She dropped the sleeping bag again. Scout quickly rescued it from the ground, giving a disgusted look at the snot smeared on the edge; he stuffed the bag away in its sack. Catherine smiled at him.
“Catherine,” Hunter said again.
“What?”
“My arm…you fixed it…how?”
“Oh that was easy, silly. Scout did the hard part. I just helped it along.” She brought her tiny hand up and brushed a strand of Hunter’s hair back. Her expression turned serious for once, giving Hunter the impression that he spoke with someone much older than six. “I didn’t like seeing you hurting. So I made your arm all better.”
Hunter glanced at Scout, who shrugged and stalked off, shaking his head and muttering something about no sleep.
“Okay, I guess the real question we would like to understand is how you healed my arm?”
She stared at Hunter for a couple seconds. “Don’t you believe in miracles?” she said finally, and laughed. “When do we go home?”
Hunter pinched the bridge of his nose between his eyes and stood up. The sun had pushed from the eastern horizon and now filled the morning sky like a flaming bowling ball. A v-shaped formation of sandhill cranes flew across the sky. He sighed and answered, “In a little bit.”
“Hurray!” Catherine started dancing again.
Hunter watched Scout make a breakfast of bread, cheese, and a peach for Catherine. For ten days Hunter traveled the Big Bad, from gas station to gas station, living off the land. He explored further than he ever dared before-even running out of gas once. He loved being on his own. Now he looked forward to eating scrambled eggs at Brittany’s.
Scout poured water on the smoldering coals, which hissed and sent up billows of gray smoke. He dug a hole and buried the ashes using a small shovel from his backpack.
“Are you able to drive?” Scout asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“I’ll let Catherine ride with me until we know for sure.”
“Whatever.”
“Take it easy this time.”
“Yes sir, Scout Master.” Hunter saluted.
“I’m just saying. Next time you might break your neck. I’d like to see her miracle you back from that.”
Scout stretched his leg over his bike and gave it a kick-start. Hunter did the same. Catherine pranced up to Hunter, who pointed at Scout and gave her a shooing motion to hurry her along. She hopped on the back of Scout’s bike and wrapped her arms around his waist. She squeezed and Scout’s eyes popped open with the realization of the long ride ahead. Hunter laughed and pushed his Ray-Bans down. He rolled his throttle hard and rode a wheelie out of the crash site toward home.
Waking up to bright light was unusual for Jimmy. He popped up in his bed with the morning sun hanging in the sky outside his window. He only meant to rest his eyes after washing off the mud from the fiasco with Molly in the field. Now a brand-new day was in full swing and there might be an additional person in his community that needed welcoming.
He grabbed one of his hats, slipped on his shoes and was out the door at a full sprint. Before rounding the corner onto Main Street, Jimmy heard the rumbling whine of the portable generator they arranged for Vanessa’s delivery. Flowers, toys, and a large array of scavenged baby items lined the sidewalk in front of Luis’s clinic like an impromptu baby shower. Half the kids in town milled around and looked at him expectantly.
Some of them played board games in a shady spot on the sidewalk. Another group kicked a soccer ball in the street and Jimmy worried about windows because every time one got broken somebody had to go to another town and find a suitable replacement. There was a nice park one block over for that sort of activity.
He stepped in and stopped play. “Has the baby come yet?”
A sweaty twelve-year-old named Steve spoke for the group. “Not that we’ve heard. Samuel said he’d let us know when it happened. We’re dying for any kind of news.” Several heads bobbed, confirming this sentiment.
Jimmy set his hands on his hips. “I’ll go find out what’s going on, but in the meantime I’d like you to move your game to the park. Windows, guys. We’ve been over this before.”
A small chorus of grumbles rose from the soccer players, but Jimmy’s authority won out and the group walked to the park in a sullen herd. Jimmy overheard someone call him a jerk. The price of leadership is hefty.
The board game players asked for news as well. Jimmy told them he was headed that way and would make sure they were the next to know after him. He swung the door inwards to Luis’s and found Samuel stretched out on the yellow sofa in the clinic’s waiting room.
“What took you so long? You didn’t spend the night with Molly did you?” Samuel’s sleepy grin was filled with teeth.
“Isn’t it too early for that?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been up all night waiting for the baby to arrive and keeping the mob outside from invading the delivery room while you’ve been out looking for Molly.”
“Let’s just say after I found her things got a little messy.”
“Were you able to talk some sense into her or did she beat the crap out of you?”
Jimmy pointed at a table full of baked goods. “What’s this?”
“Chef Brittany brought them over. I thought all that reaping wheat for flour was pointless until I tasted those blueberry muffins. She cracked open a can of coffee, figuring we’d need it. I think it was her last one and it tastes kind of stale. She left when the screaming started.”
Jimmy’s chest tightened. “Screaming?”
“Yeah, Luis explained it after I ran in the first time Vanessa screamed. She’s having something called contractions to deliver the baby. But that’s all I got before Vanessa flung a metal tray at my head and called me a name that you would not have appreciated.”
“The baby hasn’t come, yet?” Jimmy asked, pouring himself a cup of coffee. The smell transported him back to a time his parents were alive; when he sat at a breakfast table before school while his mom packed his lunch and his dad watched the morning news.
“Not yet,” Samuel said, shattering the spell. “Just don’t freak out when-”
A gruesome wail sounded from the next room like someone’s guts were slashed out. Startled, Jimmy tossed his coffee in the air. The cup barely missed Samuel’s head.
“What was that?”
“Contractions.” Samuel picked the cup off the sofa and handed it back. “That’s what I was trying to tell you. It’s been going on all night. Now it’s down to every two minutes.”
Jimmy put the cup away, not trusting himself with hot liquids at the moment, and grabbed a linen napkin to wipe the trail of coffee off the hardwood floor. He realized how happy he was to be on this side of the wall. Childbirth sounded terrifying.
Then he remembered the cattle. “I guess we need to get used to this kind of stuff if we’re going to start breeding cows,” he said.
“Did you just compare Vanessa to a cow?”
“No, I did not. And if you say anything I will have you butchered.”
Samuel smiled like he was stockpiling information for future use. “Let’s assign some twelve-year-olds to be ranchers. You and I can stick to the farming.”
Jimmy nodded. “Good idea.”
He could hear Luis’s muffled voice speaking to Vanessa and Mark’s deep bass rumbling with encouragements. Vanessa yelled unpleasant things about the both of them. Everything fell silent after that.