Undaunted

37

When Kris woke up the next morning, the sun was already shining in her window. Her breakfast was waiting for her: oatmeal, Jell-O, and apple juice. Any other day, she would have turned up her nose at it.

This morning, she attacked it ravenously.

Jack showed up just as she was finishing, impeccable again in undress khakis. “I see someone brought you a change of clothes,” Kris said, suddenly realizing that her own clothing situation was rather precarious. Both her legs were wrapped in bandages held in place by air casts. And splayed out by wires hanging from above the bed. One of her arms, the one closest to Jack, was also hanging like a side of meat. Through the air cast, it looked like the bandages were much in need of changing.

The lone cover for the rest of her was a sheet. Where it had fallen down, it revealed skin that was black or blue, or healing into a sickening green or yellow. She used her free arm to adjust it. That hurt. And a hospital sheet didn’t do all that much for a girl, anyway.

Jack, however, stayed to the side with the raised arm and kept his smiling face on her eyes. God bless the man.

“I had to do something,” Jack was saying. “The cute nurses were starting to avoid me, and staying upwind when they couldn’t. If I’d spent another day in those red and blues, I would have had to burn them. And maybe me.”

Kris doubted any female nurse would ever avoid Jack. She considered a reply, then realized they hadn’t argued about anything for two whole days . . . and decided to see how long she could stretch that.

“I seem to remember that you were haggling over food for our troops and the right jail for our prisoners when I conked out on you. Did our Marines have to resort to shooting elk or bears or something?”

“Or prisoners?”

“I’d prefer that they didn’t develop a taste for long pork. I’ve got enough of a bloodthirsty reputation without your Marines adding their own stories to it.”

“We succeeded in avoiding anything embarrassing. We didn’t even have to shoot the mother bear and her two cubs.”

“A mother bear? You wouldn’t.”

“We didn’t. Your friend’s dad arranged for a truckful of goodies just in time.”

Kris breathed a sigh of relief. Not so much that nothing embarrassing had been shot but that Jack was in good humor and just as intent as she was to avoid crossing swords.

“Did I hear something about rangers? Does this place have real rangers?”

“It sure does, and Colonel Cortez got to deal with a whole posse of them. They flew up to the lodge before the Denver cops, went through our prisoners, and cut out six they thought the Denver folks would want to talk to. Had them hog-tied and gift wrapped when the cops arrived.”

“Does Penny think they got the right ones?” Kris asked.

“She flew in with the Denver cops. We had already identified one person of interest, a petty criminal who was involved with us on New Eden and came in on the last cargo ship to drop by here.”

“Was he after me?”

“No. I think he just had incredibly bad luck. He says a local by the name of Anderson hired him to provide technical guidance for his homegrown revolution. Facing a death penalty, it’s amazing how fast he was to give up the leader. The bomb throwers, the getaway-car drivers, all were pointing fingers. Yes, I think we can be sure we got the six people involved in tossing those bombs.”

“And I didn’t see them coming,” Kris said softly, pulling her sheet up to her chin. Without really looking, Jack leaned back and pulled the bottom of it to cover her lower part better. Not that easy with both her legs up in the air.

But she was grateful for the effort.

“I didn’t see it coming. Nelly didn’t see it coming until it was too late. Jack, what do I do? Stop walking under second-floor balconies?”

“I should have left a detail to secure the foyer. I won’t make that mistake twice.”

“It wasn’t your mistake, Jack. You’re right; if you’d been with me, there’d just be more hospital beds with critically injured. Or slabs in the mortuary.”

“Kris, we figured we were back in civilization. We could relax. Big mistake. The company’s been taking casualties, and we hadn’t bothered to replace them. Hadn’t had a chance. I’ll bulk up the company and get some serious police types to work with Penny. We got caught this time. They got lucky. Then we got lucky. Next time, we’ll be smarter.”

“And, of course,” Kris said, “there will be a next time.”

“So long as you go out, they’ll come at you.”

“Maybe I ought to take Grampa Al’s offer. Take a job with him inside his security bubble. Nothing ever gets at him.”

“Yeah, right. I can just see you huddled in some office, doing some desk job.

“It’s a whole lot safer than this.”

“But not nearly as much fun,” Jack said, that lopsided grin coming out to play.

“I think you’re starting to like this. Or is it you like me being all tied up and wearing only a sheet that seems to be slipping.”

“You got to admit, this job does have its perks.” But his eyes stayed locked on hers, not straying once to what she might be showing.

A nurse breezed in. “You’ve got company. Well, more company,” she announced. She took a moment to rearrange Kris’s sheet, pulling the lower portion through the gap between her legs and tucking it under her bottom.

Kris flinched.

“Sorry. Are you cold?”

The thought of gaining a tad more modesty, not so much for her raving beauty but more for her battered carcass, seemed like a good idea. “Yes, a bit.”

A thin blanket came out of a closet. Expertly, the nurse covered Kris. Only then did she announce, “All ready. Mr. DuVale, Miss Travis, you can come in now.”

Jack moved up to the head of Kris’s bed, giving her a clear view of the door. In it, Bobby DuVale sat in a wheelchair. Julie pushed it, with Mr. Louis DuVale right behind her, clearly in the throes of backseat driving.

“Don’t you look beautiful,” Bobby said.

“I don’t know how I’ll handle the competition,” Julie said.

“Well, you know how I throw myself at all the boys,” Kris said, through a grin that hurt.

“Thank you very much for throwing yourself at my Bobby,” Julie said.

“I couldn’t let anything happen to him, Julie. I’ve already got my maid of honor’s dress picked out for your wedding.”

“It will be next week,” Bobby said, glancing back at his father. Only slightly defiantly.

The older DuVale breathed a sigh, but clearly, the close brush with losing his son had made an impression on him. He nodded his agreement.

“I’ll be there, even if they have to carry me on a stretcher.”

“You weren’t this accident-prone in college,” Julie said.

“All I had to do then was not flunk out. Now I keep getting dropped in the middle of folks who have spent the last eighty years not liking each other. You can only do that so long before things explode,” Kris said, serious once more.

“So we have seen,” Bobby said. “Kris, I don’t know if anyone will do this formally, so I’m going to do it myself. Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Well, I could start with saving my life. I hear tell that you kind of like attract bullets and bombs, and I suspect you’re figuring that the bombs were intended for you.”

“Usually they are?”

“Yeah, but apparently the whole idea here was to get someone, really anyone important, killed here in Denver. It turns out that was going to be me. Then this Anderson fellow wanted to get a whole lot more killed out among the flatlanders. He figured that would get everyone shooting at anything that moved, and when all was said and gunned down, he and his would pick up the pieces.”

Kris slumped back into the bed, then glanced at Jack. “I was somebody else’s collateral damage!”

“How does that make you feel?” Jack said, that lopsided grin dancing all over his face.

“Downright insulted.”

“So, he didn’t get too close to one of those damn Longknifes,” Jack mused. “You got too close to one of those damn DuVales.”

“Pardon me?” said Mr. Louis DuVale.

“An inside joke, sir,” Kris said, “now turned on its head.” Kris let all that spin around in her head for a full minute. It truly was hard to accept. She was very surprised at how very much she felt insulted not to be the center of attention at an assassination attempt. She really needed to talk to a professional counselor.

Reflection time exhausted for the moment, Kris turned her face back to Bobby. “Okay, now what are you going to do with the time you’ve bought?”

“Change a lot of things,” he said, looking up at Julie.

“Getting married is nice. What else?” Kris asked bluntly.

“We’re opening up and spreading out,” Julie said. “Not just him and me, but a whole lot of youngsters. Your bank has staked over five thousand homesteads while you’ve been getting your beauty rest, girl.”

“Nice to know I never quit working,” Kris said, dryly.

“Also, Page Automotive converted an entire assembly line to pickups. The homesteaders moving out of Denver need them, and Mary’s supplied the capital to do it,” Julie said.

“Is our bank going to run out of money?” Kris asked.

“Some of the old folks still think us kids are crazy,” Bobby said, frowning, “but there’s money to be made, and more and more of them are following the money. Your bank, Kris, is just the seed money to get a whole lot started. We’ve been sitting on too much, too long. That Anderson fellow made a bomb explode. You’ve made a world explode.”

“That’s the kind of explosions I like,” Kris said. She looked around for some wood to knock on, but everything in the room was gleaming steel, plastic, or cloth. She crossed her fingers and hoped the pain of it would bring her extra luck.