"Just peachy! You stay there. I'll send people up."
"How many?", he asked.
Good question! "I don't know yet!"I went towards where I heard some voices crying and found the problem. A rack of canned goods had fallen across a doorway into their little emergency shelter. I pushed the rack out of the way and was able to easily open the door. "I'm coming in!", I called out.
I was greeted with a scene from a bad movie. Two little children were there, along with their very pregnant mother. She was bleeding badly from a cut on her right calf. Over in the corner a dog was nursing some puppies. All I needed to make this a disaster-of-the-week film was the requisite escaped convict and a nun.
Mom was crying for me to get her kids out, but she was in bad shape. I tried applying pressure to her cut, but it wasn't helping. Meanwhile Jerry kept yelling for me to tell him what was happening, and I couldn't answer. I looked around wildly and found a roll of cotton clothesline. I had no choice. I fashioned a tourniquet just below her knee, using a piece of scrap lumber to twist it. Thankfully she had passed out by that point, so I managed to get her up into my arms and carry her towards the steps. The little kids were trailing along with a flashlight.
"Where the hell have you been!?", he demanded.
"Sightseeing! Listen, she's hurt bad. You need to drag her outside and get her some help!"
"Oh, crap! Lift her up here!"
I managed to pull over a couple of crates I could step on, and then lifted the young mother up as high as I could. It wasn't enough. I just didn't have the strength to lift her over my head and to where Jerry could grab her. I set her back down and ran back for the clothesline. I tossed it up to him, and he let down enough for me to tie it under her arms. Then, with him pulling and me lifting, we got her out. "I'll be back!", he yelled. Above us the floor creaked ominously, and I grabbed the kids and ran back the other way.
They were little kids. The boy looked about five or six, his sister about three or four. "Who are you?", he asked.
"My name is Carl. What's yours?"
"I'm Billy. That's Molly. She doesn't talk to strangers.", he answered.
"That's cool. I have a little girl named Molly, too. When we get out of here, I'll introduce you to her."
"Is Mommy going to be all right?", he asked. Molly just looked at me with the widest blue eyes I had ever seen. They were both blond and blue-eyed.
"Oh, sure! You bet! She's going to be fine! We'll see her as soon as we're out of here."
Just then the dogs moved around some, and one of the puppies came over and sniffed at me. "You have to save the puppies!", cried Molly. It was the first thing she had said. "We have to save the puppies!", she insisted.
"I promise! How many are there?"
"Four. There's three boys and a girl.", said Billy. "Maggie's the mom."
I looked over at Maggie, who was nursing the pups. She was a big shaggy dog with strains of golden retriever in her. This was going from bad to worse. "We'll save everybody!", I said. I just hoped somebody would save me!
"Do you like puppies? Dad says we can't keep them all. Would you like a puppy?", he asked.
This kid was going to be a salesman someday! I bit off the idiot reply I wanted to make. I just had to say something to keep these kids calm and under control. "I love puppies! I'd like the girl puppy."
Just then, I heard a voice at the top of the stairs and I went back, followed by the kids. Jerry was back at the top, and had thrown down the rope again. "Come on! Let's get going before this whole place collapses!"
I tied a bowline around Molly and we got her out fast, and then Billy went up. Outside I could hear Molly crying for the puppies. Jerry yelled down, "Come on, get up here!"
"In a minute!" I ran back and found a couple of big plastic trash bags. I scooped up a couple of pups and tossed them inside and then ran back down to the stairs. "Here! Take this!" I tied the clothesline to the bag and he pulled it up.
The bag was squirming and he yelled down, "HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FUCKING MIND!?"
"Yes! There's more coming!" I ran back and corralled the last two pups into the other bag, and went back. This time I was followed by their mother, Maggie, who did not look overly amused. The last two pups went up. A minute later, Jerry was back, and I tied the rope to Maggie's harness. Thank God she didn't have a collar! She went up. "That's it! Get the dog out and come and get me out of here!", I told him.
I heard the floor creaking as Maggie was dragged barking from her house. Jerry was cursing the mutt, but managed to get her outside. By now I could hear sirens around the house, so somebody must have figured out where the fun action in town was. Then I didn't care anymore. The creaking became a crashing, I dove for the floor, and everything went dark. I screamed from something ripping into my chest and left arm. It got quiet at that point.
I saw what happened on the news later. One of the reporters, with a cameraman lugging around his equipment, missed the mad rush to the explosion on the other side of town, and caught the tail end of Jerry and me heading to the other street. They caught Jerry crawling into the house after me, and started filming, and then others started gathering. By the time Jerry got the mother out, somebody had called an ambulance. When word hit that Congressman Buckman was involved, all the reporters left the scene of the fire. They were there by the time the kids started coming out. It was decided that the place was too dangerous for more than one person, so Jerry would go back in and hand off the kids and dogs to one of the people outside. After Jerry got the dogs out and was on the verge of coming back for me, the house shifted and partially collapsed a second time. That was when something fell on me and knocked me out. After a couple of minutes, things settled down and a bunch of guys were able to pull me out of the rubble. I came to as I was being pulled out.
The sunlight outside looked pretty good to me. I hurt all over, so that was probably a good sign as well. A paramedic type was trying to work on me, so I grabbed him with my right hand. My left arm didn't seem to be working so well. "The woman, is she alright?", I asked. I hadn't wanted to use a tourniquet, but I didn't have a choice. You can do more harm than good if you fuck it up!
"Settle down, Congressman."
"The woman, did she make it!?", I demanded, a little more strongly.
"Yeah, she's fine. She's on her way to Shawnee. You're going next.", he told me. "Now, calm down."
I sagged back a little at that. Maybe I hadn't cost her a leg. "The kids."
"The kids are just fine. And the dogs, too. That was stupid, Congressman!', he told me.
I couldn't argue with him. Just then I heard a screaming rampage and the words, "DADDY! DADDY!" Holly and Molly came busting into the circle around me.
I grinned at them and gave them a thumbs-up sign with my right hand, and that got a lot of applause and cheering around me. A cop was keeping them back, but they outflanked him and ran to the gurney I was being lifted on. "I'll be fine. Don't worry about me."