Night of Thunder

He cursed himself. Every time he came home alive and more or less intact, he thought about going underground, going into his own private witness protection program. New identity, new start, new place, new everything. But another part said no, you can let it drive you crazy, it’s nothing, it’ll take your life if you let it. You win not by surviving but by living, by having the things you need and love: family, land, home.

“Please,” he said.

“Bob, this can’t be yours alone. That is my daughter. That is my daughter. I cannot stay here; I have to be at her side, no matter what it costs or what the risk. I feel that so powerfully I can hardly face it.”

“Let me go, let me figure it out, and as soon as I can, at the absolute soonest, I will let you know and you can go. If it’s dangerous at all, I will have her moved, I will hire bodyguards, I will set up a secure place for you to come. But I have to know first.”

She shook her head. She didn’t like it.

“I know I can be wrong,” he said. “I’m wrong all the time. It ain’t about me being wrong or me being-what was the word Nikki used?”

“Narcissistic. Someone who loves himself too much, even if he can’t admit it. You’re not a narcissist. No narcissist would be as shut up, cut down, beaten, bloodied, dragged, and kicked in the head as much as you. I give you that. Whatever your flaws, and God knows there are hundreds of them, you’re too insane to risk your life for this or that or nothing whatever to be a narcissist. So your scars buy you two or three days. Then we’re coming.”

“Thank you. Now I’ve got to get packed.”

THREE

As he’d just seen Miko atop a large, muscular horse, controlling it and taking such delight in the process that morning, he now stood next to his older daughter and remembered her atop the same large, muscular animals, how she thrilled at them, how she loved them, how she made them do her bidding, how they loved her.

But Nikki was far from horseback. She lay in the intensive-care unit of the Bristol General Hospital, monitored by a million dollars’ worth of gizmos. Beeps beeped, lines dashed across screens to symbolize breathing, brain activity, blood pressure, and so forth. She was still, her seemingly frail chest moving upward and downward just a fraction of an inch to signify the functioning of her taxed respiratory system.

“Those roads can be so dangerous at night, Mr. Swagger,” said Jim Gustofson, the managing editor of the newspaper Nikki worked for. “If she weren’t such a good reporter she would have come home earlier, when it was light. But she stayed, she got every last thing out of the day that she could have. Oh, this is so awful. I just don’t know what to say.”

Gustofson was a tall man in his early fifties, with a full head of hair and a shocked expression. He had repeated this statement about ten times. It was all he could say.

Bob had received the doctor’s verdict. They were in the wait-and-see stage. All the monitoring systems recorded strong life signs. She was badly bruised and lacerated, but there were no broken bones. Brain activity seemed unaltered; EKG strong, signifying no permanent damage. But she was totally unconscious and had been so now for over twenty-four hours.

“There’s no telling in these cases,” said the young resident. “She took a bad knock on the head and the whiplash was vicious in the few seconds the car bounced. She was rattled around pretty hard. We just don’t know how long she’ll be out. Classically a coma of this nature lasts a few weeks.”

“Or months or years? Or forever?”

“That’s an outside possibility. Yes sir, Mr. Swagger. But it’s rare. Usually a few weeks and they recover, their memory is foggy but in time it returns. The brain has had a shock. It realizes how close it came to death. It wants to rest and relax for a while. It’ll be back when it feels safe. She’s a strong young woman. Anyhow, Dr. Crane can tell you more tomorrow.”

“What do the police say, Mr. Gustofson?” Bob asked.

“I’ve got a copy of the report for you. But Johnson County Sheriff’s Department says their assessment is that she was driving home down the road, and some teenager, possibly high on the very thing she was investigating, methamphetamine, decided to show off. You know these rural kids get NASCAR fever with the big race less than a week away.”

“I noticed the traffic and all the activity driving in,” Bob said.

“Yes sir. Well, one of the things we’ve noted is that traffic aggression goes way up this time of year. So the cops believe some punk kid was trying to be Dale Senior to the decidedly un-hip Volvo, just for the thrill of it, the kick of it, and he got carried away, misjudged his speed and instead of scaring the bejesus out of her and getting a laugh out of his buddies, he smacked her off the road, and down the incline she went. She was lucky in one way.”

“How is that, sir.”