During tough times I hope for searches to come up. It gives me something to focus on besides my trouble and since I am normally accompanied by armed men it is safer to be out on a search than it is to be anywhere else. Rusty hated for me to be gone overnight but conceded it served a multitude of purposes. I was working, getting my outdoors fix in, and staying out of trouble. So when Lou Strickland called the next day I was ready to roll.
“This should be a fairly straightforward search. Your ten sixty-five is parked on a mountain side. He’s in good health, good spirits, just lost. He radioed his buddies back at camp and they spent yesterday trying to find him and gave up. They convinced him to find someplace and wait. Hopefully he’s got water but he’s at least not expending a lot of energy or using up resources. I expect a hike in and a hike out, nice and simple.”
I nodded. My eyes already strayed to the ground. I tried to focus on Lou.
“Where can I get a sample of the tracks?”
“We had a hiker report he saw Lenny on the trail about two miles down. That’s your starting point. I put it about… right… here,” he said bending over a map. I looked the map over for landmarks. There wasn’t much to identify the place. I’d have to watch the trail.
Again I just nodded assent. I got the picture. I was ready to go.
“Cassidy? Are you okay? You’re not acting like yourself.”
“Sorry, yeah, I’m fine. I don’t feel great but there’s nothing wrong. The trail’s still the best place for me.”
“Why are you going armed? You usually only go armed on apprehensions.”
“I’ve got reason to feel a little apprehensive. So far it’s just been one confrontation and some threats. But they are threats I have to take seriously. The guy shot my motorcycle out from under me and then when I ditched it to get away he rigged it to blow when I started it up.”
“Nice guy. Does he have a motive?”
“Yeah, I apparently ruined his life.”
“I see.”
“It’s complicated. Schroeder can fill you in of you need details. I need to hit the trail.”
Sometimes searches don’t turn out like I plan. I always have a firm goal in mind when I start out, a realistic picture of the situation, and what I can expect the outcome to be. Usually, I am pretty accurate. If I think I can find a person in a day I usually do. And I have an idea when I start out whether I am in for a grueling, brain-numbing rocky search or a quick hike through the forest search. This search was different. For one thing I didn’t feel well starting out. It was just a vague, something’s not quite right feeling. Landon and I hiked the two miles to our starting point. When the tracks were clear I stopped and studied them so I’d recognize them off trail. Lenny’s buddies had messed up his trail in their searching, but I managed to get an idea of Lenny’s stride. I noted his tread. Wear spots didn’t show up well on the trail. It was too gravely.
By the time we followed Lenny’s tracks off the trail I felt rotten. I was wondering if I was getting a fever or coming down with a cold. It wasn’t following the usual symptoms of a cold, though. Usually I get a sore throat and then it spreads to other inconvenient areas. This just felt like a vague unwell feeling, so I kept going. Our missing person was dealing with more than a cold coming on. He’d been out in the open over a day but reports said he hadn’t gone far.
After an hour of tracking I decided Lenny Patelli would be an easy find. He moved through the forest like a bulldozer despite his small stature, or maybe because of it. Sign of his passing came in tracks, broken branches, kicked rocks. He gave me plenty of clues. I even began to wonder why he didn’t just track himself back. It would have been an easy job.
“You’re being unusually quiet,” Landon observed.
“I feel rotten. I prefer to keep my rottenness to myself. If you can think of something cheerful to talk about, I’d be glad to talk.”
“Cookies. Did you bring cookies?”
“I always try to bring cookies. I’ve become a cookie slave. When Strict calls, first I check to see if I have cookies. Then I tell him when I can be there.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Yeah, I’m kidding. But I do try and have cookies ready, even if they have been sitting in the freezer for a few weeks. You’ll have to wait for them to thaw.”
Lenny’s tracks did a ninety degree turn and I looked around for what might have drawn his attention. It wasn’t a spontaneous decision. He’d stood there considering his options and then turned to the right and set off again at a sprightly pace. He was enjoying his hike, enjoying being out in the woods. I hoped he wasn’t going to try to climb the mountain because I was not up to a mountain climbing expedition. The reports did indicate Lenny was at a higher elevation than when he started out. He’d given his buddies a rough idea of what his surroundings were like and he was definitely higher up than we were now.
The feverish feeling grew and then the kind of feeling all women hate when they are in the woods. I excused myself and told Landon to keep to the trail and I’d catch up to him in a few minutes. I went off away from the trail to take care of necessities thinking something was off with this. This was the wrong time. And I thought maybe I needed a new prescription for my birth control pills if these weren’t working right.
I had decided things definitely were not right when I began “chasing butterflies” every fifteen to twenty minutes. The feverish feeling turned to a weak feeling and the weak feeling turned into a shaky feeling and still I kept to the trail, stopping frequently.
“Cassidy, are you okay?” Landon asked after my tenth side trip.
We were closing in on Lenny Patelli so I admitted, “I don’t think so, when I get out of here I’m going to town. I need to see a doctor.”
A half mile later my stomach clenched in pain. I paused on the trail waiting for the pain to subside but it didn’t. I pressed onward.
“Landon, when we find Patelli, call a helicopter, whether he needs one or not. There’s no way I’m hiking out.”
He sat me down.
“Cassidy, you’re white as a sheet. Tell me what’s going on.”
“I don’t know, it’s… it’s female related. I thought I was coming down with something but now I’m bleeding like crazy, my stomach hurts, even my shoulder hurts. Why would my shoulder hurt? We have to find Lenny. Come on, we’re getting close.”
How close a call that was, I didn’t know. Landon reluctantly let me continue. We found Lenny Patelli waiting like he said he would, but we found ourselves in a race against time. Landon called a helicopter knowing I wouldn’t ask for one unless something was very wrong. I could hear the conversation between Landon and Strict.
“Ten sixty-five found, ten forty-five A,” Landon started out.
“Ten four, good work,” Strict answered.
“Strict, we need a pick up.”
Dead silence.
“Ten-nine?”
“We need a pick up. Cassidy is sick. She’s been making trail stops all day.”
“How sick?”
“She asked for the pick up, that’s how sick.”
“Right.”
I sat next to a tree and the pain grew until I couldn’t sit anymore. I curled into a fetal position on the ground and just waited. I knew it could be hours.
Lenny walked over and asked, “Hey, are you okay?”
“You ever ride in a helicopter?” I managed to say.
“No, why?” he answered.
“You may get your chance.”
Landon came back. “Oh, god, Cassidy, what have you done to yourself?” Then into the radio, “Put a stat on that helicopter.”
Landon began talking to me like a patient. “Cassidy, I need more information. Talk to me. You said this is female related. When was your last period?”
“I don’t know. I’m on the pill. It had to be at the end of the card.”
“The card of pills?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know that?”
“I think so. I don’t keep track. I just trust them. I don’t think about whether or not I had my period. If I don’t, I count myself lucky. It’s no fun. You couldn’t understand.”
He smiled at me but his expression was grim.
“Could you be pregnant?”
“No, I told you…”
“It doesn’t mean a thing.”
He’d been taking my pulse and he opened his pack to get out other equipment. The blood pressure cuff first. He took it twice. My fingers were cold in spite of the heat of the day, but I felt feverish too. The pain wasn’t easing up, if anything it was getting worse, the bleeding was getting worse, too.
“No, Cass, stay with me here. I need you to think. Where does it hurt?”
“Lower abdomen, right side,” I managed to mumble.
But I couldn’t think. I was past thinking. I remember worried eyes. Being rolled onto my back. Palpations where I said it hurt. More worried eyes. He went to his pack. Everything blurred together. I fought the haze descending on me knowing Landon would feel better as long as I was lucid. I could hear the clatter of the helicopter and I looked up into the big red, white and blue underbelly of an air ambulance. Strict took my request seriously. By the time the basket was lowered I was delirious and I don’t remember being lifted into the bay of the helicopter.
All I know from Landon’s description later was that it was a race against my body. I was bleeding fearfully fast. Nobody really knew why. They had found the nearest emergency room that could take a critical case and away we flew, the sound of the blades a distant rhythm that rattled around inside my brain.
Lenny found himself on an unplanned trip to L.A.
The fastest examination in the history of ER ensued and I was whisked off to surgery.
Strict had called Rusty while I was still on the mountain and Landon called in a destination from the air. Rusty found Landon frantically pacing the halls.
“What happened?” Rusty demanded.
Landon told him he didn’t know, and explained what I’d told him.
“You’re the EMT,” Rusty demanded. “You must have some idea.”
“I do, but I don’t know if I’m right. I’m hoping I’m not. The doctor will explain it all when they find out more.”
Rusty turned on him. “I need to know what she’s fighting in there. I have to. Even if it’s not right. Even if it turns out to be all wrong, it gives me something to latch on to.”
Since Landon had something to latch on to he could understand.
“I think she’s having a miscarriage.”
Rusty stopped, still as could be, then he found a waiting room and sat down, head in hands.
“If you’d told me she fell, or got shot, or her ten sixty-five turned on you two and beat her to a pulp, I wouldn’t have been surprised. I can expect things like that. You could tell me she’d been snake bitten, or attacked by a mountain lion and I could believe that. I never in a million years would have guessed she went out on a call in that condition.”
“I don’t think she knew, or had thought of it. She just felt out of sorts when we started out. No need for concern. I didn’t know how serious it was until she asked for a pick up. We knew our ten sixty-five was in good shape to walk out. We thought we’d locate him and follow our trail back. But Cass, went downhill frighteningly fast. I called in to report our missing person found, in good shape and asked Strict for the pick up. When I turned around Cassidy was on the ground.”
When they asked for more information from the hospital staff they got the standard, pat answer, “She’s in good hands. They’re doing what they can. We’ll tell you as soon as we know more.”
The nothingness of unconsciousness morphed to a sort of delirium of dreams. I felt like I was floating between nothingness and reality, but reality wasn’t a hospital room, it was woods, some woods I’d only seen once in my life, the green woods of Minnesota, and a river teaming with fish. A bear walked up to the river and I wanted to go down and hide in the brush and watch it. This floating business was for the birds.
I couldn’t control where my mind took me. It took me away to places I’d seen, experiences I’d had, but I couldn’t stop. I reached for reality. I felt something there but my mind wouldn’t let me stay with it. A car wreck. A fire… Rusty, please, Rusty, wake up. Rusty and Chase and the fire. Make it stop. Please make it stop… Making cookies with Patrick. I could remember they had too much vanilla, but I couldn’t remember my name. Voices, hushed voices in the dreams, and odd sounds that didn’t fit with the scenes. I could identify the voices of Rusty and my mom in a fuzzy sort of way. Others I didn’t know.
At last the drifting stopped and I felt heavy, so heavy that I couldn’t move. Everything was an enormous effort. I tried to open my eyes. It was too much. I tried moving my hand. I knew I was successful when a hand squeezed mine. I hadn’t even realized it was there. I grasped back and felt the squeeze again, then heard a shift in position next to me, some pressure on the bed.
“Cassidy?” Rusty said quietly.
I squeezed.
“Can you hear me?”
Another squeeze. A calming.
I tried again to open my eyes.
Softly beside me, “Relax, hon, it’s okay. Relax and it’ll come easier.”
I tried again. I got them open but they wouldn’t stay open. I caught a glimpse of Rusty before they fell closed again. I felt like I was fighting a battle, just to open my eyes. I tried to say something but realized I couldn’t.
He took my hand in his. “Can you squeeze?” he asked.
I tried, not knowing how successful I was. It was a weak squeeze at best.
“Can you understand me?”
I squeezed.
“Do you remember what happened?”
Another squeeze.
“Do you know what caused this?”
How to say no? I tried two squeezes.
“Okay…if you knew you’d have questions. I just wanted to be able to give you the answers, but it can wait.”
Sometimes when I woke up Rusty was right there ready to encourage me. Other times he had to pull himself out of the depths of despair to talk to me. I didn’t understand it. It made me wonder what had happened while I’d been out, but it wasn’t me that was causing his grief. I continued to improve slowly, painfully slowly.
Landon was there when I woke up again. When he saw my eyes open he scooted closer.
“Cassidy?”
I tried to talk but the respirator wouldn’t let me.
“She’ll answer your questions if you hold her hand. One squeeze for yes, two for no,” Rusty told him.
Landon hesitated to take my hand, but he seemed to need to talk somehow.
“Can you hear me?” he asked.
One squeeze. He relaxed a little, thinking.
“Do you remember what happened?”
One squeeze.
“You scared me, kid. Just to see you come this far is hard to believe. You’re a fighter. You know that? I don’t know how you made it through. I thought I’d lost you. I wouldn’t have given you a chance and now look at you.”
I weakly pulled my hand loose and, in rough sign language, finger spelled C-O-O-K-I-E-S-I-N-P-A-C. It was a tremendous effort and nearly sent me over the edge into sleep again. He looked puzzled at first but I knew he understood. He had taught me the letters on a long search one time. He went to the closet and found my pack and got out the Ziploc bag of cookies. The worry seemed to fade as he saw the humor in my situation. I finger spelled I-O-U and then slipped over the edge hoping he’d share with Rusty.
I woke to find my mother sitting with me.
“Hi there, I sent Rusty for a walk. He needed some fresh air. I have to push him out the door to get him to go. He spends way too much time in this chair. You okay?”
A weak squeeze.
“Everybody back home is rooting for you. Just rest. You need quiet rest first.”
I tried to talk, but gave up in frustration.
“Patrick sent this for you.” She held up a coloring book of wildlife. She showed me several pages that he had colored. “He called it a reminder book, so you’d be reminded of who was thinking of you at the ranch. He made everyone color a page. Look, even Dad colored a page for you. When you feel better you can read what everybody wrote to you.”
A nurse entered the room pulling on a surgical mask.
“You’ll have to leave the room for just a minute,” he said. “I’ll call you back in when I’m finished.”
Mom obediently left and went to update Rusty. The nurse turned to me and I saw those eyes. I panicked. It was Dirk! It was Dirk and I couldn’t move! He stared down at me enjoying my plight.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Trying to deprive me of my fun? I watched the house for days. Took me a while to find you.” He was pacing around looking things over. I couldn’t answer him. I couldn’t get away. I was helpless. “Let’s see. How can I make you squirm? Let’s see how you do without this ugly tube. See if you feel like I did under all that dirt, pushing sand away, trying to make a small pocket of air.”
I turned my head away from him but I was too weak to fight it. Out came the tube with a searing pain. In my panic I was breathing okay. To me it felt like flight mode. Quick ragged breaths. If I could have run I would have but I couldn’t even sit. When the tube was removed all the sensors on the machine went crazy. It started a piercing beep. Dirk looked alarmed, knowing real nurses would be heading this way quickly. “You’ll die little girl. One of these days, with me watching…” he said, then he dashed out the door. A real nurse came in, took in the situation and looked at me with a disapproving glare, like I’d taken the tube out myself. I couldn’t have even if I’d wanted to. She called in other nurses and the room filled with people. I was still in flight mode. I turned away from her efforts.
“No, stop!” I frantically rasped. “Need to talk. Let me talk! It wasn’t a nurse. It was a man. Get Rusty. Please, get Rusty!”
A nurse stood guard over me while another nurse went away. I was fading and I couldn’t do that. I had to talk to Rusty…had to… I fought it, tossing and turning, anything to keep feeling until Rusty burst through the doorway.
“Cass! Babe, shhh…it’s okay…be still. I’m here.”
“Rus…”I gasped. “Dirk was here. Took out the tube. He thought I couldn’t breathe without it. Alarm scared him off.”
I was gasping for air but I was breathing. Rusty flipped open his cell phone and called the police.
“What was he wearing?”
“Hospital scrubs, mask too.”
“Babe, I have to go look. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“No tube,” I gasped at the nurses. “Please…give me a chance without it.”
I lay there concentrating on breathing. The nurse called the doctor. I faded out, still fighting the nurse.
I woke with a start, expecting to see Dirk. The tube was still gone.
“Rus…” I whispered.
“Shh,” he said. “Take it slow. You’ve been through a lot.”
“I love you.”
He smiled and tears sprung to his eyes.
“You don’t know how long I’ve waited for those words.”
“How long?”
“Too long. Don’t worry about it.”
“So weak.”
“I know. You’ve got every right to be. You’ve got a long, hard job ahead of you, but I know you can do it.”
“Dirk?”
“They’re still looking for him. This is a big place. They can’t stop every nurse they see and there are a lot of male nurses here. I won’t leave again, babe, I’ll be right here. Don’t worry. He won’t get near you again.”
I could feel the cruel fingers of sleep dragging me down. I fought it but sleep won.
Later…
“Rusty?” I said weakly.
Landon appeared.
“Hey,” he said. “You can talk again.”
“For a short time,” I whispered. My voice would come and go as my strength came and went. He had to listen closely and concentrate on listening.
“Thanks for the cookies.”
“Did you share?”
“Yeah, Rusty got some, too. You shocked both of us when you used the sign language. We didn’t know you could think enough to do that. Rusty was grinning like a fool for hours.”
“Does he understand the letters?”
“I showed them to him. Just like most people, he’d learned them as a kid and forgotten half of them.”
“Why would I have trouble thinking?”
“You still don’t know what you’ve been through, do you?”
“No, I can’t stay awake long enough…to find out. Appendicitis? Appendicitis wouldn’t do this to me.”
“No. It’s not my place to tell you. You need to talk to Rusty. He’s having a rough time of it. He’s had too many quiet hours to think. He needs to talk to you.”
“Where is he?”
“I told him I’d stay. He’s here. He’s just taking a nap.”
We fell silent, me from weakness, he because he was uncomfortable with the topic.
“Landon, can you read me a book?”
“A book? What book?”
“Little coloring book, from my family.”
He looked around, found the reminder book on the table and opened it up.
“The first page shows a wolf cub.” He showed me the picture, definitely colored by Wyatt. “Dear Aunt Cassidy, get better quick. From Wyatt.”
“Wyatt’s five and he doesn’t know me very well,” I explained.
“Here’s one of a bobcat, done by Steve,” he said holding up the picture. Coloring wasn’t Steve’s forte. “Kiddo, how do you get yourself into these things? Take care of yourself. We’re all rooting for you. If you’re well enough to read this book your recovery’s certain. I know what a fighter you can be. Don’t let us down. Steve.”
“What does Patrick say?” I asked.
Landon leafed through the book until he found Patrick’s page. It was a picture of deer, carefully colored and shaded. His expression changed and he said, “Cassidy, I can’t read Patrick’s page until you talk to Rusty.”
“Why?”
“You’ll understand when you get to read it.”
The next day I woke and found I could move easier. This was a good thing because I was sick of the bed. I felt trapped in it. Being able to shift around a little helped although it also told me that I had stitches. I couldn’t move enough to see them but I knew they were there. I also noted I had no clothes on. I looked around. Monitors were everywhere, IVs; there was barely room in the little alcove for the bed and a chair. Rusty noticed the movements.
“I’m here,” he said dragging himself out of the chair. He was looking haggard and worn. He needed to shave. The sandy brown stubble reminded me of our time in Minnesota. It gave him an attractive outdoorsy look. He tenderly pulled the sheet up where it had shifted from my movements.
“Rusty…what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, babe, it’s okay.”
“No, something’s bothering you, whatever it is I want it, too.”
“I’ll talk when you’re ready.”
“I’m ready.”
“Hon, you only stay awake a short time. I don’t want to burden you with…”
“Burden? You… Rusty… you can’t burden me. Wondering what’s wrong is what burdens me.”
He sat on the side of the bed and looked me in the eye. He looked sad but his eyes looked hopeful. “Babe, there was something I loved very deeply and it was taken from me before I knew it existed. I just keep thinking of what might have been and wishing I had a glimpse of it before it was lost to me.”
I was puzzled. I still didn’t understand. I couldn’t even think of the right questions to ask.
“What? What was it?” I managed to say.
He couldn’t answer for a few moments. “Our son, babe, we lost our son and I didn’t even know until he was gone. I feel silly mourning someone I never even knew existed but I can’t help it. I keep remembering all the things we did with Patrick, thinking it could have been like that. But it won’t ever be. I should be thankful that you’re going to be okay. And I am, more than words can say, but I’ll always miss the son I never had.”
Our son. The words hit me like a freight train. I couldn’t process them. I could feel myself falling.
“Rusty… I’m so sorry… I didn’t know.”
“Shh, it’s not your fault. It would have happened anyway. It just could have happened under more controlled circumstances.”
It took days before I’d reasoned out his words. The doctor spelled it out in medical terms. Ectopic pregnancy. I’d lost one fallopian tube. The tube had ruptured. The surgery was messy. I was lucky, I was told. A person having a rupture under the conditions I was in should have died. An hour more on the mountain and I wouldn’t have had a chance. If Strict had simply called a helicopter for a pick up, I wouldn’t have made it. Only lucky timing and Strict and Landon’s quick thinking got me through.
Landon brought the reminder book when he visited again and let me read the messages that revealed what had happened to me.
Patrick said, “Dear Aunt Cassidy, I wish I didn’t ask you for a baby cousin. I don’t need a baby cousin if it hurts you. Please get well. I miss you. Love Patrick.”
And from Jesse, “Hi Sis, sending you a dose of love long distance. I’m so sorry you lost this baby. Don’t worry, you’ll have another chance. I can’t wait. Take care of yourself. Love, Jesse.”
Everybody colored a page. I sadly noted there was no page from Old Frank. After I was moved to a normal room I asked for crayons and colored a page in Old Frank’s honor.
A deep sadness settled into me. A piece of me was missing, but I wasn’t sure what it was. I just missed something, something I couldn’t get back. How can you miss something you never knew? I thought maybe I was just depressed because the recovery seemed so long, but that wasn’t it. It was nameless.
“Did you have a name for him?” I asked Rusty one day when I was almost ready to leave the hospital.
“Not really. Do you remember the little boy you were stuck in the mine with?”
“Trevor, yeah.”
“When we rescued Trevor I thought if I ever had a son it would be like the feeling I got when you and Trevor came out of the mine. Out of the darkness, into the light, into life again. So the name Trevor was there in the back of my mind, except… except this time Trevor didn’t make it.”
Rusty mourned Trevor for a long time and I felt guilty for it. I knew he wouldn’t want me to. He and I were coping in our own ways. My challenge was coping physically. I hadn’t exactly made things easy on myself, pushing myself on the trail. I’d lost a lot of blood and put myself at terrible risk. The recovery was very slow. Rusty stayed sad. He tried to turn the sadness into caring for me. He made me rest and brought me things he thought I’d like. He made me eat when I didn’t feel like it. My weight had plummeted alarmingly. Every time he turned around he was caring for me, but he wasn’t finding peace for himself.
I asked myself the inevitable questions. Did I want a baby? No. Did I want that baby? If it were possible. If I’d have known, I’d have done anything I could to save that baby, but I didn’t know, and by the time I did it was too late. I was told a pregnancy like that could never have gone full term. I knew there had been no hope for him from the very beginning so there was nothing I could have done, but I still felt guilty for Rusty’s loss. I wondered what Rusty’s little boy would have looked like. I wondered what Rusty’s reaction would have been when I told him. I imagined Rusty playing with his very own little boy. And all the things I imagined were pleasant, things I would miss now. Was it worth it? Days on end of dirty diapers, constant attention to one little baby so I could make that come true? I didn’t know.
When I went back to my doctor in Joshua Hills Rusty insisted on going along. The doctor assured me there was no reason I couldn’t get pregnant again, that many women get pregnant with only one fallopian tube. He then gave me a different prescription for my birth control pills and advised me to stay home and rest for several weeks.
“Is there any reason I can’t do search and rescue calls if I’m pregnant?” I asked the doctor.
“If you think you might be pregnant, or even if you just miss a period, come see me. We’ll do a pregnancy test and, when it’s appropriate, we’ll run an ultrasound to make sure everything’s fine. If everything appears normal, there’s no reason why you can’t go on calls the first two trimesters. The closer to your due date you get, the more you have to wonder if you want your baby born on the side of a mountain somewhere. You’ll have to make choices. As far as I’m concerned, you can do anything you feel capable of, once we get you checked out.”
Rusty laughed at the idea. “If it’s a boy we can name him Cliff and if it’s a girl we can name her Brook.”
“Rusty,” I reminded him, “I’m still taking the pills.”
“I know, but if you ever stop, would you tell me?”