The Awakening (Montgomery/Taggert 11)

She didn’t quite like the way he put it, but truth was truth. “Yes,” she said. “I have finally realized it.”

He drew back a little, a grin splitting his face. “I guess all this stuff about you’ll go with me wherever I go is a marriage proposal.”

Her embarrassment was returning. Wasn’t this a time for champagne and diamond rings? But he was standing here in a bloody shirt, lines of tiredness around his eyes, and she was filthy and tired. “I guess so.” She looked down at her hands.

“Wait until I tell our grandkids about this,” Hank said. “They’ll never believe their grandmother did the asking.”

She squinted up at him. “You ever tell anyone about this and you’ll never beget children with me, much less grandchildren.” She turned on her heel and walked away from him.

He caught her and pulled her against him with his one good arm. “I apologize, baby. I just wanted to give you some of what you’ve given me. You can’t imagine the hell you’ve put me through, knowing you were mine yet having you fight me. I died some every time you looked at Driscoll. I gave up hope once that you’d ever realize that you belonged to me and I walked out, but then you came strolling into the Union Hall. You have made me completely miserable.”

She smiled against his sweaty shirt. “I’m glad. You’ve upset my life too.”

He kissed her forehead and held her a moment. “I think we better go. My arm’s beginning to bleed again and it’ll be hard driving back with one arm.”

“I’ll drive back,” she said.

He pulled away from her. “You?” He grinned. “Amanda, do you realize what the steering is like on the Mercer? And the brakes? Why, you couldn’t even—”

“Who do you think drove up here?” she asked angrily.

“That was different, that was…”

“Was what?” she demanded.

“Necessary.” He wasn’t smiling any longer.

“And now it’s not necessary? You think you’re a better driver with one arm and a fever than I am with two arms?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

She stepped back. “All right, it’s yours,” she said, gesturing toward the car. She stood aside and watched as he worked on the intricate starting procedure. His wound opened and he looked dizzy a couple of times, but he kept turning the crank.

She went to him. “Please, Hank,” she said. “Please let me help.”

Hank looked at her. He’d always known he’d do whatever she wanted if she asked him with a please. He knew it was one of the most difficult things he’d ever done, but he let her drive. She was worse than he’d imagined. She drove too fast, her steering was erratic, she passed other cars when she couldn’t see around them. She kept asking him questions about when Whitey and Andrei had kidnapped him. He mumbled that Andrei had never meant to shoot him but a tree on the mountainside had fallen and scared Andrei so much that the gun had gone off. Hank ducked, but not quick enough. Andrei thought Hank was dead and pulled him into the cabin to get the body out of sight, then he’d left him. Hank had slept until Amanda arrived.

“Does it hurt much?” Amanda asked, looking at him.

He got a little sick every time she took her eyes off the road. “Not as much as death would.”

Amanda thought she heard him say something else, but it sounded too much like, “Taylor had the right idea about women: keep them locked up,” so she was sure she was wrong.

They stopped for gas twice and bought sandwiches and coffee, then were on their way again. They didn’t reach the Caulden Ranch until sundown.

&

nbsp; And by then it was all over.

As soon as Amanda pulled into the service road near the pickers’ camp they could see that many of the people were gone. Hank was pale and weak, and Amanda wanted to get him to a doctor but he wouldn’t go. “I want to see your father,” he said. Amanda nodded, took his hand in hers and they started walking.

Joe Testorio saw them and came running with the news. Everything had happened within minutes. Whitey Graham had been giving one of his speeches when two cars drove up, one containing the sheriff, the district attorney and a deputy, the other car containing four deputies. The D.A. made a request for peace, but one deputy pointed out Whitey and said they had a warrant for his arrest and were taking him. The officers started making their way through the crowd.

But then something happened, Joe wasn’t sure what, but later someone said that a bench with some men standing on it had tipped. The noise and the men’s yells were enough to send the crowd into pandemonium. A deputy fired a shotgun over the crowd’s heads to quieten them. It had the opposite effect.

Three minutes later the crowd began to pull back, and on the ground lay the sheriff, the D.A., a deputy and two workers, one a boy of thirteen, all of them dead.

If possible, Hank grew a little paler when he heard the news. Amanda tightened her grip on his hand.