Chapter 7

The drive from Barstow to Los Angeles is better than the drive from Las Vegas to Barstow, but only marginally. Part of the reason it is better is that it is shorter, and the other part is that there is something to see besides scrubland and sand.

Still, all things considered, I preferred the mountains of Tennessee! In fact, I was kind of hankering for some greenery. I was thinking of heading north, after Los Angeles, and maybe making my way up to Oregon and Washington State, as they are supposed to be positively waterlogged up that way, and green as can be.

If I had an inkling, even the slightest hint, that fate had plans for me in Los Angeles, big, painful, dangerous and spiritually crushing plans, I might have skipped that city altogether.

My plan was to go down Interstate 15 until I hit the edges of the city. There, the GPS screen said I could sort of ‘miss’ the busier part and some traffic by getting on to the 210 Freeway all the way to the coastal road, Highway 101. I had no intentions at all of stopping in Los Angeles, not this time around. Frankly, the city scared me.

Traffic started to pick up, but was manageable as I got closer to the city, then started to back up a bit so I was averaging about forty-five when I got to the exit for the 210. I had been prepared though, and had been in the right lane, even though it was moving slowest, for the last two miles.

The speed dropped to a crawling twenty mph during the change-over, not picking up again for at least a mile or three afterwards. I think that the slower speeds, never exceeding forty, was all that kept what happened from being an even bigger tragedy.

Ahead I could see a little Honda something or other. It was noticeable because it was a hideous, neon green with bright orange decals all over it and a wing with three levels! Even us country boys know that shit is stupid. Putting a huge wing on the back of a front-wheel drive car is just foolishness!

That little car was dodging in and out of lanes, riding on the shoulder, forcing people out of the way as it fought for every inch of that highway real estate it could get. When the accident occurred, it wasn’t shocking because it happened, it was shocking because of how.

The green Honda had found a gap and the driver had put his foot down, shooting through a tiny opening barely larger that the car, and into the next lane where it repeated that same move and found the reason for the gap.

A propane gas tanker had rear-ended someone and people were simply trying to get over. The tanker and the pickup in front of it were stopped, the drivers standing on the shoulder and arguing about whose fault it was.

The Honda, doing sixty or more at this point, had zero chance to stop. If the driver had been more experienced or been paying more attention, he might have made the shoulder and simply side-swiped the truck, only running over the drivers who were standing there.

I know that sounds horrible, but it would have been infinitely preferable to what actually happened.

The Honda, without even trying to brake, drove into, and under, the rear of the tanker truck. It wedged itself up under the middle of the truck and then the nitrous bottle, the ruptured hose spraying directly into the electrical fire that was beginning in the dash, caused the small car to explode.

That explosion sent shards of metal arcing upwards into the belly of the tanker truck. Those tanks are tough, designed with safety in mind and designed to withstand an impact. They are not, however, designed to keep superheated bolts, being propelled as if out of a cannon, from piercing the aluminum belly and venting the liquid propane on to the already burning Honda.

The explosion rocked the city for a mile and a half around, breaking windows out to half a mile but being heard as far as ten miles away.

The Honda crew were already dead, and the explosion killed the driver, the pickup driver, and sixteen other people in the surrounding vehicles. Cars were tossed as if by the hand of an angry child and people that had survived the explosion were crushed when their cars were crumpled under other vehicles.

I was back quite a ways and sort of lucky. I saw the Honda dart away, but didn’t see it actually hit. That I learned much later from the accident reconstruction theories. When the Honda started its second lane change, the freight truck behind it took advantage of the sudden free space in its lane and moved up.

That blocked my view of the accident and the subsequent explosion, but it blew the freight truck sideways into my little pickup. My truck hit the concrete wall and the freight truck, no longer able to slide sideways, tipped. If I hadn’t already been knocked flat in the seat, leaning over the center console, the top of that truck flattening half of the passenger compartment would have been the end of me.

Luck, the fates or the spirits were watching over me. The very top of the truck body had flattened the cab roof over the driver seat, but the bed and the engine block kept it from crushing my lower half. My upper half was in the passenger seat and, with a lot of cursing and some skin, it only took about ten minutes for me to crawl through the shattered passenger window.

What I saw was like something out of a movie, or from a war zone.

There were wrecks and torn metal everywhere. Fires were starting in a dozen places and people were screaming, horns going off and at least one motor was racing out of control beneath a pike of wrecked sedans.

What really chilled me though was a school bus. I hadn’t seen it since joining the 210, it had been blocked from my view by other big trucks, but it had been about a dozen vehicles ahead of me in my lane.

The school bus was on its side, half the bus crushed in by the concrete barrier that had caught it when it tipped sideways. The big rig that had fallen against it, added its weight and the barrier was slowly, but surely, crushing and cutting its way through the metal and glass of that side of the bus. Left to its own devices, the weight would eventually complete the task, leaving the roof of the bus on the far side of the barrier and the body on this side.

That would kill or trap anyone still in there when it happened.

My cap was destroyed, the mounting bolts snapped and the cap, what was left, partially pushed off the bed to the side and rear. This was a blessing in disguise because it let me get in there and get my bags. The only two that mattered were the first aid kit and the one with my personal stuff. The rest was just stuff. I did grab the water and fuel cans though, tossing the fuel over the barrier and away from the wrecked and burning vehicles, but setting the water down on top of the barrier in case someone needed it.

I set my personal kit down on the other side of the barrier where it would be safe-ish, then changed my mind about the water, grabbing one jug and the first aid kit. I took one in each hand and hustled as fast as I could down to the bus.

Not much light was making it into the interior of the bus. Between the big rig trailer that was leaning against it and the concrete barrier on the other side, it was pretty dim in there. I could hear children crying, one calling for her mother and one praying.

Children were crawling from the inside and others, banged up but mostly whole, were gathering in a group in the little space between the bus wreck and the delivery van behind the bus.

“Okay kids, we need to move out so this is what we are going to do, okay? Are you listening? Everyone look at me. I need four strong boys. Who is strong here?”

I got several hesitant hands raised, the largest of the boys was about eleven or twelve, but a hefty lad. The others were a mixed bag. Just based on size, I picked four and explained what I wanted.

The biggest one would stand on this side of the barrier and help the kids to climb up. They would be helped by two boys sitting on top, straddling the apex of the concrete form. The fourth boy would be on the other side, helping them down again.

Once they were all on the other side, they were to stay in a group and move to the grassy area at the bottom of the hill no more than ten or fifteen feet away and across a drainage ditch.

While they set up, I asked for a boy scout or someone who wasn’t afraid of blood. I got an annoyed girl scout who loudly proclaimed that she had her first aid merit badge and was as good as any boy. Okay, that worked for me.

I took a deep breath and headed into the bus, and it was every bit as bad as I had feared. Three feet in were two children, I couldn’t tell their ages, they had been sitting along the window on that side, I imagine, when the bus hit the barrier.

Five feet deeper inside I found another, her arm gone and bled out. I deliberately didn’t look at her little face. I wasn’t sure if I could handle that. Then I found the first live one, a small boy, His arm was trapped and I could see that it, the arm, was a total loss from the elbow down.

I forced down my fear and went in. His system was in shock, his heartbeat weak and his breathing was shallow, not bringing in enough oxygen. I did what I do and reminded the heart to beat, the lungs to breathe, and while they ramped up, I forced the boy’s body to spend precious resources clotting the blood vessels, stopping the seeping blood from escaping. I couldn’t do much about the weight of the bus, unless...

With another deep breath and a whispered apology, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my little pocket knife. I opened the big blade and stared at it for a moment. I think my mind was trying to escape the horror because I couldn’t help but think I had only opened this blade to clean the knife, to sharpen it. I had only used it one time, choosing the smaller blade for almost everything.

I was using it now. All that was left, all that kept the arm from being totally detached was some skin and tendon. I did what I had to do and marveled that the blade, sharp enough to shave with, had to saw through the tendon. Even doomed, that little tendon was doing its best, clinging to what it knew.

When I had complete separation, I eased by boy out of his spot between two seats and pulled gauze from my kit, wrapping it tightly around the end of his arm. When I turned to look for my helper, I saw that she had watched the whole thing.

Tears were running down her cheeks but she was there, her arms out. Beside her, looking pale but determined, was the big kid from earlier.

“All of them are over, sir,” he told me, sobbing a bit. He had helped the others and came back to see if he could help more. I handed the boy to him and then patted him on the shoulder with a smile. “Thank you, son. Take this boy out and hand him off to the others, please.”

My nurse, or budding doctor, had gone past me and had found two others who were alive. She called for me, seemed to be panicking, and I hurried.

She was kneeling and weeping next to a boy and a girl, both of them pinned to the floor of the bus by a metal pole. It went into the chest of the boy and exited his back, then into the stomach of the girl and out her back, pinning both to the floor. The boy was awake, but his eyes weren’t seeing the here and now and tracked aimlessly. His hands pulled futilely at the pole through his chest. The girl was awake and aware, staring at me.

The girl, I, I just, I can’t ... The girl was slim and pale and beautiful in spite of the blood that was bubbling up around the pipe through her stomach. She looked like ... she looked ... she could have been Rebekah. Rebekah the beautiful with the musical laugh. Rebekah the perpetual child. Rebekah the talented artist. Rebekah the true innocent, guilty only of being her father’s daughter. She had died like this, pinned, trapped in a truck that crumpled like tinfoil. Was she alive when the gas truck caught fire and exploded? Had she felt the flames?

It was too much. The anger that had smoldered in my gut, the pain and the hatred, the unquenchable desire to lash out at a capricious world that would treat children so cavalierly. At that moment, if I could have made my hate manifest, I would have spit in the eye of God himself.

Instead, I reached for the pair. I don’t know what I did, my mind is a blank now, but somehow, I stabilized them. Somehow, I kept them alive until I could pull that metal pole out, one hand holding them down and one hand withdrawing the pole as if it were a battle spear.

Then I knelt by them and healed them. Not stopped the bleeding or simply fixing enough to stabilize them. I reached deep and I healed them as if they had never been injured at all.

Reports on the news, eyewitnesses, including my two helpers, say that I began to glow and that a wave of light erupted from me, lighting the interior of the bus and healing four more children, not counting my helpers. Evidently, even in my rage and my sorrow, I couldn’t bring the dead back to life, but every living person within twenty-five feet of me was renewed, restored.

All I remember is getting out of the bus, kissing the girl and the boy on the foreheads and thanking them for their bravery.

“What is your name?” My brave little friends called after me, but I gathered my bag up and just ... walked away.

I don’t know how long I slept. I know that I woke and ate, cleaned myself and then slept again.

It was the third day after the accident when I finally came out of whatever fugue I was in, aware finally of the passage of time and of the world around me. I was in a room in a run-down motel about five miles, according to the television, from the accident.

In addition to the running commentary on the number of people that died, there was a secondary thread on those that lived. There were numerous heroes that day, people who selflessly went into harm’s way, breaking windows on burning cars to pull people to safety. The bus story though, that seemed to take on a life of its own.

There was an almost constant news story running about the Freeway Angel, and even a police sketch that looked exactly like someone else, if that makes sense. Yes, it could be me, but it also could be a million people. There was even a halo, for heaven’s sake. I bet William got a laugh out of that. The one thing that was going to save me was that they got the color of my hair right.

See, I was hiding in a fleabag hotel, looking in a mirror that was losing the silver backing, and staring at a head of white hair. My eyes were still blue, so I should be thankful about that, but my hair and the beard I had been growing since graduation were stark, unrelieved white. Even my damn eyebrows, armpit and pubic hair were white!

My eyes looked ... surreal in my face now. Before, girls had told me I was cute because of the pale blue eyes with black hair. Now they were darker, brighter maybe, but definitely different, and they were a shocking contrast to the white hair.

The thing that caused the biggest furor, and kicked off a manhunt, was something I never even thought of, never thought possible.

When I ... exploded, or pulsed, or whatever they say happened, I healed everyone on the bus and everyone for twenty-five feet around, including the boy whose arm I amputated. I healed him, complete with a new arm.

But they looked when my little helpers told them where to search, and they found that poor boy’s little arm. X-rays of two broken fingers, injured in a bicycle accident the year before, had already been leaked and confirmed. A full DNA test was underway and there were people camped outside the hospital, waiting.

The Catholic Bishop of Los Angeles had already put out a statement saying that they were waiting for more evidence, for the investigation to be complete. Meanwhile, the boy’s parish priest had already called for the lad’s excommunication.

The Baptists called it a Catholic trick and the Jews just shrugged their shoulders. They didn’t know and weren’t going to get involved unless Yahweh directed them.

Television preachers were calling me a devil and a saint, depending on which they thought would bring them more money, and the National Council of American Indians has issued a statement saying that a new Hatalii walked the land. I even saw Sam on television and he looked good, regal.

The US government allowed that while I had not committed any crimes and yes, my actions were covered by Good Samaritan protections under California law, they would still like to question me about what happened.

Rumors on the street, promptly reported by the news as hard-hitting journalism, was that Pfizer had put a bounty on my head. Pfizer immediately filed dozens of lawsuits and every single one of the hard-hitting investigative reports were updated with the caveat that it was an unconfirmed rumor, denied by Pfizer.

I could only shake my head and wonder how the hell I was supposed to fit in now. I just ... I couldn’t deal with this right now and went back to bed.

When I woke again, I was starving. As in, light-headed, bile in my throat, I needed to eat right now, starving.

I stumbled downstairs, my bag over my shoulder, and got yelled at.

“You in two twelve? You only paid for three days, you betta’ fork over mo’ money or get the hell out!” The toothless old man behind the counter was yelling at me, sounding like he was angry, but never bothered to take his eyes off the television program he was watching.

I wasn’t coming back so I didn’t bother to answer.

Outside, the neighborhood wasn’t a whole lot better than the rat trap I had been in. The streets were bordered with litter, with abandoned and stripped cars and there was even a group of guys burning something in a big garbage can. They were passing around a bottle of something while feeding the fire. Other than to watch me go by, they didn’t bother me any, so I kept on walking.

I could see that the neighborhood was improving, the closer I moved back toward the city center. Or, I guess, what I thought was the city center. The lights were brighter in that direction is all I knew for sure.

Four blocks later, I finally saw a taxi and flagged him down.

Once inside and on the way to the airport, the man wanted to chat.

“You look awful young for all that white hair. You one of them albinos?”

I just smiled and shook my head. I had a feeling I was going to hear that a lot.

“No, I think it is genetic. My daddy had it and his daddy too. My great grandfather had white hair, but I think he was just old,” I joked. That got him to laughing and telling me stories about his grandfather and his father.

That lasted until he pulled up in front of the airport Marriot. I figured I would spring for a nice room and room service, lay low for a few days. I even managed a whole day of peace and quiet, refusing to even turn on the television. I ate well, slept well, used the pool late at night when people were asleep. Other than planes taking off and landing at the airport, it was the most relaxed I had been since before graduation.

I was fooling myself though, and deep inside, back where the subconscious lay, I knew it. It nagged at me. Just a hint, at first, but it grew louder and more strident until it overcame my stubbornness.

I called Sam.

“Hatalii, you have created a storm that is sweeping the nation,” Sam said without preamble.

“Wait, how ... this is a pre-paid phone. The guy at the store made a big deal about it not being in my name. At the time, I thought it was odd, but I have been very happy about it these last couple of weeks!”