened to the truck sounds getting fainter while they rested. When Rocky could no longer hear that motor sound, they gathered their strength and climbed back up the steep, rutted driveway. It will be a long time before Rocky forgot the sound of that balky truck motor.

When they were back on the front porch, Rocky thumbed the safety off of the old gun. She was going to walk the entire fence and check the doors and windows from the outside.

“Did I remember to padlock the gate?” she asked the small mutt dog.

Twenty minutes later after checking that the gate was padlocked, they were back inside the cabin. Rocky left the lights off. She brewed a mug of tea and sat on the lawn chair. She waited and listened in the dark.

“Why are those birds so loud? Oh, I feel bad. This is the just peachy, I‘m coming down with a cold,” Rocky was complaining as soon as her eyes opened.

She was cold all over, and cracked open one eye. There was sunshine trying to get in through the closed blinds. She was sitting in the lawn chair in the living room, she must have dozed off. The dogs were scratching to get out.

Rocky looked out onto the porch before she opened the door, and released the dogs for their morning run.

There was aspirin in the medicine cabinet; God only knew how old it was. No matter, she had to get this headache under control and she swore she was never taking another of the pain pills. Rocky added NyQuil to the shopping list.

Rocky did not even look at herself in the mirror, running a hairbrush through her hair would take too much energy to be worth it.

It required a rest between taking off her pajamas and putting on her underwear. When she was at last fully dressed, she was also covered in sweat and again shivering with cold.

“Yes, Dad I hear you, I should be in bed,” Rocky talked to herself. “But, I’m going to see where my visitor was last night, and then I’ll call the Sheriff. That is what you would do, Dad,” she was talking to the cooler summer morning air in her bedroom.

“I’m not only sick, and wounded, I’m going nuts,” Rocky thought, somewhat amused. But the red face staring back at her from the mirror did not seem terribly amused.

Putting on her heaviest sweatshirt she walked all around the fence line and up to the face of the rock cliff and found nothing. The only footprints were hers and the paw prints of the dogs parallel to hers.

“Looks like if I want to find out who is the snooper, I’m going to be rock climbing,” Rocky suggested to her constant audience of two.

Rocky did not have the gear, and certainly not the breathing capacity to do that anytime soon.

She ensured that all the doors and windows were locked. Thumper was comfortable in the kennel in the living room. Rocky and the dogs piled into the truck and left Whiskey Gap for town.

Rocky was hoping for a glimpse of the mysterious truck that wouldn’t start. But the priority was locks, shelving, cold meds and climbing gear.

Tooling her shopping cart past the sporting good section of the hardware store, she spotted a night vision scope.

“It will fit on the old shotgun, I think,” Rocky was seriously looking here. It was expensive.

Would it not be better to watch for the intruder through the night vision gear and see what it or he was doing rather than climbing up that rock face? Looking in her checkbook again, she could do one or the other.

That really was not a choice, Rocky was wretched and in pain from driving down there and pushing the shopping cart, she was almost dead on her feet.

While she was taking a short rest in the frozen food aisle, she saw a man she knew. But she could not for the life of her remember who he was. He spotted Rocky and waved.

“Aren’t you Rocky Clancy, I haven’t see you in years, are you still flying?” The white haired, thin but straight-bodied older man that Rocky should know had come around the corner and they were face to face.

As soon as Rocky heard his voice, she knew who he was. He and her Dad used to race cars together on the track at Tracy.

“Mr. Wilkerson, how are you? Still racing?” Rocky stuck out her hand and gave her best smile to the elderly gentleman.

“No, Rocky, I don’t race anymore, I still have the team winning consistently, though,” Mr. Wilkerson was chuckling at the thought of him driving a race car.

“Nope, just have the two Caddy dealerships now and my sons run them. Have to get to the club meeting, dropped in here for whipping cream for the missus,” he stopped long enough to hand her his business card.

“Give me a call next week, Rocky, I may have a flying chore for you, if you can get a plane,” he started down the aisle toward the dairy section.

“I’ve got my own plane here,” she called after him.

“Grand, give me a call, now don’t forget.” He had his head inside the milk cooler and waved over his shoulder. Mr. Wilkerson hadn’t changed a bit, man with a mission.

Rocky loved him when she was a kid, everything she knew about motors, which was considerable, he taught her and Dev, too. Dad was good at motors, Mr. Wilkinson was better than good. Rocky glowed with the happy encounter, she felt at home again. Even with the creepy happening the previous night.