What We Find (12 page)

That’s when she saw Chelsea, crouched in the corner, her hands over her face. “Run to the store,” she said to the girl. Then to the man. “Put the knife on the floor or I’ll shoot you. Now.”

He backed away, palms toward her. She glanced at the first man, crying out in pain, crawling toward the rifle. So she fired at the wall behind him and he scrambled away, back against the wall.

“You shot me in the dick!” he screamed. “You shot me!”

Well, that was fortuitous
, she thought. She’d been aiming for his head.

Chelsea whisked past her through the door and she heard lots of feet running. She imagined everyone within earshot was running toward her now.

“Lie on your stomach, flat, hands stretched out,” she ordered the men. The one who’d been holding the knife did so immediately but the other one, crying, curled up into a ball against the wall. She racked up her last round. And then Cal was behind her; she could smell him.

“Maggie,” he said. “Jesus!”

“Protect the girl,” she said. “Take care of my father.”

“Maggie, what did you do?” Sully asked from behind her.

“I’ll explain after these two are tied up. Cal, there’s a roll of tape in my pocket—Stan and all the police in Colorado are on the way. Can someone please secure these men up so I don’t have to shoot anyone? Again?”

* * *

For a while there was the sound of grunting, heavy breathing and whimpering in that little cabin. Outside there was a lot of murmuring as campers had gathered around to see what was going on, though Maggie was not compelled to explain other than to say the police were on their way.

Then after about five minutes of that the uninjured man began making excuses. “We weren’t gonna do anything. That girl come along of her own—you can even ask her! If you’d a just said something, we’d a been on our way. We got no cause to make trouble anywhere...”

Maggie, still holding her father’s shotgun, snorted. “They used her father’s credit card in the store.”

“She shot me! I’m dying,” the wounded man cried.

“He’s not bleeding enough to be dying. And he’s not bleeding in the right places to be dying,” Maggie said.

Cal rose from his job of binding the men. He was glistening with sweat and he was barely dressed; he must have just pulled on his jeans after his shower. Their weapons were tossed outside. One was bound facedown and the injured man was bound sitting up, leaning against the wall. He had splatters of blood on him but nothing serious. Maggie was not about to give him a checkup.

“I’ll be fine if you want to grab a shirt,” she told Cal.

“I’m not leaving you here. In fact, I’d rather you give me that gun now.”

“I know what I’m doing,” she said. “I know how to use it.”

“I got that message, honey,” he said, pulling it gently from her hands. “I don’t want you to use it too much, that’s all. Why don’t you go check on the girl. Sully and I will take over now.”

“Thanks,” she said, relinquishing the weapon. “I’m worried about her. Will you two be all right?”

“I got it,” Sully said, picking up the man’s rifle and checking to see that it was loaded. “Go ahead.”

When she walked in the back door Chelsea jumped off her stool at the counter and ran to her, throwing her arms around her.

“Honey, honey, it’s going to be okay. The police are on their way.”

“My mom and dad?” she asked through her sobs.

“I’m sure they’ll be notified and either come here or meet you at the hospital or police station. Are you hurt in any way, honey?”

She shook her head against Maggie’s shoulder, crying.

“Do you want me to take you over to the house? Do you want something to eat or drink?”

She leaned back and shook her head. “I just want my mom and dad,” she said.

Maggie pulled her toward the kitchen. “How’d you end up with those two, honey?”

“They tricked me. One of them was crying for help right by the stream where I was filling my water bottle, and when I looked one of them dragged me down the hill with a hand over my mouth. I couldn’t even scream. I lost my whole pack!” She started to tremble and sob again, clinging to Maggie.

“One of them used your dad’s credit card,” Maggie said.

“It was in my pocket,” she said. “I’ve had it in my pocket since we were here. I used it to pay for stuff here. It was an extra—my mom had hers. My dad said hold on to it, keep it safe.”

“When I saw that card, I knew you had been kidnapped,” Maggie said. “So—it did the trick.”

“Did you really shoot that man in the...you know?”

“Nah,” Maggie said. “I just shot him where I thought I could stop him and do the least damage. He’s fine, they’re just pellets. They hurt and sting, but he’ll live. He’ll need a few stitches and that’s all. He’s going to jail.”

Finally, the sound of distant sirens. A helicopter neared. A few minutes later there were cops everywhere, though Sully had called Stan to tell him Maggie had rescued the girl and that Chelsea was safe. Along with law enforcement they got fire and rescue and, as could be predicted, they made a mess of things with their big trucks and heavy equipment.

It was completely dark but with a nice, big moon lighting up the property. And boy, were the police pissed at Maggie. She had specifically defied Stan’s orders.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Stan raged. “You could’ve killed somebody! You could’ve hurt that little girl!”

“I took that into consideration,” she said. “If she’d gotten hurt I could still do some damage to them and get her out. But no one was gonna die from Sully’s old shotgun. Noisiest piece of gun in the West, I think,” she said. “Scared ’em. That’s what I wanted.”

“You could’ve been killed! Those big old bad boys could’ve walked right through that shot and killed you dead!”

“While I was doing my best, at least,” she said.

“Leave her be now. She did what she had to do,” Sully said. “You gonna sit outside and listen to a little girl scream?”

“It’s okay, Dad,” she said. “Let ’em get it off their chest. You can go to the house and rest. This has been a strain on you.”

“You think I’m likely to miss any of this?” he said.

“You could’a been killed, Maggie!” Stan persisted.

“Yeah, but I thought there was a better chance they’d never anticipate me coming at them with a shotgun. So...look, I shot the ceiling, hoping to scare them and hold a gun on them until police arrived, but they were going for their weapons and I was without a choice.”

From there she had to sit at one of the tables on the porch with her dad and Cal and police detectives, her interview recorded, while crime scene people examined the cabin where the shooting took place. They confiscated all the weapons, including Sully’s, the truck and everything else that belonged to the men.

While the police made it very clear they did not approve of the action she’d taken, they also conceded that with one holding a knife and the other reaching for his gun, it was self-defense. They weren’t inclined to arrest her, but they did tell her to stay at the camp and not to leave without notifying Stan.

“Are there any charges pending?” Cal asked the detective.

“The file is not closed,” he answered. “But so far I haven’t seen any evidence that would warrant arrest. Still, the investigation is not quite over.”

A while later a paramedic she’d known for about ten years, Conrad Boyle, Connie for short, came up on the porch. He grinned at her. “Nothing to worry about, Maggie,” he said. “Except the one that got hit? He says he’s gonna sue you.”

“Tell him to get in line,” she answered somewhat bitterly. No good deed ever goes unpunished.

“He’s gonna be fine. They’re twins, you know that? Burt and Bud. From the Wet Mountain Valley area, back in the hills. I’m just guessing, but I bet they’re pretty well-known back in those trees.”

“Thanks, Connie.”

“You need anything before we haul outta here?”

“Got a Valium?” she asked.

“I’ll have to check you, call ER, write it up. You don’t have one?”

“Forget it, Connie,” she said. “After everyone gets out of here, maybe I’ll have a drink or something.”

He grinned at her. “I don’t care what anyone says. Good on ya, Maggie. You probably saved that girl’s life.”

“Thanks, Connie.”

An hour and a half later, the grounds finally quiet, law enforcement and rescue gone, Maggie had a nice, hearty whiskey blend over a couple of ice cubes, out on the porch with Cal. Sully had gone to bed but she was still way too wired and spooked. She could tell that while the grounds were quiet, people were still awake. She could see the glow of fires in the dark night; she heard the gentle murmurs of talking. She wasn’t the only one afraid to close her eyes on the night.

“Just one question,” Cal said. “What made you storm that cabin? Without help? Without backup of any kind?”

She took a sip of her drink. “There was an emergency case I remembered. Years ago, when I was a senior resident in trauma...”

It was a victim the police couldn’t get to. The apartment was surrounded by SWAT, uniforms, dogs, negotiators and medical. There was only one entry and it took hours while the suspect held the victim with a gun. After hours of trying, in an act of life-threatening heroism, one officer breached the apartment through a hole in the wall and eliminated the suspect. He was a young SWAT officer with a family who braved death to save an innocent. And he was too late.

“Not only had the victim been assaulted for hours, she was critical from a gunshot wound to the head when they finally got in. She was pregnant. It was a tragedy of huge proportions and we couldn’t save her. I thought, maybe stupidly, that I had a chance in this case. I thought I might have to kill them to get Chelsea out but I also thought if I fired one round and they gave up, I wouldn’t have to kill them and maybe could save her before any more damage was done.”

“You weren’t scared?” he asked.

“Of course, I must have been.”

“Don’t you even know?” he asked.

She smiled contritely. “If I let being scared stop me from doing what I think I have to do, I wouldn’t get far. Would I?”

He shook his head and laughed. “You were lucky,” he said. “You might be an ace in the operating room but in this, you were lucky. Let’s not do that again, all right?”

“I hope to never do that again,” she said. “God, I must have gone mad. I don’t put the bullets in. I take them out!”

Be able to be alone.
Lose not the advantage of solitude.

—Sir Thomas Browne

Chapter 7

Maggie became a legend. Word spread around the county in about thirty
minutes. Phones must’ve rung through the night because Enid and Frank showed up at 6:00 a.m. and Tom Canaday wasn’t far behind them. There were others from near Sullivan’s Crossing—a couple of members of the search-and-rescue team, one of the deputies from Timberlake, the county postal deliveryman.
For the love of God.
Maggie was amused that they made her out to be some fierce avenging angel who swooped down on two giant, armed men who were holding a little girl against her will.

As a bunch of locals gathered on the store’s porch, Sully tried to help. “This story might’ve got a little embellished here and there,” he said.

“Did she kick in the door?” Frank asked.

“Yeah, she did that,” Sully relented.

“Blow a hole in the ceiling of that little cabin?” Enid wanted to know.

“It was a shotgun so not a big hole, but there’s repairs to do,” Sully said.

“And she shot one of them in the nuts?” someone asked.

“More or less,” Sully said. “She’s touched that gun under a dozen times in her life. You reckon she’s a good enough shot to do that on purpose?”

“Makes me shiver to think she is,” Frank said. “I heard she had ’em in two shots. I’m gonna be way more careful what I say around her.”

“I think you’re all being just plain ridiculous!” Sully said. “It was a damn fool thing she did with pretty poor odds!”

“If I’m ever in trouble, I want her on my team,” Enid said. “Maybe the lot of you should be careful what you say around
me
.”

“Aw, you’re carried away, that’s all,” Sully sulked. “She’s just a girl! Don’t encourage her!”

Cal, listening to every word, smiled.

* * *

A few days later, the Smyth family paid a visit, expressing gratitude and giving Maggie great peace of mind. As it turned out, the scruffy, felonious twins had a long list of priors, including sexual assault and battery. The county was delighted to hold them without bail and the prediction was that they had reached the end of their criminal careers.

Cal made a secret pledge to follow up on those two, make sure they were securely locked away.

The crossing was teeming with people, some on vacation and others stretching out their weekends. Maggie and Cal had to insist that Sully go easy, knock off early. He was inclined to do too much.

The garden showed the first sprouts of summer vegetables, wildflowers bloomed along roads and trails and Cal became a well-known fixture. He still maintained he was just helping out while Sully got back on his feet, yet his hours had become long and duties varied.

In addition to working in and around the store, he also took plenty of time to sit on the porch or hang around the counter inside the store because warmer weather brought out the locals as well as campers. Neighboring ranchers or their wives paid visits even though they rarely needed supplies of any kind. There was a lot of hanging around the back counter or bulletin board. Gavin, the local ranger with the US Forest Service, dropped by a couple of times for a beer after work; the volunteer search-and-rescue unit had exercises nearby and most of the crew stopped at Sully’s on the way home. Tom was part of that team. And Tom managed to drop by most days, either in the morning for a cup of coffee to start his day or in the afternoon to check on Jackson or Nikki at the end of their day. Tom and Cal seemed to spend more and more time together, talking and laughing like old friends.

Cal was friendly with the campers and when they asked him if he owned the store he said, “No, it belongs to Sully. I’m just cheap help. But if there’s anything you need, just let me know.”

Maggie took Sully to Denver to see the doctor for his checkups. Sully wanted to drive himself there and home but Maggie wasn’t having it. She wanted to hear everything the doctor said. Rob Hollis gave Sully an A+. “You’re cleared to lift twenty-five to thirty-five pounds, and stretching and bending is approved, as tolerated. Walking is good, as much as desired. Meds stay the same. See you in a month.”

Sully peered at Maggie. “Bet that just drives you crazy, hearing that I’m fine.”

“I’m delighted,” she said.

“You don’t have to stay to take care of me anymore,” he said.

“Can I stay if I want to?” she asked a bit sarcastically.

“Long as you want, Maggie. But, don’t you miss the hustle and bustle of the operating room?”

In fact, she did. The cases, especially the most challenging—she missed them. The related complications, not so much. She was keeping up with the emails and snippets of news she got during regular calls with Jaycee, not to mention being in touch with her lawyer. He said she’d be deposed in a couple of weeks and she’d have to go back to Denver for that. “The excitement of Trauma 1 calls to me,” she confessed to Jaycee, the only one of her friends she kept up to date on her legal issues. “But lawsuits, complex insurance disputes and the politics of medicine does not.”

“Oh, I hear you there,” Jaycee said. “OBs are almost as pursued as neurosurgeons. One of our practice has stopped delivering for that reason. What were we thinking?”

“We were thinking we could save the world, or at least a nice big chunk of it,” Maggie said.

“I hope you think hard on this decision to hang around the store, Maggie,” Sully said. “You went to school for a lifetime to do what you do. You saved lives. I think it would be a terrible waste to spend all that training and education handing out picnic supplies.”

“I need some time off,” she said.

But Maggie did take advantage of Sully’s clean bill of health, the extra help around the crossing and the beautiful late-spring weather by heading into the surrounding hills for a few hours here and there. On a few quiet days Cal went with her, hiking into the hills, enjoying the beautiful views and breathtaking vistas. Instead of tents they’d carry a blanket and lunch and be back at the crossing in time for a shower and dinner.

Maggie was happy.

And, she had someone to sleep with at night. Not that much sleeping was involved. It seemed to her that Cal was settling in, getting comfortable. Now that there was help after four in the afternoon till closing up the store, Maggie was having dinner with Sully and Cal, most nights at their kitchen table. Maggie and Cal traded off cooking, cleaned up the dishes together, sat out on the porch at the store or by a fire near the lake. They sat at a table together checking their laptops for email and news. And Cal liked to read. He spent at least a couple of hours every afternoon reading—maybe in one of his lawn chairs, maybe in a hammock, maybe on the porch.

He worked vigorously but he wasn’t around constantly; he certainly wasn’t underfoot. He drove out a few times a week, checking out the surrounding area, bringing home groceries and incidentals. He’d been to Leadville, Timberlake, Fairplay and a few other little specks of towns. He dropped in on Stan the Man at the Timberlake Police Department and they had a hamburger together, he reported. He met Paul Castor, the deputy Stan bragged was a computer genius. “He claims to be in his thirties,” Cal said. “He looks twelve.”

His truck and closed pop-up camper were parked behind the cabin that had become his but even though he was helping around the store and property, he was still camping. Sometimes he got out the fishing pole, sometimes fired up the Coleman stove to make his own breakfast or fry a fish he’d caught, even though he had access to the small kitchen in the store or Sully’s kitchen in the house.

“We lived off the grid a lot when I was a kid.”

“As in camping?”

“We lived in a lot of odd places. There was a commune near Big Sur. That was kind of cool—there were lots of kids to play with. There were times we camped, but it wasn’t recreational, it was lack of proper housing. Or it was part of traveling—my parents decided we should see the country so we spent a year on the road.”

“How amazing,” Maggie said.

“In retrospect, my father might’ve been on the run from his delusions. We were essentially homeless, living in a very old converted bus. But we did have a lot of unique and interesting experiences. And every couple of years my grandparents would snag us away from my mom and dad and keep us on the farm for a while—six months or a year.”

“I guess it’s just in your blood,” she said.

“In a way.”

“If you’re interested in hiking and hate being cold, why aren’t you on the Appalachian Trail?” she asked.

“I experienced a lot of that trail as a kid,” he said. “We spent a little over a year in Tennessee.”

“Doing what?” she asked.

“Not much,” he said. “In summer we picked vegetables.”

“The whole family?” she asked.

“The whole family. We picked up a lot of temporary work here and there. My favorite place to pick vegetables was California, around Fresno. The Central Valley. I learned some Spanish.”

“You’ve had a remarkable life,” she said.

“That’s a nice, positive spin,” he said.

Maggie took that to mean it had been a hard life.

More and more packages arrived, indicating hikers were on the trails. A few straggled in here and there, but none of them had traveled great distances—it was still too early in the spring. One couple had been hiking for six weeks, having started in Wyoming, planning to head farther south through the Rockies if the snow had melted enough. Two guys came over the Rockies from the south and reported it was passable—they had picked up the trail on the north rim of New Mexico. There were several people who’d hiked from Boulder and planned to go all the way to Durango.

On the weekends there were hiking groups who were out for the day or maybe one overnight on the trail. Cal wanted to visit with each one of them, asking about what had motivated them and how their experience had been.

Then it happened, right at the end of April.

“Maggie, your dad is doing great. He must be the poster child for bypass recovery. I saw him hauling flour sacks for Enid, patching the rain drain on the outside of the store, putting a little WeatherAll on the porch rail and throwing the ball for Beau. He’s been cleaning out grills, hosing down your back porch and garden and I caught him doing a little maintenance on his truck. Nothing too serious, the truck is running fine.”

“I wish he wouldn’t push it,” she said.

“He’s not, according to him. He said the doctor gave him the go-ahead. Normal activities. And if he feels any discomfort, he’s supposed to rest. But he seems to be fine. You seem to be fine. Any thoughts of going back to work? Going back to your house in Denver?”

“I’m going back next week for a day to be deposed for that lawsuit, but to practice?” She shook her head. “Not yet. I’m thinking of staying through summer. Poor Sully. I can tell he wishes I’d go. My mother has been calling a lot—she’s appalled by my defection. Not just that I’m not practicing at the moment, but even worse for her—I’m spending my time here. I’ve been here seven weeks and by the texts and emails, people are surprised I’ve stretched it out this long. For now, I’m staying. Do you think I’m crazy, too? Because neurosurgeons just don’t do this?”

Cal laughed and shook his head. “Listen, life’s too short to choose unhappiness. Until you figure out how to live on your own terms, you do whatever you have to do. When I figure out what that means, I’ll be happy to share. For me, for now, I have a little exploring to do. Many times growing up we didn’t have a house anywhere and you’ve got two. I think you’ll be okay. You won’t get any judgment from me.”

“Well, this is Sully’s place, really. At some point I’ll have to work. I can’t expect my father to support me forever.”

He took a deep breath. He took her hands in his. “Maggie, I’m going to go away for a little while,” he said. “The time is perfect. I’m acclimated to the altitude, the forecast is good and I want some of that trail experience.”

“Why don’t you just make this your base camp and go out for a day here and there, like we’ve been doing?” she asked hopefully.

“I want to go north from here, camp along the way, watch summer hit Colorado, maybe go through Wyoming...”

“That’s a long hike,” she said.

“Not nearly as long as some. It’s what I came here to do. I have thinking to do—like where I’m going to settle, what I’m going to do for work. I’m thirty-seven and at loose ends. I had this crazy idea the Continental Divide would level me out, give me a sense of balance, make the answers come easier. I think the solitude on the trail might be good for me.”

She felt a panic in her gut. “I’m never going to see you again, am I.” She did not state it as a question.

“I’ll come back, Maggie. I don’t know that I’ll stay here, but I’ll come back.”

“When?”

“I have no idea. I don’t know if I’ll get enough of that trail in three days or three months. It will do me good. I think you need time to think, too.”

“You’re leaving your truck and camper?”

He shook his head. “There’s a place to park it in Leadville and I’ll get on the trail from there. Leadville’s not too far away and I don’t want it to be in your way here.”

“It wouldn’t be in the way. Sully offered...”

“I’m leaving it in Leadville. In the morning.”