Page 22 of Saving Veronica
“How about a fellow Marine?” Patterson asked, as he and Johnson helped Gerald back to the horses.
“Of course, I trust a fellow Marine!”
“Then trust him with Ronnie. Let’s get back to the house, so you can grab Maggie and head out to the hospital. It’s going to be hours before you get there. The only thing we have to worry about now is how the hell are we going to get down the trail in this fucking pitch dark and rain?”
Gerald stopped in his tracks and looked around. After two minutes, Gerald looked at his friends and everyone standing around and grinned.
“What?”
“How many road flares do we have?”
Everyone caught on and grinned. Each rider grabbed a flare, lit it and held it over their heads. Angelo grabbed Ace’s reins and with the flares held above their heads, they headed down the trail single file. It was slow going, but they rode down the trail and into Ronnie’s barnyard two hours later.
Gerald jumped off his horse and hurried over to his wife. As soon as he saw her they hugged, then he turned and told everyone. “Medivac left two hours ago. They took her to Helena Mercy.”
“Let’s go,” Maggie said, and pulled her husband toward the waiting truck.
“Wait!” William called out. “Where’s Finn?”
“Shit,” Gerald said, and rubbed the rain from his face. “He injured himself, don’t know what happened. One minute he was behind us as we were bringing Ronnie up the ravine, the next, they picked him up and loaded into the chopper.”
Hector stepped up then. “I was right next to him. He slipped and turned his ankle, but I heard a snap, then he screamed. That’s when Angelo and I picked him up. So, he’s at the hospital with Ronnie.”
“We’ll follow you,” Eric said, and the four of them hurried over to their waiting trucks. “I’m assuming Major is with them?”
“Yes,” Hector said, and watched as they jumped into their trucks and took off down the road. His last thought as he watched their taillights was that he was glad he’d fixed that pothole in the driveway. He turned to the others and saw them milling around. It surprised him to see Johnson and Patterson’s wives there.
“There’s food in the house. Tie up the horses and come in and get something to eat, then we can get the horses home.” Mrs. Patterson said.
“What the hell time is it anyway?” Johnson asked, as he tied off his horse, and gathered his wife in his arms.
“Almost three o’clock Sunday morning. You guys have been gone for fifteen hours. What the hell happened?”
Johnson and Patterson explained what they’d encountered on the trails, and how they finally arrived at the meadow. After grabbing a plate full of food, everyone was quiet as they filled their empty stomachs. “I think we need to get up the trails and make sure they’re cleared and fixed. Not saying anything like this will happen again, but we were delayed for hours trying to get to the meadow. Larson had found Ronnie, assessed the situation, called for a medivac, and patched her up as best he could before we arrived.
“Hell, by the time we arrived, the medivac was only five minutes away. We didn’t get to physically see Ronnie. She was bundled up like a silver Christmas present.” He looked around, then swore. “Did anyone bring the cat?”
“I did,” Hector said, as he poured a cup of coffee. “I’ll call Grady at daybreak and have him come over and get it.”
“Get what?” Grady asked, as he and the sheriff walked in the backdoor.
“We brought the cat back with us.”
“Cat? What are you talking about?” Johnson’s wife asked.
Amos then told everyone what Finn Larson had told him when he called after finding Ronnie in the ravine.
“Christ.” Johnson rubbed his face. “We didn’t see Ronnie. When we arrived, it was raining, dark, and I’ll admit this for myself, scared, and I’ll be damned, the only way we could find anything when we arrived at that meadow was a red glow. We immediately took off for it and damn if it wasn’t a road flare. We found Larson at the bottom of a ravine. As we started down, but he made us stop to look at something. We’re all ranchers here, so I won’t gross you out when I tell you we found afterbirth, and the other thing was Ronnie’s slicker and flannel.
“When we arrived at the bottom of the ravine, there was a huge metallic bundle, I assumed it was Ronnie, all bundled up to keep warm. I didn’t hear all that was wrong with her. After he showed us the dead cougar, the medivac unit arrived. They put their backboard beneath one already on her, then we lifted her, and they took off.”
“It was that afterbirth from Paige that Larson slipped on,” Hector said, as he refilled his coffee cup again. “Unless he has brittle bones, I’d say he might have twisted his ankle on the way down, then did it again on the way up. We never gave him a chance to have it looked at. Did a scoop and run.”
They all finished up and made their way out to the side of the barn, where Hector had placed a wrapped bundle. Each of the ranchers wanted to inspect the deceased animal.
Chapter 8
Dr. Douglas “Patch” Atwal walked into the ER and paused as he looked around. It was eleven thirty on a Saturday night, and he could be doing a whole hell of a lot of other things, but tonight was his first night at work at Helena Mercy Hospital.
