chapter 122
MORGAN AND KATY rode in the backseat of a black-and-white West Point police cruiser, its blue lights flashing as they sped east on Highway 50. Morgan held Katy’s hand. Katy still hadn’t uttered a word for the last two hours. Tears were steadily pouring down their cheeks.
When they heard the game warden alerting county dispatch that he had Jake, Morgan’s heart jumped for joy, but then hearing that Jake was unconscious scared her. She cradled Katy and prayed for Jake.
Morgan noticed that the young officer driving had both hands on the steering wheel, so she raised her head enough to see the speedometer read eighty. On the bridge, high over the Tombigbee River, she glanced out the window to see a barge pushing downriver with its powerful spotlight like a giant white laser cutting the fog over the black water.
The young officer nervously cleared his throat. “They found your husband up the river…a few miles that way,” he said with a tilt of his head to the left, never taking his hands from the steering wheel or his eyes from the road.
Morgan looked into the gloomy, drizzly darkness. She could see the outline of the wilderness—giant skeletons of dead trees standing in the flooded sloughs like huge, silent witnesses to hundreds of years of life and death in the swamp.
“How long until we get there?”
“Ten, maybe twelve minutes at the outside. I’m drivin’ as fast as I can. The roads are really slick.”
Morgan considered what she was about to see. She wondered what Jake had been through and about its toll on him. She considered how to protect Katy from seeing her dad, if his injuries were visible. Morgan tried to be strong as she tightly squeezed Katy and again silently prayed for their small but growing family.