Chapter 7:

Mrs. Moore knocked on my door during breakfast.

“Hi. I came to tell you that Cheryl is clean. The doctors ran test after test and everything is clean.”

Panicking, I grabbed her hand and led her off my porch. She too was lighter than she should have been but not as bad as Cheryl. “My house is bugged. Yours too probably. Car, yard, bathrooms, pool, you name it. I’m glad Cheryl is good.” Not that she will show her face around me again. That last time she was scared off by the Agency.

“Oh, I didn’t realize. I wanted you to know. If you need anything, let me know,” Mrs. Moore couldn’t say enough about Cheryl’s recovery and it showed.

“Can I have Cheryl’s oncologist’s phone number please?”

“Why would you need that?”

“No reason. Just in case.”

“Wait here.” I burned the name and number into my brain before flushing the paper she gave me down the toilet. I hoped that it was not too late. What the hell, the Bureau as good as knew anyway. Ronnie admitted it and so did Irene.

After she left, I went for a walk in the woods letting my cereal get soggy-er for later. Every tree, I passed by was touched and some of its energy absorbed. Same with the large bushes. I repeated that for two hours until I was brimming with Life.

I felt full in an odd way. I don’t even think I could describe it if I tried. I felt good too.

Pointing and focusing at a noisy blackbird, I zapped him. Stunned, he fell out of the tree, wounded but still alive. I only removed a quarter or so of his lifeforce. Probably more. Filling him with that much more plus, was an ugly sight. Blood, meat and feathers everywhere. Too much.

Sickening.

But I needed testing and practice.

Ronnie found me well after dark in the same area playing with leaves. “Is everything alright?”

“No. It’s not safe here. I’ll return in a couple hours.”

“Nate are you thinking of something dumb?”

“Practicing. Out here no one can get hurt. Now please leave.”

“I’d like to stay and watch.”

“Ronnie, it’s really not safe. They have bomb zones and test areas for a reason. No one is around to worry about if something goes wrong. Please leave me alone.”

“Don’t stay too long.”

“A couple more hours. I promise.”

I stayed out until midnight, maybe a little later. Seeing in the dark was not an issue since I was glowing. That, and I could see everything alive. Plants, roots, bugs, birds and trees. The whole forest was alive and beckoning to me. A beacon.

“You’re still glowing, Nate.” Ronnie was waiting for me when I returned. Of course.

“Too much energy in me. I should skip running until it goes away.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I need to learn, don’t I? The only way that will happen is if I experiment and test. Just like Mr. Plumb said in my science class at school. Theory, experiment and test, test, test, until you get a better understanding. Then test some more.”

“What if something happens to you?”

“Do you think there is anyone out there that is better at fixing me than me?”

“Everyone needs backup,” she counter argued. One that made too much sense.

“Fine, you can come. But if I tell you to leave, you need to go away.”

“I can accept that.”

Turning to look at the Fed in the window, I Flared bright. Smiled, and went inside to rest. I didn’t need sleep right now. It could wait.

I felt bad for those birds and squirrels but those experiments were necessary. Too bad the first one died at the end, so too the second third and fourth. I also realized what was different about Ronnie.

Won’t she be surprised on her next physical. I grinned. A Class I Physical who had a full revamp of her bones, muscles and tendons, she was younger, not just looked it. Maybe not chronologically but where it mattered. I was on to something with that last dumb squirrel. It dying set me back, but that was my fault. I overdid it.

On Monday, Agent Dubois went to follow us, since I had spent all day Thursday through Sunday out here, only returning after midnight each night.

“The Fed can’t come, I can’t guarantee her safety.”

“Are you threatening me Mr. Stevens?”

“Warning. I’m experimenting, if you are close you might get affected.”

“What about her?”

“I like her, you I don’t. Now leave or I will go elsewhere to do this.”

“Sorry, Mr. Stevens, please return to your house.”

“Are you threatening me, Fed?”

She pulled her gun.

I laughed.

“Go ahead and shoot. You wanted to since the first time we met. Or don’t you believe the reports?” I kept walking into the forest. Glowing.

I found new squirrels to play with. It was getting easier to manipulate their life energy at a distance, I still required visual for the more complex aspects.

“What are you trying to do, Nate?”

“Fix her eye, it was damaged a while ago.”

“Which squirrel?” Ronnie asked.

“The gray mottled one in the tree there.” I pointed in a vague direction, the one I was messing around with was a quarter mile ahead. Kinda like Jessica Dubois who was doggedly staying a mile behind us, me. Not that she could see anything from there, even with her high-powered scope. Forest and trees, stupid Fed.

She too was a test subject. I bet she was wondering why she was so tired every night. Hopefully, she blamed the boredom of sitting for hours, seeing and doing nothing. Last time she came too close, I turned a bush to ash five feet in front of her. If that wasn’t enough of a warning, I didn’t know what was.

I kept up my practice until the second week of June. The other kids were out of school for the summer and I had a GED book in my hand while sitting in the forest with divided attention.

Half was on the history dates with Ronnie quizzing me occasionally and the other half on the wildlife. Nothing had accidently died in two weeks.

“Only the Brazilians asked for a meet?” I asked Ronnie for the fourth time.

“Yes,” she replied, with seemingly endless patience. I had stopped glowing on the twenty eighth of last month but we only ran in the mornings now or in my forest. I didn’t need it as much as either of us originally thought. I was slowly rebuilding myself. Addressing the malnutrition of my youth and early teen years, the lack of real exercise and other physical neglect. The massive multivitamin capsules along with almost triple my former food intake were being completely absorbed by my system as I slowly and continuously Healed and rebuilt myself.

I had Ronnie take some too, and Helped her a little here and there... maybe more than a little...

“The Agency is preventing other foreign agents from coming, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“GED tomorrow at nine. Will you drive me?” I asked. I was worried.

“Sure. You’re ready. Just relax and do your best,” she encouraged me.

I was ready.

...

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stevens. Your name is not on the list of today’s testees.” The registrar apologized at the GED sign in.

“What do you mean, it’s not on the list? I have a confirmation number and you cashed my check.” I was pissed.

“Mistakes happen. Please calm down, young man. There is always next month.”

“Fucking Agency. They removed my name. Fine. I can play too.” Turning to Ronnie. “Drive me to the hospital.”

“That isn’t the best idea, Nate.”

“Drive me or I walk. It’s only two miles away, you trained me to run that far, remember?” I snapped.

“Think about what you are doing, Nathan. Call Lu if you need to.”

“He’d say that this is one of those times I needed to decide on my own and live with the consequences. Something trite about growing up and be a man,” I bitched.

Turning to Ronnie, I raised my voice, “Are you going to drive me or not?” I demanded more pissed off than I should have been.

“Don’t hurt anyone and please use moderation,” she capitulated.

“I will be doing the exact opposite of harm,” I promised.

Click. “Dr. Rosenbalm’s office.”

“Tell the doctor that the person who cured Cheryl Moore of her uterus and breast cancer is on the phone. I’ll wait three minutes.”

One minute later, “Tell me something that only you would know.” A firm woman who didn’t want her time wasted but was staring at an unsolved double miracle needed answers, came on the line.

“There was a black film on her body for two days, her feces.” I almost said shit, “was filled with dead cancer cells.”

“You have my attention. Who is this?”

“Nathan Stevens, I’m a Healer Super. Can you get me into the children’s ward in fifteen minutes?”

“A Healer...” she breathed.

“Fifteen minutes or I go somewhere else.”

“I’ll be there. Go in the emergency entrance, ask for me.”

“Okay.” Click.

“Emergency entrance, please,” I asked Ronnie calming down.

“I hope this doesn’t backfire,” she cautioned me.

“It was either this or kill Jessica and every Fed I come across. Irene said to be human. I am, even if they aren’t.”

Five-foot-seven, two-hundred-fifty-pounds of stoutness along with an older woman’s gray hair in a thirty-nine year-old body, met us wearing a white doctor’s jacket and stethoscope. “I’m Dr. Rosenbalm. I take it you are Nathan Stevens?”

“Yup, this is Lt. Lake, Army intelligence, my bodyguard. Lead the way Doc.”

“What can you do and do you need anything?”

“Cancers, wounds, burns. Kids only.” Fuck the adults. They voted to fuck me over. They can rot.

“Bruns...” she said to herself in wonder. “Only children, why?”

“I can Heal two to three kids or one adult. Do you think there are any old farts worth a couple kids?”

“No. I don’t.” She smiled. Didn’t help, she still looked like a shed fell on her and ate her way out. Didn’t matter, as long as she was a good doctor.

The hospital smelled like hospitals everywhere. Sickening.

“How do you heal? I mean the mechanism?”

“I absorb life from everywhere and use it like playdough. Energy playdough.”

She wasn’t buying it, even if it was close to the truth and kept asking for details.

After walking across the hospital and taking the elevator a few floors up, the Doc pointed at a girl behind a glass window. “This is Cortina Gomez, her house caught on fire when her drunken mother mishandled a rotgut still. The mother died and the child suffered terrible burns.”

The ICU window showed a single bed behind it with the plastic tent you see in movies or on TV. The room was filled with monitors, tubes, wires and cabinets. Everything was white and I could hear beeping coming from outside of the room. There were at least three different active monitors. Even the stitching on the mesh parts of the tent was white.

“Do you think you can help her?” the doc asked.

“I need to touch her, doesn’t matter where. Hand, foot, head, body. If you don’t believe me, ask Ronnie.”

Ronnie gave a reluctant nod of agreement. Her gun and badge were indicators of her position. Since she sailed past the guard’s initial inspection, allowing her to wear it in the hospital proper, she had to have been legitimate. No longer caring, I entered the room, sounding the alert at the nurse’s desk. “Guard the door, Ronnie. Please.” I was no longer steamed. No one could be pissed at the outside world in the presence of so many sick children and still claim to be human.

Ducking under the tent, I didn’t realize that they had plastic zippers until later. I found a spot on the girl’s face bare of bandages. Pressing my palm on her head, overlapping some of the bandages, I Healed. She took way more energy than Cheryl did, who had only had two localized clusters of cancer.

More and more people were gathering around the door, but Ronnie was good, the fat Doc was there in support too. Maybe I should have been nicer to her.

My late-night biology reading was helping my vocabulary as well as my understanding.

Burnt flesh, muscle, tendons, and even bones in places, especially on the arms and hands started to recover. It seemed to take forever. I couldn’t remember the girl’s name, guess it didn’t matter. Bones first. I learned to work inside out. The hands were the worst. I wondered if the doctors planned on amputating her right hand before she came out of the coma.

If she... I nipped that thought in the bud.

Someone entered the room, but I couldn’t be distracted. “One doctor only. No one else. If they get caught in my field, they might die.” I didn’t even look away or remove my awareness, I needed this done in one go. I would not get a second chance otherwise.

“You should at least be wearing a mask young man.”

“I can’t get sick.”

“Maybe not, but she can get ill from the simplest of bugs.”

“Oh. I’ll remember that for next time, but I don’t think it will matter.”

“Laura said that you cured a cancer patient of hers. They are mostly giving you this chance because they don’t think you are going to do any good. Nor can it harm Miss Gomez.”

“You think she will die?” I sighed knowing that she would never wake without my help.

“It’s a matter of time, even if something drastic is done. She inhaled too much of the toxic fumes from the still and has too much damage overall to her lungs, the skin and bones in both arms and chest are burnt too deeply for any sort of recovery.” The doctor patiently explained before putting a mask on me.

“I was warned to keep you out of my hospital. I believe that the ones warning me had ulterior motives,” he said.

“They do. I’m Nate.”

“Martin. There is a plastic folding chair in the corner if you need.”

“I’m okay” I said not even looking at the older man who entered my awareness when he came in. “I think another fifteen minutes should be good, her bones are Healing. Mostly, she needs vitamins. Lots. I can’t rebuild everything unless I get them.”

“Which ones?” Martin asked professionally.

“Sir, I’m still reading my first biology book. I know there is calcium in bones and vitamin D. I don’t even know what skin is made of. The rest is up to you. Huge multi ones that have everything are best.”

I felt his smile. “Which text are you reading?” Opening a drawer, he removed something and fiddled around a bit. I was trying not to get distracted.

“Intro to Biology, by Green, Williams, and Quincy.”

He held up a syringe. “Not in the bag, that takes too long, inject her biceps, both of them. I can help it along since the blood is flowing again.

“She is going to need a ton of food and water soon too. There was more damage than I thought,” I said after some consideration.

“Should you not stop and continue later?” The pleasant doctor injected a solution into each upper arm.

“I can’t afford to. She needs to get better today or it’s my ass. Whatever you gave her is helping. She will need a ton more.”

Five minutes later...

“Can you unwrap her head? Her face needs to be washed too, she is getting some of the dead skin in her eyes, nose and ears.”

“It’s flaking off?” he asked astonished.

“Yeah. Can you have someone come in and unwrap her while you give her more vitamins?”

I heard him speak to the wall unit. Someone else entered and a brief discussion took place. I didn’t notice that the monitors had all settled down until just then.

With a sponge, the new person; Caryn, a doctor I thought, began slowly unwrapping the girl, carelessly casting aside the bandages onto a tray. I heard scissors and an exclamation now and then, along with splashing of a bucket of water and repeated trips to the sink.

Dr. Martin kept pumping his patient full of vitamins until I said enough.

“Remind her to plant a tree, she owes it her life. Where was that chair?” It was tiring, mostly mental and I had not stood in one place for thirty minutes before. I also learned a ton. Next time shoot the burn victims up with a gallon of multi vitamins before I start Healing. Not after.

I took a seat in the corner, while the two doctors worked together seamlessly. They had to have worked as a team for ages. Uncaring, I unwrapped an energy bar and took a bite. This room would have to be fumigated anyway.

Working ceaselessly, the pair of docs had the girl unwrapped and mostly washed off in much shorter amount of time than expected. She was tiny, younger than I thought. Maybe seven or eight and thin.

“Barring an X-ray, I’d say it was a success.”

“I fixed the few broken bones I found.” I said, looking for something else to eat. It was fascinating watching them work and seeing the absolute care they had for their patient.

“Nate, are you keeping her asleep?” Dr. Martin asked while washing her left leg with his fifth sponge.

“Nah. She needs to recoup her energy, might take a day or two to wake on her own. Cheryl needed fourteen hours.”

“Was Cheryl the patient Dr. Rosenbalm spoke of?”

“I guess so.”

“Why is the PRA trying to keep you out of the hospital, young man?” Dr. Caryn, asked curiously.

“Supers doing good and making news about it is bad for them. We can only be seen doing bad stuff. Otherwise, it’s all doom and gloom for their budget and witch hunt,” I replied as sarcastically as possible.

“How are you feeling, Nate?”

“Okay, a bit thirsty.”

“How much were you planning on doing today?”

“I didn’t expect to even come. The Agency pissed me off when they cancelled my GED test. Without a GED, I have to attend school. The only schools I can legally attend in the US are all run by the Agency.”

“Parents or homeschooling?”

“None and none. I’ll go to Russia before I go to one of their ‘Camps’.”

“The conditions there are not too bad, but I would not send anyone I cared about there.” Doc Martin replied cryptically.

“Why Russia?” The lady doc asked while giving the girl a final cleaning. Doc Martin was cleaning up the area, putting things away for disposal and testing, I guessed.

“I was offered 25 mil a year, a house and three months off for two days a week at the hospital there.”

“More than I make,” she cockily added. The lady doc wasn’t bad either.

“I hear that you have a children’s cancer ward here somewhere. Can I get some juice, an apple and a guided tour?”

“Are you sure you are up for it? This could not have been easy,” Doc Martin asked, concerned. Proving again he was a fantastic Doc, like the ones in the MASH reruns. Not Burns though.

“I’m fine.” I was too.

“Caryn, will you finish this up, I will escort our guest to the children’s wing.”

“Go. Take pictures,” ‘Caryn’ ordered doc Martin.

“Bring those vitamins, they helped a ton,” I asked Doc Martin.

There were about twenty doctors hovering outside of the window all taking turns peeking in. If that poor girl was not asleep, she would be freaking. I knew I would be.

“You’re glowing.” Ronnie reminded me.

“Thanks. Doc Martin is taking me to the children’s wing. And juice. Let’s go.” ‘Thanks’, I mouthed to my friend. Ronnie could have made this very difficult.

In the cancer ward were about two dozen kids between the ages of four and sixteen. Less than I expected and more than I liked. Dr. Abraham, aka Martin, only allowed two doctors to come with us, including Dr. Rosenbalm, who earned the right from the simple fact that she brought me here.

A bald ten-year old girl in a pink knit cap was in bed reading the third book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Return of the King, I thought. The cover was missing and the book badly used. Mauled even.

“Missy, this is Nate. He’d like to show you something.”

“I hope he isn’t another lame magician wananbie.”

“I couldn’t pull a quarter out of a rabbit’s hat if you put the quarter in beforehand.” I extended my hand in greeting. “I’m Nate.”

“Aren’t you afraid that I’m contagious? You might catch ‘death’. I think mom’s hand will fall off soon if she keeps scrubbing it every time she comes to visit.” The tiny, thin girl, asked acidly.

“Are you going to shake or not? I’m Nate.”

“Fine. I’m Melissa, going to die of leukemia in three months.” Grabbing onto my hand feebly, she shook it, hoping to shock me. I already knew, but didn’t think she had that long judging by her low life energy level.

“Good night, Melissa, remember to thank a tree when you wake.” She fell asleep. Too easily.

“Doc Martin, run an IV and inject some vitamins. Stuff for her blood, heart and bones, marrow, I think. Her liver needs stuff too. Her liver is here, right? The rest is mostly okay. She will need a ton of food later and water, you know better than I do. Oh, she will ooze black junk out of her pores and stool for a day. Huh. This isn’t bad. This is much easier than the other girl.

“What’s up with that guy. Why is he glowing?” A little boy sitting on his scooter barged into the room.

“He’s helping Missy feel better. You can be next if you are good, Luke.”

“It’s Lucient. Mom said so.” The kid slowly articulated the word. Completely unfamiliar with actually pronouncing it himself, just mimicking his mom.

“Then be a good boy and remember what we talked about when doctors are in the room we...”

“‘Let them doctor’.” The boy finished Dr. Rosenbalm’s teachings. The cute kid maneuvered his three wheel bike and scooted off.

Ten minutes, not bad. I accepted the juice from Ronnie and was led to the next patient. Lucient was not next. It was a fourteen year old boy with a tumor the size of a golf ball located at the base of his brain. No introductions were needed as he was asleep on meds. Drugged hard.

Half way through the fifteen minute, estimated, removal a commotion happened in the ward. Four Agents barged in coming to arrest me followed by seven rent-a-cops. Great timing assholes.

There was stern language and even yelling at one point by Dr. Rosenbalm, who was nice, but still had a face that looked like a bus hit it, after she ate the bus. I heard cameras and cancer mentioned. Not that I cared. If one so much as touched me, they would feed the kids with their vitality.

“Ronnie, make them go away. I am losing concentration and it might harm him. Tumors suck.”

An unfamiliar hand touched my shoulder, he dropped. More yelling ... more people.

There. It broke. Tough fucker. Now to completely kill it and flush it into his system. Good.

I sat back in my chair. And looked at the three groups arguing.

“This is a children’s cancer ward. GET OUT.” The extra-large doc had a set of vocal cords.

“This kid assaulted a Federal officer. He is a criminal that should be in custody.”

“That kid just Healed a brain tumor patient. Brain tumor. I can say it slower. HEALED. A. Brain. Tumor. Patient. Get out and let him work,” Cheryl’s doc was loud.

The seven rent-a-cops didn’t stand a chance against the Feds who didn’t stand a chance against doctors in their own hospital.

Seeing as I was now paying attention to the blowhard bastard, he thundered, “Nathan Stevens, you are under arrest for assault on a Federal Agent.”

“I had never assaulted anyone before. But since you insist.” Snap.

“Nathan.” Ronnie chastised me in disappointment. As all three of the remaining Feds dropped bonelessly to the ground. A chorus of faces looked at me expectantly.

“Sleeping. Who is next?” Over the next three hours I Healed all twenty-five kids in the hospital of their various ailments.

I also learned a great deal more. This was the best practice for me. Mostly healthy squirrels didn’t measure up.

“Where did Doc Martin go?” I asked the fat doc after healing the last kid of throat cancer which had trickled into his left lung.

“Dr. Abraham had a matter to attend to. He would like to see you downstairs in his office when you are done.”

She sounded suspicious, but I was hungry and thirsty, even with Ronnie feeding me bottled juice and terrible hospital mush. Hospital food sucked worse than my cooking. No salt, no pepper, no flavor. How Ronnie ate two helpings and me three, I had no clue.

“I will make the tapes available for everyone later today. I’m sure the Feds will be interested in them too along with our lawyers and the children’s parents,” I heard the good doc, speak loudly to whomever.

Someone shoved me into Dr. Abraham off ... I should have kept my radar up. That would teach me.

“Nate, come join us, please,” invited the EVIL Doctor Martin Abraham, standing before a podium before a crowd of reporters and cameras.

“Twenty-six cases, cured in four hours, including seventeen cancers of one type or another, two Leukemia...” blah, blah, blah. You suck, Dr. Evil. “And one near fatal burn victim who was about to lose her life or at least both arms to severe forth degree burns.

“Nate came here to help, knowing that the PRA would arrest him for saving the lives of those children. We have four officers asleep on cots in a room. No harm was done to them by anyone, they magically fell asleep.” He smiled. What I used to think was a good smile became an EVIL one.

“If the Agency will arrest a man for healing another, just because he has Super powers and is using them to save others, what does that say about us, or the rest of the Supers in custody?”

“Isn’t this the land of innocent until proven guilty? It’s been two years and the Supreme Court has not made a decision on the legality of the PRA’s actions. Here we have proof of a Healer, ladies and gentlemen. And yet they still want to imprison Nathan for saving lives.”

“Where did we go wrong?”

And the crowd went wild as Dr. Evil incited them to new heights.

He banged his stethoscope down a few times getting silence eventually.

“Nathan, would you like to say a few words?” Dr. Evil asked pleasantly.

NO!

“Fine.” You asked for it. “Hi, I’m Nathan Stevens. My dad was one of the first to be Awakened. He turned himself into an Iron Statue. The Agency took him away and refused all attempts to proclaim him dead. No death certificate, no insurance. I’ve lived off Cheerios, Ramen, and chicken breasts bought in bulk, for the last three years.

“If it wasn’t for Mr. Tang, my court appointed guardian, I would have been out on the streets after a month. No help, and yet more snubbing from the Feds.

“Now I am a Class V Elementalist. Or something, no one has a Class for me. I call it Biomancy at a friend’s suggestion. I’m like a Life energy battery. Suck it in and spit it out. The Agency came with dad’s spectrometry in hand trying to make nice, but bugged every room in my house three times. Including the toilet which I found when I was painting. I’m sixteen. What did they expect me to do? Don’t know, but it was watched three times over.”

“They got mad when I left the house. They even cancelled my GED test. They want to trap me so I have to go to their shitty camp. Guess what, I am not going. I Healed a ton of kids today. “I could Heal three kids or one adult. I chose to Heal the kids. You do the math. Is there an adult here who thinks they are worth three children’s lives? Go on raise your hand. The rest of you are liars.”

I heard murmurs and intakes.

“I will not be Healing anyone again.”

The murmurs turned to gasps and loud protests.

“Maybe I will later, when I don’t have a billion spying bugs in my house and the Feds aren’t making up reasons to put me in jail so they can limit me to Healing them or their supporters. You know what will happen... ‘Nate, if you want toilet paper, Heal Mrs. Bigot, who contributed a million to our cause’. Don’t tell me that won’t happen. It happens now with all those people in ‘Camps’ ‘for their own safety’.

“It’s all Bullshit.

“And Every One of you assholes is to blame. In November 69% of you approved of more “Cautionary Measures’. So none of you fuckers will be healed. Think on that.

“One more thing. See that freaking ugly bouquet over there?”

“No Nate,” I heard from my tall, pretty blonde protector.

“Watch.” Snap. It blackened and turned to ash almost instantly. Everyone was startled, no one caught on to the truth besides the good doc next to me, who stiffened in shock. While the ‘class’ mumbled in excitement.

“Class V boys and girls. The energy to heal comes from somewhere. Anything living. Plants, bugs, birds, bees, reporters, worms, shitty Federal agents lower than worms. You name it. I prefer trees myself. They have the most to give and it doesn’t kill them. But if the Agency agents want to keep pressing me. I can use them just as easily as trees.”

“I am a Class V, or so they say. No one but me knows. I live next to a forest, good luck killing me.

“For the record, besides putting those four assholes to sleep, I have not hurt anyone. I cured thirty some children from illnesses that would lead to their deaths and all I get is hate. NO questions. Now get out of my way.” I stomped down the stairs followed by Ronnie while being filmed and photographed.

Sheriff Malory was sitting on his patrol car’s hood waiting for us, parked next to Ronnie’s jeep.