Desert Heat

“Lots of internal damage,” McFadden re-plied, pressing the gas pedal all the way to the floor.

“Is he going to make it?” Joa

“They don’t know. Nobody does. Like I told your daughter, they’ve called for a helicopter to meet them in Bisbee. They’ve managed to stabilize him enough to move him. That’s a good sign. I told them I’d take you directly to University Medical Center.”

“Shouldn’t we stop in Bisbee for me to sign surgical releases.”

McFadden shook his head. “Not necessary. When somebody’s hurt this bad, they don’t wait for releases.”

“Can’t I go along in the helicopter? Wouldn’t that be faster?”

McFadden shook his head. “It might be faster, but with the EMTs along there’s not enough room. Don’t worry, Joa

With siren blaring, they roared past the newly opened county jail, up Highway 80, around the traffic circle, and on through town. Joa

Once through town the nighttime desert swept by outside the windows, washed by the alternating red and blue flashes from the light bar overhead. Joa

With help from the bank they were buying the High Lonesome Ranch from Andy’s parents, Jim Bob and Eva Lou Brady, who had moved into a small two bedroom house in Bisbee proper. Joa

“Somebody told me that today was your a

Joa

“Sure thing,” McFadden answered. “Glad to do it.” For a moment there was silence in the speeding truck before Walter McFadden asked, “How many years?”

Joa

“You kids eloped, as I recall,” McFadden continued. “Made Eleanor mad as all get out.”

It still does, Joa

“If you let him become a policeman,” Eleanor had warned, “you’ll end up raising Je

Again Joa

“Trouble?” Joa

McFadden shrugged. “I don’t know. At work possibly or with any of the neighbors. When you live out in the country this way, you can run into some surprising complications. Remember that case down by Bisbee junction where two of Old Man Dollarhyde’s cattle drowned in those new people’s fancy swimming pool? I thought World War III was going to break out over that one for sure.”

Joa

“No,” Joa

“What about work?” McFadden asked.

“None except…”

“Except what?”

Embarrassed, she shrugged. “You know. The election and all that.”

Andrew’s decision to run against Sheriff McFadden had caused a good deal of consternation in the Cochise County Sheriff’s department as well as in the community at large. Walter McFadden had already a

Joa

“You’re not thinking I had something to do with this, are you, Joa

“Of course not,” she replied honestly. “Not at all.”

“Good,” Walter McFadden declared quietly. “I’d hate to think you did. I’m no cheater. When I win an election, I win it straight out or not at all.”

Once again neither of them spoke while the truck ate up several miles of highway. Mc-Fadden was the first to break the silence. “Tell me, Joa

“Do what?”

“File against me. Andy knew this would be my last term. I’d have been more than happy to see him run next time. Why’d he have to go and jump the gun like that?”

Joa

“I don’t know,” she answered. “Andy’s impatient. I guess he figured it was something he had to do. Anybody else would have fired him.”

Walter McFadden shook his head. “That wouldn’t have been right,” he returned. “Every man’s got a God-given right to make a fool of himself if he wants to, but there must have been a reason. Did I do something to piss him off? Did I make him mad?”

“If you did,” Joa

A plane went by overhead. Joa

“Do you see it up there?” McFadden asked

“No. Can you? Call, I mean, and check…”

McFadden shook his head. “Even if they knew, Joa

She nodded, knowing it was true.

The speeding truck was nearing St. David and Benson now, the halfway point of the trip to Tucson. McFadden radioed ahead to warn local officers in each little burg that a speeding vehicle was on its way through. McFadden raced through both hamlets with his truck’s blue lights flashing, barely slowing for Ben-son’s single stoplight. Once they made it up onto the I-10 freeway outside Benson, Joa