Chapter Twenty
Just after noon, Marybeth looked up anxiously in the waiting room as Dr. Ralston pushed through the double doors from the surgery center.
Ralston was still in her scrubs. Her hair was covered with a plastic surgical cap, and a mask was pulled down on her neck.
Joe had been in surgery for four and a half hours, and Marybeth had been beside herself the entire time.
She tried to instantly read the doctor’s expression for an early sign of how the procedure had gone. It was one of the most profound few seconds of her life, and everything, it seemed, depended on what came next.
“The surgery was successful,” Ralston announced. “We removed the bullet, patched up his head, and he appears to be resting comfortably.”
Then Dr. Ralston nodded and afforded Marybeth a brief smile, which Marybeth involuntarily echoed. She was flooded with relief, and she wiped away a tear.
“Thank the Lord,” Marybeth said, expelling the breath she realized she’d been holding inside. “And thank you.”
“It was remarkable, really,” Ralston said as she sat down next to Marybeth and placed her hand on her knee.
“Your husband was very, very lucky. The bullet was intact and we couldn’t find any fragmentation.
It was lodged in the dura mater on the underside of his skull.
Amazingly, the bullet didn’t hit any major blood vessels, so the post-op swelling and bleeding are minimal.
Those are two things we always watch for. ”
“It seems too good to be true,” Marybeth said. “I mean, he was shot in the head. But he’s going to make it?”
“All signs are positive,” Dr. Ralston said. “So much has to do with luck and circumstances.”
To demonstrate, Ralston raised her chin toward the ceiling and placed her index finger a few inches above her left eyebrow.
“The bullet entered here,” she said. “Either your husband looked up at the exact millisecond the round hit him or the windshield glass deflected it upward. The trajectory is all-important here, and we may never know what exactly happened. But the glass definitely affected the velocity of the bullet itself, so it didn’t exit the skull and cause more damage.
The bullet lodged a few inches from where it entered. ”
“This is so good to hear,” Marybeth said. “Joe isn’t known for his luck.”
“Well, he had it this time,” Ralston said.
“We all feel pretty good about it as well. There are so many factors involved that we need to account for: the bullet entry and exit site, the area of the brain damaged by the trauma, the caliber of the bullet and the weapon, the range of the gunshot distance…”
“So there’s no brain damage at all?” Marybeth asked.
“I didn’t say that,” Ralston corrected. “The trajectory of the bullet clipped the top of the cerebrum—the frontal lobe. It didn’t tear it up like it could have, but it definitely plowed a small path.”
Marybeth shook her head. “What will that mean?”
Dr. Ralston raised her eyebrows. “I can’t say for sure. The human brain is like how Churchill described the Soviet Union: a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. But believe me when I say I’ve seen much, much worse damage.”
Marybeth again released a long sigh of relief. Then she briefly closed her eyes and thought about what Dr. Ralston had told her yesterday.
“The frontal lobe,” she said. “That’s where personality characteristics are located, right? Things like decision-making, knowing the difference between right and wrong, ethics and morality?”
“Yes.”
“Do we know…”
“We don’t,” Dr. Ralston said. “The next few days are critical as he emerges from the coma. There’s a possibility some of his functions may be affected. Neurological recovery is different for every patient. It may require several months or even years.
“Or,” Ralston said with a squeeze to Marybeth’s hand, “he may just wake up and wonder where he’s been the last few days.”
“Can I see him?”
“Give us an hour or so to get him into his recovery room,” Ralston said. “Then you can be with Lucky Joe when he wakes up.”
“Thank you again,” Marybeth said. “You saved his life—and mine.”
Dr. Ralston flushed and looked quickly away. “It’s nice to hear you say that. I appreciate it. We’ve got a great team here, and everyone performed very well.”
“You are just so wonderful,” Marybeth said while embracing Dr. Ralston. “We’re so fortunate that you’re here.”
Ralston wiped a tear from her cheek. “How embarrassing, but thank you,” she said. “I guess neurosurgeons are people, too.”
She stood up. “Now get some rest,” she said to Marybeth. “I know you probably haven’t slept much since you got here.”
“I will,” Marybeth said. “But first I need to call our daughters and give them the good news.”
“Of course, but please don’t overdo it,” Ralston cautioned. “There could still be complications. We’re not completely out of the woods yet.”
—
Sheridan felt her phone vibrate in her pocket and she drew it out and read the screen.
“It’s Mom,” she announced. April and Lucy looked up anxiously from the kitchen table, where they’d gathered. The three sisters had come together just minutes before. They were eager to share what they’d learned, but the call from Marybeth put all that temporarily on pause.
“Is he out of surgery?” Lucy asked Sheridan.
“Hold on,” Sheridan said as she connected the call.
“Sheridan, are your sisters with you?” Marybeth asked.
“They’re both here.”
“That’s fantastic. Please put this on speaker so I can talk to you all at the same time.”
Sheridan did so, and held the phone out. The anticipation level within the room was beyond belief.
“I just talked to Dr. Ralston,” Marybeth said.
“Your dad is out of surgery. The doctor said everything went very, very well. It sounds like your dad is fortunate because of where the bullet entered his skill. She said damage to his brain could be minimal. We can’t get too excited yet, but this is the best news we could have hoped for. ”
Sheridan found herself beaming. It was as if a weight had lifted from her shoulders. Lucy wiped away sudden tears. April whooped and pumped her fist as if her team had just won the game with a last-second shot.
Then all three sisters started asking questions at once.
Sheridan asked her mother about the wound itself, and how it was possible that there was very little brain damage.
Lucy asked how long the recovery process would take, and if there would be lingering problems of any kind.
April asked how soon Joe would be able to regain consciousness and reveal what exactly had happened that morning two days ago.
“Hold it,” Marybeth said. “Slow down. Let’s do this one at a time.”
Sheridan joined her sisters and she placed her phone on the tabletop.
For the next twenty minutes, Marybeth briefed them on what Dr. Ralston had told her and she tried to answer the questions as best she could.
When they were through and Marybeth said she had been given the okay to visit Joe in his recovery room, Sheridan said, “Mom—there’s something we need to tell you. We waited until now because you had enough on your plate.”
Marybeth hesitated before asking, “And what is that?”
“We spent the morning interviewing everybody at the three ranches,” Sheridan said. “Lucy went to the Double D, April went out to see Lisa and Lainie McElwee, and I drove out to the Bucholz place. We did it all at once and we’re about to compare notes and come up with some theories.”
“You all went there by yourselves?” Marybeth asked, clearly alarmed.
“And we all came back in one piece,” Lucy said.
“Although it was close,” April added.
Sheridan thought it best at the moment not to weigh in with what she’d discovered.
“I’m glad I didn’t know about this,” Marybeth said. “I would have tried to talk you out of it.”
“That’s why we didn’t tell you,” April said with a laugh.
Sheridan said, “We’ve invited Nate and Sheriff Sondergard to come by tonight after the three of us have discussed everything we learned. We’ll see if they agree with our conclusions.”
“I’m glad Nate is coming,” Marybeth said. “I don’t know much about the new sheriff.”
“It’s cool,” April cut in. “He’s sweet on Sheridan. He’ll do what she tells him to do.”
Sheridan flipped her sister off, but silently so her mother wouldn’t know, and April grinned diabolically.
“Seriously,” Sheridan said to the phone, “do you have any idea when Dad will regain consciousness? We have so many questions to ask him about what happened.”
“So do I,” Marybeth said. “And no, I don’t know. The doctor couldn’t say for sure. And we don’t know how much he’ll be able to remember. All I can tell you is that I’ll be there when he does wake up.”
“What if he’s all out of it?” April asked. “What if he’s all goofy, you know? Like a five-year-old?”
Sheridan and Lucy shot her a look.
“Anything is possible,” Marybeth said with a sigh. “We simply won’t know until it happens. He’s been lucky thus far and we can only hope and pray that it continues.”
“I’ll say another prayer for him,” Lucy offered.
“Thank you, sweetie,” Marybeth said.
—
When they concluded the call, Sheridan sat back in her chair and looked at her sisters. “We’ve got a lot to talk about before Nate and Steve come over. So what do you two think?”
“It was the McElwees,” April said. “They’re running a big-ass drug distribution center out there on the ranch.
There are at least three armed cartel guys hanging around.
Not only that, they’re doing something really weird to their cattle and the resident elk herd.
I think Dad figured out what they were doing and was headed out there to get more proof so he could nail them.
They knew about it, so they ambushed him. ”
“You might be wrong,” Lucy said to April.
“It could have been the Thompsons. Michael Thompson is up to his eyeballs in at least two big scandals, and he needed Dad to sign off on some kind of development. His foreman, Clay Hutmacher, is in it with him, even though he was supposed to be Dad’s friend.
And knowing Dad the way we do, he wouldn’t have a problem telling Thompson that they might not see eye to eye.
Thompson is desperate, and he might have hired some shooters to make sure things went his way. ”
Sheridan paused before saying, “I put my money on the Bucholzes. John has some kind of scheme going on that Dad might have bumbled onto. John and Shelby are desperate, too, but they seem to think they’re about to hit some kind of jackpot.
And they have some big secrets they’re keeping, including the fact that they’ve got John’s pervert uncle imprisoned in one of their cabins.
The guy is chained up there, and if he tries to escape, his head will literally explode. ”
“My God,” Lucy said. “We’ve got a lot to talk about. I think I’ll need a glass of wine now.”
“Get two glasses,” Sheridan said.
“I’ll get the whiskey,” April announced.