the village dock, knowing Gus would be waiting for her, dressed in a plaid, long-sleeved shirt and a faded baseball cap. Gus had become like a second father to her.
The fog had thickened the closer she got to town, but hugging the shore turned out to be a bad idea; it was too shallow. She ventured out as far as she dared, but it wasn’t close enough, and the next thing she knew, she heard a boat motor coming out of the fog to her right, and suddenly, the boat was in her face.
***
Sheriff Dave Chastain screeched into the parking lot at bayou horse preserve, gravel flying, getting the attention of a group of volunteers and not all of it good.
“What the hell does young Chastain think he’s doing, throwing gravel all over our trucks?”
“He looks upset,” someone added.
Amber was in the office, inputting data on the computer, when she saw Dave running to the group, so she got up to see what was going on.
“Where’s Justin?” he cried.
Amber ran out to meet him. “Dave, what is it?”
That was when he lost it, his hands on his knees, he burst into tears. “Maggie has been in a terrible boating accident,” he said. “She has a head injury. They’re airlifting her to New Orleans. I need to find Justin and take him to her.”
A volunteer stepped forward. “He’s with Grace up in the highlands.” It was a misnomer, only forty-four feet above sea level, but that was high for the bayou. He walked over to a horse tied up at the fence. “Take Mabel here, and she’ll lead you to Justin.”
Dave got on the horse and took off in a gallop.
“Why didn’t I know Dave could ride?”
“Can’t everyone?”
The two men returned in fifteen minutes, Justin beside himself and Dave almost as bad. They handed the horses off to the volunteers, and Dave kissed Amber this time. She walked with them to the patrol car.
“I have to take my truck,” Justin said, hesitating.
“I’ll follow you in, and we can drive to New Orleans together.”
“Okay,” he replied, wiping his face with his arm.
“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” Dave asked.
He nodded and left for his truck. Amber watched them pull away. Her heart was thumping in her chest so powerfully that it almost hurt. How awful. She wondered what the injuries were. Dave had said head injuries.
They left the patrol car at the station, and Dave got into Justin’s truck. It made more sense for him to drive; he went into New Orleans almost weekly for supplies for the clinic.
“I just thought of her mother,” Justin said.
“Gus is informing the family. I’m not sure Gus is going to survive this one. Evidently, she was worried about the fog and called Gus to let him know she was going to wait for the fog to lift. He said he told her to hug the shore and she’d be okay.”
“It’s not his fault,” Justin said. “Gus loves Maggie. What happened though?”
“Ed Fontenot was out fishing, and he didn’t see her. He rammed right into her. He didn’t know what he hit until the hardware from the bimini flew up at him.”
Justin’s shoulders shook as he tried to hold it together. Suddenly, he wished he was alone so he could scream. It was apparent why people informed of terrible news fell to their knees. That kind of knowledge took over your body. His bowels rumbled as his mouth filled with water, the need to throw up overpowering, so he pulled over and quickly opened the door.
Dave rubbed his brother’s back, crying. It was a clear indication of the depth of his despair.
When he was finished, he sat up and rummaged in the back for a box of wipes. He was a vet, of course he’d have something like that.
“You’re always prepared,” Dave said.
“In case I get horseshit on my hands,” he said, his voice breaking.
The irreverent comment took his mind off Maggie for just a second. Less than a second.
“Are you okay?”
“No, but I’ll survive,” he said, pulling back onto the road.
The hour drive into New Orleans was a nightmare, his mind whirling as Dave told him what he knew, that the fishing boat called for help the moment the captain realized what had happened. His son jumped in to make sure he kept her face above water, worried that he’d hurt her if she had a broken neck so they didn’t do anything else until the Coast Guard got there.
They got her aboard their vessel