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“Well…” He scratched his head and Camille almost screamed with impatience. “I’ve got a pistol,” he started dubiously.
“Get it and fire it as many times as it will,” she commanded.
He did as he was told. Obviously the pistol was already loaded. He brought it outside and fired into the air six times. On the still atmosphere of this Sunday afternoon, the shots resounded and echoed interminably.
He was a mere dot on the horizon when Camille first spotted him, but within seconds, Zack and his mount took shape as he came thundering over the pasture.
He saw Camille while he was still far away, and she could read the puzzled expression on his face. Then as he got nearer, she saw anguished knowledge dawn on his face as he realized the only emergency that would bring her out to find him and force her to go so far as to alert him with the pistol. He dismounted before the mare came to a complete stop and hit the ground running.
“Dad?” he asked, already knowing her answer.
“Yes, Zack. We’re to go to the hospital immediately.”
“Get in.” He indicated the passenger side of her car. “Ernie, rub down the horse please. Get someone to drive the pickup home for me.”
He climbed behind the steering wheel, scooted the seat back several inches to accommodate his long legs, and jerked the car into gear. If Camille had thought she drove fast to get to the plantation, she felt as if her car were flying under Zack’s piloting. The landscape was a blur. He cut her time by half on their return trip to Natchez. She was once again thankful for the small amount of traffic.
“What happened?” he asked as he pulled up to a stoplight, cursing when he saw that he must yield to a car full of teen-agers followed by a station wagon with a large family in it.
“I really don’t know, Zack. He had a heart attack. Dearly called me at the dowager house. When I reached the kitchen, he was lying on the floor. Simon was straddling him and pushing on his chest. They had already called the ambulance, though it had
n’t arrived when I left. I came to get you immediately.”
“Was he… Did you see if…” His voice cracked and Camille impulsively reached over and rested her hand on his thigh. She had dreaded this question, but she knew that she must answer him honestly.
“When I first came in, he wasn’t breathing. Just before I left, Simon started his pulse and he took a gasping breath.”
“Oh, God,” Zack groaned and banged his fist against the steering wheel of the car.
They entered the emergency driveway of the hospital and Zack parked in a vacant place near the door. He and Camille practically ran through the glass door that opened automatically as they stepped onto the rubber mat in front of it. Dearly and Simon jumped up from a green vinyl couch when they saw them. Zack was striding purposefully toward the treatment rooms when Simon grasped his arm and stopped him.
His voice was low, calm, but urgent. “Zack, they won’t let you in there, and you can’t help anyone by getting in their way. They know what they’re doing. Please wait out here with us. Dr. Daniels is already with him. He was here when we arrived.”
Camille looked at the rigid lines around Zack’s mouth and saw them soften just a bit. The body that had been pulled as taut as a violin string relaxed, then slumped imperceptibly. If she hadn’t had a hand on his arm, she wouldn’t even have noticed the change. He gave credence to the wisdom of Simon’s words.
“What happened?” Zack asked them with the same economy of words that he had used to ask Camille earlier.
Simon didn’t answer. Dearly explained the circumstances that had brought them all here. “I was in the kitchen reading through some recipe books when he came in and told me that he had an upset stomach and asked for a bicarbonate of soda. I thought that he looked… bad. His coloring and all. I turned around to fix him the soda and then I heard him collapse on the floor. I screamed for Simon, who was there within seconds.”
Simon picked up the story. “I was already downstairs. We had been watching the ball game on the television in his bedroom. He was restless and seemed unable to relax. I didn’t think too much about it when he said he was going downstairs for something, but after he left, I got a feeling that he hadn’t felt well and didn’t want to say anything. I followed him down and then heard Dearly call me.”
Zack put his hand on the man’s shoulder and clamped it tightly. “Thank you, Simon. Whatever happens, I’m grateful to you for being there when he needed you. How was he when they brought him in?”
Dearly was quietly weeping now and Camille led her to the plastic sofa again but never diverted her attention away from the conversation between the two men. She watched Zack closely.
“He wasn’t conscious, Zack, but he had a pulse again. Not as strong as we’d like it, but there just the same. They gave him oxygen and he was breathing fairly well. They took him into that room”—he indicated one of the rooms down the hall—“and no one has come out since.”
Zack nodded grimly and walked toward the room, though without the imperious purpose he had shown moments before. Simon went to sit beside Dearly, and Camille crossed to Zack. She didn’t touch him; she didn’t even look at him. She only let him known by her presence that she was available if he wanted her.
They waited for over an hour in tense silence. Zack paced the floor while Camille leaned against the wall. Dearly and Simon sat talking softly together on the sofa. They watched the tragic parade through a city hospital’s emergency ward. A distraught couple brought in a little girl with three burned fingers. Two teen-aged boys had run together while playing basketball, and each sported a bloody nose and swollen eyes. They were all treated and left, and still Zack had heard nothing about his father’s condition. Though nurses hurried in and out of the room, they would divulge no information, much to Zack’s growing impatience.
When the words they longed to hear finally came, it happened so suddenly that the agonizing minutes of waiting vanished in that instant.
The door to the treatment room swung open, and a gray-haired man with horn-rimmed glasses came out, saw Zack, and extended his hand as he strode toward them. Zack clasped the hand as if it were a lifeline—and indeed it was—and asked the important question with his eyes.
“Your father’s resting now, Zack, and is—for the present—out of danger.”
Zack raked a trembling hand over his eyes and then through his hair before saying gruffly, “Thanks, Doc.”
