Suddenly the doctor’s face cracked in a grin. “All right!” he cried jubilantly, sounding like a high school football coach after a touchdown. As if in answer, the engines dropped in RPM. I closed my eyes and rested the back of my head against the bulkhead. Alan Perrone had said something about the Albuquerque surgeon’s being the best he’d seen. I wondered how often Dennis Chatman had done cardiac surgery in a plunging aircraft.
The flight officer squirmed forward and then back. “Touchdown in about a minute,” he told the doctor, and the crew made only brief preparations. Everything was already as tied down as it could be. The EMT at Hewitt’s head stayed close and put both hands on the patient’s shoulders. The doctor ignored them all. His patient’s heart was beating. It wouldn’t have mattered to Chatman if they had been in a balloon floating over the Eiffel Tower. He was working to field-dress the incision and was lost in his own world. I heard the engine beat decrease, and seconds later, the transition from air to pavement came as only the slightest jar.
I found out later that runway 3, from the initial touchdown point to the intersection with runway 8, where the ambulance sat waiting, was almost eight thousand feet long. Our pilot used it all. Slow taxi was not in his book. He let the Navajo roll under considerable power. I opened my eyes and saw the big intersection of two other runways flash past. We must have been humping along at close to seventy miles an hour. Finally the nose dipped and we braked, not violently but insistently. Before the aircraft was stopped, the flight officer had the door unlatched. I looked out as we rolled up toward the ambulance and saw that the aircraft engine on that side was already windmilling to a stop.
“Let’s move it,” the doctor snapped, and in seconds the transfer was made. If I had taken time to blink I would have been left behind. I did see the Gallup police car, and the two men in it. I assumed one of them was Chief White. I could have ridden down with them, but I stuck with the ambulance. The explanations could come later.
It wasn’t many minutes to the downtown hospital, but the nurse found thirty seconds to offer me a handful of facial tissues. I mopped the sweat that ran freely on my face.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“The hell with me. How’s he going to be?”
The nurse nodded and smiled slightly.
“I thought we’d lost him back there for a minute,” I said.
She pursed her lips and looked as if she was going to scold me. “Dr. Chatman does not allow that to happen on his airplane,” she said.
“Damn right,” Chatman said without hesitation.
I suppose the logistics of what they had done was simple for them, but all I could do was sit there and wad Kleenex. Punk, I thought, you’re on a roll. Keep those numbers clicking.
Once inside the hospital, all I could do, along with Chief White and Detective Stan Buchanan of Gallup, was sit, talk, and wait.
Chapter 12
The nurse sneezed discreetly, but it was enough to jar me awake.
“You look like you could use about forty-eight hours straight,” Dr. Harlan Sprague, Jr., said quietly. He was sitting nearby, a slender briefcase leaning against the chair leg. He let the journal he was reading fall closed, but kept the place with his thumb.
I rubbed my eyes and pushed myself upright in the chair. “Must have dozed off.” I looked at my watch. Two hours of dozing. “When did you come up?”
“About an hour ago. I flew in.” He fully closed the journal and put it in the briefcase. “Your two compadres left?”
“They had some kind of problem they got called on. Someone else from Gallup was supposed to be here by now.”
Sprague nodded. “I’ve got a two-day conference that promises two days of boredom. Had I known you were going to make the trip, I would have offered you a ride in my plane. More comfortable, I suspect, than the air ambulance.”
“It wasn’t too bad. I appreciate the thought, though. About all we’ve been doing is waiting. Hurry up and wait.”
“I can imagine,” Sprague said gently. “Anyhow, I saw you here and thought you probably wouldn’t be asleep too long.” He glanced up at the wall clock. “I have about an hour, if there’s anything else you need. I’m impressed, by the way, with how thorough your Detective Reyes was, however.”
“We appreciate your cooperation,” I said, trying to marshal my thoughts. What I wanted was a chance to clean up. I was still in uniform and acutely aware of how scruffy I must have looked.
“I wish I could be of more help,” Sprague continued quietly. “Apparently the young officer saw Mr. Fernandez with someone just before the incident. On the sidewalk near the town houses.” He shook his head ruefully. “Had I only looked outside. But, at that hour…” He shrugged.
“I never had much of a chance to talk with Hewitt,” I said. “We’re anxious to do that.”
“How long has he been in surgery now?”
I looked long and hard at my watch, numbed by the passage of time. “God. Would you believe almost six hours?”
Sprague grimaced. “And almost that long down in Posadas?” I nodded. “Well,” the doctor said, “if they finish up right now, it’ll still be a number of hours before there’s any chance of coherent consciousness. I would guess that it’s wishful thinking to expect anything before late this evening. Better tomorrow, even.”
“I’ll wait,” I said. Hell, it was getting to be a habit, waiting. Easier that than anything else. No news was good news, goes the clichE. Sprague nodded in sympathy and glanced at the tape recorder that I had with me.
“Why don’t I go find out what’s happening for you?” he asked. “I suspect I’ll have an easier time of it than you.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
Harlan Sprague was gone for perhaps twenty minutes, and when he returned he smiled some reassurance. “You can relax a little. The officer has been out of surgery for nearly twenty minutes. I’m sure they would have told you, but there’s been no opportunity. Apparently a messy traffic accident. Anyway, the officer is in ICU recovery. The nurse there says it will be at least six hours before they’ll even think of letting you in the room.”
“Six hours?”
Sprague nodded. “And the chance of him being awake and coherent is just about nil, I can tell you that.”
“But he’s doing all right?”
“The nurse said the surgery went ‘fair’. That was her term. There are always so many complications in this sort of thing that that’s about the best you can hope for.” He stepped up closer to me and frowned. “Now listen. I know a man who’s dead on his feet when I see one. And I also know a mild coronary when I see it…or at least an acute warning of one. And that’s what you had in the park down in Posadas. Sheriff Gastner, you’re a basket case. Go get some rest before you end up in ICU yourself. You’re not doing yourself, or anyone else, any favors.” He looked down at the table. “And for God’s sakes, stop smoking those damn cigarettes.”
I laughed. “Thanks.”
He wasn’t amused. “I need to go. If you’re still alive tomorrow-at four P. M., I’ll be flying back to Posadas. Unless you’ve already made arrangements, I’d appreciate the company.”
“I’ll have to see what happens. But thanks again.”
He tipped his head and looked at me for a long moment, then slowly shook his head and sighed. “Leave a message for me at the desk at the Hilton. I’ll check there just before I leave for the airport.”
I watched him walk off down the hall, slightly stooped, briefcase swinging rhythmically. I went to the restroom and tried to freshen up. The grizzled face that stared at me from the mirror wouldn’t freshen much. Neither would the rumpled clothes. I tossed the paper towel in the bin. “Who the hell cares what you look like,” I muttered to myself. I turned to leave. The swinging door almost caught me in the head as Chief White walked in.