chapter 123
THE GAME WARDEN drove like a bat out of hell down the muddy road. The truck’s heater was blasting on high, and the windows were fogging quicker than he could wipe them off.
“Hang in there, Jake…you oughta be feeling warmer soon!” he commented as he wiped the windshield.
“Unit Twenty-Two to base. What’s the ETA of my ambulance?”
“Stand by, Twenty-Two,” she responded immediately. “Unit Twenty-Two, they report four minutes.”
“Roger that.”
He could not imagine what Jake had been through tonight. Jake’s legs scared him. He had never seen skin so dark from blood and wondered how any could have been left for his brain to function. He feared the worst.
When his truck rounded the last curve on the remote property before the gate, he could see Jake’s truck’s lights and several other vehicles. Knowing there were others to help was a huge relief. He passed Jake’s truck in the road and slid to a stop just outside the gate, where multiple police cars were parked, with lights flashing. Before he could open his door, five officers were there to help.
“The ambulance will be here any minute!” one shouted.
“What can we do?” another asked.
He looked at Jake, still unconscious, and said, “I need dry blankets!”
The two deputies immediately sprinted to their cars.
The warden wiped sweat from his face and then turned to look in the back of his truck at the two wet rescuers, who were now trying to stand. He could see them shivering.
The warden got out of his truck and yelled, “I need to get these guys warm and dry too!” He heard the ambulance. It cut its siren when it got close. He grabbed a deputy and said, “Get those guys warmed up, but don’t let ’em out of your sight. I’ve got a lot of questions for them, and I don’t want to lose ’em.”
“Do I need to cuff ’em?” asked the deputy.
The warden looked at the two men who had just risked their own lives to save Jake. They were hiding something, but he didn’t think they were a threat at this point. They were sitting opposite one another on the wheel wells, their heads in their hands, shaking.
“No. But watch ’em,” he said, only loud enough for the deputy to hear.
The warden turned to Trance and Yancey. “Look, guys, I don’t know who y’all are yet, or even why you were back there in the first place, but I wanna thank you for what y’all did. You saved that man’s life, and that means a lot to me.”
Being around so many cops terrified the two grave robbers, and they were nearly frozen, so all they could muster were slight nods.
“One of these deputies will take y’all to the hospital. We’ll talk there.”
“Oh, that’s okay. We’re fine, Officer. We can walk from here,” Trance instantly replied and stood. Yancey nodded his agreement.
The warden, expecting something like this, said, “I’m sorry, fellas, but y’all don’t have a choice.”
When the warden turned around, the gurney was quickly being unloaded from the ambulance. He climbed inside his truck to help.
“Watch his legs. They’re bluish black with blood, and the left one’s broken.”
The medics looked up, wanting a further explanation as they opened the blanket to examine Jake’s legs.
“He’s been stuck in a pipe full of running water. I think it sucked all the blood down into them.”
The medics carefully laid Jake on the gurney. They did a quick assessment. His pulse and respiration were extremely low; the color of his face was pale, verging on blue and puffy. The biggest concerns were his legs and that he was unconscious.
“His legs can’t get above his heart. We gotta move, stat!” one medic said to the other. “Let’s roll!”
As they loaded Jake into the back of the ambulance, the warden heard one say that the electric blanket was already warm.
“You riding?” a paramedic asked the warden.
It would be just as easy to follow in his truck, but the warden really wanted to stay with Jake. An older deputy understood immediately and spoke up, “Go. I’ll bring your truck.”
The game warden, dripping wet, climbed into the back of the ambulance, the doors slamming shut behind him. Through the windows, the ominous blue lights filling the cold night air contrasted with the stark white, warm, sterile inside of the ambulance. He looked down at Jake’s colorless face. His head rocked in rhythm to the swaying of the big van as the driver sped to the hospital.
The warden tried to warm his hands as he watched the young medic, who looked barely old enough to shave, deftly start an IV in Jake’s left arm.
“Hang in there, Jake!” was all that the warden could think to say.