“Yeah,” Lonnie admitted. “Not much in that picture to help us except the front end of that old pickup behind him. What’s that look like to you Freeman? An old Chevy? C10 maybe?
Freeman looked again. “No, that ain’t no C10 sheriff. That’s an old F-100. Probably ’bout a 1965 model.” Freeman’s eyes fell to the text underneath the photo:
Created Saturday, September 1, 2012 11:24:19 EST. Comment posted Tuesday September 4, 2012 16:24:43 EST by WildPanther: “Glad we killed that sucker. R U coming back to work?”
“Who’s this other fella, Sheriff? This WildPanther?”
“That, Freeman, is what we need to find out.”
Lucy rushed through the door holding a piece of paper. “Sheriff, this just came in for you,” she said as Lonnie and Freeman kept looking at the picture. “From the U.S. Coast Guard.”
Lonnie looked up and grabbed the note and began reading it as he thanked her.
INTERNATIONAL
U.S. Coast Guard Responds to Medical Emergency in Bahamas
Wednesday October 17, 2012
Late on October 16, Operations Bahamas Turks and Caicos (OPBAT) operations center responded to an urgent request for emergency assistance from a doctor on San Salvador Island, Bahamas. The 7th Coast Guard District, headquartered in Miami, and Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater immediately approved the medical evacuation. An OPBAT helicopter is in route to San Salvador where the patient, Rose McBride, along with her husband and a doctor, will be flown to the Miami International Airport. A medical team is prepared to transport the patient to Jackson Memorial Hospital to receive treatment in the intensive care unit. Due to the impact of Hurricane Isabel, all phone lines are down in the Bahamas. The patient’s husband, John McBride, requests that you notify the patient’s sister, one Angelica Savage of 13 Hale Ridge Road, Clayton, Georgia of this emergency as she is caring for the patient’s daughters.
Lonnie looked at his watch and saw that it was already 10:30 a.m. He took the Coast Guard note, grabbed the Facebook package, and headed for the door. “Lucy, I have to run out to Hale Ridge real quick with this Coast Guard message so I can get back to the high school on time.”
***
Tammy stepped off of Hal’s front porch and walked slowly past the ashes of the prior night’s campfire. Hal had gone off hunting again and evidently had taken Rex with him. One of the hens came over and pecked at the ground in front of Tammy. She continued walking out of the camp, hoping to find Ozzie. Since his encounter with the coyotes the week before, Ozzie had distanced himself from everyone. Hal, Rex and even her. She didn’t know where he had been staying or sleeping, and suspected he had been sleeping during the day since she often heard him at night rustling in leaves from the ridge above, or chasing an animal off if something, anything, came to close to the camp.
Tammy wasn’t sure why Ozzie had taken to isolating himself, but felt it wasn’t her place to question it. He was just doing what he was made to do, just as she was. There was no reason to fight it, to go against the way nature made them. Tammy knew what her role was and what she wanted more than anything. She liked not having to think about it, but just going with the rules of nature. Of course, she didn’t know what it felt like to be Ozzie, to be a strong male, but she realized a curse of his assignment was the loneliness of isolation. She knew her role was to care, to nurture. Without question, Ozzie felt his was to protect and defend. That meant he had to stay on guard, to isolate himself and to be prepared. He did that not out of selfishness or a need for time alone. He did that for her, and she understood that.
She walked along the stream and studied the trail of trees and stumps that had large chunks gouged from their sides. Ozzie wouldn’t be hard to find, Tammy realized, as she examined one tree injury closely. It was fresh and bright and smelled of fallen pine needles. She followed the trail through the woods and down the stream hoping to find Ozzie. Hoping that he would be happy to see her.
A couple of hundred yards before the fig tree in the garden, Tammy stopped to listen. In the distance, she could hear him, sharpening his tusks as if he were grinding an ax blade. Every day he had been sharpening his tusks on anything the forest offered. Mostly stumps, she observed, as he was now doing downstream forty yards from her, unaware of her presence. For a moment, Ozzie stopped and scraped his hooves on the rocks. They, too, were honed and well sharpened. Tammy stared at Ozzie, marveling at how much he had grown in such a short period of time. His arched razorback and physical size was impressive. Indeed, his long sharp tusks and bulging shoulder muscles intimidated even her. But he had grown so much more mature. When she had seen him escape from his paddock, she recalled, she had seen something akin to a scared teenager. A child that had just suffered the horror of seeing his father murdered before his eyes. That day now seemed so long ago, as if it was the final remnant of a vague and distant dream.
Staying well back from Ozzie, Tammy stepped off the trail and hid behind a mountain laurel. She watched and marveled at him. And she worried about him. This was no child. He had become his father, the protector, the defender. And yet, there was something else. He wasn’t just preparing himself to protect. There was a restlessness in him as if he was searching for something, and Tammy was afraid of what it was. Ozzie turned and focused on a pine stump. He stared at it with the concentration a martial arts master applies to a cinder block he intends to slice with his bare hand. Pawing the ground, he began oscillating his head back and forth, opening his mouth and moving his upper and lower jaws in opposite directions to reveal his menacing tusks to the stump. Abruptly, he charged and rammed his head into the stump as if he in fact were a ram. Shredding the stump with his rippers and tearing it apart, freeing his rage over his mother’s imprisonment as the shards of pine flew from the stump, leaving a soft bed of shavings on the ground where the stump had been.
Panting breathlessly, Ozzie stood with bleeding gums. He tasted the blood and got a crazed look in his eye as he looked around, searching the woods for anything, anyone that was a challenge, a threat. A man. His breathing slowed and he thought for a moment. He turned and continued walking downstream breathing in the faint smell of man.
Chapter 28
A harsh morning sun magnified its light through the living room window and landed squarely on Blake’s right eye. He twitched his head and woke, instantly feeling the crick in his neck from sleeping with his head on the armrest of the sofa. He grimaced and threw his feet to the floor to right himself. The CNN newsroom still haunted Blake from the television and displayed the time as 9:34 a.m. EST in the lower corner. A team of weather forecasters stood in front of satellite images, discussing the devastation and path of Hurricane Isabel. The motion graphic read “Hurricane Isabel Upgraded to Category 4. Sustained Winds 123 MPH. Expected landfall Savannah Thursday late afternoon.”
Blake rubbed his eyes as he tried to wake up. He couldn’t believe he had slept so long, but the scrolling text at the bottom of the CNN screen brought the memories of the prior night into focus for him.
“Meat samples tainted with anthrax removed from restaurants.”
Blake jumped up, fully awake as he looked for Angelica. Both bedrooms downstairs and the kitchen were empty so Blake ran up the spiral staircase and looked first in the nursery and then in the rec room. No sign. Evidently Angelica had quietly taken the girls out without awakening him. He felt the back of his neck and rubbed his hand over the dressing she had placed on his wound, realizing what it meant.