I heard them discussing me. The big man’s tones were low, growling like the bear spirit he resembled. She said that I was very ill, my wounds infected and my blood septic. That I needed a hospital, IV antibiotics and extreme measures if I was to survive. My temperature had hit 105˚ and that I was not delirious, or convulsing was a medical miracle. She wanted me at a hospital as fast as Life Flight could get me. Which was a problem, she added as no helicopter could reach the village and the closest field where it could land was an hour away by boat.
The road was faster but not as safe, the Beilbys were sure to have them covered as there were only a few ways into and out of the area. Something to do with the water that surrounded everything in this country.
Matt asked about cell phones. Of course, there was no coverage out here and I hadn’t seen any telephone or electric lines. I wondered how these people had power to work their fridges, stoves and lights. Not solar or I’d have seen the huge panels on the roof. They must be using gas, propane and generators.
Matt’s arms slid under me and tucked me into his chest, I recognized his scent even though he was clean now and wore fresh clothes. Even Jake had showered. I no longer smelled as if I had spent a week in a dumpster after rolling around in a stagnant fish pond.
Fresh air with the scent of the ocean brushed my face. If I smelled salt in the air, it meant we were near the coast. That meant somewhere my father could reach us. I grew agitated, tried to fight in Matt’s arms.
He kept repeating the same words over and over until they penetrated my brain and I understood him.
“Cris. Calm down. We’re meeting my friends Jonas Sanderson and Jane. She’s a Search and Rescue expert and he’s a tracker. They helped find you. Calm down, we’re almost out of Neige’s reach.”
I struggled to open my eyes. When I did, we were on a speedboat in the middle of a river. Or a bay. Or a delta. Somewhere salty because it smelled like the sea.
I couldn’t see any oil rigs out on the water, so we weren’t near the city. Not on the gulf side, either. We could be on the Mississippi Delta, but I couldn’t see any cargo ships coming into port. All I could see was water. Small chop. Blue skies with no clouds. The boat was fast. Jake was seated near me, his grin ear to ear and it was clear that he was enjoying himself. He liked to go fast.
“You called me Cris,” I said when I finally had the words.
“Well, it is your name,” he returned.
“Are you…Matt…or the Captain?” My voice trembled.
“I’m Matt,” he said firmly. “The Captain is with me, but he’s no longer someone separate from me. I have his memories but I’m still Mathieu Eachann, detective of NYC in the year 2017. Not Captain Faille Lacey of 1832.”
I turned my eyes back to Jake. “Jimmy Jacobs, rookie cop,” he grinned. “Momma always said I was as lucky as an Irishman and an old soul. She was right, as usual.”
“Why? Why did they come out then and not now?”
“Because we needed them, needed their strength and knowledge. Jimmy and I are city people. We had no clue how to escape in the woods and swamps. Plus, we were injured and knocked unconscious in the crash. Without Captain Lacey and Mr. Fitzsimmons’ help, we would have been easy targets for Clovis and his brothers. We would have laid there and been shot to death. You would have been given back to Neige or left to die in the accident.”
“No,” I said. “If I die, my father gets nothing. The Trust Fund reverts to the families of the dead. The only way he can get a cent is if I stay alive but am unable to care for myself. Like in a coma. He told me that he could make me all but brain-dead or make me a total cripple, so I couldn’t move, speak, see or hear. That I’d be his personal door mat which he’d farm out to perverts who liked to fuck cripples, little boys or retards.”
Tears poured down my cheeks. “Please. Don’t let him take me back. I’d rather die.”
He hugged me. Promised that he would never let that happen, but I remembered a hundred lifetimes where it had.
I didn’t find out who was driving the boat. I just remembered we went very fast for a long time and bounced on water as hard as concrete. It became dark and the lights on the water grew closer and brighter as we approached the docks of a city.
Huge cranes lined the waterfront with busily moving cargo ships, tugboats and commercial craft zipping in and out. The speed boat slowed as it worked its way past channel markers, avoiding the huge craft like an ant before an elephant until it reached a quiet section of the wharves. The boat slipped into a slot where a dark figure was waiting. He threw a line and the pilot caught it, snugging the nose of the boat to the wharf. I saw the man who had driven us, it was the one who had rescued us. He greeted the other on the docks in Abenaki, calling him ‘Brother’.
“The Tracker and the lady are waiting with the ambulance,” he said, grasping his brother’s forearm.
“The FBI?” Matt asked as he handed me up to the man we knew so that he could climb onto the dock. He was limping again and looked exhausted.
The copper face looked down at me, black eyes gleaming with pleasure. Why he was pleased to see me, I did not know. I still did not know his brother’s name nor his. He waited until all of us were standing on the boardwalk before he handed me back at Matt’s insistence. In truth, I only felt safe in his arms.
“This is our dock, our warehouse so all the people you will see are our family,” he explained. “My brother Alex and I will take you to your friends. They are waiting at the front gate with Federal agents. They have a helicopter waiting at the airport and will escort you there. It is just ten minutes away,” he explained. “My name is Clint Starstrike.”
“Jimmy Jacobs. My friends call me Jake.” He held out his hand and they shook.
“Matt Eachann.” He swiveled me onto his left hip and held out his right hand, palm up. They shook hard and gripped fingers. I felt the hard metal of a gun at Matt’s back.
“Can you carry the boy and walk?” Clint questioned, eyeing Matt’s limp.
“I’ve carried him this far,” he said sharply. “I’m not letting go of him until he’s safe in the hospital.”
“I have a golf cart, but someone will have to wait or follow on foot. I can’t fit five of us.”
Alex said that he would stay. My body chose that moment to protest the total abuse that it had endured. I felt as if I had stepped on an electric cord with wet feet. My mouth tasted of brass and my head was filled with bursts of static.
My teeth cracked against each other, grinding bones to ash. Every muscle spasmed and jumped awry from my control. I peed myself. The acrid smell and warmth running down my legs the last thing I remembered.
*****
Matt screamed as the child went into convulsions and for a second, he totally forgot what the safety protocol for that was. Jake didn’t as he tore the boy from his superior’s arms and laid him on the dock. Ripping off his jacket and shirt, he balled them up, placing the bundle under Cris’ head as he stretched the boy out in the recovery position.
“Matt, Alex, Clint, give me your jackets and shirts, cushions off the boat and a blanket if you have one. We need to protect his head,” he ordered and all three scrambled as they stripped or gathered the items until Cris was cocooned with bundled clothing and flotation cushions.
“His tongue?” Someone else asked as they approached the group on the wharf. He too, was copper-skinned with black hair and brown eyes. At six-foot, he bore a striking resemblance to Alex and Clint.
Jake looked up and sneered. “That’s an old wives’ tale. Never, ever put something in a seizing person’s mouth. They’ll bite down hard enough to amputate your finger or break their teeth or jawbone. This position –” He pointed to the boy on his side, his head supported on one extended arm, the other tucked into his belly, one leg bent in advance of the other– “will protect his airway in case he vomits, prevents the tongue from falling back, cradles his head and neck from banging into the floor or concrete and is the safest position for an unconscious person.”
“Is he an epileptic?”
“No. He’s seizing because his temperature is greater than his body and brain can stand.” He looked up at Matt. “We need the bus here NOW. Too long and he’ll risk brain damage. We need to get his temp down fast. You got any ice?”
Clint nodded and sent the gathering family members to get the items that Jake listed in a frenzied rush. By the time the ambulance had screeched to a stop near them, the others had returned with Jake’s items. As Sanderson and Jane unloaded, they were joined by two paramedics who took in the situation at once and sprang into action.
They helped Jake set up the metal trough used to display fish and filled it with bags of ice, pouring saline into the mix until it was a slurry. The taller Paramedic, an African American named Jason checked Cris’ vitals and his eyes widened in alarm as the team slid him into the tank. The smaller man ensured that his head was supported so that the boy did not drown.
“Holy Christ, Sam,” he said. “His temp is 105.6˚! Did he just start seizing?’
“Yes,” Matt stuttered, looking terrified for the first time since the whole thing started.
“Let’s get an IV in him with chilled lactated Ringers,” he told Sam. “We need to get him to a hospital STAT. Y'all driving, or am I?” At his nod, he went around to the driver’s side and slid in, started the diesel with a muted roar of power.
“There’s an FBI helicopter waiting for us at the airport,” Jake said. “How fast can you get us there?”
“Six minutes,” the light-skinned Jason promised. “But there isn’t room for y'all. Just one.”
“I’m going,” Matt said. “Jake? Jonas?”
“I’ll ride with Sanderson and Jane. We’ll meet you at the ER.”
They loaded Cris into the bay, tank, ice and all. The other medic was small, delicate and blonde with an effeminate manner, yet his touch was sure and swift. He had cardiac leads on the child in seconds, had his vitals and described Cris’ condition to the base radio as Jason took off with a smooth jump. Lights and sirens. He was doing eighty before he slid through the open chain-link gates of the warehouse property. The FBI agents waiting in their own black Navigator followed close on their heels after picking up Sanderson, Jake, Jane and the others.
Matt sat on the jump seat, swaying as the bus took curves on what felt like two wheels. He held Cris’ free hand, his grip white-knuckled yet tender as Sam hooked lines to IVs, monitors and made Cris as secure as he could.
“What’s his name?”
“Cris Snow.”
“How old is he?”
“Eleven,” Matt agonized.
“Sanderson said y'all were in a car accident yesterday?”
“It wasn’t an accident. It was deliberate,” the detective returned. He watched the TPR readings and Cris’ chest rise and fall. He worried that his respirations were slowing and getting shallower. His oxygen saturation levels had dropped into the 80’s. He was still seizing but not as severely. Sam put an Omask on his face and the SAT levels went up to 90%.
“I’ve given him Ativan, that’ll control the seizures and some drugs to cool down his temp. That was smart with the ice. How did he break his leg? The accident that wasn’t an accident?”
“His…a Deputy is hunting him and hired some local thugs to find him because he’s worth a lot of money. He shot the boy’s horse out from underneath him and when it fell, it pinned him under the saddle, breaking his leg. It’s gone septic with the chase, lack of medical care and exposure in the swamp.”
“I’ve also given him some heavy-duty antibiotics. Sanderson told me that he isn’t allergic to anything, right?”
“No. At least not in his medical records,” Matt stated. “They are…extensive.”
“You his Dad?”
Matt hesitated. “Yes. And…no.”
“Yes and no? What do you mean? You either are or not,” Sam protested. “And why does he have ‘extensive’ med records? Is he abused?”
“I was…his father. Two-hundred years ago,” he said flatly. “And he was John Doe, the only survivor of that fatal bus crash two years ago.”
Sam and Jason stared at him for an interminable time. Almost long enough for Jason to run off the road before he cursed and jerked the bus back into his own lane. Luckily, there wasn’t any traffic driving head-on at them.
“Y'all are kidding, right?”
“No.” So, Mathieu Eachann told them Crispin Lacey’s story and his own. Whether they believe him or not, he didn’t care. He only cared that they drove him and the boy to safety.