Above Rubies (Rockland Ranch)

By Jaclyn M. Hawkes

Chapter One

              Millions of lights on the Las Vegas strip streamed through the smudged bus windows like alarm beacons.  It felt like hundreds of flashing cop cars at some freakishly huge accident.  The glare made the hungry knot of worry in the pit of her stomach tighten.  Before she’d even gotten off the Greyhound, Kit knew she'd made a disastrous mistake.

                                                        ****

             
Girl, what are you doing?
  As Rossen Rockland began to fill his truck with gas, he shook his head as he watched a slender young girl walking alone in the dark carrying a guitar.  She was anything but safe out by herself in Las Vegas at almost one o’clock in the morning.  Down a side street he could see a number of teenagers hanging out in an unruly bunch.  Even though he was from a part of Wyoming that didn’t have a problem with gangs, he still recognized one when he saw one.  They were making hand gestures to another group of youth who appeared near the rear of the station, not far from the young woman and he heard himself repeat out loud, “Girl, what are you doing?”

              His best friend and roping partner, Slade Marsh, had gotten out to double check the horses in the trailer they were pulling and wash the windows, while Slade’s fiancée, Isabel remained in the cab.  Even at this hour of the night, Las Vegas was just really getting going and she was more secure inside in this wide open party town.   

             
The three of them had just come from the last round of the National Finals Rodeo, where the two men had taken top honors in their events.  They'd reached their ultimate rodeo goals, but now, as tired as they were, they just wanted to go home.  They’d been on the road rodeoing for most of the year, and it had been a great ride.  But the season was over, Christmas was a mere ten days away, and they intended to be home on their ranches in Wyoming by morning. The entire National Finals had been a roller coaster of not just rodeoing, but several other troubling instances as well, and the three wanted to leave the hubbub of the City of Sin behind, and return to the peace and serenity of the mountains.

             
Almost as if Rossen’s thoughts had started it, the girl was approached by a cocky youth from the gang hanging out behind the station.  Even though Rossen’s tanks weren’t yet full, he returned the nozzle to the pump and jumped back into the truck.  As Slade climbed back into the passenger seat, Rossen drew his and Isabel’s attention to what was going on as the heavyset young gangster approached the girl.  She immediately turned around and started walking in the opposite direction, but the youth simply turned and followed her.  As he dogged the young woman, Rossen gunned the truck toward the girl, all three of its occupants tense at what they were watching take place. 

The gang member
followed the girl for a moment, then grabbed her by the arm and started dragging her toward the back of the station as Rossen and Slade slammed out of the idling truck.  Rossen yelled, but it was only swallowed up in the music that issued from the station speakers and they started to run. 

             
It all happened so fast they couldn’t stop it as the girl slapped her aggressor and began to fight him.  The much larger youth backhanded her, sending her reeling into the building.  Her guitar was knocked away and shattered as it hit the pavement and the gangster jerked her arm up behind her back, turned her and slugged her full in the face.  The blow knocked her backwards.  She stumbled off the curb, tried unsuccessfully to put an arm back to break her fall and then slammed into the asphalt on the back of her head.  Rossen was horrified when the young woman lay sickeningly still. 

             
Arriving seconds too late, Slade punched the gang member, doubling him over, and then slamming his face into his raised knee, as Rossen bent to the still form on the pavement. 

             
At that moment Isabel shouted and began to gesture at something around the corner of the building.  She was pointing and yelled, “Get her inside quick, before they get here!”  Rossen scooped the unconscious girl off the street and quickly climbed into the rear door Slade held for him, then Slade jumped into the driver’s seat, pulled out of the station and onto the freeway, literally closing the door as he drove away. 

             
Slade drove as fast as he dared with a trailer full of horses, while Isabel bailed over the seat to help Rossen try to stop the girl’s bleeding.  At first, they couldn’t believe a nose could bleed that much, but it took only a moment to find she also had a two inch gash down the back of her head that was gushing blood.  They quickly depleted the supply of napkins in the cab and went through a pillow case and then Isabel’s soft jacket, before the flow even slowed.  It wasn’t until then that they noticed her left arm bent at a strange angle, and it felt like hours more before they sighted the hospital sign posted at the freeway exit, and pulled off the interstate. 

             
When they got to the emergency room entrance, Rossen carefully carried the unconscious girl past the crowd in the waiting room and into a cubicle, her head and nose still dripping blood.  He gently laid her on the exam table indicating her arm, and then the three of them stood back, as a doctor and two nurses began examining her all at once.  They cut the oversized denim jacket off to reveal an obviously broken arm that was beginning to bruise and swell.  They finally got the bleeding from the back of her head stopped, and were working on her bleeding nose, as both eyes grew black and swollen.

             
The doctor was instructing his staff to get her cleaned up and prepped for surgery when one of the clerks from the front desk came back to get information.  As Isabel turned and said that they didn’t even know who she was, the whole room seemed to slow and back off.  All of the staff looked up and paused at what they were doing. 

             
Slade realized what was going on and said, “Is, dig in her pockets or through her back pack and find her ID.”

             
Rossen wasn’t happy with the instant slacking off and his tone was impatient when he asked, “What’s the problem, Doctor?  I thought she needed immediate surgery.”

             
“We can’t just operate on someone you don’t know.”

             
Disgusted, Rossen asked, “Why not, if she needs it?”

             
“There are legal ramifications.  It’s not all that simple.” 

             
Shaking his head in disappointment, Rossen asked, “This is about money, isn’t it?”

             
The doctor finally looked up angrily. “This is about it’s illegal to treat her, especially with surgery without a parent’s consent if she’s under eighteen. The only way I could do this was if her condition was immediately life threatening.”

             
Typically easy going, Rossen was completely disgusted, and said, “Of course she’s eighteen!  Look at her!”

             
Without backing down, the physician insisted, “She doesn’t look eighteen to me and even if she were, someone still has to sign the releases.”

             
Isabel stepped between them with a calming hand on Rossen’s chest, “Perhaps if I personally guarantee the bills, would that help?  I’d be glad to.”  She extended a dainty hand and smiled up at the doctor.  “I’m Isabel.”

             
He turned to her, glancing at her up and down and changed his demeanor instantly.  Still holding her hand he reiterated, “I’d be happy to take your information Isabel, but I really can’t operate, or even treat her further without some verification.”

             
Slade rolled his eyes. “Which we can’t get because she’s unconscious, and has no ID.  Great!”  He looked pointedly at the doctor’s hand still holding Isabel’s, and then met Rossen’s eyes.  They were good enough friends that they could all but read each other’s minds and Rossen knew he was wondering if they’d encounter this same situation if they tried to simply take her to a different hospital nearby.  They both knew they probably would. Slade gave him a minimal nod and said, “Okay. Plan B.  We’re taking her with us.  We’ll take her home to our personal physician.”

             
The doctor half-heartedly objected, “You can’t just pick a juvenile up and take her with you.  That’s technically kidnapping.” 

             
Rossen all but snarled, “Does she look like anyone here is taking a particular interest in her?”  The room was quiet because the neglect was so obvious.  

             
Slade addressed the doctor, “Can you at least tell us she isn’t in imminent danger if we have to drive for awhile?” 

             
Reluctantly, the doctor let go of Isabel’s hand and turned back to Slade. “She does have a concussion, but it isn’t life threatening now that the bleeding is stopped.  She should come to anytime, but I’ll give her something to help her sleep, and numb the arm for the duration.  How long is awhile?”

“Hours.  Several hours.”
 

The doctor looked hesitant, but then shook his head and said, “She should be fine.  But, o
ne of the main concerns with concussions is they often cause patients to be horribly ill.  There’s a very good probability she’ll vomit in your vehicle on the way.  Other than that, she should be all right.”  He started hustling around the room again to splint her arm. “You know your own doctor legally shouldn’t work on her either.”         

             
The hospital staff was obviously glad to be free of the responsibility and was, in fact, very helpful after all.  They splinted the unconscious girl’s arm, injected it for pain, and supplied them with bandages and ice to try and keep the swelling to a minimum.  They even provided them with blankets to transport her.  Rossen, Slade and Isabel were completely disgusted, but felt they were doing the right thing and loaded back into the truck for a fast run up I-15 to Wyoming. 

             
For the next seven hours, Rossen cradled the slight, injured girl on his lap in the rear seat of the cab with Isabel beside him.  They struggled the entire way to keep ice on her arm and her face, and elevate her head which, even with pressure on the wound, bled intermittently.  As they drove, Rossen prayed.  This girl seemed so young and fragile.  She was so thin she was almost emaciated, and he was pretty positive from the distinctive rounded tummy, that she was a few months pregnant.

             
Her clothes were faded and threadbare and didn’t come close to fitting.  And they certainly weren’t warm enough for mid-December, even in the desert.  Her backpack had contained almost nothing. A spare change of worn clothing, a hairbrush, a toothbrush, a squashed peanut butter sandwich, and a sandwich bag of something that looked like modeling clay.  In the back pocket of her cut-off Levis, they found four dollars.

             
Her appearance alone in the street in Vegas late at night, her condition, and now her terrible injuries, all combined to fill him with a deep sense of pity.  He thought of his own younger sister and vowed to himself he would help this girl.

             
At just after six the next morning, Slade placed a call to their own orthopedic surgeon who practiced out of Evanston.  Dr. Sundquist had worked on Slade and the members of the Rockland family enough to be considered a family friend.  When they explained the situation, he agreed to be at the hospital waiting for them with an operating room available and an anesthesiologist on call.  Slade closed his phone and they all three breathed a sigh of relief that their decision to bring her home had worked out at least this far.

             
Rossen in turn opened his phone to touch base with his mom, Naomi, and sister, Joey.  They were the only ones of the family who hadn't been in Vegas with them.  The rest were coming home the next day.

             
About an hour outside of Evanston, Rossen realized the injured girl was starting to come around.  He and Isabel retrieved the bags the hospital had sent in case she threw up, just in time.  He pulled her long, dark, now bloody, hair back from her face and helped her wipe her mouth with a tissue.  When she looked up at him through black and bloodshot eyes, her fear was greater than her obvious pain.  She pulled the light blanket they’d wrapped around her tight to her neck apparently in an effort to cover and protect herself. 

             
He could feel her heart race as he held her and kept his voice low and gentle to keep from frightening her any more as he asked, “What’s your name?”

             
“Kit.”  She winced in pain.

             
He moved to smooth her hair out of her face and she pulled back in fear as he asked, “Kit what?” 

             
“Just Kit.”  Her voice held a deep sadness.

             
He tried again. “Where’s your ID?”

             
She barely shook her head.  "I have no ID."