Yellowstone Memories (26 page)

“It’s funny how even the worst injuries eventually heal,” she said in soft tones. “Even when we think they won’t.”

Justin caught his misty breath, raising his eyes to her. “But my thumb ain’t … ain’t the same as it used to be. Won’t ever be again.” He ran his hand over the lines on his jaw, heart thumping in his throat.

“We’re all scarred, Justin. Every single one of us.” Lia met his gaze. “And we won’t be new until eternity. But we can choose to go on living or give up. God can give us a new life.”

He didn’t trust his voice to speak. Wondering, in a wild flail of his heartbeat, if she meant “us” as collective humanity or a different “us.”

Whichever way Lia meant it, she didn’t explain. She simply squeezed his wrist lightly and then withdrew her hand, pulling the blanket around her and turning back to the fire.

Leaning ever so slightly against the curve of his arm.

“Did you hear that, Fairbanks?” Frankie whirled around. “Is my brain playin’ tricks on me, or was that somebody hollerin’?”

Justin skidded to a stop in the snowy ground, holding his breath. A noisy blue jay rattled a branch overhead, sifting down a shower of snow.

“I heard something, too.” Mrs. Parker stopped, her arm tight around Lia’s waist in support. She turned wire-rimmed glasses, frosty with condensation, toward the sound.

Justin glanced at the direction she’d looked—the trail—and felt his heart leap up in hope. “Holler, everybody!” He cupped his hands around his mouth.

And they all yelled together—even Mr. Parker—startling a flock of grosbeaks from a nearby tree. Wings flapped and snow tumbled. Spruce boughs quivered then slowly swayed to a stop.

And then: a chorus of shouts, echoing off snowy hillsides. Ringing against the rocky slopes of the mountain like the most beautiful sound Justin had ever heard.

The first person Justin saw when the rescue crew from Camp Fremont dug their way through boulders and snowdrifts was Ernie Sadler—a wool cap pulled over his head and an anxious look on his cold-red face.

“Good lands, Fairbanks!” Ernie yelled, nearly knocking Justin over with his pounding hug. “Boy, am I glad to see you!”

Guys swarmed around him with whoops and shouts, slapping hands. Three of them took Mr. Parker’s stretcher, passing him a canteen of hot coffee.

Justin laughed and smacked him with his cap. “Not as glad as I am.”

Ernie shook Justin’s shoulder, his nose flushed with cold and eyes wild with excitement. “You scared the spit outta me! Why, you’d all be frozen as solid as penguins if we hadn’t found that note on the Parkers’ car.”

“You found my note?”

“Sure I did. When you didn’t show up at the mess for dinner Saturday I got kinda worried, and nobody saw ya all day today—or Frankie either. I called the other guys to check it out, and somebody said they’d spotted that snazzy Ford over by the lake.” Ernie rubbed Justin’s head. “I know you’re dumb, Fairbanks, but I didn’t know you were dumb enough to go up after Frankie by yourself in a freak blizzard!”

“Hey. I asked for help.” Justin shivered as Ernie opened another canteen of coffee and pressed it, warm and steaming, into his hands.

Justin pushed away the canteen. “Naw. Give it to the gals. They’ve been up here longer than I have.”

“There’s plenty for everybody. Cook sent up sandwiches, too—pretty awful ones, mind you.” Ernie broke off in a laugh, shaking his head as one of the men barked orders to the others. He pulled off Lia’s twig splint and wrapped her ankle in a sturdy cotton bandage, and someone else opened wool blankets.

“Shucks, the whole camp’s been in a tizzy since you guys disappeared,” said Ernie as they headed back down the mountain, glancing up over the ridge at the sky. Probably worried about more snow. He paused to navigate his way down an icy rock formation, reaching out to help Cynthia. He needn’t have; Cynthia already had three guys swarming around her like bees on honey.

Ernie spoke close to Justin’s ear. “Tell you what. Soon as we get back to camp, I’m gonna knock Frankie White’s lights out. The dummy.” He snorted in disgust. “He’s got it comin’ to him, and ain’t nobody gonna tell me otherwise.” He turned to Justin in a low whisper. “You with me?”

Justin hesitated, glancing back over his shoulder at Frankie, who was helping Mrs. Parker down an incline. His arm wrapped protectively around her shoulders. Those silly loafers flapped open, showing threadbare socks.

“I think you oughtta go easy on him.” Justin unscrewed the canteen and sipped hot coffee, burning his tongue. Warmth swirled inside him, delirious, and he almost forgot his next words. “Really. The poor kid’s all shook up.”

Ernie stopped dead still, and the two guys behind him almost knocked into him from behind. “You gotta be joking.”

Justin shrugged and lifted the canteen again. “He’s an all-right kid, Ernie. Just gets a little turned around sometimes, ya know? But I think he learned his lesson.” His eyes softened, remembering his hand on the top of Frankie’s head. “I think he’s gonna straighten some things out.”

Ernie stared at Justin. “You nuts? You got hypothermia or somethin’?” His eyes didn’t smile.

“No, but Mr. Parker might have it. He couldn’t stop shivering. And maybe Lia, too. You’ve gotta take care of her.”

Lia. Justin’s heart caught a bit, and he swiveled around to see her there as two men from the camp boosted her up in a makeshift seat. The color had returned to her cheeks as she sipped a canteen of hot coffee, the steam rising up in front of her face like a sheer wedding veil. Her downturned eyes lifting briefly to his.

“She’ll be all right.” Ernie slapped Justin’s arm. He opened his mouth with a slight smile as if he wanted to make a joke and then thought better of it. “You’ll be all right, too. Even that doggone Frankie White, if he lives through the night. I’m thinkin’ ice in his bed though, at least. If he ain’t seen enough of it since yesterday.”

Faint snow dusted the ground at the entrance of the camp as the rescue party tromped back through the trees, sending up shouts of victory. Cheers echoed through the camp buildings and into the calm, gray evening—overcast but without the blustery wind that had tormented them up on the ridge.

Justin remembered the first time he’d seen Camp Fremont. He’d been a green recruit then, just off the train and mind spinning with heady independence and near intoxication of being far—farther than he’d ever imagined—from Berea, Kentucky.

He’d wanted to sink to his knees in reverence and give thanks to someone—God, perhaps—even all those months ago before he knew Him. Before he prayed for that same God to forgive his sins and change his life.

But now, here on a misty afternoon and all the lupines dark, the sparrows and juncos silent under scudding clouds, Justin felt like he’d never seen anything more beautiful. He wanted to weep at the sight of the flag on its flagpole, at the long log buildings that housed classrooms and bunks and horrible chow.

“Doc’s waitin’ for ya.” Ernie pushed Justin ahead. “Anything you need, just tell me, and we’ll bring it, okay? Soon as Doc checks ya out, Cook’s got a hot meal waitin’ for ya.”

“What did he make?” Justin half closed his eyes, prodding his empty stomach to go a few minutes longer by imagining.

“Dunno. Reckon it’s that rotten meat loaf like the rest of us had for lunch.”

Meat loaf. The oily, grainy one with half-raw onions and skimpy on the salt. Baked as hard as a brick and with a funny burned aftertaste.

And for the first time Justin could remember on meat loaf day, his mouth watered in ravenous pleasure.

“Justin Fairbanks. You alive?” Lieutenant Lytle strode across the cold grass in his uniform toward the infirmary building, his craggy face a mixture of relief and rage.

“Yes sir.” Justin drew himself up tall. Inside Doc was taking a look at Frankie, while two local doctors called in on emergency treated the others—namely, Mr. Parker. Justin had waited until the end to hear how they’d fared. After all, what did he really need Doc for? He was warm now, and his stomach would be filled shortly.

Why, if it weren’t for some scratches and those numb toes, Justin hardly knew he’d crawled up a mountain in a storm.

“Then I want to talk to you. Immediately.” The lieutenant gestured with his head toward his office, doing an immediate about-face and leaving Justin standing there. His shoulders rigid with what Justin guessed was rightful fury over having his explicit orders disobeyed—nearly resulting in the deaths of five people. Four of them guests, and three of them women.

Justin stuck his hands in his pockets and followed the lieutenant, dreading what would happen to Frankie White when he spilled the truth.

“Shut the door.” The lieutenant didn’t sit down. “It was Frankie, wasn’t it?”

“Sorry?” Justin took his hands out of his pockets and put them behind his back, trying to keep his nervous fingers from fidgeting.

“This whole harebrained idea to go up in the middle of nowhere against my orders.” The lieutenant pounded a fist on his upturned palm. “He had no right! That White kid’s been a mistake since the beginning, and first thing tomorrow morning, he’s out of here. You went after him, didn’t you?”

Justin’s mouth opened to speak, but the air inside the lieutenant’s quarters suddenly felt stifling. Dry.

He closed his eyes, unable to see anything but Frankie’s tears.
“My brothers and sis ain’t gonna have nothin’ to eat, and it’s my fault,”
he’d said, trying to ram himself headfirst into a tree.

“How’d you know about his fool idea anyway?” Lieutenant demanded, his mustache twitching with anger.

“Sorry, sir?” Justin felt unable to breathe, the weight of the room about to collapse his lungs.

“I asked how you knew where White was going.” His eyes burned black as coal, smoldering under a shock of dark hair. “You gonna answer me, or you gonna stand there all day? You’ve always been a good kid—the best of the bunch. But I’m in no mood for stammering.” He pointed a finger in the direction of the infirmary. “If that man with the head injury dies, so help me, I’ll have that kid court-martialed.”

Justin heard the faint tick of a pocket watch from the lieutenant’s desk as he took a deep breath and opened his mouth to speak.

I
t was my idea, sir.”