Her Sister's Child. Cynthia Thomason
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know, I guess you are. And you’re going to make a fine mountain girl. I can tell.”
When a stark light shone in her face, Julia blinked and squinted. “What’s going on?”
A woman approached her, walking in front of a man with a large camera balanced on his shoulder. “Cut the light, Benny,” she said. She stuck her hand out to Julia. “I’m Margo Wright from Channel Seven News. From the details I’ve gotten from onlookers, I figure you’re the hero of the hour.”
Julia minimized the comment with a shrug. “Hardly.”
The reporter moved her fist in a circular motion, indicating the camera should start rolling. “Don’t be modest, Miss…” She flipped a pad open and took a pencil from her pocket. “Would you spell your name, please?”
Julia did. Though the last thing she wanted to do was be interviewed when she didn’t even know Cameron’s condition, she understood what it was like to be on the reporting side of the camera—not an easy job with an uncooperative subject.
“I understand the victim is a professor from North Carolina State University,” Margo said.
“That’s right.”
“What was he doing on Whisper Mountain?”
“You’ll have to ask him that,” Julia said.
“Okay, but you can tell me what happened down there.”
Julia kept the facts simple and brief. “His car rolled over the edge and I pulled him out before it submerged in the river.”
Katie gasped. “Did you really do that, Aunt Julia?”
She hadn’t allowed herself to piece together those frightening moments until now, though she was quite certain the entire panic-filled episode would stay in her mind forever. “I guess I did.”
“Tell me what you were thinking as…”
Julia no longer heard the reporter’s voice. The rescue guys had just appeared, the tops of their protective headgear the first signs that they were finally coming out of the gully. One man on each side leveled the board while Bobby guided it up. Julia broke away from the reporter and rushed to meet them.
With efficient calm, the rescuers relayed information to a team of paramedics who’d come from a waiting ambulance. Cameron was transferred to a wheeled stretcher and taken to the emergency vehicle. Julia grabbed Bobby’s arm as he followed the medics. “Will he be all right?”
“I think so. He’s kind of busted up, but he was starting to come around about halfway up the mountain.” Bobby patted her arm. “You done good, MoonPie. And by the way, it’s nice seeing you again, even if the circumstances that brought you home aren’t the best.”
“Thanks, Bobby. And you done good, too.”
Bobby walked off toward a woman who offered him a cup of coffee, and Julia suddenly felt as if her legs would no longer hold her. She didn’t want to talk to the reporter again. And she hoped she wouldn’t be questioned by the police right now. Searching out Cora and Katie in the crowd, she said, “Let’s go home. Tomorrow will be plenty of time to sort all this out.”
A paramedic stepped from the back of the ambulance. “Hey! Which one of you is MoonPie?”
Julia grimaced but slowly raised her hand. “I guess that would be me.”
The medic waved her over. “Can you come here? The patient says he won’t go to the hospital until he talks to you.”
Julia hesitated, but Cora urged her forward. “Go on. Cameron probably wants to thank you.”
“It’s not necessary.”
“You want to see how he is, don’t you?”
That was certainly true. Julia hadn’t climbed down the ravine, had the wind knocked out of her and taken an unplanned mud bath just to have Cameron die on her. She went to the back of the ambulance and took the paramedic’s proffered hand. He helped her inside and went back to work, adjusting gauges and checking IV lines.
Cameron lay on the stretcher. She took a few awkward steps toward him in the confined space. He tried lifting his head to see her, but his movements were limited by a restrictive collar. Nevertheless he smiled. That same devastating smile she remembered shining upon her from the podium of a Riverton College classroom, not even diminished now by a background of nasty lacerations.
The medic pointed to her. “Professor, meet Julia, Glen Springs’ one-woman mountain rescue team.”
“Actually, we’ve met before,” Cameron said. He stared intently at her and added, “MoonPie?”
She exhaled and shook her head. “It’s a long and very uninspiring story.”
“I think I’d like to hear it.”
“Someday, maybe.” She sat on a bench built into the side of the ambulance and leaned toward him. “How are you feeling?”
“Alive. Thanks to you.”
“Don’t mention it. All in a day’s work.”
“I’ll bet.” He slowly reached out his left hand and stroked her cheek with his fingers. “You’ve got a little smudge there.”
For the first time she was aware of how she must look. She glanced down at her mud-caked jeans. Her hands were splotched with ravine debris and she doubted she’d ever get her fingernails clean again. She lay her hand where his had just touched and felt a flush of heat. If her face looked even half as bad as the rest of her, well, she didn’t want to think about it.
“So, are you all right?” he asked. “You weren’t hurt?”
“No. It takes a lot more than a freaky autumn sprinkle to take me down.”
He smiled again. “Not even a half-crazed driver plunging off a mountain?”
She laughed, relieved he seemed okay. “Nope, not even that. But don’t feel so bad. I saw an oil slick just before where you breached the rail. I don’t think the accident was all your fault.”
The paramedic lifted Cameron’s right arm and placed it on his abdomen. Julia flinched when she saw the bone threatening to poke through the skin covering his wrist.
Cameron winced in pain.
“Sorry, Professor,” the medic said, setting a splint under his forearm and wrapping gauze around it. “I’ve got to stabilize the injury before we take off.”
Cameron watched his practiced motions. “Do you think it’s broken?”
“I’m not the doctor, but I think it’s safe to say this arm is going to be out of commission for a while. It looks like you’ve got a compound fracture and my guess is you’re going to need surgery and external fixators to patch it up.”
Cameron frowned. “That doesn’t sound good.”
The medic taped gauze to Cameron’s wrist. “Could be better, I’ll admit. Do you remember how you damaged your wrist this badly?”
Cameron snickered. “The last thing I recall is feeling like a pinball inside my Jeep, complete with some pretty weird sound effects.”
Finished with his temporary immobilization job, the medic called to the driver in front of the ambulance. “I’ve got him ready to roll, Rick.”
Julia got up from the bench. “Well, I guess that’s my cue to leave. Good luck, Cameron.”
“Wait, Julia…” Cameron stared at her as if he were unexpectedly at a loss for words. “I haven’t really thanked you,” he finally said.
“Sure you did. We’re square.”
The medic looked at her. “Actually I was going to suggest that you come to the hospital, too. You need to be checked