Jay Lake - Rocket Science

Mrs. Milliken put her hands on her hips and glared at me. “Vernon Dunham, how could you say such things? You have lost your wits completely.”

I turned away from her and gingerly walked across the office to the door of the surgery. It was locked, too. My right shoulder was telling me it had done all the door breaking it was going to do, and my left shoulder was just about the only part of my body that remained uninjured. I was pretty sure I couldn’t break this one down. Outside, sirens shrieked and tires squealed as the cavalry arrived. Unfortunately, they weren’t here to rescue me . I’d gone over to the side of the Indians, and everyone knew how that always turned out.

“Do you have the key to this?” I asked.

She glared at me. “If you think I’m going to—”

I grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Mrs. Bellamy’s dead because of your husband.” Not precisely true, but it would do in a pinch. Besides, maybe they got her out before the fire swept the house. The very thought made me sick all over again. “My dad’s dying in there, and those cops outside are definitely here to shoot me first and ask you questions later. I don’t have time to argue. Now open the God-damned door. If Dad’s not in there, I’ll just sit down quietly on the floor and you can turn me over to the police yourself.”

Mrs. Milliken opened a drawer in the instrument cabinet by the door and pulled out a key. “I can assure you, Vernon, that no one is in here,” she said, opening the lock.

I stepped into the room and turned on the lights. Mrs. Milliken crowded in behind me. Outside, I heard shouting. In front of me was an operating table, a countered area like a small kitchen. Along the sink and the refrigerator there was an autoclave instead of a stove. Everything was white, except for the dark gray, blood-stained lump of blankets under the operating table.

“See?” she demanded. “There’s no—” Mrs. Milliken stopped as she saw the rolled-up blankets. A pool of blood leaked from one end onto the floor around the blanket.

I’ll give her credit, Mrs. Milliken didn’t scream. She got straight to work, like a good doctor’s wife should, and reached Dad before I did. Together we rolled him over.

The blanket, soaked in blood where it had met the floor, fell off his face. His lips were puffy and blue, and he was far too pale, but by some miracle he was still breathing. Pegasus’ scan had not lied.

My heart surged as my deepest worry lifted away. Dad looked like heck, but he was alive. And I had the world’s fastest ambulance waiting out on the lawn.

“Oh, Vernon, I’m so sorry,” she said quietly. “I knew Merriwether was under a lot of pressure, but to allow this… in his own surgery.” Shaking her head, Mrs. Milliken touched Dad’s temples, then his forehead. “He’s… he’s in shock.”

She didn’t have to say he was dying. Even I could figure that out. But I knew what to do about it. “Help me get him outside,” I said, pulling Dad out from under the table by the corners of the blanket. “I’m going to fly him to Wichita in my airplane.”

He opened his eyes and peered at me. “Vernon? Boy? Is that you?”

My eyes filled with tears again. “Yes sir, Dad, it’s me.” He was alive and I was never going to let him die.

“Where’s your mother, boy?” Dad asked. “We’re going to be late for church.”

I couldn’t say anything to that. I started to choke, trying to keep from crying in front of Mrs. Milliken. She stroked Dad’s forehead again. “It’ll be okay, Grady,” she said gently. “Vernon’s going to get you to the hospital now, and everything will be okay.”

Dad sighed and closed his eyes. I staggered to my feet, grabbing the wrapped blanket with both hands. “I’ve got to get him out into the yard,” I sniffed.

“I’ll help,” said Mrs. Milliken. She grabbed his feet and we staggered into the examining room. Out in the yard, I heard gunshots. The Doc’s wife didn’t even flinch at the noise.

We made it to the front door, where I had to stop from sheer fatigue. Standing behind the wall to one side, I peered out through the open door. Pegasus sat in the front yard, open hatch facing me. I could see the inviting orange glow only a few steps away.

The moon was out again, and the view was distressingly clear. Out in the street there were Police and Sheriff’s cars, and an Army deuce-and-a-half troop transport. The MPs must have gotten a land convoy in sometime this evening after I’d heard from Ollie. A plane buzzed overhead, rattling the old glass windows of the Milliken house. It was so loud that it had to be a fighter or an interceptor. The Army was serious about this, sending in combat aircraft at night over a civilian area.

“I don’t think I can make it to my airplane,” I said to Mrs. Milliken. “I’m pretty sure they’re going to shoot me as soon as they can get a clear line on me.”

“What have you done, Vernon?”

“As little as possible, believe me.”

“I do believe you.” She was quiet for a moment, looking tired. “I’m sorry. Merriwether… he got in too far. That horrible Morgan…” Her voice trailed off. “Blackmail or not, I don’t know what Merriwether was thinking to leave an injured man unattended like that. But I do I know how we can get the two of you out of here,” Mrs. Milliken said. “They won’t shoot me. Let me go out first, and you keep between me and them as we go. Once we get to your, ah, airplane, you’ll be out of their sight, and I’ll go distract them until you take off. Can you leave from our yard?”

I laughed, shaking my head. “Mrs. Milliken, you have the mind of a bank robber. And I mean that as a sincere compliment.”

“You’d best come back. I will straighten out Merriwether and that dratted Kenneth Hauptmann with Chief Davis and those nice Army men. Not even our sheriff can pressure the Army into something it doesn’t want to do. I know you’re a good boy, Vernon. None of this was your doing.”

Well, almost none of it , I thought. I should have ratted out Floyd at the train depot in the first place. Too late for that now.

Mrs. Milliken took Dad’s feet again. “I’m going out first, Vernon,” she said. We circled around each other to get her headed out first. My back complained mightily about taking Dad’s weight in my arms, but we had to get him to Wichita. I staggered through the door after Mrs. Milliken, crouching low to keep her between me and the police.

I could hear yelling from the street as we came out the door. “Hold your fire, by God! It’s Mrs. Milliken,” called a voice. I was pretty sure that was Chief Davis.

Mrs. Milliken marched straight toward Pegasus like she was going down the aisle to take Holy Communion. There must have been thirty guns pointed at her from the street but she didn’t flinch. We got to where Pegasus’ hull was between us and the cops, then she trotted the last few paces to the open hatch.

“You’ll have to lift him in yourself, Vernon” she gasped. “I’m an old woman and I don’t know if I can do it.”

I didn’t know how I was going to do that either, so I just boosted Dad up to the lip of hatch. Damn Floyd for being a murdering fool, I thought, or I could ask him for help. Overhead, the plane buzzed us again.

Great. I was going to have to deal with that when we took off, in a computational rocket with a conscience that wouldn’t allow it to fight back. Not that I wanted to shoot down one of our boys anyway. The pain of Dad’s weight against me made me grunt. I could feel something snap in my bad shoulder. I pushed him through the hatch by main force of character as much as anything, then climbed in after him.

That done, breath heaving, I turned to look at Mrs. Milliken. I couldn’t tell, but it looked like she was crying in the moonlight. “Take care of him, Vernon,” she said.