In the Beginning

When Rico came out of the alcoholic blackout, the only problem he had was that the car he was driving had left the road about one hundred feet back. The car was traveling through the rocks and trees at about sixty miles an hour and was coming apart all around him. The first time the car rolled over on its top, the windshield exploded in his face. The second time the car rolled, the back of the seat he had been seat-belted into broke in half, and he was thrown into the backseat. The third time the car rolled, the roof was crunched down around the steering wheel and seat where he had been a few minutes before, smashing him flat between the seat and the flattened roof with his feet sticking out of the back window. The car slammed into the bottom of the ravine with an explosive impact that echoed through the mountain slopes. When the car finally came to rest, its weight pinned his legs and feet in the mud and rocks of the mountain stream that was at the bottom of the ravine that he had just descended.

The dead silence that followed was broken only by the tick of the cooling metal and the spinning of a single wheel that lasted for only a few minutes. The gurgle of the stream became the only sound for many, many minutes.

Slowly there was a digging, a struggling in the water and mud under the car. It became more insistent as he displaced rocks and mud and had more room to struggle. The struggle became shoving back and forth to gain more space with each effort, until a last wrenching pull brought a sucking sound that meant freedom.

Rico was inside the backseat of the car, still trapped by the car resting on its crushed roof. Then came the pounding blows that struck again and again against the unyielding metal. Slowly the rear door on the driver's side of the car began to jolt open, inch by inch, imperceptibly at first, then wider. Until at last, a narrow slot of only perhaps eight inches or so opened, enough for him to stick his head through, then to wriggle his shoulders and then hips through to freedom.

He stood by the side of the car for some time, marveling at its total destruction. Every piece of glass in the car was shattered. The roof was smashed down to the level of the hood and trunk. The backseat was filled with shattered glass and his blood.

He turned to climb up the slope of the ravine to try to hitch a ride into town. He climbed up about three-quarters of the way up and fell back down again. He picked himself up and limped over to a rock.

He was in no better shape than the car. His hair and ears were full of gravel. He had a bruise the size of a television set across his back. He had a hematoma, a swelling the size of half a cantaloupe on his right hip that had been split by the glass. The gashes laid open the muscle all the way to the bone, and blood flowed freely out of them. As he watched, the edges of the gashes began to close, slowly at first and then with gathering speed, working toward the middle and the ultimate closing of the gashes.

He sat cross-legged on the mountain rock, watching his own blood run down the mossy surface and thought, I have got to cut this shit out.

The Hospital

Rico pulled himself up and walked over to the car. He reached into the backseat to the place under the front seat. From there he pulled out a bottle of clear vodka, about one-half empty. He removed the lid and took two deep swallows. He then put the lid back on and threw the bottle into the stream so the police would not find it when they searched the car. He then reached down to the stream and brought up several handfuls of water to his mouth and face, rinsing and washing them so that the police would not smell the vodka on his breath. Oh well, he thought, vodka doesn't smell anyway.

He began the climb up the slope of the ravine to the highway. The steep slope, the rocks and bushes, and the pain of his injuries made the climb long and painful. Finally, he broke the crest of the road and pulled himself up on the shoulder. Slowly he pulled himself up to his feet and stood as erect as he could. He heard shouts behind him and turned to see a uniformed state patrolman running toward him. He looked down at the hematoma on his right hip and noticed that the cuts had not quite healed and closed. Good, he thought, it will not draw too much attention or alarm. As he watched, the healing ceased.

"Is there anybody else down there?" the patrolman asked.

"No, I am alone."

"Thank God. We have been searching the sides of the bank because someone reported that the car went over, but it was too far down the ravine for us to tell where it ended up. Are you okay?"

Rico sank to his knees and then to a sitting position. The patrolman leaned over and put his arm around his shoulders and kept him from going the rest of the way down to a reclining position.

"Yeah, thank God."

"Hang on. There is an ambulance on its way. You don't look in too bad of shape for the ride you've just taken. You must be the first sober person in ten years who has gone off that curve. Usually it catches the drunks trying to get over the mountain. Must have caught you because you aren't from around here."

"I hit that patch of loose gravel, spun out, and went over the edge."

It sounded good.

The ride down to the town and hospital was made in silence. The attendants were more interested in his vital signs than they were the details of any harrowing story. Based upon the description of the wreck that they had received on the radio and their experience with the mountain wrecks in that vicinity, they had expected something in the range of massive injury or death. They were visibly relieved at the lack of such after their assessment.

At the hospital, he was wheeled into the emergency room and placed on a gurney. He watched with interest as the doctor sewed up what was left of the cuts on the hematoma. The doctor was alarmed and asked several times if he had been administered anesthesia. Assured by the lack of any sign of discomfort, the doctor finished and went home.

The state patrolman came by as Rico came out of the emergency room and apologized for having to give him the ticket. Improper mountain driving, and if he had a clean record, they would allow him to plead it down to something insignificant. He thanked the officer for his help and was wheeled to his room.

Elaina saw him for the first time when she came to check on his vital signs at the start of her shift as night nurse. He said little as she went about her work, polite without revealing anything other than answers to direct questions. She had little time during her shift to check back in on him, but he stayed on her mind. The odd looks, unidentifiable ethnic group, dark without being swarthy, blue eyes, high cheekbones, small nose. She was attracted but professionally distant. She needed this job; no need to go off and do something dumb, no matter how tempting. But she did like the burly, rugged types, not the pretty boys. As she checked his stitches, she noted that he certainly was that.

Close to midnight, she found the night telephone operator leaning against the doorjamb of his room, silently watching him. Asked what she was doing, the operator said she just wanted to see what he looked like. Why?

It seemed that he had had calls from four or five different females during the hour and a half since he had been checked in. She wanted to see what the attraction was. The operator couldn't see it, but with the gravel still in his hair, maybe it was just the situation. The operator preferred the local rednecks at the Dew Drop Inn. He was too ethnic for her tastes, but then the operator had never been that particular.

At the end of her shift, the nurse walked past his door and glanced in just to check. She was alarmed to see him sitting up full in the chair, putting on the paper hospital shoes that he had gotten from who knows where.

"Just what in the hell do you think you are doing?"

He looked up at her and smiled. "Going for a walk."

"I don't think so. You are at serious risk for shock, and we have no idea what that ride down the mountain did to your internal organs."

"They have adjusted."

"Oh, they have? Has your brain adjusted too? If you don't get back into that bed, I will call security." She was aghast at his lack of common sense.

Rico grinned at her. "What, you are going to keep me a prisoner here? Held against my will because I can't pay the bill?"

"Are you crazy? You could cause yourself permanent injury. You need to lie still under observation so that we can be sure you haven't shaken something loose, other than your brain."

"I am okay. And I need to be going."

He turned and began gathering what items they had left of his in the room.

She was used to being in charge—people listening to her and not challenging her authority. They did what she said. She struggled for the right words of command that would put him where he should be.

"Why?"

He turned and looked at her, studied her for a few minutes, and returned to what he was doing.

"Why?" she asked again.

"Because they will come for me."

Now she was intrigued.

"Who?"

He turned and looked at her again. "What does it matter to you?"

"It doesn't, but I am not going to have you kill yourself on my shift."

"Now that is truly funny."

Now she was irritated. "Why is that funny?"

Rico made no answer, just kept preparing to leave. She was losing control; he was through with the conversation, and she was not. This filled her with panic, a need to get back into it. "Who will come for you?"

He looked at her again. He didn't speak for a time, just looked at her. "I made the outside call, so they will find me. It is best that I be gone when they get here."

"Why?"

"Because they are not pleasant."

"What do you mean?"

"Not pleasant."

"Will they try to hurt you, kill you?"

He laughed. "You have been watching too many movies."

"Then what do you mean?"

He did not answer.

"What do you mean?"

He grinned at the darkness. "They will bury me."

She snorted. "And that won't kill you?"

Again he gave no answer.

He moved out into the hallway and down the corridor. She followed at a short distance, at a loss for what to do. He went down the stairs, to an outside exit. He pushed the door open and went out. She stood on the landing for a few moments, expecting him to be gone when she walked out. When she finally moved and pushed out the door, he was standing on the landing in his paper hospital slippers and hospital shirt, which was long enough to qualify as a gown. He was just standing there, staring into the night.

"No plan, big guy?"

He laughed. "No plan."

"Then get your dumb ass back into that bed."

Elaina was back in control.

He made no answer, just started walking into the dark.

"What are you doing? Get back into that bed."

He grinned at her. "Can't. Love to, but can't."

He kept walking, out past the parking lot, to the residential area beyond. She followed him to the edge of the parking lot and stopped there until she was about to lose sight of him. She hurriedly ran to her car in the lot and followed. He had disappeared by the time she had reached her car and started it, but she followed in the general direction that he had gone.

She thought for a while that she had lost him. But then she found him walking down an alley looking into backyards.

She pulled up next to him. "What are you doing?"

"Looking for clothes."

"Oh, a thief as well?"

"Borrow."

She stopped. "Get in."

He stopped and looked at her. "Why?"

"I can't just leave you out here to steal, to kill, to get killed."

"Why not?"

"I can't."

"You owe me nothing."

"I can't."

"I owe you nothing."

"If you don't get into the car, I will call the police and tell them you are roaming the area looking for something to steal. If they catch you dressed like that, you will spend more than one night in jail."

"You won't."

"I will."

He climbed into the car and shut the door. "Where are you taking me?"

"I don't know."

She drove in silence for some time. In a moment of inspiration she pulled into a motel, got out, and went into the office. She pulled out the credit card she had sworn she was going to cut up, and she got a room.

"Always the sucker," she whispered.

She took him to the room, gave him the key, and watched as he went through the doorway. She drove down the street toward her home, changed her mind, and went back around to the Goodwill collection box. She rummaged through the clothes until she found some approximately his size and then returned to the room.

She knocked on the door. After several minutes, he answered. She shoved the clothing into his hands as well as the twenty-three dollars she had in her purse, turned, and got into her car. She drove home and went to sleep.

Sons of Heaven I

When people had spread all over the world and daughters were being born, some of the heavenly beings saw that some of these young women were beautiful, so they took the ones they liked.

—Genesis 6:1–3

He slipped into the clothes and walked across the street to the grocery store. He bought enough food for five or six people and a bottle of the cheapest vodka. He hobbled to the room and ate much of the food. He opened the bottle, threw away the lid, and drank the entire bottle in a few swallows. He then fell into bed and slept.

Late the next afternoon, he was awakened by a knock. He was not going to answer, but he peeked through the window and saw that it was her. He opened the door.

"You are supposed to be out by eleven o'clock." Elaina's voice was worried

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"I have to look at your stitches to see how they are doing." She was insistent.

"They are fine; thank you anyway."

She pushed her way into the room, her eyes not used to the dark. She flipped on the light switch and revealed the room littered with the packages from the night before. She picked up the empty vodka bottle.

"Social drinking? Let me guess: the maid's day off?"

"Yes, I had a few hundred friends over. Afraid they made quite a mess, actually."

"Were you drunk when you were in the crash?"

"Not any more than usual."

"Let me see those stitches."

"I don't think that's a good idea."

She made him uncomfortable. He found that he could not keep his eyes from wandering to the soft white skin between her breasts and the obvious cleavage. She was the most strikingly beautiful woman he had seen in quite some time. Just his type, she was tall and elegant. Just his type, she was in charge and taking no crap. Strong women wrapped in a soft package were his destiny. The soft, smooth white skin contrasted the dark, flowing hair and large brown eyes, obviously Latina of some kind—in this area, probably Mexican, several generations in Colorado.

She noted his attraction to her with some smug self-satisfaction; it gave her a feeling of being back in control. He had an obvious strong physical attraction to her. She liked that in a man; it gave her back the control.

"What is your problem? You know I could report you and have you put on a seventy-two-hour mental-health hold."

"I bet you could."

"You are still a mess. Doesn't the shower work?"

She started picking up the mess. He shrugged and went into the bathroom. The shower began to run. By the time the shower stopped, she had picked up most of the worst of the mess. She did not want to take no for an answer as to seeing his stitches, seeing this as the height of stubbornness. His passive refusal maddened her. She was the master at the direct confrontation, winner take all. She stood by the bathroom door, quickly turned the knob, and swung the door open.

She was shocked not only by his nakedness but also because the hematoma was almost totally healed, the stitches visible in the almost scar less tissue. He was thick without being fat—burly and muscular.

He stood with the towel in hand. "I guess the lock doesn't work."

She shut the door quickly and sat on the bed.

When he came out of the bathroom, he was clothed.

"How is that possible?" she asked.

"It's not."

"How?"

"Do you have to know how everything works?"

"Yes!" That was most emphatic.

"It doesn't matter."

"You have to tell me."