Desert Heat

“Do they live?” she asked, her voice tight and little more than a hoarse whisper. “Beg your pardon?”

“When people are shot that way-gutshot the way Andy is-do they live?”

In the reflected light from the dashboard she watched the grim set of Walter McFadden’s lean jaw before he answered. “Not usually,” he said. “Especially when they don’t get treated right away and lose a lot of blood. But then again, you can never tell.”

“That’s why whoever did it locked the doors, isn’t it,” Joa

McFadden shot her an appraising look. “Could be,” he agreed. Then after a pause, he added, “Miracles do happen.”

“But not that often,” Joa

At that grim prospect, she hunched herself into the far corner of the seat, crying softly and trying to keep Walter McFadden from hearing. Finally, though, she straightened up and wiped her eyes. Tucson was close now. Where once there had been only a faint glow on the horizon, there were now individual pinpoints of light. “Do you know how to get to the hospital?” Joa

“Yes,” Walter McFadden answered. “I’ve been there a time or two before.”

An hour and twenty minutes after leaving High Lonesome Road Walter McFadden’s Toyota 4 X 4 pulled into the Emergency Room portico at University Health Sciences Center more than one hundred miles away. A helicopter was parked on the landing pad nearby.

“You go on inside,” Walter said. “I’ll find a parking place and then come in, too.”

One of the EMTs, Rudy Gonzales, met Joa

Rudy led her through a maze of cubicles to where a stern-faced older woman waited in front of a computer terminal. “Here she is,”

Rudy said. “This is Joa

Joa

“Good,” the clerk said, taking the papers and glancing through them. “You can go on tip to the surgery waiting room if you like.”

Walter McFadden appeared behind her. He took off his hat and nodded politely to the clerk who pointedly ignored him.

“One of the forms is missing,” Joa

A

“The organ donor consent form,” Joa

The clerk frowned. “That’s not a very positive attitude, Mrs. Brady,” she sniffed disapprovingly. “Our surgeons are very skillful here, you know.”

“I’m sure they are, but I still want to sign it, if you don’t mind.”

The clerk disappeared into a back room and returned eventually with the proper form. Joa

“Will I be able to see him before the surgery?” Joa

“I doubt that,” the clerk replied coldly. “ doubt that very much.”

Actually, as far as the clerk was concerned, if it had been left up to her, the very fact that Joa

Women who were that disloyal didn’t deserve to have husbands in the first place.

THREE

Joa

“Carol had surgery here, too,” he explained. “That’s how come I know my way around.”

“You don’t have to wait with me,” Joa

“No,” Walter McFadden returned. “These waiting rooms are tough, especially in the middle of the night. I’m not going to leave you here alone.”

“Thank you,” she said.

‘The surgical floor waiting room was bleak and impersonal with suitably uncomfortable modern furniture and a collection of outdated, dog-eared magazines. McFadden gathered up the scattered pieces of a newspaper, then he sat down with them on one of the couches, placed his Stetson on one knee, and settled in to read and wait. Joa

Ten o’clock Arizona time was midnight in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and she woke her in-laws out of a sound sleep. “We’ll be there just as soon as we can,” Jim Bob Brady told her once he had assimilated the bad news. “Eva Lou is already packing our bags. We’ll be on our way just as soon as she’s done.”

The next call was to Joa

“There wasn’t enough time, Mother,” Joa

“Well, it just doesn’t seem fair that I’m always the last one to know what’s going on.”

Joa

“All right. I can do that. I suppose I’d better pack Je

“No,” Joa

Eleanor Lathrop hadn’t much wanted her husband to be sheriff, but even less had she wanted Walter McFadden to take over in the aftermath of Hank Lathrop’s tragic death.

“Him?” she squawked. “Why on earth should he be the one to pick up Je

Grateful that her mother wasn’t broadcasting on a speaker phone, Joa

Walter peered at her over the top of the newspaper he was holding. “I promised that little girl that I’d bring her up, and I intend to do just that,” he said. “Besides, I’ll have to come back up anyway.”

“He says he’ll do it,” Joa

“I can’t for the life of me see why.”

Joa

She hung up, feeling betrayed. In times of trouble, mothers were supposed to give their children comfort and consolation, not a hard time. At least that’s the way it worked in books and on television. Easygoing Hank Lathrop could very well have passed for Ozzie Nelson, but Eleanor Lathrop would never be mistaken for Harriet. She had far too many sharp edges.