Buch lesen: «A Stranger In Texas»

One

While Texas has been occupied by Europeans for the past five hundred years, it’s been relatively recently that the northerners have been called Winter TEX-ANS. They had been known as Snow Birds, like the regular birds who fly south to get away from winter. The humans’ labeling was changed to Winter TEX-ANS when the druggies gave a new meaning to the word “snowbird.”

Winter TEXANS are welcomed wholeheartedly. They are lured to stay. And Sea View was one such place that lured them.

Sea View’s big hotel was called The Horizon. The town was north of Corpus Christi on the TEXAS coast. Sea View wasn’t on many of the maps.

The hotel had been built with wild expectations when the seacoast boom began long ago. Somehow that spot above Corpus had been lost to the general tourist bunch and bypassed for Padre Island by the college kids.

Even the main coastal highways had gone around Sea View. The town fathers hadn’t had the clout nor the money to get the highway to bend their way. The road builders placidly said it was illegal to go through the environmentally protected sand dunes with another road. Keeping the sand from shifting was another nuisance.

Why were all those problems listed for Sea View and not for Padre Island? At Padre, there was a four-lane highway down the center of that sand bar. No one ever knew the reason Sea View couldn’t just have a two-la-ner split from the main highway with a good direction sign.

Of course, there was already a road to the town of Sea View. It was a local two-laner that meandered along the path of least resistance. The highway people said that was sufficient.

With The Horizon Hotel and the elegant hospital, everybody in Sea View had predicted, “Just watch. As soon as we’ve had a flock of guests here, the word will spread. We’ll be swamped with tourists. We’ll get that highway split here.”

The natives had been disgruntled, until they saw how the non-TEXANS had lighted on Padre like pushy buzzards. By then, most of the citizens were glad this hadn’t happened to their own town.

Well, not everybody was glad. There were the sitters on the square who speculated what their land would have brought them and how they would then be living. There were guffaws over that—they’d just be sitting gossiping somewheres else. The whole, entire debate was just more wasted time.

However, through the years The Horizon Hotel had gradually gathered a following of very nice people who came especially in winter for the pleasure of just being on the coast and breathing the clean Gulf breeze that tumbled their hair. And they went out on boats or stood in the surf to fish or they played in or walked along the sand, collecting shells under the TEXAS winter sun.

Sea View native Jessica Channing was, by then, twenty-nine years old. In another year, she’d be an old maid. She was redheaded and green-eyed, and she didn’t give one hootin’ hot damn about getting married.

Her sister and brother were both married and had enough children to distract the parents from their youngest, unwed child.

Jessica had observed too many failed marriages. She didn’t need that kind of problem. She lived as she wanted, spent as she wanted and ate when she wanted, what she wanted. Her brother told her she was getting staid and persimmonish.

She agreed.

Jessica was the accountant at the Horizon Hotel. Her life was neat and orderly. She knew everyone in town. That wasn’t difficult. She knew all the secrets… and those secrets she knew, she never mentioned.

She was tall enough and well made. Her complexion was the ivory of real redheads, and her green eyes were gorgeous, deep, seeing into souls.

Jessica made people straighten up and quit gossiping. There was just something about her that shivered them a little. Maybe it wasn’t them so much as it was their consciences. Jessica never gossiped, but they did. She made them feel as if she was better than they.

Being a paragon was something of a burden. Jessica did understand her position. She was not only good with balancing books and straightening out tangles in thinking, but she was also breathtakingly beautiful.

That’s always a burden for a woman. Any smart woman knows being beautiful causes all sorts of problems with other women. Men, too, are a real nuisance, but women are leery of beautiful women. They avoid including them.

What woman wants that kind of competition?

While a man always wants the best woman possible, he rarely knows what to do with one. He is inclined to either worship her—and always be underfoot—or he ignores her to prove he’s not her slave. But men are competitive. They do try. They are a real exasperation.

The town of Sea View not only had the remarkable hotel that functioned nicely, but they had that hospital. It was the only one in the whole area. It had been built on the same exuberant wave ride as the hotel. It was as popular as the hotel!

The staff was superior. They were lured by the sea, the beaches, the golf course, the small townness and the gossip. It was as if all those outsiders belonged. And the staff was always amazed over how distant were the homes of those who were brought there to be healed, or rearranged or fixed.

People did amazing things. They fell down stairs, crashed gliders, survived plane wrecks and whatever else people found to half kill themselves. It is always appalling when people are harmed on a highway, or worse on a byway.

This is a civilized and crammed country. But even now, there are those places that are very, very isolated.

And things do happen.

There were still tales of who and why various patients had been brought to Sea View. They came to the hotel called The Horizon. And some needed that unusual hospital soberly named Medical Center.

A good many of the people so introduced into the area, via the hospital, came back to vacation at The Horizon.

It was called so because, looking on beyond, that was about all you could see.

But like the rest of TEXAS, the view to the Gulf of Mexico was always unique, with the changing of the sky’s colors and the winds. There were the cloud formations and the moving seawater. Far out were the big ships. Closer by were the fishing boats.

Wherever one looked, it was always different. It took a peculiar person to be bored at Sea View.

In the town, the seafood served was simply remarkable. And there was always the Mexican food. Even so, more discreet foods were available to any picky appetites.

To walk off the excellent foods, there was the golf course, and there was the beach. There were the shells to gather.

The shell necklaces were easy to string. A sea worm liked the muscle in the tiny shells. The hole it bored to get to the muscle was perfect for the shells to carry a string. Everything contributes to everything else. Even us.

When Zachary Thomas’s car was hit by a speeding pickup coming around a dune on the wrong side of the road, it happened in the middle of nowhere. The truck driver had not buckled his seat belt and was killed instantly. A good way for him to avoid the whole, ensuing mess.

But Hannah Thomas was killed as quickly. Even knowing she had to be dead, it seemed to her husband Zachary that he could feel her pulse.

Was it her pulse that hammered, or only his own?

His cellular phone had been smashed. Tears leaked from his eyes without his knowing; he wept in appalled frustration.

His twelve-year-old son Michael’s heart still beat, but he was totally out of it. He was so limp and helpless.

There had been no habitation along the road. Zach quickly climbed a sand dune and looked—at more sand dunes.

He wasn’t sure which way to go for help. He could not leave his family. He went back to them. He stood in the roadway and urged God to send help to his helpless ones.

It seemed to take much longer than it actually did.

Finally a car screeched its brakes as it came around the bend and found the crunched truck, the car…and the bodies.

It was Sea View’s Paul Butler who swung open his car door and got out. His quick eyes recognized that the driver of the truck was gone from this land of the living. Then the newly arrived Paul looked at the stunned man standing by the other car. “You okay?”

“We need help. Can you get—”

“I got a CB. You oughta have one.”

Zack explained, “My phone was smashed.”

“Those things don’t do good in wrecks.”

In the time the man talked into the receiver, seemingly so aloof, he was checking the three people who could not speak.

When he finished with the CB, the stranger came to Zachary and talked to him, evaluating his condition. “It’s best to wait. My name’s Paul Butler,” Paul told the man called Zachary Thomas. “We could do more harm if we was to try to get him—them to the hospital. Let’s let somebody do it that knows how.”

“Yes.”

And since the stranger seemed on the verge of shock, Paul went on carefully, “You traveling?”

“We’re still some distance from Corpus.”

“They’ll take hi—’em to the hospital in Sea View. It’s not far. The hospital is a good one. And there’s a good hotel there. The Horizon. It’s called that because that’s all you see.” Paul spoke slowly. “But when you look out, the colors of the water and the clouds are a beautiful sight.”

“Sea View? Is it on the map?”

“Not very many,” Paul replied as he shook his head. “The map has to be pretty current and specific to get Sea View on it.” He slid his eyes over to the woman who was so dead. The man held her hand.

“You been to TEXAS much?” Paul asked.

“This is our first time.”

“It’s a shame Ike got in your way thisaway.”

Zach looked up at Paul and blinked. “You know him?”

“Yeah, I did. He always drove like a bat out of hell. I don’t think they insure him anymore, but your insurance ought to be okay. You got some, don’t you.” It was a statement.

“Yes.”

“You look the careful type. I’ll go to court with you and explain how this happened.”

Within Zach, some thread of curiosity made him ask, “You would testify for me?”

“Sure. I’ve known Ike all his life long. He’s one hairy driver. Or he was one. No more. He’s bought the farm.”

“He bought a farm?”

“It’s just an expression. His life insurance will pay the bills.”

Zach had been looking at Paul, but then he looked down at his wife and at his son.

The distant siren came almost immediately. Neither man spoke. The sound came closer, louder. It was a surprise that it came around the bend slowly. It was a moxie driver who knew to be careful.

Quickly, the men checked out the bodies, and it was the boy whom they stabilized, lifted onto a stretcher and took into the ambulance. They looked at Paul, who nodded minimally, then he asked Zach, “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“You going with the boy?”

Startled, Zach asked, “What about Hannah?”

And his expression was such that one man said to the other, “We can fit her in.” Then they carefully, needlessly stabilized her head and put her on another stretcher.

The highway police arrived by then and told Zach to go along with Paul. They’d see them at the hospital.

Paul stayed with Zach for the time left of that day. He was a rock. He led Zach through everything very discreetly, including a check on his condition. Zach didn’t mention his headache. He thought it was stress. The medical people weren’t fooled.

To Zach, Paul was a godsend. How could such a casual man, as Paul was, be so knowledgeable? He knew what a victim of circumstances in a strange place needed.

Paul asked, “Would you want to see the minister?”

“Not now.”

When the doctor finally came out to Zach, he asked, “You been looked at? Are you all right?” And he frowned at Zach.

“Yeah.”

The doctor said, “You may have guessed it already and right away that Hannah didn’t make it. She did not suffer. It happened instantly.”

It only confirmed what Zach had suspected. He was silent for a while. So was the doctor. And so was Paul, who was there.

Peripherally, even then, Zach was aware of Paul’s empathy and presence.

Finally, Zach asked about his son. “How is my boy?”

The doctor replied, “It doesn’t look good. His pupils are dilated and don’t react to light. We’ve done the first EEG, which measures brain waves. Those next two tests will be at twelve-hour intervals. That’s to test whether the brain is functioning. We’ll have to wait for tomorrow.”

With the pupils fixed and dilated, those at the hospital already were sure, but the doctor knew that two such blows might be too much for this torn man. “Would you like to sleep here? You may. But I would advise you to go to the hotel where it will be more restful. Come with me to see Michael, now. Then decide where you want to sleep.”

Paul asked Zach, “Want me along?”

Zach turned to look at the stranger who was a substitute guardian angel. The man was silent and unin-trusive. Zach said, “Please.”

They went to the emergency room and there lay Michael. A budding man. He lay there with myriad tubes and monitors connected to him. The lung machine pumped air. The stem of his brain kept his heart beating. Mike was still and peaceful.

And Zach knew. He asked the doctor, “There is no hope at all?”

He hadn’t planned to tell the father until the next morning. There was no getting around it. “We need two more EEG’s. The third will be tomorrow morning.”

“Yes.”

“We hope for a miracle. It may not come.”

“I…understand.” Pain washed over Zach’s alive body. It was reality. Then he asked, “May I see Hannah once more? Or have they taken her?”

“She’s here. Would you like to be alone with her for awhile?”

“Yes.”

The doctor led the way down the hall to the room where Hannah lay so quietly. His voice was level as he told the stunned husband, “While your wife’s organs were oxygen-dead, most of Michael’s vital organs can be used. We call it organ harvesting. This is something for you to consider. You can allow Michael to give the gift of life to other people. Think on this.”

Then steadily the doctor told Zach, “We know what you’ve gone through. We understand your situation of decisions. It’s a tough place for anyone to stand. If we can help you in any way, ask us. We are all here for you.”

It was Paul who stood silently with his hand on Zach’s shoulder. But Zach went alone to sit by his wife. Once he asked her, “Is Mike with you? Is he here?”

There was no reply m the silence.

Zach finally left the room and didn’t even notice that Paul had waited and then followed Zach only to the door when he went to his son.

Michael looked as peaceful as Hannah. Zach resented their peace. How could they leave him there…alone? To have been a family, one of three for so long and now to be alone.

But they had been so badly hurt. How could he resent their escape? The air bags hadn’t worked with the slant of the car crash. Hannah had hit her head on the window. A neat, lethal blow.

With the companionship they’d shared for all those years, she’d left him without a word. How would it be to again be alone?

At least the two would be together. Zach leaned and kissed his son’s forehead.

Zach left the room, and Paul was still a shadow.

Paul said logically, “We need some milk to soothe us. Let’s go to the hotel and get you signed in.”

It was almost six o’clock, but there in the hotel lobby office was Jessica Channing. She came to the empty desk and said, “I’m substituting for Vera. What can I do to help you?”

Paul smiled, but Zach didn’t even see Jessica. He was going into something similar to shock. His heart pumped and his breathing picked up. It was a form of delayed panic.

Jessica said to Paul, “Is this Zachary Thomas?”

“Yeah, he’s had it.”

“I understand. He needs to walk for a while. We’ll get him a glass of milk.”

Paul asked, “Could you walk with him? He needs somebody along. I’ve got to check in at home.”

“Rick said you found them. I called Sue. The kids are wild, and you need to go home. I’ll go with him.”

Zach understood nothing. He was not only in some panic but in shock. Things had happened that he couldn’t prevent. He couldn’t stop them. He’d flubbed it. They were both…gone! How could they be?

Someone came silently with the glass of tepid milk. Paul took it and handed it to Zach, who didn’t pay any attention because his mind was in a distraction of disorientation.

He drank the milk down and set the glass on the reception counter, and Jessica said, “Let’s walk.”

They went out of the hotel and across the entrance road to the sand. They turned north along the wet, solid beach just above the receding waves. They didn’t speak at all. They walked.

The surging waves were soothing. There weren’t too many people around. The breeze was fresh. It played in their hair and ruffled their clothing. The sun was low in the western sky. Around Zach the air was silent of voices and no decisions pushed at him. He was free.

Helping people in shock was one of the things the town of Sea View had learned. Of course, there were a few people who didn’t volunteer at the hospital. To the rest, it was interesting and they helped. They were that kind of people.

The shocked man with the woman stranger at his side didn’t walk far. Jessica knew better than to exhaust a person in his position. But he was then outside and free. It gave the feeling of control to the man. Lured into walking, in his shock, he now felt walking on the beach had been his idea. He was in control.

By then, they were back at the hotel. He was given a sedative to take if he chose. Paul’s note said the doctor recommended it. Zach needed to rest. Tomorrow would be a tough day.

Zach read Paul’s note and looked at Jessica. “Paul has been a rock for me this afternoon.” His own voice sounded apart from him. “I don’t know how to thank him for all that time. For that support.”

“You can tell him tomorrow.” Jessica told Zach that so easily. She knew what a hell of a day the next day would be. The boy had no chance at all. The harvesters would gather from the airport with their little ice buckets. They would be sober-faced, earnest and grateful.

They would harvest bone, heart, kidneys, eye lenses and skin. The harvesting was generally within the state. Michael’s gifts would help people all over TEXAS.

Jessica told Zach, “Do take the pill. It will help your body relax. You need the rest.”

And Zach said, “Take me to my room. I’m not sure I can make it on my own.”

Jessica looked at that man. How many times had she heard something similar?

He was serious. He was wrung out.

Even later, she considered that she could have easily gotten someone else to take him to his room. He wouldn’t turn a hair because his request had been so vulnerable. He was not a lecher.

She looked at the clock on the wall. Vera would be back in about ten minutes. Jessica told Don, “Watch the desk?”

Don eyed the man beside Jessica with gradually diminishing suspicion. “Sure. I’ll call Vernon to take up his luggage.” Don looked around but there was none.

Zach replied, “It’s in the car and the car’s probably been hauled to someplace else. I was in a wreck.”

Only he. Only he was wrecked. The others had survived in a different way. They’d escaped from life. He was alone.

Or—had he died, too, and was he just around as a haunt? He hadn’t wanted to die, and his mind had prevented it? He would come to his ghost’s limit in time, and he’d just…leave? Why hadn’t he gone with them? Why was only he there? Was he alive?

He looked at Jessica. She was probably his imagination. She was unreal, she was so beautiful. He’d drawn her from adolescent dreamings. Hannah had been the real woman, a good friend; this one was a dream.

Jessica collected a shaving kit and a shirt from the gift shop. She found socks and underwear. She brought them back to Zach. He heard himself say, “Put it on my bill.”

And she replied, “We’ll see.”

His eyes slitted as he studied her in the half light of the fading day. Yeah. She was a dream. He was probably at the side of the road… in the wrecked car…still.

He asked the iridescent woman, “Are you real?”

And she realized he was in shock. He was working on only half a brain. She said soothingly, “We all are.”

Not all.

She said, “Come.” And she led the way to the elevator. She had the key and carried the other things she’d gathered for him.

He followed, observing her walk. She had a good walk. She barely moved but her skirts did. They swayed. He blinked and looked away from her. The evening lights were dimmed by the setting sun. The hazed atmosphere was ethereal…It was weird.

They were the only ones in the elevator. As in a dream, they were alone. Such isolation was a part of a dream. The redhead would disappear… when they got to his bed.

People weren’t going to their rooms, they were going down the elevators to the dining rooms, but it seemed a dream to Zach.

The pair reached his floor. Jessica located his room on the discreet gold rectangle with black lettering and numbers. She compared the key and told him, “From the elevator, you turn left.”

He replied, “Yeah.” And he looked at her face. He was taller than she. He was a dominant male. How strange to feel that. He’d always thought of women as equals. The wreck had thrown him back into his basic male thinking. He was dominant.

At his room, it was Jessica who unlocked his door. She opened it inward, effortlessly, and he seemed to drift beside her into the room.

She looked around. It was very neat and orderly. She checked the bath and it, too, was pristine.

The accommodations were always that way.

Jess went to the bureau and opened the drawer to put in his newly purchased underwear. She removed myriad straight pins from the new shirt. She got them all. She would. Then she hung the shirt in the closet.

She put his shaving kit in the bathroom.

Then she came back into the bedroom with a glass of water, which she handed to him. She watched as he put the pill into his mouth and drank the water down.

With care, he put the glass on the table by his bed, as she pulled the coverlet back and turned down the sheeted blanket. He was watching her as if in a trance.

She hesitated and her lips parted. He took her hand into his. They were facing each other. She almost smiled and she watched mesmerized as he took a step nearer.

He regarded her very seriously. His breathing was harsh. He carefully, gently took her into his arms and…he really kissed her!

She was thrillingly shocked and her nose drew in air as her mouth opened to his tongue. Her eyes widened in surprise as her body curled against his rigid one.

What on EARTH!

And his hunger grew. He really didn’t let go of her as he discarded his jacket and stepped on the heels of his shoes to get rid of them. He was out of his sports shirt by dragging it off over his head and his trousers were no problem. Unzipped, they were peeled down…along with his underwear.

He was going to…? She was shocked as she felt a strange fever build inside her body. Her breathing was odd. She looked at him and realized he was not in control of himself. But he was only positive. He wasn’t hurting her. He was just very determined. Yeah, he was. And she was…?

She wanted him. It wasn’t compassion for his present, awful circumstances. It was him. She wanted this man. How shocking.

Why had this never happened before now? The two times she’d been involved with some man, it hadn’t been this way. It had been rather abrupt and messy.

Why this man?

By then, he’d taken her dress off over her head and her slip straps were down her arms. Her bare chest was tightly pressed against the hair on his chest and it felt…marvelous. She gasped. But she pressed against him.

He growled in a guttural voice, “So you want me.”

And pressing her round breasts in a rubbing swirl against him, she moaned!

It was as if she was an entirely different person. How could this be? She wasn’t this kind of a woman. She barely—well, that was obvious—she was bare. But she hardly knew the—

Her back was on the bed. He moved her knees as he looked down her, and he lowered himself into her cradle.

He was very good but he was quick. It just so happened that she was triggered and it was an explosion of passion! Not of love but of body hunger. Passion.

No, it was release. Surcease.

How incredible.

And she knew she was at best a distraction. A substitute. A brief replacement. It wasn’t she who was the recipient of his frantic, denying love.

With the emotional storm past, he dragged from her limp body and fell to the side of her. And he was out cold.