His mother was on top of him before either of us could speak again, sobbing his name into the side of his head. Astrid had a hand on her back and was telling her tolet him breathe,easy, easy, let him breathe.
I picked the phone up off the rock.
"Dispatch. Patient responsive. Spontaneous respirations. Pulse strong, color returning. Mother on scene. We are good."
The dispatcher told me the rig was three minutes out.
I told her three minutes was good. I told her to keep the line open. I put the phone back on the rock.
Astrid sat back on her heels in the gravel.
She wiped her hands on her jeans like she'd just changed a tire.
The rig came down the fire road in three minutes and forty seconds.
Mendoza had been the lieutenant on my shift the last year, and Halsey was at the wheel. Mendoza saw me on the gravel and clocked me the way a firefighter clocked somebody he knew in a place he didn't expect.
"Ford."
"Mendoza."
"What've we got?"
I gave him the version they needed. Five-year-old, six on the long end. Submerged at the dock. Civilian on scene got him out of the water at around forty seconds, cleared his airway,two rescue breaths, and started compressions. I came in and took over compressions about ten seconds later. Two full cycles. Spontaneous cough and respiration. Pulse strong, color back, breathing room air.
"Civilian got him out?"
"Yeah."
He looked at Astrid, who was standing at the water with her back to us, arms folded tight across her chest.
"Civilian has training?"
"She's a vet."
They loaded the boy. The mother went up in the back with him. She turned at the rear door and looked across the bank at Astrid, and Astrid lifted her chin once.
Halsey nodded at me on his way around to the driver's side.
"Ford."
"Halsey."
He paused with one hand on the door handle and tipped his chin toward Astrid. "That your woman?"
"That's a friend."
He drew the syllable out—the firehouse syllable that meantI'm not arguing with you, but I'm not believing you either—and went around to the door.
The rig closed up. The lights went on. The siren came on a beat later as they cleared the fire road.
The bank was suddenly very quiet.
Moose walked over to Astrid and pressed his head against her hip. She put her hand on top of his without looking at him.
I walked over and stood next to her at the edge of the water.
She was wet through. Jeans dark to the waist. Hair stuck in a wet rope along the side of her face. The water was forty-eight degrees in October. She'd been in it ninety seconds, maybe two minutes, and the only reason she wasn't already shaking was the adrenaline holding her upright.
