Chapter 12: Love and Bandages

One minute Angie had been standing on the porch, the next she was running into the dark rainy night screaming at the top of her lungs. It scared Maria senseless but only for a second or two then she yelled into the house. That yell brought Red, Tina, the girls, and Dallas who had led the INS folks in and had stayed so he could talk to the JP. Zara turned to Maria and started crying uncontrollably and not even Zara knew why for sure.

Maria quickly explained what had happened. Dallas and Red grabbed flashlights, Red picked up his medical bag. As they were headed out the door, Dallas spotted Scott's new poly lariat on the coat stand by the door. Thinking it might come in handy he took it with him. Dallas and Red then took off in the direction that Maria had last seen Angie going. A few minutes later they heard her calling out.

Angie did not know what the feeling was that had passed over her. It could have been death itself for all she knew. What she did know was that it felt like her heart was being pulled out of her chest, as though the last ounce of love she had left was being pulled away from her. The only thing that that could mean as far as she was concerned was that Scott was hurt. Hurt and maybe dying, and she could not let that happen.

She ran as fast as her feet would carry her, screaming out his name as she went. Strangely it was easy to know where to go; it was as though someone was guiding her. If she started going in the wrong direction the strange feeling got weaker. The distant roar of the creek grew louder as she got closer. But there was another sound that she didn't understand; clicking. Soft clicks buried in the sound of the rushing water and loud clicks, their sound out of place.

Scott's hand was looped through Jack's gun belt and he was holding on as though his own life depended on it rather than Jack's. A piece of cholla propelled by the water hit Scott in the side of the face. The burning was intense as his body reacted to the crude steroid in the paper like covering of the spines. The locals called it jumping cholla because of its habit of sticking in the back of your boot only to be flung into your butt by the act of walking. Now the flood waters were sending them through the water by the dozens, along with every other kind of thorn covered vegetation known to West Texas. Scott knew he had to get out of the water — every second he and Jack were in the water increased their risk of being pinned against something and drowned.

Scott also knew not to put his feet down as his water logged boots and jeans tried to sink. If his feet went down they could catch in the brush or even barb wire from a washed out fence or a water gap. He kicked his feet as hard as he could, struggling to swim with one arm and carry Jack with the other. Going through his mind along with all the dangers was his love for Angie. His muscles were on fire and he was tired and cold, but his love for Angie pushed him for the side of the creek that he knew had to be there.

Back at the house Portuguese was flying through the air at a blistering rate. Maria realized she had to do something to take their minds and hers off of whatever it was that was going on outside. Quickly she divided the girls up into groups, sending some to look for blankets while sending others to make hot tea and chocolate. She saw two of the girls make the sign of the cross and for a second thought it a bit funny given Scott and Angie's beliefs. But if the saying any port in a storm were true, then any God or Goddess in a storm was just as true. Maria walked back out on the porch, There Zara and the youngest of the girls, Zeva, joined her as they kept a silent vigil.

Angie realized that she was moving slowly downstream as she followed the feeling, "Scott! Scott where are you?" she screamed into the blackness.

Behind Angie, Red and Dallas moved towards her screams. Sometimes the roar of the water completely masked her calls but they had heard enough to know she was calling for Scott. What they didn't know, nor could they figure out, was why she was running through the night calling his name. They could not imagine how she could have seen anything from the house with the weather like it was. Still they felt like they needed to catch up with her before she got hurt herself.

Scott was exhausted; he started thinking he wasn't going to make it. He thought about letting Jack go but he just couldn't do it. Surviving at the cost of another's life was a price he couldn't live with. He had to get out of the water. He knew had to be close but the current was so strong. Suddenly he felt it — mud right in front of him. He took a chance and put his feet down so he could push Jack up on the bank. He'd almost made it when a floating mass of prickly pear pads and cholla hit him in his side knocking him and Jack down. Another of the cholla hit him in the face across the bridge of his nose and eye brow. Scott was struggling to get a breath of air from this last knock down when suddenly he and Jack went over a six foot plus drop. The only good thing about their fall was that Scott now knew where he was and when he and Jack washed out of the deep pool at the bottom of the waterfall Scott was able to get them both to the bank. He used the last of his strength to push Jack up out of the water. Scott knew that they needed to get further away from the creek but he just didn't know how he was going to do it. His head hurt so badly that he was dizzy. Then nothing.

Angie was getting closer, she could feel it. A lightning flash arced through the sky and there, directly in front of her, was Scott. Her Scott, his face all bloody, cholla spines in his ear and around his eyes. The prickly pear pads had left thousands of their tiny hair like glochid spines that would almost be impossible to get out. She ran to him and pulled him into her lap, "Scott wake up baby! You can't leave me."

A few yards away Red and Dallas were still moving towards the creek but Angie's calls had stopped, so now they called, "Angie! Where are you?"

"Over here," She screamed trying to be heard over the roar of the creek, "Over here, Scott's hurt bad."

Red and Dallas ran to Angie's side and Red started checking Scott and Jack out. Red turned to Angie, "Go up to the house and get Scott's truck," but when Red saw the look on her face he knew that wasn't going to be the way it was going to happen and so did Dallas.

"I'll go." Dallas said and he left heading back to the house as fast as he could.

Red pulled another flashlight out of his bag and handed it to Angie, "Here take this and these forceps and start pulling those spines out of him leave those glochids alone till we get him to the house," with that he turned and started checking out Jack. Jack was in much worse shape than Scott; his arm was broken as were several of his ribs, but the worst of it was the huge bump on his head. Red was very worried about a concussion.

Dallas' arrival back at the house was the cause of a million questions, but he waved them off and grabbed Scott's truck and headed back to the creek. Dallas got as close as he dared with the truck, leaving the headlights trained on Red and Angie.

Red worried about moving either man but the creek was still rising and they were going to have to do something quick. Red sent Dallas to look in Scott's truck for anything that could be used as a backboard. Finding some of the one inch thick corral lumber Scott had been using to make fence repairs, Dallas was able to cobble together something Red could live with. Hopefully Jack could too.

It was over an hour later that Red, Dallas and Angie managed to get the bruised, battered, and bleeding Scott and Jack back to the ranch house. When they did get there it was nothing short of bedlam with more than one of the twelve Brazilian girls saying, "meu deus." All of the girls were concerned for Scott, after all he and Angie had been the ones to rescue them, but for Zara the pain was compounded.

When Jack Rimes had interviewed Zara that morning something clicked for both of them. The interview had turned into a pleasant conversation between two lonely people getting to know each other. Now the man that hours earlier Zara had begun falling in love with was tied to four pieces of corral lumber fashioned into a back board; he looked like death warmed over. Maria set about assigning the girls to tasks; one of the first of those was to get Angie out of her wet clothes. Sebastiana and Frankie took that job to heart in spite of Angie's protests. Maria then asked Zara to go and get Red and Dallas a change of clothes from her room.

It was the first and only request that was refused as Zara looked at Maria in anguish and begged, "Please let me stay with Jack." It was the first time that anyone realized that she had feelings for the Texas Ranger.

Shortly Red and Dallas had Scott dumped into a bed with Angie and Maria getting his clothes off so that Red could examine him when he got through with the more badly injured Jack.

Red handed a pair of heavy duty shears to Zara, "Start cutting his clothes off, including the boots."

Zara went to work quickly but gently, all the while murmuring to Jack words that even to Red's linguistically challenged ears sounded like terms of affection. Red and Zara cut away Jack's clothes and Red started his examination.

Jack's breathing was labored and after getting his shirt off the reason was fairly plain to see. It looked like at least three ribs on his left side were broken and his lung had collapsed. In a few minutes Red had a chest tube in and Jack's lung inflated. Jack's breathing immediately eased. Zara had by now positioned herself by Jack's head and was busying herself running her fingers through his hair and giving him small kisses on his face. Red's concern only deepened when Jack remained unconscious when he put in the chest tube. He finished checking Jack out and knew he had to get help here fast. What he didn't know was how they were going to get that help and get it in time.

Moving to the room where Scott was lying Red did his examination. Scott was not in as bad a shape as Jack, but he was pretty sure Scott had a concussion. Other than that most of Scott's injuries were cuts, bruises and cactus spines. He did have a bad gash on the side of his head that he would have to stitch up, but first he had to get Jack to a trauma center.

Red's call started things rolling. The problem was the storm. It had stalled out; right now it was just adding more water to already swollen creeks, gullies, and draws. It could be days before the ranch would accessible by a vehicle if the rain washed out the road, which left only a helicopter capable of reaching the ranch.

Del Rio Texas

Red's call had interrupted the sleep of folks from Austin to Washington D.C. A Black Hawk helicopter belonging to one of Homeland Security's many groups sat on the tarmac at Laughlin Air Force Base. Onboard a flight surgeon and nurse waited for the pilot to be cleared for take off. It was the third time that night that they had loaded up and warmed up the helicopter; twice they'd had to stand down because of the weather. Flight surgeon Captain Amy Carson had talked to Dr. Demming and knew that the Texas Ranger was in bad shape. In trauma, doctors always talk about the golden hour, the Ranger's hour had started last night at eight p. m. It was now ten minutes after nine, his golden hour was over twelve hours old. The helicopter had a range of 315 nautical miles on internal fuel tanks and the ranch was over 200 miles one way as the crow flies. The problem was that 'as the crow flies' went through Mexican air space and that was always a complication. So they would be taking the long way to the ranch. In the end the helicopter had been equipped with two 230 gallon external tanks but with the head winds they would be stretching the fuel to the very limit and every minute that they sat there with the engines running they lost more of their margin of safety.

The pilot called in once more for permission to take off. When it was not forth coming he started shutting down so the tanks could be topped off. "Damn it" Amy did not want to take a long ride to pick up a dead body. The fact that they had been up all night was adding to their stress.