Lockwood pulled Malavida's light windbreaker off to get a better look at his wounds. He was having trouble finding Malavida's pulse. He put his fingers on the carotid artery in his neck but could feel nothing. Lockwood's hands were shaking so he couldn't be absolutely sure.
He put his ear to Malavida's chest. He thought he could hear a heartbeat, faint and thready. Then he felt light, raspy breathing on the side of his face. He looked up as Karen pulled the old pickup in beside them. "Be tough," he said softly to Malavida. Then he scooped his arms under the Chicano cracker and, using all of his strength, he struggled to his knees, then finally stood and moved on unsteady legs to the truck. He knew that if there was a serious spinal injury he could be dooming Malavida to a life of paralysis, but he had done a few field triages at accident scenes, both in the Marines and early in his government career when he was in uniform and working Customs sheds at the border. He had pried people off their steering columns and out from under dashboards. He knew that Chacone was in the red zone where survival odds were meaningless. His will to live was the only cord that held him.
As Lockwood lifted him onto the truck bed, he heard something in Malavida's body snap. Lockwood cursed under his breath, then jumped in and pulled Malavida by his shoulders toward the front so his feet were clear. Then he scrambled back and pulled up the tailgate. He saw Karen staring back through the window of the cab, a bloodless look on her face. He grabbed a broken brick which had fallen into the bed of the truck. "Watch out," he yelled. "Turn around and cover your eyes."
She did, and he slammed the brick into the rear glass window of the cab. It shattered, spilling shards onto the seat, but clearing the opening so he could talk to her.
"Let's go. Get moving. I'll stay back here with him."
"How're we gonna find Tampa? That road could lead anywhere."
"I don't know," he said. "Let's go, we'll do the best we can."
Karen Dawson had driven in two NASCAR. stock car races. She was a natural hot shoe with a God-given gift for driving. She slammed her foot down. Mud shot into the air. The truck leaped toward the shell road at the low end of the yard. By the time she got to it she was totally focused, her hands on the wheel at ten past ten. Her vision was searching the road just beyond the headlights, where she could occasionally see the startled eyes of swamp creatures reflected in the yellow light, just before they scurried away to escape the churning tires.
In the back of the truck, Lockwood hung on desperately, trying to support Malavida while they jounced along the uneven road. He managed to remove his jacket and put it under Malavida's head.
They had traveled half a mile when Karen hit the first deep and unavoidable pothole. In the back of the truck, Malavida and Lockwood bounced hard. When he landed, Malavida groaned, opened his eyes, and looked up at Lockwood. He said nothing, but his dark eyes pleaded. Lockwood reached over, found his hand, and grasped it. Malavida held on to it in desperation as the truck rattled and banged down the rain-rutted road.
Karen knew she had to keep the truck from bouncing. A short distance in front of her, the headlights were swallowed by the swamp's hollow darkness. She was trying to spot the potholes in the shell road before she hit them, maneuvering and down-shifting to get around them without losing time. After ten minutes, she came to the first fork in the road. She wasn't sure where she was or even what direction she was heading. She slowed and stopped. "Go right," Lockwood said. But Karen ignored him and jumped out of the cab to look up at the stars. "What're you doing?" he yelled as she scanned the starlit horizon. It was a clear night, and the starscape glittered like pinholes shot through black velvet.
"Goddamn it, he's dying! Let's go, whatta you doing?" Lockwood shouted.
"Looking for the Orion constellation."
"Get the fuck out of here," he said, amazed. "This isn't a Girl Scout camping trip. Get in! Go right!"
Karen spun on him and glowered. "You heard that guy back at the dock. These shell roads could go anywhere. This one's been wandering right and left. I don't even know which way I'm going. I want to go west, that's where Tampa is. Orion is at nearly zero declination. It rises to the southeast. The coordinates on the celestial sphere are analogous to latitude and longitude on the earth." He was looking at her with flat-faced wonder, but she missed the expression because she was again looking up at the sky. "I'll find it for you, and you keep pointing me in the right direction. I won't be able to see it from the cab, it'll be too high overhead." Then she pointed up in the sky. "Okay, see that line of stars? Right there," she continued, "those three little stars? They're called Orion's Belt. The nebula is below them. The kinda reddish one, not as bright, it's called the Jewel of the Sword. You see it?"
He looked up at the sky, trying to find the stars she was pointing at, feeling utterly ridiculous.
"I… I'm not…"
"Find the North Star. It's at the end of the handle of the Little Dipper. You know that one? Go forty-five degrees right and across, the first one you come to."
"Okay… yeah, I guess…"
"That's the Jewel. It's due west. Keep pointing me that way." She jumped back into the cab and turned left on the shell road, heading in the general direction of the nebula.
"Celestial navigation," Lockwood muttered under his breath. "Gimme a fucking break."
Each time they came to a fork in the road, he looked for the constellation, tried to spot the tiny star in Orion's Sword, and then yelled to her which way to go. At least, he finally admitted to himself, it was giving them a consistent course. He hoped they didn't end up in the middle of a Florida swamp. Fifteen minutes later, they hit a paved road with a sign that said TAMPA.
Karen found Interstate 75 and headed north. The first hospital sign they saw was for the University Community Hospital, on South Hillsborough Road.
Karen pulled the truck up to the emergency entrance and Lockwood leapt out of the back. He banged through the double doors and grabbed a trauma nurse in the ER. "I've got a Code Blue out here!" he said, pulling the startled woman toward the truck.
Lockwood and two ER nurses loaded Malavida onto a gurney. There was a moment before they wheeled him inside when Lockwood was looking down at the badly wounded Chicano… then Malavida opened his eyes. "It's on you now, Hoss," Lockwood said softly. "We got you here, now paddle. Catch a ride, we'll be on the beach waiting." Karen moved up and looked down at Malavida. Their eyes held each other. She was still looking at him when they wheeled Malavida inside.
Karen had removed the vehicle registration from the glove compartment. She handed it to Lockwood and he pulled the registration slip out of its yellow, faded plastic holder.
"Leonard Land, Twenty-two Hundred Little Manatee Road, near Tampa," he read. "This guy is going down," he promised softly.
Tampa Detective Grady Raynor had a complexion like lunar lava. His pockmarked face and close-set, steel-gray eyes accurately forecast a cold, uneven personality. He entered the hospital cafeteria with Dr. Susan McCaffrey from the trauma ward. She pointed out Karen Dawson and John Lockwood to him. They were just throwing away coffee cups and moving toward the door. Grady blocked their exit and held up his badge in its leather case.
"Grady Raynor, detective, Tampa Major Crimes. You brought in the Mexican kid who got caught in the explosion?"
"He's not a kid," Karen said.
Lockwood caught her protective tone, but went on, "We called you an hour and a half ago… where you been?"