Solomon's Decision (26 page)

A flash of yellow caught his eye. He eased himself into yet another channel, this
one only about five feet wide and as deep. The current was less strong than in most, so he
was only swept a few feet as he half-waded, half-swam across. In an elderberry bush,
caught on a branch that would be waist level to him under ordinary circumstances, a
yellow, billed cap dangled, its Big Bird emblem one he'd seen before. On Ginger's head,
the Fourth of July.

For a moment he held it close to his heart, wondering what he would do if he
never found the other children. Never found his daughter.

No!
He went on, determined not to think of the worst possibility.

One of the horses had not escaped the flood. He saw its carcass bobbing among a
mass of debris behind an overflowing but still-intact beaver dam. He refused to allow
himself to look for the children's bodies as well. They were alive. They had to be.

Working his way upstream, he managed to cross that channel about a quarter mile
above the backed-up stream. The helicopter's drone drew nearer, and he knew it was still
circling, still seeking. When it circled overhead, he looked up. The sky seemed lighter, as
if the clouds were thinning.

An arm waved from the cockpit. It pointed, circled. Erik shook his head. God, but
he was stupid! What was the pilot trying to tell him?

Another gesture. Ah! Time to refuel. He waved, surprised at how heavy his arm
seemed.

Although he knew it would be less than an hour before it returned, he felt
abandoned when the helicopter swept over the ridge and out of sight. He looked around
him. Where was he?

The steep ridge at the lower end of the meadow was farther away than the last
time he'd checked his location. He was making progress, although it sometimes seemed he
lost five feet for every six he advanced, so twisted and meandering was the route he'd been
forced to follow.

He called again, knowing his hoarse croak couldn't be heard over the rush of the
waters for any distance. "Jace! Dennis! Ginger!"
Oh, God!
"Ginger!" He slogged
on, the strips of blanket long since lost from his feet. It didn't matter. The cold water had
robbed him of any feeling below the knees anyway.

More channels. Twice more he fought to snatch at overhanging branches, to save
himself from being swept away. Once he found himself praying, although it had been
many years since he had done so. "Let me find them. Please. Let me find them."

* * * *

"No! I'm going back with them!" Madeline shook Jon's hand from her arm. "My
children need me!"

"Mine are out there, too."

His calm words stopped her as excitement would not have. She saw the exhaustion
in his face, the fear. All night long, he'd been searching, in the dark and the rain. All day
he'd been here, waiting. How did he stay so calm?

"Linnie, let the men do their job," he said, putting his arm around her. "There's no
room for you in that chopper; not this trip." He gestured. "Alf and Wally are trained; you're
not. They'll go down and search, along with Erik. They'll find the kids."

He didn't have to say the rest. She read the fading hope in his face. She knew that,
with each hour, the chances of finding the other three children safe were shrinking.

"You come on in here, now, and warm up. 'Twon't do a bit of good for you to
wear yourself to a frazzle." Jethro's arm went around her. She hadn't even known he was
here. With a sigh, she let herself be led into the ranch house.

Amelia was talking quietly with Janine at the table. Janine looked as desperately
frightened as she felt, but Madeline could find no words to reassure her. She nodded to
Amelia, and followed Jethro into the front room.

"Those youngsters are gonna be just fine," he said, wrapping an afghan around her
and pushing her gently into Jon's big leather recliner, seating himself on the arm. "If that
Solomon fella hasn't found 'em by the time the chopper gets back, then Wally and Alf and
Steve will help him out. They ain't gonna give up until they find 'em."

She saw the mantel clock over his shoulder. Four. It would be dark in another four
hours. Her babies couldn't survive another night in the open. "Oh, Jethro!" she wailed. The
tears she'd stanched all day flooded forth.

He picked her up and slid into her chair. His still-strong arms gathered her against
his chest, comforting her as if she were still a child. "Now you just have yourself a good
cry, Linnie, and stop that frettin'. They're gonna be all right."

Somehow his words were more reassuring than any one else's. She wiped her
eyes. "I want to believe you." she faltered.

"You do it, hear? The good Lord ain't gonna take them youngsters away from
you." His callused hand stroked her hair. She leaned against his flannel shirt, its faint scent
of sunlight and tobacco-in-a-can reminding her of Jesse. He'd smelled this same way.

"I was just thinkin'. That Solomon fella might be the best one to find the
youngsters," he said, after a few moment's contemplation. "Him bein' a wetland expert and
all."

She wished he hadn't mentioned Erik again. Her terror for the children was no
greater than her anxiety for him. "But what if something happens...." She could not
complete the question.

"You fallin' in love with him, girl?" Jethro's gruff question forced her to pull free
of his comforting embrace.

"I... I think I fell in love with him a long time ago," she said. She could no longer
deny, even to herself, that the feelings she'd had for him almost at first sight had never
entirely died.

"Don't you think it's about time you told me all about it?"

Another kind of fear caught in her throat. "All about what?"

"You think I ain't got eyes, girl? If that Solomon fella ain't the twins' pa, he's a
damn close relation."

Madeline stared. Of all the people in the world who should have been angry at her
betrayal of Jesse's memory, Jethro had the best reason.

"I worried about you," he said, "back then, after Jesse was taken." One wide hand
gripped his nape, rubbed. "You took it too danged hard. Didn't seem to be gettin' over it
like you should have. You wantin' to be inseminated worried me some, but not as much as
the way you dragged around, half dead yourself."

"Oh, Jethro, I didn't mean to trouble you." He had lost his cherished son. She
hadn't been the only one grieving.

"Shoot fire, girl! You didn't trouble me. I hurt for you as much as for me." Again
the rubbing of his nape. "Linnie, you're as much a daughter to me as my own's ever been.
And I'm no fonder of my blood grandchildren than I am of Kyle and Ginger."

She leaned against him. Her biggest fear--after the possibility that she might lose
custody of her children--was that Jethro might never forgive her for betraying Jesse's
memory. "I don't think there's much doubt he's their father."

There. It hadn't hurt to say it. Probably because, sometime in the past terror-filled
day and night, she'd accepted the reality of Kyle's appearance, of Erik's claim. "Will you
ever forgive me?"

"Forgive you? For what? You didn't do nothin' to hurt me, and Jesse was gone.
You couldn't lay yourself in his grave, alongside him."

A tiny glimmer of peace woke inside her. For the first time she really believed that
the children could be safe.

Erik would find them. He had to.

Erik fell, his foot sinking into deep mud. For a moment it seemed almost too much
to ask of his exhausted body to rise. But there was a stick poking him in the gut and so he
rolled, pushed, and finally came up onto one knee. That's when the sound finally
penetrated his misery and hopelessness.

He looked around, seeking the source. The island he was on was small, one side
bordered by the overflowing beaver pond, the other higher, still several feet above the
flood. He made it to his feet, climbed the low rise.

The water had cut through a larger island, leaving a steep-sided channel, was still
cutting, for even as he watched, a clump of soil fell from the edge of the next island. All
that seemed to be holding it from total destruction were several fair sized pines, surrounded
by a narrow but dense willow thicket.

He looked again. Beyond the willows, nearly hidden by tangled stems and
gray-green leaves, he saw a spot of color. He shouted, "Ginger! Jace! Dennis!"

"Help!" This time he heard clearly. The color moved, resolved itself into a child's
arms and body, burrowing through the dense branches. "Help! Help!"

Ginger emerged, her face scratched and pale, her coat torn. Erik had never seen a
better sight in his life.

She came to the edge of the island, jumped back when another clod broke off and
fell into the raging creek.

"Stay there!" he yelled. "Are the others all right?"

She called something, but the sound of the water drowned her words. But her nod
was enough. They were all safe!

Erik set three flares while he walked the length of his island, seeking a way across
to the children. He wondered how they had come this far in relative safety. In that same
time, both islands grew appreciably smaller, though his seemed to be shrinking at a faster
rate than the one holding the children. Probably because there were no willows where he
stood.

Finally the 'copter found them. It circled, while the sheriff peered out the door.
There was no place for it to land because of the tall pines. Erik watched while Wally
attached something to the hoist that extended out over the door. Soon a cable began to
descend, a pointed, silvery device dangling from it--a forest penetrator, he remembered it
being called.

When the penetrator touched ground, Erik saw how three flanges could fold out,
revealing webbing straps. He waved his understanding, then called out to Ginger, pointing
at the device. While she watched, he straddled a flange. The webbing went around his
waist and he wrapped his arms around the round body of the penetrator. "Ginger!" he
called. She nodded her understanding.

Oh, God! She's only seven years old. Will she be able to tell the boys what to
do? Will they listen?

Dismounting, he folded the flanges back up and released his hold on the cable.
Slowly the penetrator rose and swung across the stream. After twice being deflected by the
dense willows, it finally slipped between two pines and disappeared from his sight.

Erik waited, watching while both islands grew steadily smaller. The water seemed
higher, and swifter. Finally Wally waved from the open door of the 'copter. The penetrator
rose slowly from the treetops, three children clinging to it, their arms and legs tangled
together.

He could do nothing more. Except pray.

Now that his task was complete, now that his children were safe, Erik realized just
how cold, how tired he was. A bone deep exhaustion swept over him and he sank to his
knees.

The world seemed to tilt. That was when he realized that more than exhaustion
was affecting him.

Upstream a logjam had broken free. He saw the mad tumble of dirty foam and
blackly-wet logs just as it struck the pitiful remnant of his island. He saw the penetrator,
starting to descend for him.

He saw the thick branch, just before it struck him.

* * * *

"We'll find him." Madeline heard Wally's promise, but she didn't believe it.
Couldn't believe it.

"You left him," she said, again. "You left him up there to die!"

"Dammit, Linnie, Steve's still looking. And the chopper's on its way back. Those
kids needed medical attention."

Guiltily she looked toward the ambulance, where the EMTs were readying her
daughter and nephews for the trip to the clinic in town. They'd chased her away, told her
not to hover.

There hadn't been room in the helicopter for Abby and Kyle. They would be
brought out on the next trip. Steve's last radio message had assured her they were both safe
and comfortable, now that they'd been fed and wrapped in dry blankets.

"You coming, Madeline?" The EMT was closing the doors of the ambulance.

She was torn. To go to the clinic with Ginger, to stay until Kyle was brought in?
Until Erik was found.

"I am," Janine called, running from the house, her purse and a jacket in one
hand.

"Then I'll wait for Kyle," Madeline said. Wait for Kyle and word about Erik.

He
had
to be alive!

* * * *

Warm. His back was warm.

He'd been cold for so long. And wet.

Slowly he became conscious of water pulling at his feet and legs, trying to drag
him along in its rush.

Erik clawed himself higher, away from the water's clutch, feeling the cuts as his
hands slipped along sharp edges of long, narrow leaves, the only things he could catch hold
of.

God, but his head hurt!

His body screamed protest as he rolled to his back. A lowering sun shone bright in
his eyes, the source of the warmth.

Why was he lying in the sedges? He was supposed to meet the attorneys for the
county at two. It had to be later than that, but how much later? Turning his head, he tried to
see his watch without raising an arm that weighed a ton. His wrist was bare, below the
jagged end of a torn sleeve.

And why was the water so loud? Blackwater Swamp had no running water.

Where the hell am I?

He tried to sit up, but as soon as he lifted his head, the world spun and sharp pain
radiated from his forehead. Dragging his hand along his body, he inspected the source of
the pain. His fingers came away bloody.

The mere touch caused the world to spin. Erik felt his hold on reality
slipping.

Sometime later, when the warmth was all gone, he woke again. Someone was
leaning over him, someone vaguely familiar.

"Can you move?" the man demanded.

Erik tried. He really did.

"Wake up, man! Can you move?" The man's voice was insistent.

With an effort, Erik raised himself on one elbow, but the pain in his head sapped
his strength and he flopped back down.