CHAPTER 4: Above the Clouds
The vibration of the helicopter was different from the rhythmic thrum of the train. It was a violent, desperate shaking that seemed to mirror the state of my own heart. I drifted in and out of a medicinal fog, the tiny white pill David had forced under my tongue finally widening the narrow, painful channels of my life. When I finally opened my eyes, the world was a cramped cabin of gray metal and flashing digital displays.
David was sitting directly across from me, his large hand resting on the edge of the tactical stretcher where Barnaby lay. The dog looked smaller under the harsh LED lights of the aircraft, a specialized oxygen mask covering his muzzle. Every few seconds, the plastic would fog with a faint, ghostly puff—the only proof that Barnaby was still in the room with us.
Barnaby’s world had narrowed to the scent of the man holding his paw and the strange, artificial air flowing into his lungs. He could hear the screaming of the engines, but beneath it, he tracked the familiar, jagged rhythm of my breathing. He didn’t have the strength to wag his tail, but his front paw twitched against David’s palm, an instinctive reach for the pack. He sensed the altitude, the thinning of the air, and the sudden, sharp drop in the pressure of the hands that held him.
“You’re awake,” David said, his voice crackling through the headset I didn’t realize I was wearing. His eyes were bloodshot, the mask of the stoic police captain finally cracked beyond repair.
“How much… further?” I croaked. Every word felt like dragging a stone through gravel.
“We’re over the foothills. Another twenty minutes,” David replied. He looked down at Barnaby, then back at me, his jaw clenching. “Dad, I need you to listen to me. I spent five years acting like this dog was a burden. Like your ‘fixation’ was a sign of you losing your mind.”
He paused, a single tear cutting a path through the soot and salt on his cheek. “But the truth is, I was the one who was lost. When Mom was in hospice, I couldn’t handle the silence. I couldn’t handle the smell of the room or the way her hands felt. I used the precinct as a shield. I worked double shifts so I wouldn’t have to watch her fade.”
I reached out, my fingers brushing the sleeve of his uniform. “David, you don’t have to—”
“I do,” he interrupted, his voice breaking. “Barnaby did my job. He was the son she needed. He stayed when I ran. And I realized tonight, standing in that dark house holding your heart pills, that if I let him die on a frozen train, I’d be running away all over again. I’m not that coward anymore.”
The lead medic leaned over, checking the monitors. “BP is stabilizing, but it’s fragile. We’re pushing the engines as hard as we can.”
“I used my retirement fund, Dad,” David whispered, leaning closer so the medics couldn’t hear, though the roar of the rotors made secrets easy to keep. “And I sold the truck to the dealer over the phone at the dispatch center. I didn’t ‘authorize’ a police flight. I hired a private medical intercept. I’ll probably lose my badge for the laws I bent to get the clearance, but I don’t care. I finally figured out that some promises are worth more than a career.”
I looked at my son—really looked at him—and saw the man Clara always knew he could be. He had drained his future to buy a few minutes of sand and salt for an old dog and a broken father.
Outside the window, the dark, jagged peaks of the mountains began to give way to a flat, silver expanse. The first hint of dawn was bleeding into the horizon, a thin line of violet and gold that promised the end of the night.
“Look, buddy,” I whispered, reaching down to touch Barnaby’s cold, soft ear. “The sky is changing.”
Next up in Chapter 5: The Golden Shore. The final descent to the Pacific beach. Arthur and David carry Barnaby to the water’s edge for one last heartbeat as the sun rises over the horizon.
