Chapter 1

The black motorcycle dropped over the crest in a stomach-lifting plunge down the hill. The two lane black top road ran like a tangle of spaghetti. Down the hill, across the little bridge into a sharp climb up to the top of the next hill and a tight turn on top the beautiful Ozark Mountains. Spring flowers and stunted trees lined the road. Open places along the roadside had grass and, where it was too steep to mow, various wild flowers and dewberry briars. The wind whistled past the rider’s red helmet. His short-sleeved shirtsleeves fluttered in the wind stream. His blue jeans were stuffed into scuffed cowboy boots that protected his feet. The bike had a low deep tone, not as sweet as a Harley, but it was a lot sweeter than the sound of its original mufflers. It was an old Yamaha six-fifty twin. The seat was cut down for a lower center of gravity. Which was needed when the rider took the turns a little tighter than a casual tourist. A garage sale trunk from an old Harley rode behind the seat. That spoiled what little beauty the bike could have had. A dent here and a few scratches there indicated the bike had been down more than once.

The girl was picking dewberries along the highway right of way about fifty feet from the lane that led up to her house. She had a plastic lard bucket to hold the big shiny black berries. She was dressed in jeans and long sleeved shirt to protect her arms from the thorns. Her hands were bare and purple from the berry juice and scratched from their sharp thorns. At twelve years of age she had better preferences than getting stained and scratched in a dewberry patch. Her mother, however, had little sympathy for her preferences. At that very moment her mother was reprimanding her little brother up on the hill in their front yard. She was standing on the porch. Spencer was in the yard working on his bicycle. She was wiping flour from her hands to her apron. Tight blue jeans clinging to her slim legs were visible below the apron.

“Spencer, you put that bike away right now. If you want cobbler for supper you get down that hill and help your sister pick the berries. Mr. Calloway said he’d pay three dollars for a half gallon of some of those berries. If you want some money to spend this Saturday you better get at it.”

“I think I got it fixed, ma. I’m a goin’.” The boy got up from working on his bike. He tossed down a pair of wrenches and grabbed a plastic bucket from the porch. He slipped the bail of the bucket over one of the handlebars.

“Hold it,” his mother shouted. “Those wrenches don’t go there on the ground. You put ‘em away first.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The boy pushed his bike closer to the wrenches. He reached down and picked them up and put them in the bucket then rode to the shed and tossed them through the door without stopping. He made a tight circle and sped off to the lane. She flipped a strand of her dark hair out of her face, rolled her eyes heavenward and shaking her head stepped back into her kitchen.

It was hardly a minute later when she heard the sound of the motorcycle as it rounded the curve to the north and come down the hill. A few seconds later the sound of the motorcycle changed and her daughter’s scream came up the hill. Then there was a crash and then silence.

“Oh no!” she said to herself and ran out of the house. She leaped off the porch and ran down the lane. The first thing she saw when the highway came into view was Spencer, crawling through the barbed wire fence on the far side of the highway. His bike was in the ditch nearby. Caroline wasn’t in sight.

“Where’s Caroline?” she called to Spencer as she dashed across the highway.

“Out there in the woods,” he answered. “I didn’t mean it, mom. My chain slipped off. I couldn’t stop.” The boy stood up on the other side of the fence.

“So what happened? Why did Caroline scream? Where is she? Did that motorcycle hit her?”

“She ain’t hurt,” said Spencer turning to go into the woods. “She screamed ‘cause I rode out onto the highway in front of that guy on the motorcycle. She thought he was gonna hit me. Instead he swerved and went off that high place and flew over the fence. He landed out there in the woods someplace. She went to find him.”

“Here he is,” came Caroline’s voice from back in the trees. “He’s alive. Call the ambulance. He’s hurt bad.”

“Oh, damn!” said the woman and leaped onto the lowest wire next to a post and vaulted over the top and into the weeds.

“Spencer, run and call the ambulance!” She ducked through the bushes toward where her daughter’s voice was calling.

“Over here, mom. He’s hurt bad.”

She found them at the base of a big tree. The motorcycle was hanging in the tree over their heads. The front wheel was stuck through a fork like it had been lifted and placed there. It didn’t appear to be in danger of falling on them. Caroline was kneeling beside the injured man pressing on his right leg. He was clutching his chest with both hands.

“His leg is bleeding, Mom.” Caroline called.

The woman hurried to kneel on the injured man’s other side. She pulled off her apron and placed it over her daughter’s hands. “Pull your hands out! We’ll press this over the wound.

“Mister, can you hear me?” she called.

“Yeah, I can hear you,” he replied in a loud whisper. “Chest hurts when I move or breathe. Prob’ly got some busted ribs. I smacked that tree purty hard.

“Should we take his helmet off?” asked Caroline.

“No,” said her mother quickly. “He might have a head or neck injury. Get a couple big rocks to put beside his helmet to keep him from moving his head. Give me your pocketknife first.” The girl dug a knife from her pocket and tossed it to her mother. She slit his pants leg with the pocketknife to expose the wound. Then she wrapped the apron around the leg over the wound and tied it tight. Then she broke a nearby stick and stuck it under the edge of the apron and twisted it tight.

“Don’t want to get this too tight like a tourniquet. That’d cost you your leg.” She cut off one of the apron ties and tied the stick to his leg. “What’s your name, mister?”

“Tyler Coleman,” he replied.

“By the way Mr. Coleman, I’m Candace Teagarten. This is my daughter, Caroline.”

“Umm,” he replied in the pained voice. “I would say it’s a pleasure meeting you, but so far it hasn’t been. I’m not in a very good mood at the moment. Some dumb-ass kid rode his bike out in front of me.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. That dumb-ass kid is my son, Spencer. The chain came off his bike when he was coming down the hill. He said he couldn’t stop.”

“Been there, done that,” said Tyler in pained short breaths. “Brakes don’t work on a one speed bike without a chain. I ran into a car when it happened to me. Busted the headlight with my head. You have any idea how long it’s going to be before that ambulance gets here?”

“About twenty minutes to get here.”

“And to a hospital?”

“That’s about an hour.”

“Oh Lord, I’m gonna die.” He clinched his fists.

“No, you’re not,” she said sternly. “Suck it up. There’s nothing we can do to relieve your pain. You’re just going to have to tough it out. Lots of people been hurt a lot worse and survived quite well. You give in to it and it’ll feel worse. The ambulance crew will be here shortly and do something about your pain, so hang in there.”

“Mother!” admonished Caroline. “He’s hurt. Don’t talk to him so rough.”

“He’s a man,” Candace replied. “Men are tough, don’t y’know. They go out of their way to hurt themselves then expect all kinds of sympathy.”

“It wasn’t his fault,” said Caroline angrily. “Spence rode out in front of him. He could’ve run Spence down. Would you have liked that?”

“I bet you anything Mr. Tyler was speeding and Spence should have known better than to start down that hill without testing that bike on the level first. They’re both at fault, and I’m the one that is going to have to pay for their stupidity.”

“But mother, Spence is only nine years old! You think he deliberately threw that chain off, so he could ride out in front of Mr. Coleman?”

“Like I said, they’re males. They’re born stupid. I’m going up to watch for the ambulance. Don’t let him move around and do any more damage to himself.” She got to her feet and walked quickly away.

“Damn,” said Tyler. “She’s a real sweetie.”

“She has good reason,” said Caroline. “Three years ago my father ran off with one of her best friends. There was no warning, no nothing. We haven’t heard a word from either one. He was very loving to her right up to the last day. Then just up and left.”

“No notice of divorce? I just got divorced. The other party has to be notified. Your father must not ’ve stuck with his new girlfriend. Girlfriends usually wanta get married. Your father would ‘ve had to divorce your mother.”

“Guess they didn’t get married, ‘cause he never notified mom about a divorce.”

“I guess she has a right to hate him, but I didn’t leave her and neither did your little brother. She’s got no reason to hate us.”

“I don’t think she hates either one of you. I think she’s just scared. She could have lost Spence if you’d hit him. We could lose our whole place if you decide to sue her.”

“Sue her? What for?”

“This is Spence’s fault. Just like if he threw a baseball through your window she’d have to pay for it. We’re just scraping by as it is. We don’t even have transportation to take you into the clinic. A mechanic is holding our van because we can’t afford to pay the repair bill on the air conditioner. A neighbor gives her a ride to and from work every day or we’d be in even worse shape.”

“Girl, I ain’t never sued anybody in my life for anything, and I ain’t about to start now. I got health insurance to cover the ambulance and medical bills. Speaking of which, the card and some money are in my wallet. I’m getting awfully sleepy. You take care of it for me, will ya. I’m gonna take a little nap.” His voice was trailing off slowly. “Wake… me….when…amb…”

She shook his shoulders. “Now, don’t you go to sleep. That’s shock. You wake up.” Then reciting to herself, “Treatment for shock, keep the victim warm. Elevate legs.”

She brought two large rocks and stacked them and lifted his legs onto the stack. “How do I keep him warm? Don’t have a blanket.” She got up and went around to his other side where his shirt was half ripped away. She lay beside him as close as she could and pressed her body close to his. “I hope mom doesn’t come catch me like this. Then she really would hate you.”

She was up as soon as the sound of the siren reached her ears. She reached under him and took his wallet. She quickly looked through it to find his health card. She noted his lack of whiskers in his driver’s license picture. The address was in Kansas City, Missouri. There was five-hundred-fifty-four dollars in the wallet.

“He passed out about ten minutes ago,” she reported to the ambulance crew. “He’s got type A positive blood and no allergies. His breathing was painful like he had broken ribs.”

“And no insurance or money I bet.” said the lead EMT.

“He has insurance,” said Caroline. She held up the card to the driver who wrote down the information while the lead EMT did an examination. The second EMT had already carefully removed the helmet and applied a C-collar. They applied a bandage to his leg, took his vitals, back-boarded him, and loaded him up for transport. He came to as they were loading him.

Candace, with Spencer at her side, was reporting to the sheriff’s deputy what had happened at the accident. Caroline walked past her mother and announced. “I’m going to the hospital with him. He gave me his wallet for safekeeping. I’ll call from the hospital.”

“What! Wait a minute young lady! You’re only twelve years old. You’re not going off to watch over some crippled biker.”

“He needs somebody,” Caroline replied. “Besides,” she said in a low voice only her mother could hear, “I think I’ve got him talked out of suing us. You want him to lay there in the hospital with nothing to do but think about how much he can sue us for?”

“Girl, you think awfully old for a twelve year old. You’ve got to quit watching those talk shows over at Arlene’s. I’ll see if I can get Tiny or Micki to drive me to the hospital tonight. Here’s ten dollars. You’ll need to eat. You talk to him real nice or we’ll be livin’ in a broken down trailer in the trailer park.”

“You need to try talking nice to a man sometime, mom. You know they’re not all bad.”

“That shows how young you are. In a few years you’ll learn there isn’t a nickel’s worth of difference in any of ‘em.”

They wouldn’t let Caroline ride in the ambulance, but the deputy needed to get her statement and one from the victim. With her mother’s permission he agreed to let her ride with him to the hospital.

At the hospital they found Tyler was in radiology for x-rays and a CAT scan. The deputy wrote up Caroline’s statement and had her sign it. As Tyler wouldn’t be available for a statement until the next day the deputy left.

Caroline was in line to fill out the paperwork on Tyler when she overheard the clerk tell someone they had to be a relative to stay with a patient after visiting hours. When it came time to fill out the paperwork she put down, ‘stepdaughter,’ in the relationship block. She had his wallet and health card, so there was no questioning her claim to be his stepdaughter.

She had a burger and fries in the cafeteria while Tyler was still in radiology. She was waiting when he was brought out and returned to his room. He was full of tranquilizers. He slept through the afternoon and she read magazines and visited with his roommate.

Tyler’s roommate was a young man with a broken leg. He was eighteen, tall, lean and red headed. He lived and breathed horses. One of his favorites had taken a fall and put his master in the hospital. He was more than a little condescending to this twelve-year-old girl who happened to be his only company for the day.

Tyler woke up about half an hour before supper. Still groggy from the medications he was not very lucid, and soon went back to sleep. Caroline went to the cafeteria. She met an elderly gentleman there from their church. He was visiting his wife who had suffered a stroke. Caroline told him she was visiting a relative from Kansas City who happened to be in the hospital.

Back in the room it was visiting hours. Tyler was till asleep. His phone rang. Caroline took the call.

“Hello, Tyler Coleman’s room.”

“Caroline, it’s your mother. I’ve got some bad news. I can’t come get you tonight. Is there some place you can stay there?”

“Sure, I can sleep right here. There’s a couple big soft chairs. I can pull ‘em together and make a bed. There’s extra blankets in the closet and a pillow.”

“They’ll let you do that?’

“I already asked. When you didn’t show up by seven I figgered something happened.”

“How’s he doin’?”

“He’s got a cut leg which we already knew. They stitched it up. He’s got some broken ribs. They’re worried a little about a punctured lung. They put him in a girdle thing for his ribs. He’s on muscle relaxers and painkillers. His muscles want to squeeze his ribs. He’s been sleeping a lot. The nurse said he would sleep a lot for a day or two. They also are keeping him in that C-collar and strapped down. They’re worried he may have a broken neck. They won’t know for sure until tomorrow. The guy who reads the x-rays and cat scans will be in by then. He doesn’t show any signs of paralysis, but if his neck is broken he could move and cause some damage to his spinal cord.”

“How are you doing?” asked Candace.

“Just fine. I had a burger and fries for lunch, and chicken salad for supper. Theirs is not near as good as yours.”

“You got money for breakfast?”

“Yup, still got a couple dollars you gave me and my mad money.”

“Mad money?”

“I always keep twenty dollars put back. Just in case of emergencies. I learned that from Mz. Adam’s Daily Living class.”

“Where’d you get twenty dollars to put back?”

“From the money Mr. Calloway gave me for milkin’ his cows last winter when he was laid up.”

“Aw right, aw right,” said Candace. “You won’t starve, I guess. I’ll try to get up there tomorrow.”

“If something happens and you can’t make it tomorrow I’m gonna need some clean clothes, underwear at least. Mrs. Foster is in here with another stroke. You might be able to send me some things with Mr. Foster or the Reverend Clarke when he comes to visit.”

“Why couldn’t you come home with one of them?” asked Candace suspiciously.

“He hasn’t really woke up yet. I’ll need to talk to him first, understand?”

“I understand,” said Candace. “But you’re making me feel like a pimp.”

“Mother! That’s not what I’m doing here.”

“You shouldn’t even know what a pimp is. It’s that damned television.”

“You better hang up mother. You’re running up the phone bill.”

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