Seth, after stuffing the Juicy Fruit in his mouth, eagerly began to dial. I turned back to face the road. My arms ached from my battle with the steering wheel, and despite the cold, there was a ribbon of sweat running all up and down my chest. But we had made it. We had made it.
Almost.
I committed twenty-seven traffic violations getting Rob and Dr. Krantz to the hospital. I went thirty miles over the speed limit—forty outside of town—went through three stoplights, made an illegal left-hand turn, and went the wrong way down a one-way street. Not that it mattered much. There was practically no one out on the streets, thanks to all the snow. The only time I ran into traffic was outside the Chocolate Moose, where a lot of kids from Ernie Pyle High hang out. It was after eleven, so the Moose was closed, but there were still kids around, necking in their cars. When I blew past them, I laid on the horn, just for the fun of it. I saw a number of startled heads lift up as I flew by. I yelled, "Yeehaw," at them, and a couple of irritated jocks yelled, "Grit!" back at me. I guess because of the truck. And maybe because of the yeehaw. And quite possibly because of Chigger.
But you know what? They couldn't have called me something that filled me with more pride.
When I swung around the entrance to the hospital, I saw that I had a choice of two entrances: the one for emergency vehicles only, and the one for general admittance.
Of course I chose the one for the emergency vehicles. I figured I'd come skidding to a halt in front of it, you know, like on The Dukes of Hazard, and all these emergency room personnel would come running out, all concerned about hearing the brakes squeal.
Only it didn't happen quite like that, because I guess most emergency vehicles don't go skidding into that entrance very much, and even though it had been plowed and salted, there was still a lot of ice. So instead of skidding to a halt in front of the emergency room doors, I sort of ended up driving through them.
But hey. All the emergency room personnel did come running up, just like I'd thought they would.
Fortunately the emergency room doors were glass, so crashing into them really didn't cause that much damage to my passengers. I mean, once the front wheels hit the emergency room floor and got some traction, the brakes worked, so Seth and Rob were fine. And Dr. Krantz was unconscious anyway, so when his head hit the dashboard, it probably didn't even hurt that much. It was more like a little tap. I know that's how it felt when I was flung against the steering wheel. Fortunately the truck was so old, it didn't have air bags, so we didn't have to deal with that embarrassment.
Still, the people in the emergency bay were surprisingly unsympathetic to my predicament. I mean, you would think that after what I'd been through, they'd be a little more understanding, but no. They didn't act at all like the emergency room people on that show on TV.
"Are you crazy?" one nurse in blue scrubs was yelling, as I lifted my head from the steering wheel.
That made me mad. I mean, all I'd done is gotten a little glass on the floor. It wasn't like I'd run over anybody.
"Hey," I said. "There's a guy in the back of this truck with a head injury, and this guy next to me is about to lose a leg. Get a couple gurneys, then get off my back."
That shut her up, let me tell you. In seconds, it seemed, they'd gotten Dr. Krantz out of the cab, then helped me back the truck up so they could get outside, and help move Rob. Seth was able to climb down from the cab bed unaided, but Chigger didn't seem too pleased to see his rescuers. He did a lot of growling and snapping until I told him to knock it off. Then, ever hopeful of more mashed potatoes, he leapt from the back of the truck and followed me inside, as I trailed after the gurney Rob was on.
"Is he going to be all right?" I kept asking all the people who were working on him. But they wouldn't say. They were too busy barking off his vital signs and writing them down on charts. The weirdest part was when they unwrapped him, and I saw what the yellow thing that had been around him the whole time was.
Oh, just the "Don't Tread On Me" flag from the True Americans' meeting house.
The one with the giant hole in it, from where I'd accidentally blasted it with a shotgun.
It was as I was standing there staring at this that I heard a voice call my name. I looked around, and saw that Dr. Krantz, who was being worked on over on the next gurney, had regained consciousness. He gestured for me to come close. I edged in between all the doctors and nurses who were hovering around him and leaned down so that he could whisper to me.
"Jessica," he hissed. "Are you all right?"
"Oh, sure," I said, surprised. "I'm fine."
"And Mr. Wilkins?"
"I don't know," I said, throwing a glance over my shoulder. I couldn't see Rob, for all the doctors and nurses crowded around him. "I think he's going to be okay."
"And Seth?"
"He's fine," I said. "Really, Dr. Krantz, we're okay. You just concentrate on getting better, okay?"
But Dr. Krantz wasn't through. He had something else to say to me, something that seemed of vital importance for him to get off his chest. He reached out and grabbed the front of my coat, and pulled me closer.
"Jessica," he rasped, close to my ear.
I had a feeling I knew what he was going to say, so I tried to head him off at the pass.
"Dr. Krantz," I said. "Don't worry about thanking me. Really, it's all right. I'd have done the same for anybody. I was happy to do it."
But Dr. Krantz still wouldn't let me go. If anything, his grip on the front of my coat tightened.
"Jessica," he breathed, again. I leaned even closer, since he seemed to be having trouble making himself heard.
"Yes, Dr. Krantz?" I said.
"You," he rasped, "are the worst driver I have ever seen."
C H A P T E R
18
The county hospital saw a lot of action that night. And that's not even counting having a pickup ram through its ambulance-bay doors.
It also admitted forty-eight new patients, seven of them in critical condition. Fortunately none of the people listed as critical were friends of mine. No, it looked as if most of the damage that was done that night was done to the True Americans. As I sat in the waiting room—they wouldn't let me in to see Rob once he'd been admitted, because I wasn't family—I saw each person as they were wheeled in.
Of course, that didn't start happening for a while, because it took a pretty long time for the fire engines and ambulances and police to get out to Jim Henderson's place. In fact, merely my explanation of how to get out there took a while. The police interviewed me for about forty minutes before the first squad car even started off in the direction of the True Americans' compound.
And I'm not too sure they believed what I told them. That might be one of the reasons they didn't go tearing off right away. I mean, a militia group, under attack by a ragtag band of bikers and truck drivers? Fortunately at some point, Dr. Krantz regained consciousness, and they were able to go in and confirm everything I'd said. He must have been pretty persuasive, too, because when I saw the sheriff leaving the examination room Dr. Krantz had been shoved into while the hospital staff scrambled to find a surgeon skilled enough to sew his leg back together, he looked pretty grim.
For a short while, the only person in the emergency waiting room with me was Seth. Well, Seth and Chigger. The hospital people weren't too happy about having a dog in their waiting room, but when I explained that I couldn't leave Chigger outside in the truck, as he would freeze, seeing as how the truck had no heat—nor much of a windshield left—they relented. And really, once I'd gotten him a few packs of peanut-butter Ritz crackers from the snack machine, Chigger was fine. He curled up on two of the plastic chairs and went right to sleep, worn out from his long ride and all that barking.