Deathgrip Page 11

  Donny nudged Salvation Church’s regular preacher, Sonny Millgrove, who bounced his bulk and clapped huge hands with the sound of cured hams butting heads. The two of them stood off to one side of the podium while another man led the singing.

  “What’s the story down there?” Donny leaned in and asked.

  Reverend Sonny grinned, dimples cratering his fat cheeks, pausing in mid-clap. “Oh, that’n’s a simple boy, he is. Simple in the haid.” He tapped his own skull to illustrate the point. “Jimmy McPherson. Loves to steal his daddy’s tractor and gets a belt whupped on his backside ever time. Never never learns.”

  Donny alternated between watching Amanda at the piano and watching the tractor as it neared. Clouds of dust churned from the monstrous wheels, billowing out behind in a brown wake. Over the top of the upright piano, Mandy eyed him, grinned, wound down the song. Throwing it into a minor key and tossing out blues runs. That was another thing he loved, that imp within her: ninety-five percent angel and the rest pure mischief.

  The congregation was primed, on their feet with hands lifted to the skies. The intensity of their hunger was palpable, as heady as their scent of sweat and starch and sweet cologne. Donny was at the pulpit and leaning toward them, a man on righteous fire. Asking a simple question about their faith, what it meant to them all, was it a lamp unto their feet and a light unto their path, or was it just some spiritual fire insurance policy on which they grudgingly kept up the payments?

  The Pentecostals were shouting, no, no, lamp unto our feet, a universal declaration, and Donny knew it would be several moments before he could continue. It wasn’t just the uproar of the crowd. The tractor was nearly adjacent to them, its exhaust as noisily distracting as a machine gun.

  He turned once more to see the driver. Simple Jimmy McPherson, perhaps fifteen, a big ugly kid with a lantern jaw, a chunky belly and narrow shoulders, and carrot-red hair topping off the whole ridiculous ensemble. If the Good Lord was merciful, this lad would never see a mirror. Jimmy stood up behind the wheel and hooted and waved his arms, a spastic parody of their own actions from moments ago, or a sincere attempt to become one of the gang. From his unbridled enthusiasm, it was impossible to tell which.

  His enjoyment was so immense that he neglected one of the basic rules for the operation of farm machinery: Steer it. The small, close-set front wheels suddenly dipped into a vast crumbling chuckhole, wrenching the tractor down and to the right with an impact that joggled the boy like a loose egg in a carton. The tractor quickly gained a mind all its own, bearing hard for the roadside ditch. The front wheels sank in, twisting sideways and plowing up ditch-dirt while the huge back tires barreled on full speed ahead. Gravity did the rest. With a grind and a roar, the tractor overturned, clearing the ditch and crashing at the edge of the church lawn.

  Directly atop Jimmy McPherson, who howled like a car-struck dog.

  One shocked, silent moment, and then the entire crowd was galvanized, streaming from chairs. Already on his feet and at the end of the tent nearest the road, Donny reached him first. He knelt, he gently cradled the boy’s trembling head. Jimmy was free only from the chest up, blood already bubbling from the corners of his gasping mouth.

  Salvation Church suffered no shortage of large, able-bodied men. They circled the tractor and heave-hoed the thing upright, peeling it up and off the boy. Donny took one look at the damage and wanted to be ill. Jimmy would die, and soon. In parts these remote, his chances were nil. If this were a dog, someone would already be going for a gun, and in that first horrified instant Donny found himself wishing, Die, oh just please die, you poor kid, save yourself the misery and just let go.

  Both legs were broken, bent at the knees. The left shin was bent as well, as if newly received of an extra joint. His torso had caved in, a crimson meat platter from which two naked, jagged-tipped ribs protruded by an inch or more. Jimmy wheezed red mist when he tried to cry out, the blood speckling Donny’s hands, clothing, face. Jimmy, a broken frightshow caricature of himself.

  From behind, Amanda’s hands dug heedlessly into Donny’s shoulders. She coughed back a cry, and he felt tears plinking onto his sunburned neck. Baptism of ineffectuality, here am I, man of God and completely useless, words of comfort just aren’t enough, all I can do is wish this boy dead. Not enough, it’s not enough.

  Jimmy shivered, cold, so cold. One arm raised painfully upward, that last plea for help, even the simple of mind need to know they are not alone at the end. Donny knew he had nothing to lose by cradling the dying boy in his own arms.

  “Dear Lord, we need a miracle here!” Donny cried out, eyes aimed upward. “This boy won’t make it another minute without Your help, so please, please, show us Your power! Because we’ve got nothing we can do for him! Show us a miracle!”

  Ask and ye shall receive.

  Jimmy thrashed his head, moaning, and Donny nearly dropped the shattered body when he felt the abrupt blast of warmth. Asking was one thing. Getting an immediate answer, like a gumball out of a penny machine, was something else.

  Before a circling crowd of onlookers, who began to ooh and aah as if watching an impressive fireworks display, the massive injuries began to self-correct. Legs straightening, snapping into place with the ease of puzzle pieces coming together. Fragments of a shattered hipbone regrouping, then solidifying. Denuded ribs withdrawing like claws into a cat’s paw, the mashed chest reinflating as Jimmy’s breath returned to an unhindered flow.

  Just as Donny’s own breath clutched in his throat, I can’t believe I’m SEEING this!

  He ripped the boy’s flimsy shirt the rest of the way open, used it to scrub away the slick of blood, finding only unbroken flesh beneath. Not even so much as scar tissue. He ran a hand down along the left leg, now straight and strong and whole.

  In complete and utter awe, numbly pulling his hands back as if they were someone else’s, I’m not sure what just happened here, but thank You. Thank You.

  Before the hushed ring of spectators, Jimmy sat up. Five minutes later, he worried only about what his daddy would do to him for overturning the tractor. And shortly after that, every last soul at the Salvation Church of the Pentecost hung on to Donny Dawson’s every word as if it were the last sermon they might ever hear.

  A cheap motel that evening, on the outskirts of nearby Decatur. Offers for the night’s shelter had been plentiful, and all had been politely declined. Time for reflection was sorely needed, and as much as he loved these people, he knew they would begin turning up in droves just as soon as it was decided where he would lay his head. Better an anonymous motel, then, and for once they could easily afford it. The love offering had been generous.

  Donny and Amanda, at dusk, made the most awe-inspiring love of their marriage thus far, and she trembled in his arms afterward. Both so wet, so sweaty, so drained. She curled beside him on sheets neither wanted to see in strong daylight, her hand resting on his chest.

  Softly, “I was so proud of you this afternoon.”

  He shook his head in the netherlight. “It couldn’t have been me that did that, that was—”

  “I know that. Silly. But it was you that called on it. You brought it down. Donny … the kind of faith that took.”

  But did I, really? Did I? Lying beside her, trying to piece it all back together, every moment, every fragment. Like trying to assemble sand. Could a process even be qualified?

  “What did it feel like? Did it feel divine?”

  His shoulders stiffened, relaxed. He stumbled through an answer that felt wholly inadequate, yes, it did, if you consider divine as kneeling in the presence of something that dwarfs you, but it had happened so suddenly. And hadn’t he, afterward, been vaguely disappointed that there had been no celestial lights, no heavenly sanction? Not that he would tell her this; she’d led such a sheltered life compared with him, had known only Arkansas before they’d met and married. Life was more cut-and-dried for Amanda. Things either were, or they were not.

  She rubbed his chest with her fing
ers, magic hands that could coax a piano to jumping life. And his own hands? What magic did they bear these days? The mind reeled, the soul ignited.

  “My man,” Amanda murmuring into the hollow of his throat, “chosen for a holy mission.”

  He smiled at the ceiling. Maybe I am. It had, after all, happened. No one could argue that point.

  Mandy planted a kiss firmly on his lips, ran the tip of her tongue along his cheek to his ear. “Don’t ever turn your back on that mission,” a soft seductive whisper. “You saw how those people needed that boost today…”

  …And Donny rose from his sleeping wife’s side, her hand still held loosely in his. He once more kissed the warm, dry lips that never knew he was there. A mouth that once had brought delights to both body and spirit.

  Please come back to me. Whenever you can.

  He left the bedroom, inner sanctum to remain forever secret from the outside world, even most of those on the inside. Nurse Ward waited silently in the hall. He never even knew she was there.

  I’ve lost so much. And it started a long, long time before I ever lost her.

  He met Gabe downstairs, ready to tell him to go on home, sleep, feel free to make it a half-day tomorrow by coming in at noon. He never got the chance. Business first.

  “Five minutes, Donny. And then I’ll get out of your hair, I promise.” Three fingers went up rigid. “Scout’s honor.”

  “You were never a Scout,” Donny, grinning on his way into the parlor.

  “I never had the chance.” Gabe shook his head after sitting, scrubbed his hand through his hair, a long long day. “Look. I know this is lousy timing to hit you with a suggestion like I’m about to. But then, there’s never going to be a really good time. So I’m just going to come out with this.

  “What I’m wondering is, if it might not be a good idea to get you away from here for a while. Take your work on the road and do a series of revivals and rallies.”

  “Gabe, I can’t just—”

  One palm out, stop. “Just hear me out, okay? And sleep on it, I’m not talking about hitting the road tomorrow. But listen, Donny? I really think this would be the best thing for you. Therapeutic work value, look at it that way. If you stay here with Mandy in her condition, that’s going to gnaw at you like nothing else could. Because all this is going to be going on right under your nose, and there’s not a thing you can do about it. If you get away for a while, you’ll at least remove that distraction. Plus, it won’t hurt to divert attention away from the ministry grounds.”

  “But what about Amanda, if you think for one second I’m going to abandon her now, when she needs me most…”

  Gabe spread his hands wide. “She’ll be under expert care, you’ve seen to that already. If there’s any change at all in her condition, we can have you back here in hours, at the very most.” Gabe’s voice lowered. “Irv explained it all before. It usually takes a coma patient hours, or days, to fully come out of it. The signs will be there, the nurses will know. You’ll be right there when she comes out of it.”

  On it went, far longer than the allotted five minutes, and for every objection Donny could think up, Gabe was right there with a rebuttal that made far more sense. You had to respect the man who put so much thought into an informal proposal. To an even greater extent, you had to respect the man who knew which buttons of yours to push to get his own way, and decided to leave them alone.

  And what of duty, doing the right thing? Gabe might well have asked. But didn’t. No need, though, the matter was weighing heavily enough already ever since he’d left Mandy’s side.

  Don’t ever turn your back on that mission — good advice from the finest lady he had ever known. He’d promised her he would never do that, even if the mission came ahead of family needs. Long-term good outweighed short-lived desires, and for the man faithful to his mission, the final scales would put everything into balance. You win some, and you win some.

  A return to roots. Which sometimes meant a return to something lost too long ago, too far away.

  He didn’t need to sleep on it to know it was exactly what was needed after all.

  Good idea, Gabe.

  It was pushing two in the morning when Gabe got home. Bone weary, while every fiber in his being cried out with a shout of victory. He’d actually pulled it off, and it hadn’t been nearly as tricky as he had feared it might.

  He lived barely three miles from Dawson Ministries, a small apartment for one in the back lot of a larger private household. They were fine landlords, not in the least bit nosy, and he was the perfect tenant, barely a noise from his place, in fact, not even at home all that often. The pure white walls were fine, the polished wood floors were a delight. Very little furniture, no excess. Here, life was contemplative, spartan.

  Monastic.

  Gabe hit the TV when he walked in, nearly always tuned to CNN, no different tonight. See what’s new in the world at large. He shed tie and jacket, popped a kettle of water onto the stove; herbal tea would hit the spot, soothe him for sleep. He shelved the book he had been reading at Donny’s: Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. How many times through it did this make, one or two shy of a dozen? Couldn’t agree with everything the man had to say, but ye gods, what audacity to try and come up with a single unifying theory for everything. You had to admire a goal that grandiose, and if Gabe could do half for the field of metaphysics that Hawking had done for less abstract sciences, he could die a completely fulfilled man.

  How many others could say that, even dream about it? Not Donny, that was for sure. Poor misled sap, the man was his own worst enemy. Crook with a bleeding conscience.

  Gabe watched CNN until the kettle whistled, steeped a bag in his favorite mug until the scent of tea was strong and heady. Down with the TV volume, and he grabbed the phone. Checked the clock. In Scotland it was just after eight in the morning, six hours ahead of U.S. Central Time.

  The phone, ringing, then answered half a world away in the Scottish Highlands. Loch Nevis, the most beautiful spot he had seen in the entire world, and certainly the most secure little world-within-the-world he had ever known. Two years residence, and he would as soon die there as anywhere. With luck, with luck.

  The switchboard operator answered, thick with Gaelic crust.

  “This is Gabriel Matthews, June code six-fifty-two-liquidity.” Cringing, he hated these silly codes, could never say them with a straight face, let’s play spy-versus-spy. Why did they even bother? They ran voiceprint ID checks at the other end anyway. Discipline, probably. “I need to speak with Gavin.”

  “Urgent? He’s about to leave for golf, y’bastard.”

  Gabe, smiling, “He’ll kiss you for the interruption.”

  Mutters and curses, dwindling away while the phone went on hold. Minute, two, three, then Gavin Bainbridge himself:

  “Gabe? Make me proud.”

  “Yes, sir,” spoken with all the confidence of one who has trained a lifetime for the high jump, and cleared the bar with inches to spare. “He went for it. Donny wants the tour.”

  An audible sigh of relief, heard across the Atlantic. “That’s the second best news I’ve heard since 1963.”

  Chapter 9

  St. Francis Medical Center was a five-story, 320-bed acute care facility west of University City, in the suburb of Olivette. Trim, tan and gray masonry, it looked like a hybrid between public school and minimum security prison, between which Paul, in more juvenile days, had seen little difference. No shame in fessing up, he’d been a typical teenage idiot.

  St. Francis was owned and operated by an order of nuns. Over forty MDs on staff, plus over three hundred nurses, and scores more in support capacities: laboratory, physical therapy, radiology, dietetics, housekeeping, others. It also utilized a thriving system of volunteer workers, and this was what had whetted Paul’s interest. Weeks before, those first few days of July — a week after the healing of Stacy Donnelly and the others — the realization had come. He had a newfound ability of profound implica
tions, use or lose it maybe, and better to put it to well-thought-out use, at that. The House of Wax aftermath was only the beginning.

  Which had caused a media stir all its own, every bit the equal of the original tragedy. After leaving Stacy’s bedside, Paul had called KGRM, caught Lorraine just minutes away from signing off for the evening. He had her rummage about Sherry’s desk and Popeye’s office until a list of accident victims surfaced. The station had planned on sending flowers to each hospital room; that Popeye, a touch of genuine sympathy, you just never knew. Paul had bummed an ink pen from a desk nurse and jotted down names, hospitals, room numbers.

  Some, like Stacy, were at Barnes. A couple were just along Kingshighway at Jewish Hospital. Another southeast across the city at Alexian Brothers. So, on that same Wednesday evening and the next afternoon, Paul had made more visits, deejay crawling out of hiding to check his listeners. Shaking hands, touching shoulders, patting forearms, a couple of hugs. Expressing his personal sorrow to those awake to hear it, maintaining a short bedside vigil for those who were not.

  But always leaving them in better shape than he’d found them. His only regret the three beyond his help — he couldn’t raise those who now could only be mourned.

  The coincidences took a few days to be noted. Different hospitals, different doctors, too little communication. Still, time made the links unavoidable, a proliferation of trauma center gossip, doctors and nurses forced into astonished wonder by the progress of their patients. Broken bones had rejoined, severe lacerations had been sealed, internal injuries healed. With incredible speed. This had no precedent whatsoever.

  The media got inevitable wind of it, every kid injured in front of The House of Wax getting an exceedingly early discharge and a clean bill of health. Doctors scratched their heads and refused to commit to any definitive explanation, while more than a few people tossed the word miracle around like a newsworthy football. All of which Paul found pleasantly amusing, as if he had been wondrously transported back to grade school, king of mischief, and could once again watch the payoff of the grandest of practical jokes while basking in the luxury of complete anonymity.