Chapter Seventeen

With that troubling news, Kate called Paul immediately to tell him what she had heard and that she intended to go to the hospital to meet Bonnie.

“I’m at the church,” he said. “Swing by and let me take you.” Kate thought that was a good plan, since the church wasn’t out of the way. They both got into Paul’s truck to make the short drive.

Kate wished the whole way that they could get there faster. When they turned down the tree-lined street that led to the hospital, Paul had to slow down to accommodate the speed bumps along the way, and she couldn’t keep from fidgeting. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on praying and giving Bonnie’s health to the Lord.

Paul glanced her way and said, “I’ll drop you off at the ER, so you can go on inside to see Bonnie while I park the truck.”

Kate hurried inside. People dressed in scrubs were hustling around as if they had a full house of patients, though the nurse had told her that Bonnie was the only one there and she could go on back. Kate didn’t see any EMTs in the hallway, just two areas partitioned off by tan curtains hanging from the ceiling.

“No doubt about it. The best way to have a child who is a reader is to be a parent who is a reader.” Bonnie’s voice, in her cheery but firm teacher-knows-best tone sounded out through the curtains.

“Yes, ma’am,” came a soft voice in reply.

Kate sighed, laughed to herself, then peeked around the edge of the curtain. There sat Bonnie on a wheeled hospital bed with pillows propped behind her back and more under her right leg. She appeared to be giving advice to a young woman with a stethoscope around her neck and a name tag indicating she was an RN.

Relieved, Kate stepped up, cocked her head, and folded her arms. “I should have known. Not even an injury could come between you and the chance to share a little practical wisdom.”

“Kate!” Bonnie stretched both arms out wide, her hands open. The RN patted Bonnie’s good leg and headed for the door.

Kate hurried in and gave her friend a big heartfelt hug.

“I’m so sorry you had to rush over here. It’s just a sprain.” Bonnie started to lift her leg, then winced and shook her head.

“Careful,” Kate cautioned. She ventured a look at her friend’s propped-up leg.

Bonnie’s muddy jeans were rolled up to her knee. Despite more than one ice pack covering the worst of the injury, Kate could see the beginning of bruising extending down Bonnie’s bare foot and various small scrapes and cuts on her shin.

Kate frowned. “Are you in much pain?”

“No, they gave me something for that.” Bonnie hung on to Kate’s hand with chilly fingers and a determined grip. “I tried to find my cell phone, but I think I may have dropped it after I spoke to you. I wanted to tell you not to hurry over here.”

“You couldn’t have convinced me not to come right over, Bonnie.” She gave her friend’s hand a squeeze. “And the EMT who took your phone didn’t hang up. I heard you talking in the ambulance, so I’ll check with them later to see if your phone got left in there.”

“You could hear us talking in the ambulance?”

“Not everything, but enough to make me want to get to you as soon as possible.” Kate looked around, then leaned in close to look Bonnie directly in the eyes as she asked, “You tripped over a booby trap?”

“I think so,” Bonnie responded with quiet intensity. “Fishing line strung between two small trees about six inches off the ground.”

“High enough to trip anyone walking by.” Kate lowered her gaze as she imagined something six inches above the ground.

“And low enough to be hidden by the leaves and grass,” Bonnie concluded.

“I wish I’d had the presence of mind to have taken some of that line.” Bonnie rubbed her thumb and forefinger together as though she could practically feel the nearly invisible thread between them. “To be truthful, I thought I’d just sit down and rest and then get up and be fine. But when I tried to stand, I realized I was in big trouble. I fell again. I’m not sure if I bumped my head then or with the first fall.”

Kate took a closer look at her friend’s head. She winced at the sight of the bump and the matted blood in her pale blonde hair. “Have you seen the doctor or had your X-rays yet?”

“I’ve had a quick once-over, and they’ve decided they want to run a few tests.” Bonnie gave a slow, deep sigh. “So you see you didn’t have to rush over. Oh, but you and Paul probably should go get my car, if you would. I had to leave it by the side of the road.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll take care of it.” Kate busied herself smoothing down the rumpled linens and tidying Bonnie’s disheveled shirt.

She felt so bad seeing her dear friend sitting there looking so helpless. She didn’t think she’d earnestly feel better again until Bonnie was out of there, recuperating under Kate’s—

“Kate, I’m not going anywhere.” Bonnie’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

“What?”

“That’s right, dear.” Bonnie spoke to Kate, but she kept her eyes trained on a nurse who was filling out a form on a chart as she walked down to the end of the bed. “They’re keeping me overnight.”

“Overnight?” That took Kate by surprise.

Paul arrived in time to hear that and said, “If we’d have known, we’d have brought you some things.”

“Just a precaution,” the nurse assured them as she bent down to put her face level with Bonnie’s swollen ankle. She looked at Kate and Paul, then at Bonnie again. “Are these the friends you listed on your information sheet?”

Bonnie nodded to the nurse and made a quick introduction, then folded her arms over her chest and sighed as she explained, “I hope you don’t mind, but when they made me fill out the forms to keep me here, I had to list contact people that they could share my information with, and it just made sense to list you two.”

“Of course we don’t mind,” Kate said.

The nurse added, “You can wait here with her and even go along when they take Mrs. Mulgrew to her room.” The nurse gave Bonnie a sweet smile, then stepped away, motioning for Kate and Paul to join her. “Let me catch you up on what we know so far.”

They followed her past the curtains, which the nurse pulled on to make a better divider between them and the patient as she said, “I’ll let you rest, Mrs. Mulgrew, and bring your friends up to speed on your status, if that’s okay with you.”

“Thank you,” Bonnie said. “You can tell Kate and Paul whatever you need to.” As the nurse led them out of the room, Kate saw Bonnie adjust her foot, then wince.

The nurse spoke softly. “In addition to her sprained ankle, Mrs. Mulgrew had a pretty bad bump on the head.”

Kate’s shoulders tensed. “Is it serious?”

“No. The doctor doesn’t think so, but anytime a person is alone and has a head injury, we have to rule out all possible causes and implications. They’re going to do an MRI just in case.”

“Just in case what?” Paul asked, placing his hand on Kate’s back to lend his support.

“Just in case something internal caused the fall, like a small stroke or an interruption in blood flow caused by a tumor or her heart stopped or...well, any one of a hundred things. Also, we need to know if the fall caused any internal damage.”

Kate’s breath snagged in the back of her throat.

The nurse hurried to reassure them. “We have no reason to suspect that. But since she was alone, we want to run tests and keep her close for observation to be on the safe side.” The nurse held up her hands, then she lowered her voice and added, “I’m afraid she wasn’t making much sense when she got here, talking about foul play and missing flocks.” The nurse crooked her fingers to form invisible quotation marks around the terms she found questionable.

Paul ran his hand back through his hair and murmured a heartfelt thank you to the Lord.

The nurse continued. “By the time she’d been jostled around by the ambulance ride, she was in a great deal of pain. When we gave her something for the pain, she kept muttering the word umbie.”

The tension between Kate’s shoulder blades ebbed, and she and Paul shared a knowing smile.

“Actually, that makes perfect sense to us,” Paul told her. “Maybe you and I should go have a word with the doctor to let him know she wasn’t talking gibberish.”

“Thank you,” Kate whispered as her husband went with the nurse to tend to that. She went back to wait beside Bonnie, ready to get the whole story at last.

After asking Bonnie how she was feeling, Kate finally felt prepared for details. “Okay. Let’s get this squared away. I thought I overheard the EMT say something about falling out of trees, and you mentioned booby traps?”

Bonnie raised her chin slightly. “I most assuredly did not fall out of any trees.”

Kate drew the covers up gently, careful to stay clear of the injured leg. “That’s good to hear.”

Bonnie tucked the sheet under her arms and wriggled, adjusting her position, before she added, “I fell between two trees.”

“Between?” It troubled Kate to imagine this woman she had admired for so many years hurt and alone in the woods. “Oh, Bonnie. How badly did it hurt?”

“Well, I suspected almost immediately that I had sprained my ankle fairly badly. At first I worried that perhaps I might even have suffered a fracture, but after a moment or two, I felt sure I hadn’t broken anything and could make it to the car.”

“I’m glad to know you didn’t lie there in the open, afraid and in pain.” Kate took her hand.

“Me? Oh no.” She enveloped Kate’s hand in both of hers, giving rather than needing to receive assurance. “I taught high school for more than forty years, dear. I don’t shake easily. Though having those EMTs treat me as if I were a frail, confused old lady did wound my pride a bit.”

The vital-as-ever woman pursed her lips and turned her head as if needing a moment to gather her composure. She patted the back of her hair, then her hand froze, and she rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “I think I lost my new scarf in all the drama of it.”

Kate smiled. “We can get you a new scarf.”

“Well, that may be so, but you can’t get the air back into my hair.” She pushed down on the bouffant that had all but lost every ounce of its bounce. “Tell me that bump on the head didn’t destroy my pretty new hairdo.”

“You look beautiful,” Kate assured her.

The nurse agreed as she came in to take Bonnie to the room where she would stay the night for observation. “Now, if you had come in asking questions like that, I would have known you were a woman in her right mind,” she teased before adding, “Not everyone around here is in on the hunt for those rare sparrows...you know, those umbies. We don’t all speak the language.”

“If you’d like to know more about them, I’d be happy to tell you everything I know,” Bonnie volunteered.

Kate gave the nurse a sly smile. “One lesson at a time, Bonnie. Why don’t you tell me what you learned in all of this?”

“I’m more convinced than ever that those flocks are missing for a reason. Kate, I didn’t simply stumble in a wooded glen or trip over a stick or stub my toe on a rock.” Bonnie grabbed Kate by the wrist. “Whatever is going on, whatever has caused the birds to disappear, it’s not a natural phenomenon. Somebody around Best Acres is up to no good.”