Standoff

CHAPTER 6

THE FBI VAN PARKED ON THE APRON OF CONCRETE between the highway and the fuel pumps was equipped with high-tech paraphernalia used for deployment, surveillance, and communication. It was a rolling command post out of Midland-Odessa that had been mobilized and driven to Rojo Flats. It had arrived within minutes of Galloway's chopper from Fort Worth.

There wasn't an airstrip in the immediate area that would accommodate an airplane larger than a crop duster. Dendy's private jet had flown to Odessa, where a charter helicopter had been standing by to whisk him to the small town. Upon his arrival, he had barged his way into the van, demanding to know exactly what the situation was and how Galloway planned to remedy it.

Dendy had made a general nuisance of himself, and Galloway had had all he could stomach of the millionaire even before Dendy began grilling him over the maneuver presently under way.

Every eye was on the television monitor, which was transmitting a live picture from a camera outside. They watched Cain enter the store, where he stood with his back to the door for a time before disappearing from view.

"What if it doesn't work?" Dendy asked. "What then?"

" 'What then' will depend on the outcome."

"You mean you don't have a contingency plan in place?

What kind of outfit are you running here, Galloway?"

They squared off. The other men in the van stood by expectantly, waiting to see who detonated first, Dendy or Galloway. Ironically, it was a statement from Sheriff Marty Montez that defused the explosive tension.

He said, "I can save you both the suspense and tell you right now that it's not going to work."

As a courtesy-and also a smart diplomatic move- Agent Galloway had invited the county sheriff to join the top-level powwow.

"Doc's no fool," Montez continued. 'You're asking for trouble, sending that rookie in there."

"Thank you, Sheriff Montez," Galloway said stiffly.

Then, as though Montez's statement had been prophetic, they heard gunshots. Two came a millisecond apart, one more several seconds later. The first two caused them all to freeze in place. The third galvanized them.

Everyone inside the van went into motion and began speaking at once.

"Christ!" Dendy bellowed.

The camera was showing them nothing. Galloway grabbed a headset so he could hear the communiques between the men in position in front of the store.

"Were those gunshots?" Dendy asked. "What's happening, Galloway? You said my daughter wouldn't be in any danger!"

Over his shoulder, Galloway shouted, "Sit down and be quiet, Mr. Dendy, or I'm going to have you physically removed from this van."

"If you fuck this up, I'll have you physically removed from this planet!"

Galloway's face turned white with wrath. "Careful, sir. You just threatened the life of a federal officer." He ordered one of his subordinate agents to remove Dendy.

He needed to know immediately who inside the store had fired at whom and whether anyone had been injured or killed. While he was trying to find out, he didn't need Dendy yelling threats at him.

Dendy boomed, "Like hell I'm leaving!"

Galloway left the overwrought father to his subordinates and turned back to the console, demanding information of the agents outside.

Tiel had watched with disbelief as Dr. Scott Cain yanked a pistol from an ankle holster and pointed it at Ronnie.

"FBI! Drop the weapon!"

Sabra had screamed.

Doc had continued to swear at Cain. "All this time we've been waiting on a doctor!" he shouted. "Instead we get you! What kind of stupid stunt is this?"

Tiel had surged to her feet, begging, "No, please no.

Don't shoot." She had feared she was about to see Ronnie Davison blown away right before her eyes.

"You're not a doctor?" the frantic young man had shrieked. "They promised us a doctor. Sabra needs a doctor."

"Drop your weapon, Davison! Now!"

"God dammit, all this time's been wasted." The veins in Doc's neck had bulged with anger. If the agent hadn't been holding a pistol, Tiel guessed that Doc would have taken him by the throat. "That girl's in trouble. Life threatening trouble. Don't any of you federal bastards get it?"

"Ronnie, do as he says," Tiel had implored. "Surrender.

Please."

"No, Ronnie, don't!" Sabra had sobbed. "Daddy's out there."

"Why don't you both put down your pistols." Although Doc's chest had been rising and falling with agitation, he had regained some composure. "Nobody has to get hurt.

We can all be reasonable, can't we?"

"No." Ronnie, resolute, had clutched the pistol grip tighter. "Mr. Dendy will have me arrested. I'll never see Sabra again."

"He's right," the girl had said.

"Maybe not," Doc had argued. "Maybe-"

"I'm giving you to the count of three to drop your weapon!" Cain had shouted, his voice cracking. He, too, it seemed, was cracking under pressure.

"Why'd you have to do this?" Ronnie had yelled at him.

"One."

"Why'd you trick us? My girlfriend is suffering. She needs a doctor. Why'd you do this?"

Tiel hadn't liked the way Ronnie's index finger was tensing around the trigger.

"Two."

"I said no! I won't give her up to Mr. Dendy."

Just as Cain had shouted "Three" and fired his pistol, Tiel grabbed a can of Wolf brand chili from the shelf nearest her and clouted him over the head with it.

He had dropped like a sack of cement. His shot went wide of his target, which had been Ronnie's chest, but it came within a hair's-breadth of Doc before striking the counter.

Reflexively Ronnie had fired his gun. The only damage that bullet did was to knock a chunk of plaster out of the far wall.

Donna had screamed, hit the floor, and covered her head with her hands, then continued screaming.

In the resulting confusion, the Mexican men had surged forward, nearly trampling Vern and Gladys in their haste.

Tiel, realizing that they intended take the agent's pistol, had kicked it beneath a freezer chest out of reach.

"Get back! Get back!" Ronnie had shouted at them. He fired again for emphasis, but aimed well above their heads. The bullet pinged into an air-conditioning vent, but it stopped their rush toward him.

Now they all remained in a frozen tableau, waiting to see what happened next, who would be the first to move, to speak.

It turned out to be Doc. "Do as he says," he ordered the two Mexicans. He held up his left hand, palm out, signaling them to move back. His right hand was clamped over his left shoulder. Blood leaked through his fingers.

"You're shot!" Tiel exclaimed.

Ignoring her, he reasoned with the two Mexican men, who were obviously reluctant to comply. "If you go charging through that door, you're liable to get a belly full of bullets."

The language as well as the logic escaped them. They understood only Doc's insistence that they remain where they were. They rebuked him in rapid-fire Spanish. Tiel picked up the word madre several times. She could only imagine the rest. However, the two did as Doc asked and skulked back to their original positions, muttering to each other and throwing hostile glares all around. Ronnie kept his pistol trained on them.

Donna was making more racket than Sabra, who was clenching her teeth to keep from crying out as a labor pain seized her. Doc ordered the cashier to stop making the god-awful noise.

"I'm not gonna live to see morning," she wailed.

"The way our luck's going, you probably will," Gladys snapped. "Now shut up."

As though her mouth had been corked, Donna's crying ceased instantly.

"Hang in there, sweetheart." Tiel had resumed her place at Sabra's side and was holding her hand through the contraction.

"I knew…" Sabra paused to pant several times. "I knew Daddy wouldn't leave it alone. I knew he would track us down."

"Don't think about him now."

"How is she?" Doc asked, joining them.

Tiel looked at his shoulder. "Are you hurt?"

He shook his head. "The bullet only grazed me. It stings, that's all." Through the tear in his sleeve, he swabbed the wound with a gauze pad, then covered it with another and asked Tiel to cut off a strip of adhesive tape.

While he held the square in place, she secured it with the tape.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Up to this point no one had given any attention to the unconscious man. Ronnie approached, transferring his pistol from one hand to the other and drying his damp palms alternately on the seat of his jeans. He hitched his chin toward Cain. "What about him?"

Tiel considered that a very good question. "I'll probably get years in prison for doing that."

Doc said to Ronnie, "I recommend that you let me drag him outside, so his buddies in that bad-ass van out there will know he's alive. If they think he's dead or wounded, it could get ugly, Ronnie."

Ronnie apprehensively glanced toward the outside and gnawed on his lower lip while considering the suggestion.

"No, no." He looked over at Vern and Gladys, who seemed to be having as good a time as two people on a theme-park thrill ride. "Find some duct tape," Ronnie told them. "I'm sure the store sells it. Bind his hands and feet."

"If you do that, you'll only be digging yourself in deeper, son," Doc warned gently.

"I don't think I could get in any deeper."

Ronnie's expression was sad, as though he was just now fully comprehending the enormity of his predicament.

What might have seemed a romantic adventure when he and Sabra ran away had turned into an incident involving the FBI and gunplay. He had committed several felonies.

He was in serious trouble, and he was intelligent enough to know it.

The elderly couple stepped over the unconscious agent. Each took an ankle. It was an effort for them, but they were able to drag him away from Sabra, giving Doc and Tiel more room in which to function.

"They're going to lock me up forever," Ronnie continued.

"But I want Sabra to be safe. I want her old man's promise that he'll let her keep our baby."

"Then let's end this here and now."

"I can't, Doc. Not before getting that guarantee from Mr. Dendy."

Doc motioned down to Sabra, who was panting through another pain with Tiel. "In the meantime-"

"We stay right here," the boy insisted.

"But she needs a-"

"Doc?" Tiel said, interrupting.

"-hospital. And soon. If you're truly worried about Sabra's welfare-"

"Doc?"

Irritated because she had twice interrupted his earnest appeal, he turned to her abruptly and asked impatiently,

"What?"

"Sabra can't go anywhere. I can see the baby."

He knelt down between Sabra's raised knees. "Thank God," he said on a relieved laugh. "The baby's turned, Sabra. I can see the head. You're crowning. A few minutes from now you'll have a baby."

The girl laughed, sounding too young to be in the jam she was in. "Is it going to be all right?"

"I think so." Doc looked at Tiel. "You'll help?"

"Tell me what to do."

"Get a few more of those pads and spread them around her. Have one of the towels handy to wrap the baby in."

He had rolled up his shirtsleeves above the elbows and was vigorously washing his hands and arms with Tiel's bottled cleanser. He then bathed them with vinegar. He passed the bottles to Tiel. "Use both liberally. But quickly."

"I don't want Ronnie watching," Sabra said.

"Sabra? Why not?"

"I mean it, Ronnie. Go away."

Doc spoke to him over his shoulder. "It might be best, Ronnie." Reluctantly the boy backed away.

In Cain's doctor's kit, Doc found a pair of gloves and pulled them on-expertly, Tiel noticed. He snapped them smartly around his wrists. "At least he did something right," he muttered. "There's a whole box of them. Get yourself a pair."

She had just managed to get the gloves on when Sabra had another contraction. "Don't bear down if you can keep from it," Doc instructed. "I don't want you to tear."

He placed his right hand on the perineum for additional support to avoid tearing, while his left hand gently rested on the baby's head. "Come on, Sabra. Pant now. Thata girl. You might move behind her," he said to Tiel. "Angle her up. Support her lower back."

He coached Sabra through the pain, and when it was over, she relaxed against Tiel's support.

"Almost there, Sabra," Doc told her in a gentle voice.

"You're doing fine. Great, in fact."

And Tiel could have said the same for him. One had to admire the calm, competent manner in which he was dealing with the frightened girl.

"Are you okay?"

Tiel had been staring at him with overt admiration, but she didn't realize he was addressing her until he glanced up. "Me? I'm fine."

"You're not going to faint or anything?"

"I don't think so." Then, because his composure was contagious, she said, "No. I won't faint."

Sabra cried out, jerked into a semi-sitting position, and grunted with the effort of expelling the baby. Tiel rubbed her lower back, wishing there was more she could do to relieve the girl's suffering.

"Is she all right?" The anxious father was ignored.

"Try not to push," Doc reminded the girl. "It'll come now without your applying additional pressure. Ride the pain. Good, good. The head's almost out."

The contraction abated and Sabra's body collapsed with fatigue. She was crying. "It hurts."

"I know." Doc spoke in a soothing voice, but unseen by Sabra, his face registered profound regret. She was bleeding profusely from tearing tissue. "You're doing fine, Sabra," he lied. "Soon you'll have your baby."

Very soon, as it turned out. After all the concern the child's slow progress had given them, in the final seconds it was eager to make its way into the world.

During the next contraction, almost before Tiel could assimilate the miracle she was witnessing, she watched the baby's head emerge facedown. Doc's hand guided it only a little before it instinctually turned sideways. When Tiel saw the newborn's face, its eyes wide open, she murmured,

"Oh my God," and she meant it literally, like a prayer, because it was an awe-inspiring, almost spiritual phenomenon to behold.

But there the miracle stopped, because the baby's shoulders still could not clear the birth canal.

"What's happening?" Ronnie asked when Sabra screamed.

The telephone rang. Donna was nearest to it and she answered. "Hello?"

"I know it hurts, Sabra," Doc said. "The next two or three contractions should do it. Okay?"

"I can't," she sobbed. "I can't."

"This guy name o' Galloway wants to know who got shot," Donna informed them. No one paid any attention to her.

"Doing great, Sabra," Doc was saying. "Get ready. Pant."

Glancing at Tiel, he said, "Be her coach."

Tiel began to pant along with Sabra as she watched Doc's hands moving around the baby's neck. Noticing her alarm, he said softly, 'Just checking to make sure the cord wasn't wrapped around it."

"Is it okay?" Sabra asked through clenched teeth.

"So far it's a textbook birth."

Tiel heard Donna telling Galloway, "Nope, he ain't dead, but he deserves to be and so does the damn fool that sent him in here." She then slammed down the receiver.

"Here we go, here we go. Your baby's here, Sabra."

Sweat was running into Doc's eyebrows from his hairline, but he seemed unaware of it. "That's it. That's the way."

Her scream would haunt Tiel's dreams for many nights to come. More tissue was torn when the child's shoulders pushed through. A small incision under local anesthetic would have spared her that agony, but there was no help for it.

The only blessing to come of it was the wriggling baby that slipped into Doc's waiting hands. "It's a girl, Sabra.

And she's a beauty. Ronnie, you have a baby daughter."

Donna, Vern, and Gladys cheered and applauded. Tiel sniffed back tears as she watched Doc tilt the infant's head down to help clear her breathing passages since they had no aspirator. Thankfully, she began crying immediately. A wide grin of relief split his austere face.

Tiel wasn't allowed to marvel for long because Doc was passing the infant to her. The newborn was so slippery she feared dropping her. But she managed to cradle her and get a towel around her. "Lay her on her mother's tummy."

Tiel did as Doc instructed.

Sabra stared at her bawling newborn with wonderment and asked in a fearful whisper, "Is she all right?"

"Her lungs certainly seem to be," Tiel said, laughing.

She ran a quick inventory. "All fingers and toes accounted for. Looks like her hair is going to be light like yours."

"Ronnie, can you see her?" Sabra called to him.

"Yeah." The boy was dividing his glance between her and the Mexicans, who seemed totally disenchanted by the wonders of birth.

"She's beautiful. Well, I mean she will be when she's all cleaned up. How're you?"

"Perfect," Sabra replied.

But she wasn't. Blood had quickly saturated the pads beneath her. Doc tried to stanch it with sanitary napkins.

"Ask Gladys to bring me some more of those. I'm afraid we're going to need them."

Tiel summoned over Gladys and gave her the assignment.

She was back in half a minute with another box of pads. "Did you get that man tied up?" Tiel asked.

"Vern's still working on him, but he won't be going anywhere anytime soon."

While Doc continued to work on Sabra, Tiel tried to distract her. "What are you going to name your daughter?"

Sabra was inspecting the infant with blatant adoration and unqualified love. "We decided on Katherine. I like the classic names."

"So do I. And I think Katherine is going to suit her."

Suddenly Sabra's face contorted with pain. "What's happening?"

"It's the placenta," Doc explained. "Where Katherine's been living the past nine months. Your uterus contracts to expel it just like it did to get Katherine on her way. It'll hurt a little, but nothing like having the baby. Once it's out, we'll clean you up and then let you rest. How does that sound?"

To Tiel he said, "Get one of those garbage sacks ready, please. I'll need to save this. It'll be examined later."

She did as asked and again distracted Sabra by talking about the baby. In a short time, Doc had the afterbirth wrapped up and out of sight, but still tethered to the baby by the cord. Tiel wanted to ask why he hadn't cut it yet, but he was busy.

A good five minutes later, he peeled off the bloody gloves, picked up the blood-pressure cuff, and wrapped it around Sabra's biceps. "How're you doing?"

"Good," she said, but her eye sockets were sunken and shadowed. Her smile was wan. "How's Ronnie holding up?"

"You should talk him into ending this, Sabra," Tiel said gently.

"I can't. Now that I've got Katherine, I can't risk my Daddy placing her up for adoption."

"He can't do that without your consent."

"He can do anything."

"What about your mother? Whose side is she on?"

"Daddy's, of course."

Doc read the gauge and released the cuff. "Try to get some rest. I'm doing my best to keep your bleeding at a minimum. I'll be asking a favor of you later on, so I'd like you to take a nap now if you can."

"It hurts. Down there."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," she said weakly. Her eyes began to close. "You were super cool, Doc."

Tiel and Doc watched as her breathing became regular and her muscles relaxed. Tiel lifted Katherine off her mother's chest. Sabra mumbled a protest but was too exhausted to put up much resistance. "I'm only going to clean her up a little. When you wake up, you can have her right back. Okay?"

Tiel took the girl's silence for permission to take the infant away. "What about the cord?" she asked Doc.

"I've been waiting until it was safe."

The cord had stopped pulsing and was no longer ropy, but thinner and flatter. He tied it tightly in two places with shoestrings, leaving about an inch between them. Tiel turned her head aside when he cut it.

The placenta now completely free of the baby, Doc tightly sealed the trash bag and once again relied on Gladys's help, asking her to put the bag in the refrigerator before continuing to minister to the new mother.

Tiel opened the box of pre moistened towelettes. "Do you think it's safe to use these on the baby?"

"I suppose. That's what they're for," Doc replied.

Although Katherine put up little peeps of protest, Tiel sponged her with the wipes, which smelled pleasantly of baby powder. Having had no experience with newborns, she was nervous about the task. She also continued to monitor Sabra's gentle breathing.

"I applaud her courage," she remarked. "I also can't help but sympathize with them. From what I know of Russell Dendy, I'd have run away from him too."

"You know him?"

"Only through the media. I wonder if he was instrumental in sending Cain in here?"

"Why'd you hit him over the head?"

"Referring to my attack on a federal agent?" she asked, making a grim joke of it. "I was trying to prevent a disaster."

"I commend your swift action and only wish I'd thought of it."

"I had the advantage of standing behind him." She wrapped Katherine in a fresh towel and held her against her chest for warmth. "I suppose Agent Cain was only doing his duty. And it took a certain amount of bravery to walk into a situation like this. But I didn't want him to shoot Ronnie. And, just as earnestly, I didn't want Ronnie to shoot him. I acted on impulse."

"And weren't you just a little pissed to discover that Cain wasn't a doctor?"

She looked at him and smiled conspiratorially. "Don't tell."

"I promise."

"How'd you know he wasn't a medical man? What gave him away?"

"Sabra's vitals weren't his first concern. For instance, he didn't take her blood pressure. He didn't seem to grasp the seriousness of her condition, so I began to suspect him and tested his knowledge. When the cervix is dilated eight to ten centimeters, all systems are go. He flunked the test."

"We both might get sentenced to years of hard labor in federal prison."

"Better that than letting him shoot Ronnie."

"Amen to that." She glanced down at the infant, who was now sleeping. "How about the baby? Is she okay?"

"Let's take a look."

Tiel lay Katherine on her lap. Doc folded back the towel and examined the tiny newborn, who wasn't even as long as his forearm. His hands looked large and masculine against her baby pinkness, but their touch was tender, especially when he taped the tied-off cord to her tummy.

"She's small," he observed. "A couple weeks premature, I'd guess. She seems okay, though. Breathing all right. But she should be in a hospital neonatal unit. It's important that we keep her warm. Try and keep her head covered."

"All right."

He was leaning close to Tiel. Close enough for her to distinguish each tiny line that radiated from the outer corners of his eyes. The irises of his eyes were grayish green, the lashes very black, several shades darker than his medium brown hair. His chin and jaw were showing stubble, which was attractive. Through the tear in his shirtsleeve, she noticed that blood had soaked through the makeshift bandage.

"Does your shoulder hurt?"

When he raised his head, they almost bumped noses.

Their eyes were engaged for several seconds before he turned his head to check his shoulder wound. He looked at it as though he'd forgotten it was there. "No. It's fine."

Hastily he added, "Better put one of those diapers on her, then wrap her up again."

Tiel ineptly diapered the baby while Doc checked on the new mother.

"Is all that blood…" Tiel purposefully left the question incomplete, afraid that Ronnie would overhear. Since Tiel had never witnessed a birth, she didn't know if the amount that Sabra had bled was normal or cause for alarm. To her, it appeared an inordinate amount, and if she was reading Doc right, he was concerned.

"Much more than there should be." He kept his voice low for the same reason she had. Draping the sheet over Sabra's thighs, he began massaging her abdomen. "Sometimes this helps curb the bleeding," he said in reply to Tiel's unspoken question.

"If it doesn't?"

"It can't go on for long before we've got real problems.

I wish I could've done an episiotomy, saved her this."

"Don't blame yourself. Under the circumstances and given the conditions, you did amazingly well, Dr. Stanwick."