"It's ok," Rudy repeated over and over, patting their heads and squeezing them tight.
Tejada thought the little girl was going to go into a fucking seizure she was crying so hard.
Tejada called Allen, Brown, and Epps over to a side office, keeping his lips tight. The kids were quieting down now. He didn't want to do anything that would open up the floodgates again.
Once they were in the office, they spoke in hushed tones, quiet enough so that their words weren't audible through the walls. He turned to the men, glaring at them in the darkness. They couldn't see his face, but they knew what it looked like, just from the words. "What the fuck is this, gentlemen?"
"Two kids, sir," Allen said.
"And the woman?"
"She got bit," Brown said.
Jesus, Tejada thought. "Is anyone coming for these two kids?"
"Dad's dead. Mom's dead. We didn't see any sign of anyone else. We couldn't leave them there on their own."
"No, you couldn't," Tejada agreed. The grizzled sergeant ran a hand over his face. He was tired all of a sudden.
"You ok, sir?" Allen asked.
"Yeah. This is just a complication," Tejada said.
"With all due respect," Epps said, "they're not a complication. They're children."
"I know that."
"They just lost their parents," Epps continued.
"Haven't we all?" he asked.
"Not when we were kids, not most of us anyway," Epps said.
"So, what are you saying?"
"The problem is," Allen interjected, "they don't know they lost their parents. They still think they're coming for them."
"Oh, this just keeps getting better and better. Any of you guys know anything about kids?" Tejada asked.
"Other than once being one, I don't know shit," Brown said.
The other two kept quiet. "Well, I guess we all just became parents."
"If you don't mind, I'll just be the cool uncle," Allen said.
"The fuck you will," Tejada said. "I sent you out to help that woman, and you bring this. You're fucking Papa Izzy Allen, dad number one in my book."
"Yes, sir," Allen said.
Tejada ran a hand over his head, feeling his hair again. "Well, at least they don't need fucking haircuts."
Chapter 14: The Miracle of Life
The mountain air was cold. Mort labored in the shadow of the trees, his breath billowing out before him. Each breath stung. He swung the axe as hard as he could. His shoulder had healed over the last few days. Now it was nothing more than a small pain, a reminder that he could have hurt himself even worse. He would never approach the washout again. He limited the range of his activities to the stretch of forest between the highway to the north, the washout to the south, the river to the west, and the canyon to the east. He didn't know how big the area was, but it provided enough wood for them to keep warm.
Since the group's come to Jesus moment around the campfire, he had spent every day gathering wood. It was freezing out. The wind whipped through the small valley they called home. He had gathered as much loose wood as he could find, but that was in small supply now. The ground was covered in snow, and all the branches underneath were soaked with wetness, and he had to dig to find them. This meant it was time for the axe.
The axe was a heavy thing. Even before he had taken his first swing with it, he had known this fact. It had a silver head, tarnished and old. The handle was wooden, worn smooth by the men that had used it before him. He feared the day it would break, and he hoped it never came. If the axe broke, he would be forced to try and break wood with his bare hands, finding trees with dead branches that he could snap off. They would freeze to death if that happened.
He didn't know how much longer the winter would last. He had lost track of the days, and he had never really had much use for calendars in his previous life. He knew the seasons. He knew the dry winters of California. He knew the crisp fall of Arizona. He knew the cool summers of Oregon. But he didn't know how long they would last or when the seasons would turn until the weather made it apparent. When he woke up shivering, he knew it was time to leave Oregon. When he woke up sweating, he knew it was time to leave California.
Spring had always been the worst season for him. Rain was no friend of the homeless man. Wet socks had been his biggest enemy besides hunger and the police for as long as he could remember. But he longed for rain now. He longed for the showers to come, though they would be cold. Anything would be better than the unrelenting snow of the mountains.
He finished chopping a branch heavy with needles off of a tree. He laid it on a tarp, amongst the other branches he had gathered. He had enough. Any more wood and he wouldn't be able to drag the tarp behind him. He threw the axe on top of the pile and felt for the reassuring presence of his hammer hanging from his belt. He wouldn't risk breaking the axe on one of the dead.
Mort squatted down and picked up the corners of the tarp, moving backward, the wood sliding over the crisp surface of the snow. It hadn't snowed in a couple of days now, and he was thankful for that. The drifts were deep underneath some of the taller trees, and more than once, he had sunk up to his belly in the snow. But with the harder surface on top, it was easier to slide
