Song of Angels - Chapter 25
Written for Steemit: A love story occurs during a time anomaly. A woman from today somehow steps into an anomaly and meets a cowboy asleep on his ranch, in his bed, in the 1850's. ©Jeff Kubitz 2016 - All Rights Reserved.
Song of Angels - Chapter 25
Mindy Woczlewski courtesy of Nastya Muratokova
“Yeah Eric, she will be alright. The search and rescue found her and she is here at the county hospital in a room now.” Mel said to Eric Schmidt, President of Arden-Moore Pipe.
“That’s wonderful news. How long will she be in the hospital?”
“Her Doctor, Doctor Perry, wants her here for two weeks for observation. He said it would take a month for her to fully recover so I suppose she will be able to go back to Chicago at the end of the two weeks. The Sheriff has her car at the county impound yard. There is no charge for something like this. She must still be checked into her hotel in Salt Lake City. The only thing in her car was her sales materials, so the rest must be at whatever hotel she was at.”
“Good. No Great Job Mel, Great Job. I’ll get personnel to take care of the hotel and everything from here on out. So, are you ready to go back at it?”
“Yes, Miss Woczlewski will be fine here at the hospital. I wanted to head into Nevada, around Ely.”
“Great. Get to it. I’ll notify her mother personally.”
“Right Eric. I should be back in about a week.”
“See you then Mel and great job finding her car. Thanks for saving the account.”
“Thanks. See you then.” Mel hung up the phone to Eric Schmidt.
While Mel was on the phone with the boss, the Valium had taken effect and Mindy was completely sedated. Doctor Perry, with the nurse at his side to assist made a complete examination of Mindy for sexual assault. The whole examination did not take more than five minutes because when he was about to swab her, he stopped and said to the nurse, “There is no need to take a swab it would puncture her hymen. Do you agree Eva?”
Eva bent over the bed and examined Mindy, “I agree. She is still a virgin.”
“Okay, let’s cover her back up. Oh look her blood pressure is coming back fast.”
“That is wonderful.” Eva, Nurse Morris said.
“All right then, I will go fill out the paperwork and notify the D.A. that there are no signs of sexual assault and I will add no signs of assault, do you agree?”
“None. Compared to some of the other people they have brought in here who have experienced the same thing, lost out in the desert, she is relatively untouched.”
“Right. I’ll also see if her lab work is ready. Please notify me if there are any changes in her condition.” Doctor Perry turned to go and heard Eva’s response as he headed to the door. Good nurse, he thought. We do have a very, very lucky patient.
In his office, Doctor Perry filled out the paperwork and then called the D.A. to notify that there was no sexual assault on Mindy Woczlewski. It was after hours, so he left a message with his number to call back. By then the preliminary lab work was finished and he read the report, “No wonder she was hallucinating.” Doctor Perry said to himself. She must have used three very toxic desert plants to start her fire and who knows; maybe she had to start the fire more than once. He would ask her when she was lucid; it did occur to him that Mindy might not have any idea of what she did or true recall of events. He made notes to remind himself to keep that in mind as he interviewed his patient and to tell her to beware that she had ingested mild hallucinogenic smoke. Two of the plants were used by the Paiutes in rituals. Maybe the smoke from these plants had saved her life. He really did not know. Certainly, it was something to consider, something to investigate when he had more time. He took down some notes and attached copies of the lab results.
“Let’s see. She has now been out of the desert for twelve hours; this should wear off in 36 more hours. I better call search and rescue to see if any of them are experiencing any problems due to intoxicating smoke.” He made the call to the Sheriff’s office.
“Doctor Perry to emergency!” He rose from his desk. Fortunately the hospital was much smaller than where he had done his residency and in less than a hundred steps he was directed to emergency room four. It was one of the deputies and he was very ill. He was vomiting.
“Were you on the rescue of Mindy Woczlewski?”
“No.” It was difficult for the deputy to get out the words. Doctor Perry observed that the deputy had skin that was extremely flushed, almost bright red like a burn. He was sweating profusely and he seemed to be swelling.
“Nurse, let’s check his records and see if he is known to be allergic to anything.”
“No!” The deputy shook his head. “Radioactive truck spill.” It was so hard for him to get it out. He was going into spasms.
“How close were you…” Doctor Perry continued his questions.
Deputy James Smith was now off duty. Everything with Mindy Woczlewski seemed to be resolved. He had two days off and was looking forward to some home time. He locked up his desk and left the office. It was no more than twenty minutes at most before he was in his house talking to his wife Sarah.
“Anything happen today Jimmy?” Sarah asked after she kissed him.
“One woman was stranded out in the west desert for four days and she was rescued. We thought she had been abducted by a Cyrus Weeks but there is no person named that in this state. So she appears to be doing fine at the hospital. She’ll recover. So that is good news.”
“Oh well, that’s wonderful. So you saved a life today? Wait, I have heard of a Cyrus Weeks, where did I hear that, no I read it.”
“So there is a Cyrus Weeks around here?”
Sarah walked over to her the desk that was a part of the kitchen counter. “I read it here. I might be related to him.” She picked up some of her notes. Flipped through them, “Yes, here he is. I was doing my genealogy and there is a claim from one of my descendents that she bore him a child.”
“Oh this is serious Sarah. How old is he? Where is he at?”
“Oh, let’s see. Oh, he is long dead Jimmy. He died January 16th, 1856.” Sarah read her notes out loud.
“The woman we found was talking about him, talking to a Cyrus Weeks when we found her, and then all the way to hospital. She even asked about him as they wheeled her into her room I was there.”
“Really?” Sarah asked.
“No kidding. Does it say where he lived?”
“It doesn’t say in this, oh yes it does. Mildred Peeples claimed her child to be his, one of my ancestors, Samuel Peeples. And that she and Samuel were heirs to all the property he owned which was one section, 640 acres. The property was centered upon Claire’s Pond; also known as Mund’s Pond which is the Paiute name, eight miles directly south of Mereweather. The dispute went to court and it was ruled that Cyrus Weeks could not have fathered the child because, even though they were together around the time of conception, their meetings were completely chaperoned and they were never alone. The land was inherited by next of kin, the Mereweathers. Today we know of them as the Staffords.”
“Really, that is Stafford land? They are the biggest landowners in this county. Where is Mereweather? I have never heard of that town.”
“Don’t know its exact location, why was there a pond near where you found her?”
“Why yes, but I don’t know its name. We found her in the ruins of a very old house, just a foundation really. Either she found a piece of metal and used it for a roof or someone had put it over the hole in the ground on one corner. It looked like what was left of a metal drum without the ends.”
“How could she know his name, is she from around here?”
“Oh know. She is a sales woman who is from Chicago. She has never been out here before. She was on her way to the cement plant and got lost.”
“Poor dear but she will be fine?”
“Yes, fine, but do you think she met a ghost? Maybe she met a man pretending to be Cyrus Weeks?”
“We could go down to the county records tomorrow and do some research sleuthing. Find out if where she was found was indeed the old Weeks property.” Sarah said.
“Sure. Let’s do that and I’ll keep tabs on whether or not she has been assaulted.” Jimmy replied.
“In the morning dear, I am sure you want dinner.”
The End of Book One
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