Just then, I heard a voice at the top of the stairs and I went back, followed by the kids. Jerry was back at the top, and had thrown down the rope again. “Come on! Let’s get going before this whole place collapses!”
I tied a bowline around Molly and we got her out fast, and then Billy went up. Outside I could hear Molly crying for the puppies. Jerry yelled down, “Come on, get up here!”
“In a minute!” I ran back and found a couple of big plastic trash bags. I scooped up a couple of pups and tossed them inside and then ran back down to the stairs. “Here! Take this!” I tied the clothesline to the bag and he pulled it up.
The bag was squirming and he yelled down, “HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FUCKING MIND!?”
“Yes! There’s more coming!” I ran back and corralled the last two pups into the other bag, and went back. This time I was followed by their mother, Maggie, who did not look overly amused. The last two pups went up. A minute later, Jerry was back, and I tied the rope to Maggie’s harness. Thank God she didn’t have a collar! She went up. “That’s it! Get the dog out and come and get me out of here!” I told him.
I heard the floor creaking as Maggie was dragged barking from her house. Jerry was cursing the mutt, but managed to get her outside. By now I could hear sirens around the house, so somebody must have figured out where the fun action in town was. Then I didn’t care anymore. The creaking became a crashing, I dove for the floor, and everything went dark. I screamed from something ripping into my chest and left arm. It got quiet at that point.
I saw what happened on the news later. One of the reporters, with a cameraman lugging around his equipment, missed the mad rush to the explosion on the other side of town, and caught the tail end of Jerry and me heading to the other street. They caught Jerry crawling into the house after me, and started filming, and then others started gathering. By the time Jerry got the mother out, somebody had called an ambulance. When word hit that Congressman Buckman was involved, all the reporters left the scene of the fire. They were there by the time the kids started coming out. It was decided that the place was too dangerous for more than one person, so Jerry would go back in and hand off the kids and dogs to one of the people outside. After Jerry got the dogs out and was on the verge of coming back for me, the house shifted and partially collapsed a second time. That was when something fell on me and knocked me out. After a couple of minutes, things settled down and a bunch of guys were able to pull me out of the rubble. I came to as I was being pulled out.
The sunlight outside looked pretty good to me. I hurt all over, so that was probably a good sign as well. A paramedic type was trying to work on me, so I grabbed him with my right hand. My left arm didn’t seem to be working so well. “The woman, is she alright?” I asked. I hadn’t wanted to use a tourniquet, but I didn’t have a choice. You can do more harm than good if you fuck it up!
“Settle down, Congressman.”
“The woman, did she make it!?” I demanded, a little more strongly.
“Yeah, she’s fine. She’s on her way to Shawnee. You’re going next,” he told me. “Now, calm down.”
I sagged back a little at that. Maybe I hadn’t cost her a leg. “The kids.”
“The kids are just fine. And the dogs, too. That was stupid, Congressman!” he told me.
I couldn’t argue with him. Just then I heard a screaming rampage and the words, “DADDY! DADDY!” Holly and Molly came busting into the circle around me.
I grinned at them and gave them a thumbs-up sign with my right hand, and that got a lot of applause and cheering around me. A cop was keeping them back, but they outflanked him and ran to the gurney I was being lifted on. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”
The final part of the entire mess was when a little blond haired boy managed to sneak through the entire group and made his way past the cop to the gurney. “Hey, Mister! You want your puppy?”
I twisted my head enough to see that Billy had a squirming brown fuzzball in his arms. “Oh, my sweet suffering Jesus!” I muttered to myself.
Holly and Molly stared at me and then at little Billy and the puppy. “Daddy?!”
I laughed, and that hurt. “Holly, take care of those two kids. Molly, take care of my puppy!”
Holly wanted to argue, and Molly just stared in confusion. “We’re going with you.”
“No room!” replied the ambulance guys.
“Take care of the kids!” I ordered her. Then something went into my arm and things began getting fuzzy. “Take care of the kids…” Things got dark and quiet again.
When I woke up I had that hospital room feeling. It was bright and white and out of the corner of my eye I could see a window. I tried to twist my head around a bit, but that hurt and I groaned a touch. Then I heard something rustling and I kept twisting around, and saw a pretty nice sight. Marilyn was in a cheap armchair near my bed and was stirring alive, sitting up slowly and rubbing her eyes. She saw me and smiled. “We have to stop meeting like this!”
I smiled and laughed, but that hurt, and I said, “Oh, don’t get funny. Where am I?”
“You’re in Shawnee, Oklahoma, in the hospital. How are you feeling?” Marilyn stood up and came over to me. “Oh, God, why do you have to keep scaring me like this!?” She bent down and kissed me quickly.
I groaned a touch. “Even that hurt!” I said, smiling. “How are the girls?”
“They’re fine. They’re back in Springboro, taking care of the kids you rescued.”
“Huh?” What was she talking about? “What’s going on? How’d you get here, anyway?”
“What, do you have amnesia or something?”
I gave her a perplexed look. “No. The last thing I remember was being dragged out of the basement of that house and talking to the ambulance guy and the girls. Then he stuck a needle in me and here I am. What happened? What day is it?”
“It’s Friday. It’s only been a day. You’re national news, Carl!”
“Huh?”
“Some of the reporters managed to get a satellite feed going while you were in that basement. They reported live on your rescuing the Torquists. They even cut into the afternoon soaps and Oprah. I watched them drag you out of that house!” she told me.
“Who are the Torquists? Was that their name? We weren’t really introduced.”
“No kidding. That’s the family’s name. Andrea called me when they pulled you out all covered in blood, and she told me the Gulfstream was being fueled up and to get my butt out here. I landed last night, while you were in surgery.”
“Huh! Are they all right? The Torquists, I mean. And why are the girls there? And can I get some water?”
Marilyn smiled down at me. “You bet, hero.” She poured some water in a glass and held the flex-straw to my lips. I sucked it dry. “Yes, everybody is fine, everybody except you. And Mrs. Torquist. She’s in intensive care right now, and she had her baby last night.”
“Oh, Christ!” That would have been all I needed! “So, what’s with Holly and Molly?”
“Don’t you remember? The last thing you said to them before being loaded into the ambulance? You ordered them to take care of the kids. They said you kept repeating it, that and something about a puppy. Did you get a new puppy, Carl?” she asked, grinning.
It started coming back to me, the idiot promise to the little kids in the basement and the scene around the ambulance. I groaned and mumbled, “Oh, Christ!” again. I looked over at her. “Did I?” She grinned and nodded. “Oh, Christ! So the girls are still there? Why?”
“They were saying something about you giving them your final orders, your dying orders. Molly was being very melodramatic about it all. They’re fine. Mrs. Torquist’s sister lives nearby and she took the kids and the dogs and the twins in. I went over there last night after they started working on you and calmed them down, but they insisted on staying there.”