Where There's Smoke (19 page)

Dare she call him and ask if he was still interested in a job?

He'd probably left town.

Besides, what kind of fool would hire an ex-con after firing an employee for stealing?

Jody would have a tizzy.
 
Her blood pressure would soar, and it would be Janellen's fault if she became seriously ill.

She enumerated a dozen solid objections but reached for the phone book and looked up the number of The Palm.
 
Her call was answered on the first ring.

"Is .
 
. . Yes, I'm calling for .
 
Who is this please?"
 
Her brave gene had returned to hibernation.

"Who did you want?"

"Well, this is janellen Tackett.
 
I'm looking for-" "He ain't here."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Your brother's not here.
 
He came in last night after that town meeting.
 
Stayed 'bout half an hour.
 
Knocked back three doubles in record time.
 
Then he left.
 
Said he was going flying."
 
The man chuckled.
 
"I sure as hell wouldn't have got into an airplane with him.

Not with all that scotch sloshing behind his belt and considering the mood he was in.

"Oh dear," Janellen murmured.
 
The pimp-mobile hadn't been in its usual place this morning.
 
She had hoped it signified that Key was up and out early, not that he hadn't come home at all.

"This is Hap Hollister, Miss Janellen.
 
I own The Palm.
 
If Key comes in, can I give him a message for you?
 
Want him to call home?"

"Yes, please.
 
I'd like to know that he's all right."

"Aw hell, you know Key.
 
He can take care of himself."

"Yes, but please have him call anyway."

"Will do.
 
Bye-bye."

"Actually, Mr. Hollister," she cut in hastily, "I was calling for another reason."

"Well?"
 
he said when she hesitated.

Janellen dried her sweating palm on her skirt.
 
"Do you still have a young man working for you named Bowie Cato?"

Lara was weeding her petunia bed when a blue station wagon careened around the nearest corner, hopped the curb, sped up her driveway, and screeched to a halt in the loose gravel.
 
The driver's door burst open and a young man dressed in swimming trunks clambered out, his eyes wild with fright.

"Doctor!
 
My little girl .
 
. . she .
 
. . her arm .
 
. . Jesus, God, help us!"

Lara dropped her trowel and came out of the flower bed like a sprinter off the starting blocks.
 
She stripped off her gardening gloves as she ran to the passenger side of the car and opened the door.
 
The woman inside was even more hysterical than the man.

She was holding a child of about three in her lap.
 
There was a lot of blood.

"What happened?"
 
Lara leaned into the car and gently prized the woman

5 arms away from the girl.
 
The blood was bright red arterial bleeding.

"We were on our way to the lake," the man sobbed.
 
"Letty was in the backseat, riding with her arm out the window.
 
I didn't think I was that close to the corner when I turned.
 
The telephone pole oh, God, oh, Jesus."

The child's arm had been almost severed.
 
The shoulder ball joint was grotesquely exposed.
 
Blood was spurting from the severed artery.

Her skin was virtually blue, her breathing shallow and rapid.
 
She was unresponsive.

"Hand me a towel."

The man yanked one from a folded stack of beach towels on the backseat and shoved it toward Lara.
 
She pressed it firmly against the wound.

"Hold it in place until I get back."
 
The mother nodded though she continued to sob.
 
"Apply as much pressure as you can.

To the father she said, "Clear out the back of the car."

She raced for the door of her clinic.
 
Even as she gathered up the paraphernalia for a glucose IV, she called the Flight for Life number at Mother Frances Hospital in Tyler.

"This is Dr. Mallory in Eden Pass.
 
I need a helicopter.
 
The patient is a child.
 
She's in shock, cyanotic, unresponsive, significant loss of blood.
 
Her right arm is almost severed.
 
No sign of head, back, or neck injury.
 
She can be moved."

"Can you get her to the Dabbert County landing strip?"

"Yes."

"Both choppers are currently out.
 
We'll dispatch to you asap.

Lara hung up the phone, grabbed her emergency bag, and ran back outside.
 
In what must have been a frenzy, the panicked father had emptied the back of his station wagon.
 
The driveway was now littered with deflated air mattresses and inner tubes, a picnic basket, six-packs of soft drinks, two Thermoses, an ice chest, and an old quilt.

"Help me get her into the back."

Together Lara and the child's father lifted her from her mother's lap and carried her to the rear of the car.
 
Lara climbed in and guided the child's body down as her father laid her on the carpet.
 
The mother scrambled in and hunkered down on the other side of her daughter.

"Get me the quilt."
 
The man brought it to her, and Lara used it to cover the child to retain her body heat.
 
"Drive us to the county landing strip.
 
I hope you know where it is."

He nodded.

"A helicopter will soon be there to take her to Tyler."
 
He slammed the tailgate and ran to the driver's side.
 
Within two minutes of their arrival, they were under way.

Working quickly, Lara removed the blood-soaked towel from the girl's shoulder and replaced it with small 4 x 4 sterile gauze pads.

She pressed them into the wound, then tightly bound the child's shoulder with an Ace bandage.
 
The bleeding could be fatal if it wasn't stanched.

Next she began searching the back of the child's hand for a vein.

The patient began to retch.
 
Her mother cried out in distress.
 
Calmly, Lara said, "Turn her head to one side so she won't choke on her vomit."

The mother did as she was told.
 
The child's air passage was clear, but her breathing was thready, as was her pulse.

The father drove like a madman, honking wildly at every other car on the road, racing through intersections, and cursing through his tears.

The mother cried noisily and wetly.

Lara's heart went out to them.
 
She knew how it felt to watch uselessly while your child died a bloody death.

Dissatisfied with the small vein she'd located in the back of the girl's hand, she made a swift decision to do a cut-down.
 
She pulled the child's foot from beneath the quilt and, as the mother watched in horror, used a scalpel to make a small incision in her ankle.
 
She located the vein, made a small nick in it and inserted a thin catheter, through which she connected the IV apparatus.
 
Her fingers moving hastily but skillfully, she closed the tiny incision with a suture to secure the catheter in place.

She was dripping with perspiration and used her sleeve to mop her forehead.
 
"Thank God," she murmured when she saw that they had arrived at the landing strip.

"Where's the helicopter?"
 
the father screamed.

"Honk the horn."

A rheumy-eyed man in greasy overalls came hurrying out of the corrugated tin hangar and went straight to the driver.

"You Doc Mallory?"
 
he asked.

The father pointed toward the rear of the station wagon.
 
The mechanic bent down and gaped at the gory scene.
 
"Doc?"

Lara opened the tailgate and got out.
 
"Have you heard from Mother Frances Hospital?"

"They had one chopper picking up a man having a heart attack out at Lake Palestine and the other at a wreck on Interstate 20."

"Did they notify Medical Center?"

"Their chopper's at the same wreck.
 
Hell of a pileup, I guess.
 
Said they could dispatch one from somewhere else.
 
They're putting out the call now."

"She's got no time!"

"Oh, God, my baby!"
 
the mother wailed.
 
"She's going to die, isn't she?
 
Oh, God!"

Lara looked at the tiny body and saw the life ebbing from it.
 
"God help me."
 
She covered her face with her gloved hands, which smelled of fresh blood.
 
This was her recurring nightmare.
 
Watching a child die.

Bleeding to death.
 
Incapable of doing anything to prevent it.

"Doctor!"

The child's father grabbed her arm and shook her.
 
"What now?

You gotta do something!
 
Our baby's dying!"

She knew that all too clearly.
 
She also knew she alone couldn't handle an emergency of this magnitude.
 
She could control the shock temporarily, but the girl would most certainly lose her limb if not her life if she didn't get emergency treatment immediately.
 
The small county hospital wasn't equipped to handle trauma of this magnitude.

A nasty cut, a broken radius, yes, but not this.
 
Taking her there would be a waste of valuable time.

She rounded on the awestruck mechanic.
 
"Can you fly us there?

This is a life-or-death situation."

"I just tinker on 'em.
 
Never learned to fly 'em.
 
But there's a pilot here who might fly you where you need to go."

"Where is he?"

"In yonder."
 
He hitched his thumb in the direction of the hangar.

"But he's feeling right poorly hisself."

"is there a plane available?
 
Better yet, a helicopter?"

"That pro golfer that retired here a while back?
 
He keeps a chopper here.
 
Fancy one.
 
Flies it back and forth to Dallas once or twice a week to play golf.
 
He's a regular Joe.
 
Don't reckon he'd mind none you using it, considering it's an emergency and all."

"Hurry, hurry!"
 
the mother pleaded.

"Can this pilot fly a helicopter?"
 
Lara asked the mechanic.

"Yeah, but like I said he ain't "Keep the IV bottle elevated," she said to the mother.
 
"Monitor her breathing," she told the father.
 
She was taking a chance by leaving her patient but didn't trust the loquacious mechanic to convey to the pilot the urgency of the situation.

She rushed past him and entered the building at a run.
 
Several disemboweled aircraft were parked inside.
 
She didn't see anyone.

"Hello?
 
Hello?"

She went through a door on her left, entering a small, stuffy room.

In the corner was a cot.
 
A man was lying on his back, snoring sonorously.