Chapter 23
After the chaos on the barge, John dropped the anchor again before the vessel ran aground on the riverbank. He shut off the engines, and the barge slowly stopped moving.
Maggie and Parker used one of the boats to paddle over to the barge and collect Teddy, who was slowly waking.
“My head is killing me,” Teddy said.
“Pain means you’re alive,” John said, reassuring the young man.
John helped Teddy to the side of the barge, where Parker and Maggie tied off the canoe they rowed over.
Maggie collided with John, wrapping him in a tight hug. “Thank God you’re okay.”
“That was some good shooting,” John said. “You saved me.”
“Yeah, well, I thought I’d return the favor,” Maggie said, smiling.
Parker walked to the barge’s edge and stared down into the water. “I didn’t see him surface on our side of the river. He might have gotten off somewhere else.” He planted his hands on his hips and turned to face John. “That was a smart move with the crane.”
“Not smart enough, apparently,” John said.
“We need to get you and your family in a safe house,” Parker said.
John laughed. “Yeah, right.”
Parker stared at John with a look bordered on sympathy and anger.
“You really don’t get it, do you? There is no way Dillon Elliot is going to forget you.
You just cost him his fortune, and that’s not something he’s going to forgive.
Until he is buried six feet under, he will be thinking about you and your family. ”
“Then he’s going to have to get through everything my family has set up to defend ourselves,” John said. “I can promise you he would never make it through that gauntlet.”
Parker dropped the subject. It was clear they were never going to see eye to eye on the matter, so for now, they dropped it.
John and Maggie helped Teddy over to the canoe while Parker walked the barge to make sure everything was secure.
“I’ll stay here with the money,” Parker said. “I don’t think Dillon is going to try to come back for it now, but I don’t want to give him an easy opening.”
“We will come back for you,” John said.
Parker nodded his thanks, and once Teddy was secure, John rowed them toward the shoreline.
“Is Sydney okay?” Teddy asked.
“She’s fine,” Maggie answered.
Teddy relaxed at that news.
“We’ll make sure to look you over when we get to the cabin,” Maggie said.
As they reached the halfway point between the barge and the shoreline, John had the sudden realization that all of this was too surreal. He had finally been reunited with his wife, and all that was left was to go to the cabin.
For a moment, he felt like it was too easy, and then his feeling was justified by the sound of a gunshot.
John forced Maggie and Teddy low in the canoe and then aimed his pistol at the shoreline, searching for the shooter. There had only been one gunshot, and as John braced for more, he found Dillon standing at the top of the hill from the riverbank.
Dillon lowered the rifle, and even from the long distance, John saw the smile on his busted and broken face. But while John thought that Dillon was going to shoot at them from the canoe, he didn’t. He simply lowered the weapon and sprinted away.
At first, John didn’t understand, but that quickly changed when he heard his wife’s voice.
“John,” Maggie said.
John glanced down and saw Maggie’s face, which was a ghostly pale, and then he saw the blood on her shirt.
“No,” John said, whispered.
John immediately scooped Maggie into his arms and applied pressure to the wound. The bullet had gone into her lower left side, but there was no exit wound in the back. The bullet was still inside, and blood was still spreading.
“John, it’s really cold,” Maggie said.
John immediately jumped into action. He pulled off Teddy’s shirt, which was the only shirt that wasn’t wet, and he immediately pressed it over the wound.
“Teddy, I need you to focus,” John said, and he pulled the young man over to his wife and positioned his hands on the gunshot wound. “I need you to keep as much pressure on the wound as you possibly can. Okay?”
Teddy was still clearly in pain, but he nodded with confidence.
“Good,” John said, and then he moved back to the oars and paddled as fast as he could until the boat hit the riverbank.
John quickly scooped his wife up into his arms and stepped out of the boat. He needed to get her to a vehicle and get them to the cabin as quickly as possible.
“Teddy!” John shouted. “Take the boat back and get Parker and tell him to come to the house, now!”
John didn’t have time to wait to see if Teddy understood him or not, but when he reached the top of the hill, he glanced over his shoulder and saw Teddy almost all the way back to the barge. The kid was tougher than he looked.
“John… I…”
“It’s okay, Maggie,” John said. “Everything is going to be all right. I’m going to get you help.”
“John…”
“Try not to talk,” John said. “You need to conserve your energy.”
Maggie didn’t speak after that, and John never stopped sprinting toward the main house, well aware that Dillon was still out there, but so far, he was nowhere to be seen.
John was gassed when he neared the house, but when he saw the taillights of a truck peel out of the farm’s parking lot, he knew it was Dillon fleeing the scene.
John veered toward the farmhouse and burst through the front door, where he laid Maggie on the kitchen table. He would have put her on the couch, but he needed a surface where he could apply good pressure to the wound.
John needed a first aid kit, and he rushed to the kitchen in search of one.
He ripped open cabinets, flinging dishes and canned goods off shelves in search of anything he could use.
With no first aid kit, John settled for some clean dish rags and duct tape.
He then found a bottle of high-proof alcohol and rushed back over to the kitchen table.
Maggie was completely still, and for a moment, John was afraid she wasn’t breathing. When John checked the shirt he had placed on Maggie to help stop the bleeding, it was soaked in blood. If she lost much more, she would go into shock.
“Maggie? Are you still with me?” John asked and then watched Maggie’s eyelids flutter as she struggled to remain conscious. “Stay with me, baby. Stay with me.”
John tilted Maggie onto her side so he could access the wound on her back. He poured the alcohol over the wound to help sterilize it and then wiped away some of the blood. Maggie grunted in pain, but John considered that a good sign, since she was still awake.
John placed the fresh towels on the wound and reapplied pressure.
He then closed his eyes and tried to think of what needed to happen next.
Aside from stopping the bleeding, he needed to get the bullet out of her.
In order to do so, he would need to find tweezer-like tools and make sure they were sterilized.
John didn’t know this farm as well as Sydney, and he wished she were here. Perhaps it had been a mistake to separate his family, but he supposed hindsight was always twenty-twenty.
Just when John wasn’t sure of what else to do, he heard Teddy and Parker shouting in the fields.
“I’m in the house!” John shouted.
Parker was out of breath, and Teddy couldn’t even stand up straight when they joined John inside the house.
“We need to get the bullet out,” John said.
To Parker’s credit, he remained more focused on helping Maggie than he was on Dillon’s escape. “What do you need from me?”
John instructed Parker to find the necessary tools to remove the bullet. “Teddy, do you know where Parker could find something like that?”
Teddy nodded, still trying to catch his breath. “There should be a first aid kit in the barn. I’ll go grab it.”
“Take Parker with you,” John said. “I don’t want you passing out on the way there.”
John didn’t mean to sound harsh, but they couldn’t afford any mistakes. The blood loss was starting to slow down, but Maggie was still struggling to remain awake.
“John,” Maggie said, her voice surprisingly strong.
“It’s okay, Maggie,” John said. “We’re going to get you all fixed up.”
“I want you to know this isn’t your fault,” Maggie said.
Maggie’s eyes were open, but there was no color in her face. Her lips were pale, and she could barely focus on John. She was slowly losing consciousness.
“Don’t talk like that,” John said. “Everything is going to turn out just fine. We’re going to get you all patched up and back to normal.”
Maggie smiled weakly. “You always had a way of making everything sound better than it was. It was one of the reasons I married you.”
John teared up.
“I love you, John,” Maggie said. “And I’ve loved our family, the life we built together. I love our children. Tell them… Tell them… I…”Maggie’s eyes fluttered, and then she trembled and was overtaken by a seizure.
“Maggie!” John said.
All John could do was keep his wife steady while she worked through the seizure. The shock of the blood loss had overwhelmed her system.
John kept Maggie’s head steady and turned her onto her side so she didn’t swallow her tongue.
She might’ve been the nurse, but John had been paying attention to everything she had taught him.
They were a team, and despite having the odds stacked against them, he wasn’t ready to give up.
Until his last heartbeat, John would never quit.