David had saved Hazel’s child. He had honored his training and oath. The star around his neck reminded him a man is never judged by himself alone. He advised Hazel to rest in the tent and wait for a raft or jetboat to stop at Bargamin.
“Someone will take you and Lucas. You’ll be able to contact the rangers. They’ll help you get Lucas to a hospital.” From his rocket box, he removed a few hundred dollars and handed them to Hazel. “For medicine or food, whatever you need,” he said.
The fortune sifted between her fingers. She’d never seen a hundred dollars. She had no idea how people acquired money. At fourteen, she’d run away from her father’s house with nothing. Shortly afterwards, Justice Jenkins married her. He’d taken care of her.
“Lucas got well,” she said.
“He’s better but you should find out what caused the fever. He should be tested.”
“When you call the ranger station, tell them where we are,” Kate said. “Help us save my Ruby.”
Hazel searched for God’s will inside her. It had directed her from camp. It had guided her to Dr. Tanner. Now she knew the doctor was a Jew like Jesus. A savior like Jesus. But next to God, Justice had always been in charge. Her loyalties divided. She weighed one against the other. Jenkins saved her, but David and Kate saved Lucas. She described the way to Jenkins’s camp and suggested David remove his star.
They stuffed their packs with clothes and food. They wrapped the sleeping bags in plastic and strapped them to the bottom of the packs. They put on rain gear and left the tent for Hazel and Lucas. She followed them over the wooden bridge that crossed Bargamin Creek. Even after they were out of sight, they heard her.
“Thank you! Thank you!” she wept.
The swift putty-colored water roared between its banks, carrying sand, rock, sections of trees, debris, whirling and rushing to the river.
“You won’t be able to reason with him,” Kate said.
“I’ll handle it,” David said.
It was only on the river that he felt a semblance of certainty. Maybe it was the certainty of transience. There was a quote from Einstein he liked: Living matter and clarity are opposites—they run away from one another.
“And once we find her?”
“I don’t know,” Kate confessed.
“It couldn’t have been easy.”
“It didn’t work for Ruby,” she said.
Mistake after mistake. She never married a decent man to father Ruby. She wasn’t strict about school. She’d isolated Ruby to protect her. It was easy to understand why Ruby hated Zamora. Isolation was a curse.
“When this nightmare is over, if you need me,” David said. He hoped to make his mistakes up to Kate.
Kate couldn’t speak about a future. There was no future until Ruby was beside her.