Chapter 19

I’ll say one thing about the medics at the Cody hospital. They know what they are doing. They had Lois upstairs and in surgery before they had my boots off.

I denied that I had any problems, until the Doctor, with a smirk on his face, told me, “Fine, Mr. Reynolds. If you’re OK, go ahead and walk out.”

I didn’t even get a step in. As soon as I put weight on my leg, that knee fell apart on me. If it hadn’t been for the two nurses standing by, I would have been a puddle of pain on that floor.

The next 3 hours were a series of ultrasounds, x-rays, and Doctors poking and prodding. The final verdict came in. Good point. Nothing was broken. Bad point. It was a severe sprain. The Doctors wanted me to spend at least that night in the hospital for close observation. But after that, I could go home. I didn’t mention where home was.

After all the poking and prodding, they allowed Suzy and Jim to come into the room. It was while Suzy and I were reintroducing ourselves that we were joined by a new medic.

“Mr. Reynolds? I am Doctor Philips. Before we get started, I’ll let you know that your friend, Lois, was in bad shape. She probably wouldn’t have made it if it hadn’t been the first aid she received. It was still touch and go in the OR. She is going to be laid up for quite a while, But, barring any infections, we expect a full recovery.”

“Now to your situation, I am your Orthopedist. We need to talk about your knees.” He turned to Suzy, “You must be the next of kin? Ms. Williams?” Suzy nodded, and he turned to Jim. “I don’t know who you are, sir.” He looked over his shoulder at me. “Is it OK for him to be here? We need to discuss your medical condition.”

“It’s OK, Doc. This is Mr. Kidman. He’s a close friend. I have no problem with him being here.”

“Very well.” He paused for a moment and consulted the chart he was carrying. “Well, I’ve got mostly good news, Sir. I think we can avoid surgery at this point. I know that you are scheduled to spend the night with us, but I would like to keep you for a few more days. I want to take some more pictures, something more detailed. That will confirm my original diagnosis.”

“Now for the bad news. Your knee is wrecked. Any more skydiving is out. One more twist the wrong way, and you’ll be using a walker for the rest of your life.”

“I don’t think I’ll be doing any more jumping, Sir. This wasn’t a planned event. I had to jump from a moving helicopter. I seem to have forgotten my airborne roll over the years. That’s when I blew out the knee.”

He sat there for a moment. “Mr. Reynolds, I can’t stress this enough. Another event like this WILL be the last one. You will also have to deal with arthritis issues in about 15 or 20 years, if not sooner.”

“But we’ll worry about that when the time comes. For now, let’s free up this room and get you up on the floor.”

As if they had been waiting for the cue, two nurses came in and started getting me ready to move. In no time at all, I was situated comfortably in a room. Suzy and Jim had followed us, and between the two of them had staked out their resting spots. In Suzy’s case, it was for the duration.

While we were deciding what we were going to have for dinner, one of the floor nurses came in. “Mr. Reynolds, there are some Policemen out here. They would like to speak to you.”

“Might as well get this over with.” I muttered to myself, in a louder voice, one I hoped the badges could hear, “By all means, nurse. I’ve got nothing to hide.” Meanwhile, I asked Suzy to get ahold of my attorney, Steve Whitcomb. Just in case. As the cops were coming in, she was heading out with one of the burner phones Id picked up what seemed like a century ago.

“Good afternoon Mr. Reynolds. I am deputy sheriff Henderson Jordan. I want to ask you a few questions regarding the lady that was brought in with you? She had a gunshot wound to the chest, and we’d like to know how that happened. I know that she is one of the Bar T hands, works for Bruce Taggart. Did this happen on his property?”

“Sheriff Jordan, I am more than willing to tell you everything, but I’m not sure what I am allowed to tell you.”

“I see. I guess you are going to tell me that there are federal security considerations involved?”

“Yes, there are, and you know it. How else could we have had access to a Blackhawk helicopter?”

“Yeah, according to the Blackhawk crew, they got a call from their bosses. Telling them that a couple of VIPs were going to contact them for a hush hush rescue. That’s all I could get out of them. Their boss is even more close-mouthed.”

“I think I can clear up any questions you have, sheriff.” A new voice came from the doorway. It was Brian Johnson. “If you’d like to come with me, Sheriff, I answer any questions you might have.” Brian turned to the doorway and motioned the sheriff and his deputy to proceed him.

Jim looked at me and said, “It looks like we dodged a bullet there, Matt.”

Suzy said, “Oh ye of little faith.”

“Jim, you needn’t have worried. First off, we were in the right. second off, this wouldn’t have been the first time I’ve dueled with local law.”

While we had been waiting for Brian to return, Bruce and Marsha had shown up. I was a tad nervous about this meeting. I wasn’t sure how Bruce would take it with Lois and his line shack getting shot up. So I was surprised when he came in grinning. “Matt, how the heck are you. your knee looks like hell.”

“I’ll survive, Bruce. But I’ve got to apologize for what has happened. If you give me a chance, I’ll get the line shack cleaned up.”

“Don’t worry about it, Matt. It’s already been taken care of. Besides, the FBI has their forensics and evidence teams are going over everything with a fine-toothed comb.”

That was when Brian rejoined us. “Well, that’s taken care of. I don’t think he’ll be pursuing this any further. I assured him that I would get a copy of my report to him and promised to meet with his boss. I offered to phrase my report so that he ended up looking like Frank Hamer.”

Bruce was having too much fun with this, and I was getting suspicious. “So, Agent Johnson, Matt is worried about my line cabin. He thinks he is responsible for getting it cleaned up.”

Quickly clueing into the joke, Brian started playing along. “Well, if you think you can get a better deal than we offered, I guess you could go for it. We’ll just take the new one back to the lot.”