I Will Love You Forever

Chapter 2, part 7: Say Something

Again he thought of the coyote, and an image came back from his childhood. He had chased a ball over a fence into a neighbor's yard, thinking the German Shepherd that lived there wasn't out at the moment. The dog caught him, and trapped him in the corner of the yard, barking at him for an entire afternoon, before its owners had come home. The dog had known its business and had not hurt the eight-year-old, but Ken had endured two entire hours of terror. Ken managed to get back over the fence when it was distracted by the sound of the car in the driveway, though the dog had snapped its teeth in his face as he was levering his body over the top. The hot breath in that snap, the large canines almost closing on his nose, had never entirely left his nightmares.

He set his mouth, and turned his attention back to Lu. No way in hell was he going anywhere without her. Lu already had fears about Ken leaving her alone. He would much rather die with her, than make the last event of her life his leaving her to die alone out here.

That voice that he should leave her hadn't gone away, but he was no longer listening.

Ken opened his mouth, and she opened hers again. He was going to give her another bite, when he realized she had indeed bitten her tongue. It was bleeding, and so was part of her cheek. He hesitated. "Let's try this another way. Not real appealing, maybe, but you have to get food in you, and it looks like you aren't ready to chew just yet." He hesitated a bit more, then said out loud, "Come on, Ken, buddy, you can do this."

He took a small bite of the sandwich, and chewed it thoroughly. Then he tilted her mouth open and kissed her, thrusting the chewed food as far back on top of her tongue as he could reach with his tongue. Then he closed her mouth. Following something the vet had once told him about giving a cat a pill, he stroked her windpipe and blew into her right nostril—that being the only one she had. It worked. She started, swallowed, and then swallowed twice more, apparently getting the bite all the way down.

"All right," Ken said, "Progress! I'm feeding you like a baby bird, but at least I'm getting food into you." He took another small bite, and repeated the process. This time, she opened her mouth for him when he brought his mouth to hers, and she swallowed all by herself. He continued feeding her the rest of the sandwich, one small chewed bite at a time. Then he gave her the rest of the water in the bottle. He was going to crush the bottle when he was done, but he stopped himself and replaced the cap. If it rained again, he might be able to recover some water.

They lay there on the blanket for the rest of the day. Ken forced himself not to relieve his bladder until just before sunset. After he did, they ate the next sandwich. In the meantime, he talked to Lu. They had been married a year and a half, and in that time, Lu's one complaint had been that Ken didn't talk much. He was quiet and stolid. She loved who he was, but he knew she wished he talked to her more.

Ken finally understood why it was hard to talk to someone who didn't answer back. That whole day, he talked to Lu, and she didn't say a word. He told her all the stories he could remember; he told her his life story. He told her about their history together, about how they had met at college, and their wedding, and the things they loved to do together. He told her about his family history with the land, and about all he knew of her family story, of her Scottish and Cherokee heritage. He told of how their parents had died, and how they had decided to take what they had left to return to his family's old property, leaving behind their careers to raise a family out here under wide open skies. "And now," he finally said, "we have my grandfather's homestead back in the family. We're flat broke, of course, and if we can't sell some of these trees, we're going to lose it again, but it's the land we both love." He paused, and realized how ragged his voice had become. "We have roots here, babe."

All through it, Lu watched him, and appeared to be listening, but said nothing. Had she understood anything he said? Would she ever ... understand again? Go back to being ... Lu?

He shoved that thought away savagely.

He talked until he was hoarse, then dozed.

When Ken woke near sunset, Lu's eye was closed, but she opened it right away. He tried talking some more, but his voice was too hoarse for it. "I sure wish you could talk back to me," he said, as the sun went down, casting orange ripples across the sky. It would be another chilly night. "Say something!"

"Something," she whispered.

 * * *

"What do we have here, Major?"

"General, the base hospital won't be fully operational for another three days. The Army has lent us a MASH unit, so we're equipped for emergencies. We're on MREs until food service gets going, but they tell me it will take a week before they get the chow line up to speed."

"It takes longer to get a chow line running than to boot-strap a hospital?"

The major chuckled, "Apparently so, sir. Anyway, we have eight hundred National Guard soldiers out combing the woods, as dispersed as we can with two-man teams. Civilian assets from Homeland Security are working with Air Force Intelligence to check out all the occupied areas."

"Air assets?"

The major colored. "I'm sorry, sir, but we only have a few helicopters. The best overhead assets available come from Homeland Security, but they want a high price for them."

General Peters leaned back, and sighed. "Let's have it, Major."

"They want to send a civilian liaison, to 'coordinate' all their assets, including their people on the ground."

The general's lips thinned. "Why do I think this is a bid for control, Bob?"

"Because you're smart, sir?"

"Do we have a choice?"

"I don't think so, sir. We have an awful lot of ground to cover, and they have the drones and planes."

The general shook his head. "I'll make the call. I never thought I'd see the day when the United States Air Force would have to borrow airplanes from civilian agencies."

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