Chapter 23

Ling, Kelly, Leroy, Betsy, Linda, Dan, Claire, and the entire staff were waiting for William Redman Carter to return home. Much to everyone’s surprise, he walked into the house and headed directly to Linda without pausing long enough for anyone to hug him.

He stopped in front of his mother and, after a pregnant pause, said, “It’s time to get you to the hospital.”

“What?” asked Linda as a sudden spasm passed through her abdomen. Her eyes grew large when she realized what he meant.

“I told you that I would return in time for Eddie to be born. I’ve returned, and he’s ready to be born,” William answered with a grin.

“Oh my,” Linda cried as the contraction grabbed her attention to the exclusion of all else.

It was as though no one could act for ten seconds and then chaos broke out. The women all looked at Linda with wide eyes when they realized what William meant. A very loud Betsy started jumping up and down excited at the idea of having her own little brother. The women immediately swarmed Linda. Leroy shook his head in amazement at how William was able to guess events with such accuracy.

William watched the activities with a grin. The celebration of his return was turning into a celebration of a new life and that suited him perfectly. While William had always been comfortable alone, his time at the Native American College had taught him how to be at peace with his solitude. It had also taught him how to be comfortable and at peace around others.

Ling took charge. She ordered Walt and George to get two of the vans out of the garage and into the driveway knowing it would require both vans to get everyone to the hospital. While the two men ran out of the room, Ling ordered Sarah to help her cousin walk to the driveway. After dispatching Kelly to get Linda’s overnight bag, Ling called Dr. Liam Connor to inform him that he was to wait for them outside the clinic so he could accompany them to the hospital.

Realizing that Ed was not there, Dan looked over at William and asked, “Where’s Ed?”

“He’s waiting in the car with Betsy for you, Claire, and me,” answered William.

“We’re going to the hospital?” Claire asked in surprise. She had expected to be left behind to take care of security.

“Of course you are! You’re joining the Carter Clan as husband and wife. It’s only fitting that the two of you wait in the hospital with the rest of the family,” answered William. Seeing the surprised look on Claire’s face, he added, “Besides, someone needs to drive us to the hospital. Daddy Ed is so excited he’ll probably crash into something.”

For the first time, Dan found himself laughing at something William said. Putting a hand on William’s shoulder, he said, “Come on. Let’s go save Ed from himself.”

The crowd at the front door had finally exited the house with Linda and Sarah in the lead. The trio left the house and headed to the Hugger in which Ed was waiting for them. Claire went around to the driver’s side of the Hugger and opened the door. In a gruff voice, she ordered, “Scoot over, Ling would kill me if I let you drive right now.”

Ed followed his instructions knowing that it was useless to argue. Muttering under his breath, he said, “One of the problems with loving a strong woman is living with a strong woman.”

Seeing the dirty look Claire gave Ed, Dan asked, “What’s one of the benefits of loving a strong woman?”

“One of the benefits of loving a strong woman is living with a strong woman,” answered Ed.

Claire laughed at the contradiction and turned on motor to the Hugger. Rather than backing out, she turned the vehicle around by driving it over the yard. The drive to the hospital was made in record time. Claire was not afraid of using the off-road abilities of the Hugger to shorten the trip.

Pacing nervously in front of the hospital entrance, Ed was beside himself with concern. They had beaten the vans to the hospital and he was afraid the vans had been involved in an accident. Looking over at Claire, he asked, “What could be taking them so long?”

“Well, they could have come by the highway rather than cross country. That would easily add ten minutes,” answered Claire in a calm collected voice. She’d really enjoyed the drive. About halfway to the hospital, she had decided she was going to pick up a Hugger for herself.

Chuckling at the exchange, William suggested, “Call Kelly on the cell phone if you’re really that worried.”

“Why didn’t they come the same route?”

“There’s no way anyone would take that route in a regular van with a pregnant woman,” answered Dan. He was enjoying this far more than was probably proper. He looked down at William and realized the boy was enjoying it as much as he was.

They beat the van to the hospital by a good ten minutes even though they left after it. For five of those minutes, Ed was getting a running commentary from Kelly over the cell phone. The fact of the matter was that Ed was concerned because Linda’s first pregnancy had been so rough. Even though she had breezed through this one, he remembered the months spent by her bed before William was born.

Almost as if he was hearing Ed’s thoughts, William said, “Eddie isn’t going to be like me. He’s going to be more Cowboy than Indian.”

“Cowboy and Indian?” asked Ed surprised by his use of the words.

“Yeah, we can do that, too. We’ll play on different sides of the game. You know, I think that’s a great idea. I’ll get to practice scalping him.”

Ed stared at William unable to believe what he had heard his son say. He said, “What?”

Even Dan was surprised. That was the second humorous thing he’d heard him say. Looking down at William, Dan said, “You’ve seem to have picked up a sense of humor while you were at school.”

Nodding agreement at the statement, William said, “Yes. I did. It was one of the more important lessons that I learned.”

The van with Linda showed up and all attention turned to getting her into the hospital. Although they could have used their wealth in most circumstances to smooth things out, there was no way to get around the petty bureaucrat in admissions. While Ed argued with the woman, Dr. Connor ushered Linda into the delivery room to perform a more extensive examination of her condition than had been possible in the back of the van. It was Cathy who came to the rescue and provided completed versions of all the necessary admission forms.

Ed had started towards the delivery room when Kelly grabbed him by the arm. She said, “You might be a modern man, but we’re old fashioned girls. I’m her birthing coach. She doesn’t want you there, so you go over to the waiting room and pace like you’re supposed to.”

Dan and Leroy steered Ed down the appropriate hallway with William and Betsy following behind. William walked while Betsy, in an effort to burn off some of her energy, hopped along attempting to touch the ceiling. Ling and Claire were well behind the kids making sure that Betsy didn’t decide to head in the wrong direction.

It wasn’t until they reached the waiting room that everyone welcomed William home. William entertained them with descriptions of his adventures at the Native American College. Betsy slowed down enough to listen to some of his stories. One of the things he had learned was the art of story telling. It had been the most difficult lesson for him to learn.

Kelly came out and announced, “It’s time for you to meet Edward John Biggers.”

The family watched as Ed approached the bed and looked upon his newborn son for the first time. An instant connection between father and son blossomed with a strength that was almost visible. It was a magical moment and everyone in the room knew it. Kelly’s hand went to her medallion. Ling, seldom given to tears, was openly crying. William went over and put a hand on Ed’s back. Dan and Claire held each other feeling honored that they had been allowed to witness this event. Even Betsy paused to watch the connection become established. Linda, exhausted from the delivery, gave voice to a line she had practiced just for this occasion. “Ed meet Ed.”

Ed had visions of them playing Hunt The Bug-Eyed Monsters, riding through the desert together, and digging rocks out of interesting geological formations. He bent down and kissed his son on the head. In a soft voice, he said, “We are going to have so much fun together.”

Turning to Linda, Ed kissed her gently and said, “He’s wonderful.”

While Ed took care of the exhausted mother, the rest of the family swarmed around the baby. Each took turns meeting the baby. As was always the case when someone joined the family, each established a special relation with the new member. Betsy’s eyes glowed as she looked upon the baby. Turning to Ling, she said, “He’s going to be a lot of fun.”

It was late afternoon before the family returned home. Once there, Ed decided to take a walk through town and spread the news about the birth of his son. Leaving the women to spread the news with the staff, Leroy chose to come with him. When they reached Ed’s old house, Rosa and Maria ran out from their house across the street. Rosa screamed, “So you have a new baby in the Carter Clan!”

“Yes, Eddie Biggers. He’s a chip off the old block,” said Ed unable to keep the pride from his voice.

Maria laughed at the comment. She said, “Parents lock up your girls, Eddie Biggers in town.”

“She knows you too well,” said Leroy. He chuckled and patted his husband on the back.

Rosa said, “So tell me all the details about Eddie Biggers. How much did he weigh, how big was he, and what time was he born?”

Leroy filled them in on the details while Ed described how much the child was like him. Realizing that Ed and Leroy had spent almost half an hour with them, Maria said, “You two had better go on and spread the news. I’m sure others want to hear all about it.”

Ed and Leroy took their leave and resumed their wandering through town. After two hours of talking with people, Ed found they were in front of the Ortega household. Manuel was seated on a chair in the front yard. Waving, he said, “Hey, Ed. Leroy. Come on over and have some iced tea. Joe will be home soon.”

Ed and Leroy walked up to where Manuel was seated on one of a half-dozen chairs scattered about on the porch. The hardest working man in Arizona had aged over the years and looked like an elderly man. Ed was shocked by what he saw and, once again, he was reminded that the friends of his youth were growing old. Sitting down in a chair, Leroy said, “Ed is now the father of a nice looking baby boy.”

“I was kind of expecting the news,” said Manuel. He had seen the two vans picking up the doctor before heading towards the highway. He reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope. Handing it over to Ed, he added, “Here’s a little something for your son.”

“What is it?”

“A promissory note for a five thousand shares of our company,” answered Manuel knowing that Ed would’ve argued against money, but wouldn’t reject such a gift. They were expecting the shares to sell for over four dollars a share.

Touched that Manuel would want to make his son part of his company, Ed said, “Thank you.”

“So how is the public offering going?” asked Leroy seeing that Ed was lost in thought.

Ed hadn’t known that Manuel and Joe were taking their hauling company public. In fact, he hadn’t been following the expansion of the company very closely at all over the past few years. He sat up and paid attention as Manuel described going through the process of taking a company public. Since a number of companies funded by Ed had gone public in the past, he understood the process quite well.

While Manuel was telling Leroy about the company, a young girl of five years of age came out of the house. Manuel turned to her and said, “Kelly, go in the house and tell your mother we have company. Ask her to bring out some iced tea for us.”

The little girl smiled at her grandfather and headed back into the house. She shouted as she entered the door, “Mommy, we gots company. Grandpa wants some tea.”

Ed laughed at the excitement of the little girl. When the door slammed shut behind her, Manuel flinched. Shaking his head with a wry grin plastered on his face, he said, “She’ll never learn to close that door properly.”

“I’m sure you spoil her rotten,” said Leroy.

“Yeah. It’s so much fun being a granddad. I’ll admit that Kelly’s a little wildcat. That kid can’t keep still. Not as bad as your Betsy, though.”

Leroy rolled his eyes and replied, “There isn’t another child on the face of this planet who is as bad as Betsy.”

Juanita came out of the house with a tray of iced tea glasses and two, one gallon pitchers of tea. She was wearing a very nice sundress that showed off her figure in a most attractive manner. Smiling at Ed, she said, “The news has spread all over town. Congratulations. I heard that he’s a charmer just like his father.”

Grinning as he accepted a glass of tea from Juanita, Ed said, “If we’re lucky, he’ll get his looks from his mother. At least that way he’ll have something going for him.”

“He needs to get them from somewhere if he’s to have any looks at all,” said Leroy with a wink at Ed.

Juanita laughed at the joke. Turning to Leroy, she said, “I heard you guys had a real break-through last week. Something about actually curing one of those diseased deer.”

“Yes. It looks like we found a compound that stops Chronic Wasting Disease in its tracks. Where’d you hear about that?” asked Leroy. He hadn’t announced it to the public yet, although a copy of his paper was circulating amongst the small number of researchers in the area.

“You forget that my cousin is working for you,” said Juanita handing a glass of tea to him.

Unaware that Leroy had made progress in his research, Ed asked, “So what’s the news?”

“About two years ago, we discovered a little protein fragment seems to be the cause of the illness. Gnats can pass that protein fragment from one animal to another. The entry point is in the tear ducts. Fortunately, it’s a rather low probability event, so we don’t see a horrible epidemic spreading through the deer population,” answered Leroy. He knew that if conditions were right and they had a huge increase in the gnat population one season, then the number of infected animals could skyrocket.

His voice shifted to one that conveyed less certainty. “A couple of weeks ago, we synthesized a new protein fragment. It binds with the bad protein fragment and renders it inert. Of course, having something work in a test tube doesn’t mean much. Last week, we tried it out on one of our infected deer and it appears to be gaining weight.”

“Wow, that is news. How come you haven’t mentioned it to us?” asked Ed. He knew Leroy’s research was a lifelong project that was characterized by long periods of slow progress punctuated by sudden breakthroughs. Since Leroy didn’t have many chances to celebrate his successes, Ed wanted to make sure they didn’t miss a single chance.

“I wanted to make sure of my results first,” answered Leroy. He’d had several occasions where he thought they made a big breakthrough only to find he had been mistaken. They’d celebrated one of them a little prematurely and he’d always felt a little embarrassed by it.

Manuel asked, “Can you make any money on it?”

“Not for CWD. There’s a possibility that a similar thing might work on Mad Cow Disease. If that is the case, then there is a lot of money to be made on it.” Leroy doubted that he’d ever see money as a result of his research. It wasn’t that glamorous. He glanced over at Ed and said, “I know it isn’t a cure for cancer, but I’m a biologist who works on animals.”

“Don’t apologize. I know how important your work is. You’re doing something that very few people can do -- adding to the body of knowledge possessed by mankind. I can’t think of anything more important than that,” answered Ed knowing that Leroy felt that his work wasn’t as valuable as the work the others in the family performed. Leroy and Ling were not growing wealthy in the same way that Ed, Kelly, and Linda were.

Manuel looked down at the ground for a minute as he thought about what Leroy had said. Looking over at the black man, he asked, “Do you need funding for your research?”

Leroy answered, “We won’t be able to look at Mad Cow Disease for a long time.”

“No, I’m talking about the deer disease.”

“There’s not much of a chance to make money on that,” Leroy said. He wanted to make sure Manuel understood exactly what he’d be funding. He had a lot of hopes on this treatment. There were still some questions that remained to be answered. It wasn’t clear what effect the second protein fragment would have on healthy animals. It wasn’t clear how they could distribute it to the animals in the wild. Finally, it wasn’t clear if the effects were long term. The only thing that was certain was that no one would be getting rich out of it.