Grantville Gazette 37

there and not be able to reach it. The firemen pulled a powder-driven stud gun out of their bag of tricks, to speed that up. Down went the rescue basket from the hoisting rig, with a long tag line to Will's harness.

'Ready, Will?'

'Yes, Carlos, all right.'

'One moment, gentlemen. Marcel, lend them your radio. What's your call sign?'

'Rockhound.'

****

'What if she's dead, Will?' They were anchored about half way down to the tunnel entrance, taking a breather because they had to.

'Hope, Carlos, hope! She must have gotten up onto her knees for a moment, otherwise how could she have been seen from below? Pray with me for a moment.'

They caught their breath and swung back into the job: drive an anchor, thread a ring, descend some more.

The mine drift was small and still damp with the night's dew when Carlos and Will finally reached it. She was curled up in what little sunshine was still getting inside this late in the morning, facing the sun. Carlos was first in; he felt her bare ankle. Her flesh was cold, and she wasn't shivering. His heart sank.

But her foot pulled back, and they heard a croak, 'Go fuck yourself.' She opened her eyes and looked; whether she really saw them was impossible to tell.

'Livie! I'm here.'

'No. Bad dream. Carlos. Dead.' Her voice was awful, a rasp.

'Livie, I'm alive and I'm here.'

'No . . . no. Carlos is dead. He fell off the Wall.'

'Livie, the basket is coming. We'll put you into the basket and lower you to the ground.' That was the plan, the only choice that made any sense. She needed the ambulance, and the ambulance could only come by road. Will took the radio and started talking to the firemen.

'No. I am dead. Carlos is dead. Everyone is dead. We died when the Ring fell and went to hell.'

'Olivia, mi corazon, I live, we live.'

She looked at him, trying to focus, 'Why are we all dead?'

'Nobody's dead. You're alive.'

'This is hell.'

'No, mi corazon, anywhere you are is heaven.'

She blinked, then, and moaned, 'Water, please. The stars are spinning.'

Will had the tag line hauled in by then. Carlos got out the pulley they'd sent in the basket. While Will held his canteen to her lips, Carlos took the stud gun one more time and anchored that pulley overhead so it would never come loose with Olivia's weight on it. Then he shot in some more of the things and rigged a ring, so he could rappel beside the basket and guide her down.

Livie began screaming as soon as they started to move her. She hit Will so hard that she broke her wrist on the backswing against a ragged lump in the drift wall. That made it even more of a delicate job to get her settled in with a blanket around her and her climbing harness secured to the cable for a safety backup.

Then everything was ready. Will got on the radio again. 'Rescue One Alfa, this is Rockhound. Take up the slack, with utmost care.'

Over the edge, and down to the valley floor. Olivia didn't stop screaming until they reached the ground and the two female EMTs spoke to her.

Will cast off the rescue team's pulley so they could haul up their gear, and came down Carlos's line. By then the ground teams were streaming back and gathering around the command post. Carlos turned in the walkie-talkie to Tipton, stood up on the cruiser's bumper, and waved his hands for silence. 'If you haven't heard, Olivia's on the way to the hospital, and Will Oughtred and I are leaving in a minute to follow her. Thank you, thank you all, for everything you did. I think we got to her just in time, I hope we did. God bless you.'

****

Will had never really seen what Leahy Medical Center was like from the inside. For the first couple of days Carlos hardly left the hospital. The medical staff let him stay by her side, holding her for hours at a time, when it didn't interfere with treatment. Will sat with him when he could; it seemed to help, even if there wasn't much to say. Twice the doctors sent out the call for blood; Will's was acceptable, as was Paola's; Carlos' was not.

Even in these terrible circumstances, William Oughtred's curiosity as to new things could never be extinguished; he learned the names of some of the means of keeping Olivia in this world-a defibrillator, a crash cart, an oxygen concentrator, Code Blue.

September 6

The sky above Grantville rumbled darkly, flashing with lightning. A blast of wind came rolling down through the treetops like a passing train. Carlos Villareal barely made it to his old truck before the thunderheads opened and let loose a torrent.

He'd left before it was done. His soul ached. To hell with Bennet! He snorted at the irony of the thought. Yeah, any minute now. He took a breath and reached for the gearshift. The rain coldly hammered everything, the wind shoved the truck around, the windows seeped, and the tattered windshield wipers gamely did what they could. Here and there, through the blur, he glimpsed faint red taillights or yellowish headlights.

It was a relief to arrive at Leahy Medical Center. He managed to snag a spot close to the front portico, and waited a couple of minutes to see if the squall would break; meanwhile, he was left with nothing to think about but-everything. Livie would be sure to tease him about the poetry of counting moments between lightning, thunder, and rain cells when he told her. Finally, he flung open the truck's door, slammed it behind him, and dashed through the sheets of rain to the front door.

Carlos strode down the central hallway to physical therapy, taking barely enough notice of the people bustling past to avoid an actual collision. He leaned on the doorframe for a second or two with his head down, then slipped inside, dropped onto the oak bench by the doors, and settled in to watch the session.

It was a bright room, the walls a cheery butterscotch. The tall south-facing windows, adorned with flowers cascading from the sills, brought in all the light possible in the gloom. Two of the cast iron stoves were going, taking the edge off the dankness.

Busy as the place was, Carlos had eyes only for Olivia. She hadn't looked his way when he came in, and neither had the therapist she was conferring with. Well, he'd seen before how intense these sessions could be. It was just a miracle what physical therapy could do after the doctors finished. They'd told him her right arm ought to make a full recovery, or close to it. Knowing Olivia, she'd do the exercises for as long as it took.

After a time, Will Oughtred slipped in next to him and stretched out his legs. 'The hanging went very well. It was well-attended. I wondered that you did not stay.'

Carlos replied, bitterly, 'No, I decided I didn't want to . . . but, Will, it was a good day for it.'

'The rain? The thunder and lightning? The hurley-burley?'

'God's judgment, as you keep reminding me-any day is good for that . . . Look at her. Livie's making progress. She can bend her elbow pretty well now.'

'Yes, she's doing well.' Will paused, watching. 'That rocking motion seems to help-you said she does four hours a day, everything taken together? But how is her state?'

'Her state of mind? It could be a lot better. I hope . . . At least the law sent Bennet to hell! Are the damned lawyers done discussing that damned Rothrock yet? Or are they still debating which circle of Dante's inferno to send him to?'

'Dante's inferno? You speak too casually, Carlos. Think what hell is. The absence, forever, of God. Bennet had no valid claim to mercy, so by his choices and guilt, he surely chose hell. We may never understand that choice. But truly, we both know, for Rothrock there are mitigating circumstances. If the legal proceedings and negotiations go as the newspapers predict, he's most unlikely to hang for his failings.'

Carlos slammed his fist down on his knee without even realizing it. 'Goddamn Rothrock! After all the damage they did, he did, hanging's not enough! Nowhere near enough! That torn ligament they've got Livie working on over there didn't have to happen, never mind all the rest of it!'