Doubling Down – Chapter Ten – Emersli1

Reading Time:
10 Minutes

Evan was shepherding his crew east, looking for a road that would lead them to help.

So far all he’d found were game trails and hiking paths, though he did appreciate any path he could get at this point.  While all the ground cover and scrub had burned, the tallest of the trees had merely been scorched.  Between the canopy and the smoke still hanging lightly in the air it was still hard to see.  And breathe.

And hear.

The intermittent ringing/crying in his ear was driving Buck nuts.  It would fade in and out so he’d just get used to the noise when everything would go silent.  Then he’d get used to the silence just in time for the crying to start up again.

And why did it have to sound like a baby crying in the first place?  It had Evan’s protective instincts constantly riled up.

The four men took a moment to raise their shirts from their faces and drink.  If they didn’t find the road soon Evan was going to have to try to find the stream again.

“It’s that way about two miles.  If it didn’t bottom out in a pond somewhere.”  Marshall might be reeling, but he knew his way around the woods and his old Scoutmaster (who was also his uncle) would skob his knob if couldn’t orienteer his way back to water.

Buck grinned under his shirt.  His team was still kicking.  Still working together to solve the problem.  “Well let’s hope we hit the road first.”  Sighing, he got back to his feet.  “Let’s get going.”

Groaning but willing, the other three pulled each other to their feet.  The burned groundcover was a decent surface for Mateo’s crutches, but the downed branches and other deadfall were sometimes hard to maneuver around.  Not to mention all of them had been up all night (not counting the time they’d been unconscious) and they’d already been walking for hours.

Nonetheless they started back off, following their leader, who wished his tinnitus sounded like an air horn or a bugle.  Anything but a distressed baby.

Twenty minutes later they came over a small ridge to a grim sight.

It had obviously been a small cabin.  Only one wall was standing now.  Buck hoped the people had made it down off the mountain before the fire swept through, but the burned-out vehicle didn’t look promising.

The four stared at what was left for a moment, before Evan sighed … and headed down towards the house.

“Evan, it probably isn’t safe …”  Jake wasn’t sure about this, but he knew it had the potential to be really bad.  At the same time, they couldn’t just walk on past and pretend they didn’t see.

Slowly … cautiously … the other three picked their way over to where Evan was studying the remains of the walls.

“The fire came down from the western slope.  Probably swept through quickly.  If they didn’t make it out …”  Evan trailed off, rubbing his ear.

Then squaring his shoulders, he moved around the collapsed doorway and into the main room, which turned out to be the only room in the small cabin.  What must have been a bathroom was tucked away in a corner, but the rest had been one open room.  And to one side was what had once been a bed.

It was hard.  Hard to look … hard to see.  But these people had been human, and they deserved for someone to bear witness.  Carefully Buck moved towards the bed, followed at a respectful distance by his teammates.

“You were right.”  Mateo remembered what Evan had said, up on the ridgeline.  “The smoke …”

“Yeah.”  Buck looked at the two bodies, lying on what had been their bed, tangled in one last embrace.

The bodies were burned, but not consumed by the flames.  It had been the smoke that killed them.  The fire had come after.  Not long after, but it was a small mercy at least.

Looking around to see if there might by some chance be something to identify the pair, Evan spotted a small trunk sitting at the foot of the mostly destroyed bed.  Amazingly the fire seemed to have mostly missed it.

The outside had some small scorch marks, but on the whole the chest had come through surprisingly well.  As Buck studied the damage, the baby crying in his ear started up again, this time at a wail that had him rubbing frantically to try to diminish the sound somewhat.

Sighing, he dragged his focus back into place and squatted in front of the trunk.

“Um.  Do we actually need anything?  And wouldn’t it be wrong to, like, take something?  I mean, I know they don’t need it anymore, but …”  Jake just had a hard time with the idea of taking something that wasn’t his.  Especially from someone who couldn’t protest or defend themselves.

“Yeah, we need to know who they were.  Chances are the sheriff’s people aren’t gonna get out this way any time soon.  The more information we can bring them, the greater the chance of them getting home, even if it’s not alive.  It’ll still be a comfort to their people.  So…”

With that Evan reached out to see what type of lock the trunk might have in place.  Finding none, he carefully unlatched the top and lifted it.

All four men looked at the contents of the trunk in stupefied amazement.

A baby blinked up at them, then stretched and wiggled a bit in its little blanket.  Then its tiny face squinched up in displeasure, and it let out an unhappy cry.

It sounded exactly like the baby Buck had been hearing for the past four hours.

Disbelieving, he reached out and gathered the little one close.

A quick check proved a few things.  First, it was a girl.  Second, she was brand new.  Her umbilical cord was still attached, and she had some of the evidence of birth still clinging to her in spots.

The trunk contained very little besides the baby herself.  A few outfits, obviously handmade by the looks of the slightly wonky stitching.  The teeniest pull-up Buck had ever seen in his life.  And a packet of parchment-like papers.

Buck quickly dribbled a little of his water onto his dangling shirt sleeve and used it to wipe the baby clean.  Then figuring it would be better than nothing, he grabbed the tiny pull-up and wrestled her wiggling legs into it.  

“Here.  She needs to be in something her Momma made for her.”  Marsh had carefully lifted one of the tiny outfits out of the trunk and was holding it out for Buck to take, tears trickling down his face.

Buck dressed the little girl quickly and grabbed the papers, hoping they’d give him a name.

They did, but not the one he expected.

His own name stared up at him from a birth certificate, the only loose paper in the pile.  The rest seemed to be letters or maybe journal pages written on heavy parchment, and Buck put them aside to look at later.  But right there, on the blank ‘Certificate of Live Birth’ under ‘Parent’ was listed Evan Christopher Buckley.

What was even more inexplicable was that on the second parent line … was listed Edmundo Stefan Diaz.

Evan looked at the wee little girl in his arm snuggling against his bare chest, and his heart melted.  Looking at the birth certificate again, he came to a hasty conclusion.  One he’d definitely have to explain to his fiancé later.

Buck had been unwanted most of his life.  This little girl wouldn’t be.  If somehow he was inexplicably listed as the father of this baby, then she was his and he wouldn’t let a day go by without making sure she knew that regardless of how she’d come into his life … she was cherished.

“Okay, baby girl.  I guess it’s you and me … at least until we can make it back to Daddy.”  

Evan’s teammates looked at him in shock.  Jake took the birth certificate and studied it in amazement.  “But …”

Mateo looked back and forth between the baby and the couple on the bed.  “But, obviously …”

Marshall just shook his head.  “Kowi Anukasha.”

Buck looked at him questioningly.

“Kowi Anukasha.  The little people of the forest.  Sometimes they … well … they look out for babes and little ones … try to bring them home.  And they’re terrible tricksters.  They like to play games.”  Marsh tried to explain.  “But they’re also great medicine makers and healers.  The best doctors are always said to have been touched by the kwanokasha.”

Looking at the confused faces of his teammates, Marsh tried one more time.  “I know it’s only folklore, but things happen in the woods.  Things you can’t always explain.  Maybe these people just took a desperate gamble, but that birth certificate …”

Mateo nodded abruptly.  “I don’t know about the little people, but I know my abuela has sometimes talked about children the saints led home.  Sometimes even to homes they didn’t have before.”

Jake didn’t feel like he had much to contribute, but “Evan, if these people knew they were dead … I mean knew there was no way out, and put her in the trunk … I don’t think they could have picked a better man … I think they’d be glad she was with you.”

Mateo pulled the rest of the clothes from the trunk, along with a small stuffed something, and wrapped them all in his overshirt.  He tied the makeshift bundle around his waist with the sleeves.  “She has so little.  We need to take it all.”

Evan nodded, took a deep breath, and stood.  “Alright.  Good news is, there’s a track leading down.  They must have used it to get back and forth, so it’s bound to lead us to a road.  Let’s go.”

Taking one last look around the small burned-out cabin, Evan made a promise.

“I’ve got her.  And as long as I’m alive, I’ll care for her with everything I’ve got.”

Then the party of five headed off down the dirt track towards civilization, all of them hoping it wouldn’t be far.  Sobered by the fact that they were lucky.

Some people wouldn’t be making it off the mountain.

Eddie had been put to work on a trench line at first, but when the Captain learned he had paramedic qualifications he got pulled back to work at a rescue station.

People were coming in from isolated cabins, camps, and homes all over this side of the county, many with bumps, scrapes, and torn muscles.  Some with burns and broken bones.

All of them exhausted and dehydrated.  Most of them in shock.  Many of them not knowing if they’d have anything to go back to.

It reminded Eddie way too much of Afghanistan.

He never forgot Evan.  Every breath he took was a prayer for his love’s safe return.  But Eddie was a man of action.  He needed to be doing.  And there was plenty to do here.

He’d lost track of time, moving from one thing to the next.  One emergency after another.  He’d even delivered a baby, though as he told the tired mother, “You did most of the work before I got here.  Good job.”

In the midst of a slow period, his phone rang.  Fearfully, eagerly, Eddie answered.

“Diaz.”

“Eddie.  They’ve been spotted.  A ranger helicopter spotted them hiking out of a burned-out zone.  She’s going to land and take them on board.  I’m sending someone to get you and bring you back.”  Tony sounded exhausted and elated, having worked through the night at the staging area helping the sheriff manage the disaster.

“Oh thank God.”  It was all Eddie could say, and it was said as a prayer, reverent and thankful.

Reporting to the Captain, Eddie was dismissed with thanks for his help and wellwishes for his family.

Waiting for the deputy to show up was the longest ten minutes of his life, but then the car was there and Eddie ran to get in.

The whole way back, Eddie prayed.  He prayed for the people he had just left, the heroes fighting for this community.  He prayed for the victims, the ones he had treated and the ones who miraculously hadn’t needed medical services.  And he prayed for those who hadn’t made it off the mountain.

And then the car was pulling into the small parking lot, and Eddie was out and running.  Tony met him just inside the doors, turning him around and heading him back out.  “They picked up a victim along the way.  We’re supposed to meet them at the County Hospital in Yreka.”

That sounded so much like Evan.  Eddie couldn’t help grinning.  “That’s my novio.  Even when he’s in trouble of his own, he can’t help but save anyone he can.”  Remembering fifteen people on a fire truck in a flooded landscape … The drone footage had been graphic, but Buck had been in his element … pulling people from the water, catching them in the water, … whatever he could do to save the ones he could.

Tony sighed.  “Oh, I know.  I’ve seen his records going back to boot camp.  And your captain actually thought he could keep Evan from being Evan.”

“Buck’s gonna Buck.  Everybody says it, but I don’t think most of us really think about what that means until we’re facing it in living color.”  Eddie felt giddy.  Partly, he was sure, from the stress of working all night and half the day, but mostly just from sheer glee.  He was going to see Evan.  And everything would be alright.

He had no idea what awaited him at the hospital.