Easter Sunday (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 7) Page 6

  Hank thought of Pete’s words, repeating the same observation the old man had been saying to him for years. “Melissa’s like a flower. A flower that you should not touch,” said Pete.”Pretty, fragile and followed in autumn with a gnarled seed pod.”

  He spaded another load. As he did he noticed the dirt had changed color. It was lighter. He motioned to Sammy and held up the full blade for him to see. Sammy, who was starting back to take over the tractor, stopped and looked. He nodded with a grin. “That’s drier dirt from inside the mound where the water ain’t got yet. That’s where Bobby is, we hope.”

  Hank remembered those early days with Melissa at her home. He’d hear from inside her house, “Melissa, who’s here to see us?”

  “It’s Hank, Grandpa.”

  “Well, bring the man in here. He probably needs a drink.”

  Melissa would lead him into the big library where the General sat in a great stuffed chair, books and papers spread around him, and his guest from Baltimore usually sitting on his lap or kneeling at his feet. The driver of the Cadillac in the driveway was long legged, about thirty-five years old, and very feminine, blonde, and expensive.

  “You know everybody, Hank,” the General would say.

  Hank would say, “Yessir.”

  Then the General would talk about Hank’s father and the mansion gardens. Hank’s father spent many hours with the General working on the trees or shrubs helping them survive in the blistering Chesapeake summer sun.

  “Your father was out the other day and saved my old oak tree down in the front walkway. Man sure as hell knows his trees. You going to take over the business someday?”

  The General would always ask him that question as though he thought it was the natural thing for Hank to do, as if he were complimenting him in some way by suggesting that his father had enough faith in him to do so.

  Hank’s father’s opinion of Melissa, on the other hand, was limited to his one comment, “I do not understand why she doesn’t like flowers.”

  Hank would then joke with his father, “She does like the General.”

  His father would reply, “You aren’t the General, son.”

  Hank’s mother would just close her lips and murmur, “It’d be nice if you married into all that money.”

  Sitting there, though, in the library at the mansion, Hank would say to the General, “I’d like to work more in the store but my father thinks I need to go to college first.”

  The General would say, “College is a good idea. Might consider West Point.”

  “Yes, sir,” Hank would say, as Melissa brought him a large glass of whiskey and ice.

  “Military is not for most men. I know that.” He’d address Hank then wistfully as if he expected him to stand and salute, as if he wanted to recommend Hank right away for a cadet application.

  Hank would say, “I want to study horticulture.”

  The General then said, and it was almost word for word each time the subject came up, “A lot to be said for that, Hank. Your father understands what’s good for you, even though he’s not a military man.”

  This night, the Cadillac had been there, and the General said to his friend, “I personally never did like college. I didn’t like the assholes who were teaching the courses. Always felt like smacking them up the side of the head.” The General would throw back his head and laugh deep and long. Then he’d sit up and say, “What do you say about that, lady?” And he had rubbed the thin knees of his guest with his large hand, the other hand holding his whiskey.

  She answered, throwing back her long blonde hair so that it brushed against the General’s face, and speaking with the tough voice of a professional, practiced by years of yelling after patrons who didn’t pay her, “I knew a college professor once.”

  “Tell us about him,” the General had said. Then, before she spoke, he had boomed out, “Melissa, get Hank a refill of bourbon. That’s what a man drinks.”

  The guest pouted her lips and said, in a soft voice, “Professors have awful small dicks, and they always call them penises.”

  The General had set back his head and laughed deeply, Melissa and Hank laughing with him. The General had said, “I think you mean to say, penii.”

  “No, I mean penises,” the blonde said, straightening the General’s necktie.

  “Melissa, you settle it,” the General had said. “Penises or penii?”

  Melissa had said, her eyes at the edge of her glass as she faced her grandfather, “I don’t know, Grandpa.”

  The last time he was in that library, three years ago, he and Melissa had their big fight. Bobby was asleep upstairs. Hank sat in the same chair he always sat in. Melissa walked back and forth, drink in hand, talking to him about the failure of their marriage.

  “You’re cute, Hank. You always have been. You’re just not handsome. I want someone handsome for Bobby.”

  “My appearance used to mean a lot to you,” Hank had replied.

  “Maybe you should have married Betty,” she said. “She’s more your type. She likes to call you Greenie.”

  “Betty is my friend,” he had said.

  “I guess that’s the problem, Hank. We’re not friends any more.” Then she had stopped walking and stared at him. “My father used to sit in that chair when he came to visit.” Hank had met her father one time, years before, when he had visited River Sunday on his ocean yacht. There was a party on the boat and Hank was invited. The General was in the saloon, entertained by several women. When Hank approached, the General nodded and waved him on to the stern to find Melissa. She was near her father in the cockpit. There were several other women there, bikini clad, tanning them in the midday sun. After the party Melissa had mentioned that she was glad to see her father and happy to meet some of his friends. She had said, “They all love him so much, don’t they?”

  That day in the library when their marriage was being dissolved, Hank had shifted in the chair and said, “You think I’m your father?”

  “No, no, I didn’t mean that,” she had said and began walking again. “Maybe that’s the problem.”

  “What?”

  “I realized that you could never be my father.”

  Then she quickly said, “I want Bobby to stay with me.”

  “He’s my son, too,” Hank replied.

  “I know that and he loves you,” she had said.

  “Why do you want to hurt him?” Hank asked.

  “Hurt him? Living in an upstairs room over a greenhouse isn’t hurting him?”

  “So that’s it,” Hank had said. He had gotten angry then.

  “Your mother wanted him to move out here, you realize that,” she had said.

  “I didn’t.”

  “Your father and the General agreed.”

  “I guess that made it final, didn’t it?” said Hank.

  “They all wanted him to have every advantage.”

  “That meant spending your grandfather’s money on him.”

  “You never liked that idea. You wanted him to be poor, Hank.”

  “I was loved when I was a boy. I wanted him to have that.”

  She had become furious. “You think I don’t love him.”

  Hank had said, “Loving him is different than spending money on him, Melissa.”

  “Get out of my house,” she had said then, and he had left. Since Bobby was already asleep, he left also without his son. A few weeks later, Melissa’s lawyers managed to convince the River Sunday judge that Hank had deserted his wife and son that night.

  Hank remembered the last time he drove up to the mansion, only a few months ago, and parked in the same spot he had in earlier years. The bushes were different, put in by a firm from Baltimore at great expense. Melissa never gave Hank any direct business. The firm came by often to get plants from Hank because he was local and because the firm knew he had better and cheaper plants than they had. Why, they told Hank, put in their plants when his were just as good? Meanwhile Melissa paid twice as much for the plants.

>   He saw that a party was going on inside and so he walked around to the kitchen. At the kitchen door was a little porch where he and Melissa used to sneak out and sit for hours. He walked into the kitchen and several men and women, black and white, most of whom he knew and greeted, were preparing plates of various foods for the party.

  He said “I just wanted to leave a check for Melissa.” One of the black women smiled and disappeared into the dining room and in a moment Melissa came through the door, beautiful in her gown, her eyes flashing anger,

  “What in the hell are you doing here? I’m having a party.”

  “I brought out Bobby’s money.”

  “God damn you, Hank, just mail me the money.”

  Then, behind her flowing dress, Hank saw the small head of Bobby, dark hair and full face, and the same blue eyes that he and his father shared, beaming up at him. When Melissa noticed Bobby, she pushed him behind her, her silk rustling.

  Bobby, his face red, his hands clenching, had pulled away and disappeared back into the other room, quickly and quietly. Melissa, in turn, stared at Hank as though he were a person she wanted out of her life forever. Hank put the check on the kitchen counter, then moved carefully from the room and out the back door. With the noise of the party blaring out the old mansion windows, he walked around to the front where his truck was parked among the bright sports cars of the guests.

  Tonight, here in the swamp in this rescue of their son, Hank was together with Melissa again, for better or for worse. The rain had started up again. Melissa talked with Pete as he filled her in about the progress of the rescue. Her face reddened with anger. After a few moments, she broke away from Pete and went up to Will who was shoveling at the side of the mound several yards away from Hank.

  She stared at Will. “The men told me how upset you were about your fences being cut. God, you are an asshole.”

  Will gazed at her, as if he were thinking of something else, his jacket and tie filthy. He said nothing.

  Hank looked at him, realizing Will would always be “Single Shot Will.”

  Cochise scampered by Melissa, and she shouted, “Damn these rats!” That was another thing about Melissa, Hank remembered. She hated animals like the old General had. The farm he bought had been a prosperous dairy producer and he got rid of all the animals. Grain crops were all that grew on that farm. As he said to Hank’s father, “Any wild animals that come on my farm, hunting season or not, they’ll get shot and eaten for my dinner.”

  Melissa pulled her windbreaker up over her and walked toward Charlie’s radio tent. “Charlie, tell me, what I can buy or send for to help you?”

  “You could stop this storm so’s we can get some better radio equipment over from Baltimore.”

  She was grim. “Pete said you heard one noise you thought was Bobby?”

  He suddenly held his hands hard on his earphones.

  Her face was tight. “Anything?”

  Charlie nodded, pursing his lips to ask her to be quiet.

  After a moment, Charlie said, “I just heard it again. I heard another thump sound. Let me listen.” He adjusted the radio dials as Hank and Pete came over.

  After a few more moments, he said, “Still quiet.”

  “You heard something. That’s new,” said Hank.

  “Only one of the microphones picked it up. That one was placed in a hole down at the far end from the trench.”

  Then from out in the swamp Hank heard trees squeaking from their trunks rubbing against each other as they bent down. He saw the searchlights mounted around the perimeter begin to shake back and forth. A bigger gust, much bigger than the others, hit then, water rising out of the swamp and hurling at him and the others in stinging droplets. Sudden rain came down, making the darkness overpower the wavering lights. Hank reached out for Melissa to try to protect her from the torn reeds and small twigs that were snapping through the air. She stood back from him, holding her coat over her head.

  Sammy shouted, his voice almost lost in the shriek of the gale. “Get the men back from those pines until these gusts let up.”

  Chapter Eight

  Men and equipment were blown about the mound. Nothing held tight to the ground in the slop. The men had to clutch for supports against the gusts but none existed in the flimsy reeds. The trees were in danger, too, bent far over. The firemen’s supplies, boxes, and equipment slid down the sides of the mound and tore into the sandbag walls. The next gust began with a roaring sound and ripped at Hank’s feet, making him stumble. As he fought the energy, a flash of light broke over the mound lighting its surface like small flames. He was knocked to the ground and cold water spattered his face. The noise of the thunder following the lightning strike tumbled around him.

  Sammy yelled, “She’s coming down!”

  The tree cracked in half. The top of the burning pine began to topple, shifting toward the trench. Sammy jumped from his idling tractor as the first part of the tree barely missed the machine and tumbled into the trench. Two of the firemen avoided the crashing branches by scrambling away from the sandbags. Twigs and pine cones, like stinging missiles, flew through the air.

  With a final crash and tearing sound as one of its larger branches snapped, the rest of the pine came to rest against the sandbags. Its remaining limbs reached down into the dug trench and pinned a firemen. He screamed in pain, his leg held tight under the wet timber.

  “Get him out,” yelled Sammy, pulling at the closest part of the tree. “Get him out from under that tree!”

  The foresters began sawing the tree trunk, their chainsaws screaming.

  Pete called out, “Keep an eye on the other pines. They’ll all come down.”

  Hank clambered toward the screaming fireman. Behind him, Sammy ordered his men to drop their shovels and help cut back the branches. He crawled further in the muck toward the fireman. The trapped man was one of Sammy’s best ladder men. He had been at the garden shop just a week ago to get flowers for his wife.

  Hank dropped as near to him as the tree would allow. “You’re going to be all right. We’re going to get you free.”

  “Hank, I’m in a damn mess, ain’t I?”

  The man was beginning to shake. A nearby fireman removed his rain coat and handed it to Hank. Hank in turn pushed it up between the branches and over the man.

  “Sammy,” Hank called. He was beginning to feel closed in.

  “Right here, Hank. What’s it like?”

  “He’s going into shock. Hurry up.”

  Sammy was on his cell phone, “Who’s this? You get your ass in that ambulance. I don’t care how bad the road is.”

  Tackle was attached between two of the still standing loblollies to raise the fallen trunk.

  Pete looked up. “Careful. Those ropes might pull the others down too.”

  Sammy’s eyes were serious. “They know what they’re doing.”

  Another fireman came down and lay beside Hank to help him pull the man back as soon as the tree was lifted from the pinned leg. The tree inched upward. The other pines to which the tackle was attached bent with the strain.

  “More,” directed the fireman, signaling with his arm, “Bit more, and pull him out.”

  “Bring the stretcher,” called Hank. An ambulance parked on shore near the Park Ranger’s office held the paramedics that waited for Bobby. One of the attached loblollies began to crack under the strain, just like Pete had predicted.

  “Hurry,” yelled Sammy.

  “He’s out,” said Hank, helping the others lift the fireman ahead of him and climbing up behind him. The foresters eased up the ropes on the other trees. The split seam up the side of the other pine stopped and did not break any further than halfway up the tree.

  “Good work. Let’s get him up to Pete’s place until the paramedics get over here.” said Sammy.

  “Sammy, we got to do it all again,” one of the men called.

  “All right. We all know our jobs,” said Sammy. He got on the tractor and the engine roared up again.
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  Hank saw strange shaped and colored clamshells embedded in the wall. He studied the surface wondering when he would find the tunnel that Bobby had entered. Hank pulled at some of the loose soil. A large chunk of earth slid loose and fell against his body, submerging his legs and waist, soaking into his shirt. He tried to move and could not, knowing that he had trapped himself. His brain sensed that the walls were coming at him. They were not, this was only a small slide, but he could not fight the fear. He panicked and flailed at the walls around him. Finally, with the last of his energy he managed to pull himself free and crawled out of the trench, just as the other men got to him. He stood in the open black air and rain, nausea tearing at him.

  “You’ll be all right,” said Pete, knowing what the matter was and trying to help Hank stand.

  “You can’t know,” Hank said. “It almost got to me.”

  “You did well.”

  “The fear I have when things crowd in on me. It won’t go away,” he said to Pete. “I worry that, in a clutch, I won’t be able to help Bobby.”

  Sammy ran the tractor forward, scooping up some of the fallen muck, his head constantly checking the other trees. As he stopped on his reverse run and shifted gears, he yelled down to Hank, “Jimmy’s spirits.”

  “What?” said Hank.

  “I think there are bad spirits are living in here. I’m convinced of it. We don’t have no luck.”

  At that moment, the wind howled again and more thunder crashed.

  “Damn, here she comes again,” said Sammy.

  “That lightning may hit my tractor,” said Will.

  “You mean you’re worried about me being being struck while on the metal tractor, ain’t you, Will?” said Sammy, staring hard with his sarcasm at Will.

  More trench walls collapsed as the firemen tried to remove the last of the tree. The walls turned fluid and swirled, tumbling the carefully stacked sandbags and rendering much of the work of the last hours useless. On the trench floor split sandbags fell in wild directions with mire leaking down on them from the sagging walls. Thin streams of water started to flow out from the mound face itself.