CHAPTER ELEVEN
Please God!
Six Months Later – Arwana’s Perspective
Singing softly Arwana hummed as she made her way into the house after another adventurous day at school. Her kids were really something.
They drove her mad and made her day full of laughter all at the same time. Tiredly she set her bags down and rubbed at the growing mound of her belly.
She felt a kick and smiled. She was certain that she was going to have a boy.
At times he pummeled away inside of her like a prizefighter intent on subduing his opponent. All he was doing though was making her tired and her life increasingly awkward to manage. That was all right though, simply part of being a mother really.
She looked outside. It was spring, but an unusually dry one. Many were worried about a forest fire getting started from a stray lightning strike, but so far there had been no thunderstorms.
Arwana glanced away from the window as it was time to make dinner. Resolutely, Arwana came away from the countertop.
Her back hurt abominably. Maybe she’d coax Cliff to massage it tonight.
She knew he would, she just hated making him go to such efforts on her behalf all the time. That said, his big warm hands were divine to feel upon her and something she could never deny herself, besides his massages inevitably lead to more.
He was absolutely crazy for her pregnant body. She was in no doubt as to the man she had married being a complete diamond of matchless worth.
Smiling, she started to open the refrigerator and froze. There before her was a note, a note written in red just like she’d seen once before.
Gasping, she backed away and tearing open a kitchen drawer she pulled out a knife. She listened but heard nothing amiss in the house and slowly gathering courage she approached the message on the fridge as if it were the enemy.
She read it slowly, “I wanted you red! You was mine, but you had him instead! Now he’s got you fat. No fun to play with and tie into a pretty red bow. He ruined you and so it will be an eye for an eye. I’ll see him dead and you too. Roasted red you will be, but I’ll be blue, because I won’t have you.”
Crying out in alarm Arwana frantically dug her phone out and rang Cliff’s number, but over and over she got his voicemail. He never had his phone on him!
Or was there another reason this time that he wasn’t picking up?
Panic seizing her heart, she breathed out, “Dear God no! Please don’t let him be dead!”
There was only one thing to do. She made her way through the house and back out to the Jeep.
Getting in she locked the doors and fired it to life. Cliff’s pistol sat reassuringly beside her in the console, but she left it there as with rocks flying she spun her way out of the driveway with the rubber on all four tires burning.
She knew where Cliff was cutting wood today. Worse yet she knew that he was alone today as for one reason or another his crew had arranged to have the day off.
Tears falling down her face, she pleaded, “Please God! Please God! Let him be okay!”
It took her twenty minutes to get to the logging road. The Jeep took to it like a mountain goat.
She gasped in pain as the Jeep bumped about all over the place, but her foot stayed hard on the pedal. She saw Cliff’s truck pulled off on a leveled off landing.
He was nowhere in sight, and neither was anyone else. Stopping the Jeep she abruptly began to lunge her way out of it.
Gasping with pain she clutched at her stomach. Shrugging the pain off, she straightened up and walked forward, crying out as loudly as she could, “Cliff! Cliff! Cliff!”
Pausing to listen she heard a cry off to the right and with adrenaline pumping she headed that way. It took her ten minutes to navigate through the downed trees until she was close enough to see him.
Angrily, he was yelling at her, “Get out of here! Think of the baby!”
She couldn’t though. She had eyes for only him.
Crying in panic and breathing heavy from exertion she got to his side and futilely pushed at the tree trunk that had fallen and pinned one of Cliff’s legs to the ground. There was blood on his head too.
Crying out she felt at his head in fear and Cliff grumbled, “He hit me from behind and I woke up to the tree falling down. Arwana listen to me, get out of here! Go get the authorities!”
Arwana shook her head, “No. It’s too late for that anyway.” She said mournfully with her eyes showing the pain she felt at seeing him in so much pain.
His leg had to be broken and his head wound looked bad. One half of his face was covered with blood.
*********
Staring at the woman I loved I pleaded again, but she pointed and turning my head I saw Victor LeBoeuf. He’d been on my list as one of the three most potential candidates, but I hadn’t been able to confirm it till now and now was far too late.
He had a gas can in his hand and it was clear he was making a circle around us with the amber colored fluid sloshing from the old rusty can. If he lit that gas we were going to burn.
Arwana had sat down beside me and she pulled my head in to rest against her. I looked up into her eyes and she softly said, “You know I love you, right?”
“Yes, but you shouldn’t have come. I’m not worth this sacrifice!”
“Yes, you are. If you’re to die than my choice is to die with you.” Neither of us mentioned the poor innocent life caught up in this adult scene of horror.
Grimly, I nodded and held her hand. With an explosive poof a ring of flame erupted all around us.
It was clear to me that as long as I was trapped Arwana would not leave. I had to get free even if it meant gnawing my own leg off with my teeth!
A sudden thought dawned to me and gruffly, I said, “Arwana looked for the power saw! He had to have a saw to cut the tree.”
She abruptly got up and left me. Moments later she was back with a power saw.
The heat of the flames in the dry underbrush was intensifying as the ring of flames quickly became something else entirely. I grabbed the saw from her and awkwardly started it as I lay on the ground.
The action of starting the saw made me yank on my broken leg and a cry of pain escaped me. That pain was going to be nothing, though in comparison to what I was about to do to myself. I brought the saw up and with a cry Arwana grabbed a hold of it and wrestled it out of my grasp before I could get set to resist.
She looked at me as if I was crazy and I commanded, “Give me the saw!”
“No!” She screamed and then turning to the log she proceeded to rev the saw up and began to cut down through it.
We simply didn’t have time for that! I had no choice though, but to watch and then I remembered what I could do and that was pray.
I started praying like never before. Mostly I prayed for her and suddenly to my surprise, I noticed that she’d gotten through the log. Another cut was needed though.
Sweat rolling off of her, she proceeded to move down the log and start cutting away again. I glanced past her to the approaching flames that were working their way towards us on all sides. Maybe, just maybe we had time.
“Oh God, please make time for us! Don’t disappoint this woman’s courage!”
The saw started giving a high pitched whine and we both knew what that meant. It was almost out of gas.
Desperately Arwana hauled down on the saw and the saw sputtered fitfully as it bit into the wood, but in the last desperate few seconds of gas life she cut through the log. She fell against the tree in exhaustion and I saw stars as the 4 foot section of log rolled off my leg and down the hill.
It was hard to focus on anything, but pain, so I did just that. Growling like an animal I sat up and got a hold of the sawed trunk of the tree and pulled.
When had I gotten so weak? I could hardly move myself upward and then I was being pushed up.
Sweat rolled off of me from an entirely different reason then as I registered the approaching heat of the fire. There was absolutely no chance of taking a step on my leg as I could feel the bone rubbing on my pants leg.
Arwana stepped into my shoulder, “Come on Honey. We’ve got to get you somewhere safe.”
Get me safe? I was the least of my concerns. I wanted her safe!
I stepped forward and she drug my other side along as I tried to balance on one leg. I had far too much body weight for her to manage and yet she was.
She was breathing hard, but her little hands wouldn’t let go of me. We fought through a weaker patch of flames and found ourselves on a log skid path. Being devoid of brush it was relatively free of the fires that were sweeping out in every direction.
Already the forest off to my left was becoming lit into a major blaze. There was no sign of Victor and falling forward I gripped onto the hood of the Jeep, which should’ve been burnt, but it wasn’t.
The tires of my truck however, were well ablaze and smoke was billowing out from under the hood. It was only a matter of seconds before the truck exploded.
Coughing I pulled myself along the side of the Jeep. I ripped the driver door open and hoisted myself inside.
I had to pull my left leg in with my hand. Thankfully, I was becoming numb to the pain.
Blearily I glanced for Arwana only to see her getting in on the passenger side. Her face was stained with soot and tear tracks, but it was beautiful just the same and I said so.
The briefest of smiles flashed and then out of breath, as she clutched at her stomach, she asked, “Can you drive?”
There was only one way to know that. I started the Jeep and jammed it into reverse.
We were moving if that was any indicator of my ability to drive. I seriously felt on the edge of blacking out, but I simply couldn’t afford to do that right now and groaning, I focused against it as I gripped the steering wheel hard and headed down the logging road.
Soon we were slamming through a wall of flames. For several brief moments it was hard to see, but I stayed on the path.
The smoke cleared for a moment and I saw a prophetic thing. A figure clothed in flames was shuffling all about in the road up ahead of me.
It was Victor and he was experiencing the reward of his actions only to poetically. Flooring the gas I spun by him and cleared the front wall of the fast-moving wall of flames.
After a few more tense moments we were clear and blessedly the Jeep was still running even though the tires were burning. I glanced over at Arwana to see her looking behind us.
“I don’t wish hell on anyone, but there’s those you just can’t have sympathy for when they get what they deserve.”
Arwana glanced at me and said, “You don’t believe that!”
“No.” I acknowledged, but still I had felt no compunction within me to stop and help the man avoid the fate that he was doomed for.
But truly I wished no one an eternity of consuming flame and undying worms feeding upon one’s eternally regenerating body that only suffered the agony of destruction over and over again without stop. No, I didn’t wish that fate on anyone.
Not my worst enemy, but the reality was just the same. Hell was a place where no person should ever have gone, because hell hadn’t been made for mankind, rather for the fallen angels and yet its roll call was going to be filled out with endless ranks of humanity.
*********
Things were a blur for a while.
Pain, lots of pain.
People yelling.
Lots of smoke and panic. Those were pungently active in the air.
At some point after pain, sleep had come. But with my waking this morning, though had come the realization of a new kind of pain, an emotional pain.
Through some miraculous provision Warbly had been spared from the blaze that was now consuming several thousand acres of forest a day. Everything around Warbly was burnt up.
My house, my truck, my business of cutting trees…… everything. I had nothing with which to start over with and on top of that my leg had been broken in a bad way. It was going to be a long recovery and there was a chance I might not ever walk quite the same again.
Oh God, what was I going to do? I had nothing with which to support Arwana with let alone our baby as yet to be born!
Before panic could set in though I reminded myself that I still had Arwana and despite everything that had happened yesterday the baby was doing fine. I had a lot to be grateful for.
Knowing that though wasn’t enough to stop the silent tears that slipped down the side of my face. I felt so helpless!
I had to be strong now, but here I lay in bed a complete body of nothing but weakness.
The door opened and glancing over I saw it was Arwana. She smiled tenderly and came over to me.
She had something in her hands. She held it out, it was my Bible.
“It didn’t burn. Everything else did, but your Bible lay untouched in the ashes without a mark on it.” Her voice reflected the awe she felt over the miraculous event.
Here was supreme evidence that should build a person’s faith up, but in the moment I had none.
She set the Bible down on the bed and her hands framed my face and tears coming to her own eyes, she leaned over me and whispered, “What’s wrong Honey? Why are you crying?”
I broke, “I’ve got nothing! Nothing to support you with! I’ve been running things in get-by-mode for a long time just to keep things moving and my men employed. I don’t have any insurance for my business or even the house. Both my vehicles are toast. I have nothing for you and I can’t even work right now and I may never be able to work as I once did. I….. I…”
Her lips kissed over mine and I stopped talking as the salty heat of her tears warmly bathed down upon my cheeks to join my own. Pulling back, she whispered, “It will be all right Honey. There’s something I need to do, but I need to know something, do you trust me?”
I nodded.
She pulled back and said, “I need to go make a phone call. I have just one more question for you though.”
“What?”
“Have you ever pictured yourself as being something like a farmer?”
Blinking, I responded with, “Sure, I actually have always wanted to get a place of my own and farm. Why?”
Smiling, Arwana backed out of the room and said, “Rest Honey. I’ll be right back. God has not forsaken you baby so don’t you dare lose faith! Not now, not ever, especially when He’s just used your faith over this past year to give me back my own in a way I never had it before. Okay?”
I nodded and she left. Just what was she up to?