Chapter 17: Four Minutes Back

The crew had the line ringing again by dark on Monday night.

It rang on a beige desk phone, on a new account in the Trust's name.

The crew chief had run the cable along the baseboard himself.

Then nothing rang for five days.

On Saturday afternoon, with the Dinner three hours off, I sat at the dispatch desk in my jeans.

Six blue dots sat on the map, and none of them moved.

My black dress hung on the locker door beside Jude's dress shirt.

He stood behind my chair in his flight suit.

"You should be getting ready," he said.

"I'm ready enough."

"You have mud on your boots."

"It's Gran's mud."

The phone rang.

I had the receiver at my ear before the first ring finished.

"Priority Line."

"Please." It was a man's voice, young and cracked. "Please, it's the number on the fridge magnet. Is this the helicopters?"

"Yes. I'm here. What's your name?"

He gave it, and I wrote it on my hand.

"My dad fell on the porch," he said. "He's seventy-eight. He won't wake up properly."

"There's a spot fire in the gully below the house."

"And the ambulance can't get through, because a pine came down across the road."

"Where are you?"

"Dutch Ravine Road. The old Pruitt place, about a mile past the church."

I looked up at Jude.

He was already on the radio.

"Hollenbeck Two, scramble, Dutch Ravine Road, one patient, fire in the gully. Go."

The skids of the helicopter on the pad outside started their whine through the wall.

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