I ripped open a large gauze bandage and handed it to Tony, then pulled another out of the white box and peeled the backing off.
Tony used the first pad to wipe the area around the wound, then I covered it with a self-adhesive bandage.
“Roll him,” Tony ordered.
Tank grunted when we did. The exit wound was worse, as was usually the case. A bullet goes in small, but rapidly mushrooms as it passes through the soft tissue.
Tony poured another package into the wound, stopping the blood flow almost immediately. It took three gauze pads to clean the exit wound before I could put the bandage on. We rolled Tank onto his back once more.
Sid produced a pillow and put it under his head. “An ambulance is on the way.”
I leaned into Tank’s field of vision. “Stay with me, Tank. We have a medevac on the way.”
“Fifty-one years and I never got shot,” he croaked. “Vietnam, Lebanon, Somalia…” He coughed hoarsely. “Only to get taken out by a gang punk. He got the first shot off and I missed my first one.” He coughed again. “But I didn’t miss the second one. Did you get them all, Gunny?”
“We got ’em, Master Guns.”
He looked me in the eye and nodded. “Any friendlies hurt?”
“Zero casualties,” I replied.
I could hear the wail of a siren. The hospital was less than a mile away.
Suddenly, the front door opened and Chyrel came rushing in. She saw Tank on the floor and raced to his side. “I heard the shots. What happened?”
“I got shot,” Tank replied, grinning at her. “Ain’t that kind of obvious?”
The back door opened, and Savannah and Alberto hurried in. “I know you said wait, but I saw Chyrel come in and—” Her hand flew to her chest when she saw Tank on the floor.
He started coughing again, harder this time, and Chyrel took hold of his hand. “Hang in there, Owen,” she whispered. “Help’s on the way.”
Tank’s head rolled to the side, eyes closed, and he was still.
The flight from Marathon to Bimini took a little over an hour from takeoff to landing. Island Hopper would be kept in one of Armstrong’s new hangars at North Bimini Airport, minutes from his shipyard on the west side of the island.
“There she is,” I said, pointing at Ambrosia tied up at the new dock, next to Jack Armstrong’s shipbuilding and repair facility.
“Madre Dios,” Alberto sighed, sitting up in his seat and looking over the dash panel. “She’s really big.”
Savannah had chosen to ride in back with Finn and Woden, so Alberto could enjoy the ride in the co-pilot’s seat.
I brought the Hopper down to five hundred feet as we flew past and waggled the wings at several crew members looking up at us. I easily picked Nils Hansen out of the bunch. His white hair stood out among the others.
Switching to the airport’s Unicom frequency, I announced my intention as we swung around and lined up with the runway. Once on the ground, I taxied toward the apron in front of three new hangars.
A white Ford F250 with the Armstrong logo on the front doors pulled out from beside one of them and stopped next to my wingtip. Jack Armstrong himself climbed out of the passenger side as I shut down the big radial engine and went through my post-flight. Alberto enjoyed that part, repeating each check as I secured the bird.
Finally, we climbed out and Jack came toward us, extending his hand. “Good to see you again, Jesse.”
“Good to see you, too, Jack,” I replied, shaking his hand.
He turned to Savannah and gave her a light hug, then knelt on one knee in front of Alberto. “You must be Ambrosia’s new deckhand.”
Alberto looked up at Savannah, then me.
“Didn’t I say work was going to be fun?” I asked.
Jack stood and looked me in the eye. “How’s your friend?”
It never ceased to amaze me how much information the man had at his disposal. The shooting at the Rusty Anchor had only been three days ago, and news of it was kept to a minimum.
“He lost a lot of blood,” I said. “But he survived the gunshot. It may have shortened the time he has left, though. Stage 4 cancer.”
“That’s too bad,” Jack said. Then he turned to Savannah. “I came out here personally to deliver a fax the communications officer received just thirty minutes ago.”
He reached into his jacket pocket, took out a sheet of paper folded in thirds, and handed it to her.
Savannah unfolded it and started to read. Her hand went to her mouth and her eyes moistened.
Jack smiled at me.
“It’s from the Department of Children and Families,” she said, looking up at me. “We’ve been approved.”
“What?” I asked, taking it from her. “I thought it would take weeks.”
“I made a few calls,” Jack admitted. “Hope you don’t mind.”
Savannah flung her arms around him and hugged him tightly. “Oh, thank you!”
When she released him, I took his elbow and stepped away from Alberto’s ears. “I’m guessing you had something to do with the lack of fallout from what happened at the Rusty Anchor?”
“I did,” he replied, simply. He winked. “But try not to make a habit of it.”
I grinned at him, then knelt and showed the paper to Alberto. “Know what this means, little man?”
He looked at it. I knew he could read, but legal documents were probably too complicated for him. He shook his head.
“What this means,” I began, “is that Savannah and I can now adopt you and you can live with us forever.”
He looked up at me, then to Savannah. She knelt beside him and hugged him.
“It means you’re my mother and father?” he asked.
“Nobody can take the place of a mother and father,” I said. “That’s a biological connection. But we can be a stand-in mom and dad for you. If that’s what you want.”
Finn and Woden joined our little circle, both nuzzling Alberto, as if they understood what was going on.
“Really?” Alberto asked,
