In Our Nightmares

By Rose Po

"Sometimes there was a weird callousness about the work we did. We couldn't let it get too close to us because we didn't want to be touched by it. We didn't talk much about the bad ones. When they happened, we dealt with them. Then we went back and ate or watched a movie or went on another call..."

Larry Brown, Oxford MS Fire Department (ret.)

From On Fire

Nightfall:

"Johnny," whispered Roy DeSoto, holding out his hand. He kept his movements slow and deliberate, and forced his body language to be neutral and non-threatening. But inside he shook, nearly overwhelmed by the urge to vomit.

John Gage stood pressed against the rear door of the apparatus bay, staring at the speaker in the wall.

"Gage, we gotta roll..." Hank Stanley edged closer to the two men. He was still unnerved by the sudden yelling and violence that had erupted with the tones. "Roy?"

"Cap," hissed DeSoto, "have them dispatch another unit."

John inched further from the officer. Hank backed toward the radio.

"Johnny," repeated Roy, again extending his hand. Gage seized it and sagged against him. Roy cradled his partner, as John collapsed.

"The street isn't like the ER. There are no walls, no controls. So to make up for this, they tried to teach me to act without thinking, like a soldier..."

Joe Connelly, NYC paramedic

From Bringing Out the Dead

Twilight:

"Johnny, your turn," yelled Chet, padding toward his locker and rolled up bunker pants. Kelly's hair dripped, trickling down his face into his dark brown mustache, and he clutched a small bucket full of toiletry articles in one hand. He snapped a wet towel at the paramedic.

Gage caught the towel, yanked it from Kelly's fingers and tossed it over the row of lockers. "Thanks," he said, snatching the other fireman's shampoo.

"Gage!" bellowed Chet, grabbing the container and starting a tug of war.

"I ran out yesterday, when I was working overtime. Haven't had a chance to get any yet." He grinned at Kelly. "Unless you'd rather I stink."

Chet released the bottle. "Be my guest."

Whistling, John strolled toward the shower and turned on the water. He stood beneath the spray, rapidly massaging the shampoo into lather.

The bebop went off. "Engine 36, Squad 51 in place of squad 36. Possible overdose. 1-8-6-2-0 South Santa Fe. Cross street Del Amo...."

With an enraged snarl, John thrust his dark hair under the shower and frantically tried to rinse out most of the soap. He jumped out of the shower stall, battled his wet body into a pair of briefs, and pulled on his turnout pants. Eyes tearing from the shampoo, Gage hurried toward the squad.

******

Killing the lights and siren, Roy parked in the paper-filled gutter. John gazed out the window, sizing up the scene before climbing from the squad. In the darkness a small crowd of teens -- most likely runaways turned hustlers and prostitutes -- clustered around the entrance to crumbling old storefront. Gang graffiti marked the sliding metal panels covering the pawn shop windows. Deep shadows spilled from the alley into the nooks and crannies in the brick façade. Through the legs of the milling crowd he could see a fallen body. A pair of policemen stood over the still form. Beside him DeSoto sighed loudly. Gage slipped from the squad.

John pushed his way to the stoop. An emaciated Indian youth lay unconscious across the step, dressed in tight jeans and leather. His face was dusky and he clutched a crinkled paper bag. Flecks of gold paint marked his lips and hands. A pitted red rash surrounded his mouth. The petrochemical pungency of paint thinner burned Gage's nose as he knelt and placed his hand against the boy's throat. After a moment he bent over the youth's mouth listening.

"Respiratory arrest," announced John, pulling the ambu bag from its case. He clamped the mask against the teen's face.

Roy dropped to his knees beside Johnny and took the boy's wrist, counting. He wrapped the blood pressure cuff around the child's arm. "Pulse 52. BP...." He pulled the stethoscope from his ears. "60, I can't get a diastolic." DeSoto pulled back the youth's eyelid and flashed the beam of his penlight across the surface.

Gage frowned. As the grit from the crumbling steps dug into his knees, John became conscious of the boy's long black hair spreading in a halo on the dirty concrete, and of the teen's uncanny resemblance to a favorite cousin. "What's his name?" he asked, looking up at the circle of youths, trying to distract himself.

A dishwater blond dressed in a suggestively tight red jumpsuit, who couldn't have been much older than sixteen, looked down at the paramedic. She hesitated. Thick clumps of cheap mascara clung to her lashes, and a layer of too-dark foundation failed to conceal the bone-deep weariness of her face. Red wheals that looked suspiciously like human teeth marks peppered her neck, disappearing beneath the low-cut collar of her jumpsuit. Gage suspected the heavy boots and long sleeves covered needle tracks. A bitter anger at the perverts who used these children rose in his throat.

Roy deftly attached the conductive adhesive patches to the unconscious teen's chest. A forced stillness masked his face. He snapped on the wires and attached the cable to datascope. A slow, broken cascade of peaks crossed the screen. He reached over and ripped open the paper bag the boy had been holding, revealing a rag soaked with gold paint. He held it up where Johnny could see it.

Gage grimaced and looked away. "What's his name?" he repeated.

"Sinus bradycardia," announced Roy, opening the biophone. "Rampart, this is rescue 51. How do you read me?"

"Everybody calls him Crazy Horse," the girl finally replied.

Shaking his head, John thought of the warrior and shirt wearer who had so hated the whiteman and his poisonous ways that he led his people in a long, bloody, and desperate war. "Runaway?" In the distance he could hear the wailing of Engine 36's siren.

The girl shrugged. "He's from Montana or someplace like that."

John looked down. Cheyenne, Crow, Blackfoot, Cree or Assiniboine, he speculated. He fought to block the feeling of hopelessness before the dark forces stalking the streets.

"We read you loud and clear. Go ahead, 51." Morton's voice was flattened by the radio.

"We have a male, approximately 15, in respiratory arrest. Apparent victim of solvent inhalation. Pulse 52, BP 60 over nothing...." DeSoto glanced up as the engine stopped. "Pupils equal and sluggish. We are ventilating and have him patched in."

"10-4, 51. Send me a strip."

"10-4, Rampart." Roy flipped the switch.

Two firefighters climbed from the jump seats and 36's captain stood over John. "Gage, what'cha got?"

"OD, Cap. Huffing." John gestured toward one of the firefighters with his chin. "Bryan, take over." The young man knelt and took hold of the mask, his turnouts rustling stiffly.

The gray-haired officer nodded. "Move along, folks; there's nothing to see," he ordered, looking at the ragged crowd surrounding them.

"51, start IV Ringers, insert esophageal airway, continue monitoring and transport."

"10-4, Rampart," acknowledged Roy, reading back the orders. Behind him the ambulance braked to a stop.

"Hyperventilate him." Gage tore the paper wrapper from the airway and smeared lubricant down the length. "Let me in there," he instructed, flexing the teen's neck and inserting the tube in the boy's mouth. Again the similarity of the youth's face to that of his cousin struck him. Biting his lip, John ignored everything but the length of plastic sliding down the teen's throat. Skillfully he attached the mask and nodded to Bryan to resume ventilation. Leaning over the boy's chest, he listened to each lung. "Again," he said, moving the stethoscope over the boy's stomach. "OK." John inflated the balloon, sealing the airway in place.

"Johnny," called Roy, holding up the IV bag. "I'll ride in with him."

"OK," replied Gage, turning away, refusing to look at the boy's face as they lifted him onto the litter.

******

Gage pushed the last case into the rear bay on the squad.

"Later, Johnny," called Bryan, as the young firefighter climbed aboard the engine. Briefly, the engineer switched on the flashers as the rig pulled into traffic. The momentary burst of light illuminated a painting on the wall of one of the decaying buildings lining the alley.

Startled, Gage stared.

The fierce face of an Indian man glared out darkness. Worked in shades of blue, it seemed almost a portrait of winter. Long black hair flowed across the brick. An eagle feather hung at angle from the back of his head and a glowing white owl rose behind the figure. The image vanished into the night.

Shuddering, John grabbed a flashlight from the bay. The beam danced on graffiti-scarred brick, covered with layers of spray painted names. There was no portrait. Shaking his head, Gage switched off the light and closed the bay. Quickly, he climbed into the squad.

******

John watched Roy walk toward the base station. The paramedic's tee-shirt clung to his chest in dark sweaty V's that dropped from his neck and armpits. A long lock of damp blond hair was flopped forward, revealing the thinning crown of DeSoto's head. His shoulders slumped. Gage didn't have to ask how the call had ended. He averted his eyes.

"He arrested," sighed Roy. "Morton couldn't get him back."

John bowed his head.

Roy set the drug box on the counter and held out the keys. "You drive," he ordered, his voice too still.

******

Johnny emerged from the latrine. The door to the darkened dorm was closed, but the panel failed to muffle Kelly's snoring. Roy had changed to a fresh undershirt and was bent over the sink. The glow of the single light over the mirror reflected on his newly combed hair. DeSoto popped a couple of aspirins into his mouth and sipped water from the collapsible plastic cup he kept in his shaving kit.

Gage grinned. "Gettin' old, partner?" he asked, his voice quiet.

Roy swallowed. "Gettin' smart. Besides, I seem to remember a certain someone who could hardly move the day after working an MVA on the PCH."

Irritated, John exhaled sharply. "You were on the other side of the car. You didn't hafta force the door while the surf kept bashing you into the rocks."

DeSoto chuckled.

Running his fingers through his hair, John sat on the bench. His hair had dried into thickets of stiff tangles, and Chet's choice of generic shampoo had left his scalp dry and itchy. He scratched. Smile fading, he leaned back against his locker. "Why do things like that happen?"

"If I knew that I wouldn't be working here." Roy yawned and headed toward the dorm. "I'm beat."

"Ever wonder what keeps us from ending up the same way?" Gage studied the ceiling.

Stifling a sigh, DeSoto looked at his partner. "Good judgement." He stopped.

John shook his head. "Do you really think that is all?"

Turning, DeSoto studied Gage's image in the mirror. Shadows obscured John's face, but his eyes were visible and revealed his depression. Roy sat next to Johnny and waited, listening to the tiny shifts and wiggles that punctuated the other paramedic's thoughts. "Why is this one getting to you? Is it because he was an Indian?" he finally asked.

Shrugging, John closed his eyes, again seeing the face of the young hustler. "He reminded me of my cousin."

"Lots of people look similar. Doesn't mean they're anything alike."

Gage forced a smile. "It's in us all -- the history, the fear, the loss, the anger..."

Roy bowed his head, shadows of the rare glimpses into his partner's past clouding his features. "Johnny...."

"I've spent my life trying to outrun it," Gage whispered, interrupting DeSoto and shaking his head.

"Johnny, we've all had bad things happen. They don't have to consume us." Roy tipped his head and glanced at John out the corner of his eyes. "Come on, let's hit the sack." He stood.

The lights snapped on and the two-tone alarm sounded. DeSoto groaned. In the dorm, Kelly's snoring rattled to a stop and the beds creaked as the engine crew woke. "Station 51, Man down. 3 - 0 - 0 - 8 East Albreda cross street Martin. 3008 East Albreda. Time out 3:18."

John darted past Roy and through the door into the apparatus bay.

******

"He's back here." The policeman led the two paramedics through the warren of filthy rooms.

Other officers led handcuffed strung-out or still-stoned crack addicts past the firemen. One man spewed a stream of profanity as he was pulled kicking and screaming across the floor, his baggy pants sliding below his knees. When the junkie saw the two paramedics he began screaming about how his arms hurt. "You gotta help me, they're killin' me."

Smoothing his bristling, steel-gray crew cut, the cop climbed the rickety stairs. "He's one of those rich boys, who like to take a break from real life by playing Russian roulette with their brain cells."

Gage banged the drug box and his shoulder against the wall as he stumbled on a cascade of beer and soda cans, dislodged by the passing police officer. Swearing under his breath, John struggled to regain his balance.

Roy grabbed Johnny's arm, steadying him.

"Gonna be one of those nights," Gage muttered bitterly.

"What's wrong with him?" DeSoto asked the cop.

"We start to cuff him, real nice like, and he keels over. Says his chest hurts. I think it's badge-itis, but we called you anyway." The cop entered a darkened room. "Paul," said the policeman, addressing a colleague standing in the shadows.

A beam of the light blinded Gage as he stepped through the door. Raising his hand to shield his face, John squinted into the darkness.

"Sorry," apologized Paul, lowering the flashlight.

As John's eyes adjusted, the details of the room slowly resolved. The man lay face down on a torn, dirty mattress in the middle of the floor. A block of moonlight, bleeding through the broken window, cast a bluish glow across a sea of trash. Rags, crumpled paper, glittering fragments of broken glass, and condom wrappers littered the floor. A half-eaten lump of unidentifiable fast food writhed under the assault of a horde of cockroaches. In the cold light, the splotches of black blood and irregular rings of dried urine staining the stripped surface of the mattress appeared to swallow the man's bound arms. Inky shadows clung to the corners of the room. The smell of human excrement rose from the debris.

Roy pushed through the crowded door. He squatted cautiously, aware of the possibility of infectious sharps in the detritus surrounding the pad. "Sir?" He reached for the man's neck.

The addict rolled over, flopping like a dying fish. The sour stench of body odor and other darker smells filled Gage's nose, gagging him.

DeSoto gasped.

"Roy," panted the man. "Help me! Hurts!" He writhed in pain.

"It's Brackett," breathed John, crouching beside the mattress.

"Uncuff him!" ordered Roy.

******

John pressed his fingers against Kel's clammy neck. The physician's jugular trembled frantically beneath his fingers. "Too rapid to count." He moved his palm to Brackett's diaphragm and counted as the second hand ticked by. "28. Where's it hurt?"

Roy unrolled the blood pressure cuff.

Brackett panted. Beads of sweat glittered on his forehead and a day's growth of beard crusted his chin. His eyes didn't focus. "Crushing substernal chest pain.... Can't breathe.... Feels like an elephant... is sitting on me.... Oh God, I've had an MI."

"OK, Doc." Johnny glanced at Roy.

"BP 170, palp," said DeSoto.

"Whew," mouthed Gage, soundlessly. "Let's get him out of here. I can't see to work on him." John unwrapped the mask and tubing, turned the valve on the regulator, and slipped the oxygen mask over Kel's face.

"OK." DeSoto pulled the HT from his pocket. "Engine 51, this is HT 51, can you please send up a stokes?"

"10-4, HT 51," replied Stoker. "It's on the way, Roy."

"Doc, how much did you do?" asked John.

Brackett shrugged weakly. "Don't remember."

Gage looked around, trying hopelessly to estimate from the litter of vials just how much of the drug the doctor had consumed.

Kel snorted. "I never thought I could be caught. Saw the junkies coming into my ER and I looked down my nose at them -- weak."

Gage pulled the bandage scissors from their holster. Hurriedly, he slit the front of the doctor's blue and orange-stripped shirt. He attached the electrodes to Brackett's chest. "Roy," Johnny pointed to the screen with his chin. "160. PSVT." A spasm of pain passed through the doctor.

Brackett gasped. "But, then the hours stretched on, a parade of ugliness -- more than I could fix, more than I could block out...." Words trailing off, Kel grimaced in agony. He panted for air, his face darkening alarmingly. "Just once... to relax.... I... never... intended... to get... addicted.... Too strong.... Now... here... I... am." A thin stream of spittle ran down his chin.

Pride goeth before the fall, quoted Johnny silently, nodding to the arriving firefighters. Chet and Marco lowered the stokes. "Shh, Doc. Let us do all the work." He looked at Lopez. "On three." Gage slid his hands under the doctor's shoulders, ignoring the sticky dampness of Brackett's clothes. "One -- two -- three." They lifted Kel into the wire basket. "Don't move him around too much," cautioned John.

DeSoto placed the datascope and oxygen between Brackett's legs. "Get him out of here," he instructed, standing.

******

"Roy, not Rampart," begged Brackett as the firemen lowered the litter to the relatively clean grass outside.

John took a deep breath, greedily sucking in the fresh air, the stench of the crack house fading. "Calm down. We're gonna take good care of you."

"St. Francis," he insisted, struggling against the straps.

"Heart rate 190," whispered John, leaning close to his partner.

Roy placed his hands on the older man's shoulders. "Dr. Brackett," he said, firmly, "you must lie still...."

"Not... Rampart..." repeated Kel. He grimaced again, his respirations becoming irregular.

"Doc, you gotta calm down." Frowning, Gage glanced at the scope and then at DeSoto. He shook his head slightly.

Brackett stiffened. Abruptly he clutched at his chest, groaned and then his muscles went slack. Before they closed, his eyes stared accusingly at Johnny.

"V-fib," yelled John, jerking his head up.

"Bag him, Chet," ordered DeSoto, aligning and raising his arm to deliver a precordial thump. Kel's body jerked as Roy struck him. Roy looked at the monitor and shaking his head began chest compressions.

Kelly scrambled to Brackett's side. The sooty, leather-covered span of his gloved fingers concealed the doctor's face as Chet clamped the mask over Kel's nose and mouth.

Lopez knelt, replacing DeSoto. The scream of the siren on the arriving ambulance ricocheted off the scarred walls of the crack house.

John threw open the case of the defibrillator, grabbed the paddles, and held them toward Roy. DeSoto squirted the conductive gel on the pads. Swiftly, Gage rubbed the metal plates to together to distribute the goo and pressed them against Brackett's chest. Glancing at the defibrillator's monitor, he confirmed the erratic twitching of the heart muscle. Sweat gathered under Gage's arms.

Roy punched the charge button. "One... Two hundred."

"Clear!" called Gage. Marco dropped back on his heels and Chet pulled the ambu bag from Kel's face. John pressed the buttons, the doctor's body convulsed under the shock. A fresh stink of urine joined the stale odor clinging to the physician's clothes. "No conversion."

The firefighters resumed CPR. Roy opened the biophone, swiftly snapping the antenna into place.

With a savage two-fingered motion, Johnny adjusted the energy level and started the unit charging. "Clear!" Again the physician's body jerked. "Damn it! No conversion."

DeSoto reset the defibrillator. "One. Two. Three. Three-sixty," he counted.

"Clear!" On the screen, the disorganized line of light twitched and then caught, reforming into an even but frantic pattern. Gage pressed his fingers against Brackett's carotid. "We've got a pulse." Tombstone-shaped humps wandered along the trace. John clicked his tongue in disgust. "He's throwing PVC's." He inflated the blood pressure cuff. "Get authorization for lidocaine."

"Rampart," started Roy, "this is County 51. How do you read me?" Making quick notations on the MICU form, DeSoto waited.

"Unit calling repeat," crackled Dixie's voice.

Roy met John's eyes and made a face. "Rampart, this is County 51. How do you read me?"

"Loud and clear. Go ahead 51."

"Pulse 128, BP 80/40," reported Gage.

"Johnny," called Chet, yanking the mask away from Kel's face and struggling to roll the doctor on his side.

John grabbed Brackett's hip, pulling him onto his side. A foul smelling, mustard-yellow tide poured from the unconscious man's mouth as he vomited. Gage grabbed the suction equipment.

"Ugh," commented Kelly, backing away from the spreading puddle.

"Bag him," ordered John, easing Kel onto his back, positioning his stethoscope and listening. "Shit, he's aspirated." He looked at Roy.

"Rampart, we have a male, approximately 45, complaining of chest pain after consuming an unknown quantity of crack cocaine. He went into v-fib; we defibrillated times 3 before conversion. Patient has aspirated vomitus." Roy touched his pen to each item as he talked. "Pulse 128, BP 80/40, no spontaneous respiration and is being ventilated. Skin is pale and damp. We're reading multifocal PVC's." He took a deep breath. "Requesting lidocaine, and esophageal airway."

Mike Morton's voice replaced McCall's. "10-4, 51. Go ahead with the airway. And send us a strip."

Gage nodded and tore open the packet covering the airway.

"Transmitting telemetry." Roy flipped the switch on the biophone and waited a moment. "Rampart, did you receive our transmission?"

"Affirmative, 51. We concur. IV normal saline, TKO; 100 mg lidocaine bolus; and start a lidocaine drip," ordered Morton.

"10-4," acknowledged DeSoto, "IV NS TKO, 100 mg lidocaine bolus and lidocaine drip." He scribbled the order on the patient care form.

John pushed the tube into the doctor's esophagus and fitted the mask to the adapter. He bent, listening as Chet squeezed the bag. "Ventilation is..." His lips twitched downwards. "OK." He pulled the stethoscope from his ears. "I hear rales. He's got a lotta junk down there," he said, glancing up at his partner.

Roy passed Johnny a large bore IV needle, then carefully attached the administration set to the bag of saline.

Gage tied the tourniquet and swabbed the doctor's arm. Grime stained the pad. The vein collapsed and pulled away. He made an angry, frustrated noise, replaced the needle, and selected a new spot.

"Johnny," offered Roy.

"I got it!" On the third try, the beveled edge finally broke through the wall of the blood vessel and red blossomed at the base of the needle. "I'm in," said John, taping the thin catheter into place. "Give it here." He reached for the bag, and snapped the tubing to the cannula.

Stoker squatted next to Lopez, counting and getting the rhythm. He relieved his colleague.

"Lidocaine." DeSoto passed John the prefill.

Gage reread the label and expelled the excess medication. "Lidocaine's in," he reported, pulling the needle from the medication port. John reached for the drug box, preparing the IV infusion.

Roy watched the monitor.

Holding the second bag aloft, John studied the datascope. After a moment he gave a rapid thumbs-up gesture. "Better."

Standing, Roy gestured to the ambulance attendants. "Let's go. Chet, please drive the squad in."

******

Signs and street lamps flashed outside the window as the ambulance sped down the darkened road. The multicolored flickers of light glittered reflected by Roy's eyes as he sat at the head of the stretcher, squeezing the ambu bag. The IV's swayed with the movement of the rig, brushing the tubing against Gage's shoulder while he leaned over Brackett's arm, again measuring the doctor's blood pressure. Scowling, John studied the cardiac monitor. "He's throwing PVC's again." He reached for the biophone. "Rampart, this is County 51.... Hold!"

The datascope wailed.

"V-fib!" John dropped the radio handset and grabbed the paddles.

"Stop the ambulance!" yelled Roy, pushing the charge button. "One. Two. Three. Three-sixty."

"Clear!" Glancing up briefly to make sure his partner was clear, he pressed the buttons. Brackett jerked as the current passed through him. "No conversion."

DeSoto scooped up the receiver and clamped it against his shoulder. He replaced the mask, squeezing the bag rhythmically. "Rampart, this is County 51."

"Again," Johnny exclaimed, listening for the charge tone. "Clear!" The doctor's body convulsed beneath John's hands. The random wiggle continued to wander across the datascope screen, mocking him, its amplitude decreasing. "No conversion."

"Rampart, this is County 51. How do you read me?" repeated Roy.

Transferring the paddles to one hand, Johnny adjusted the machine. After a few interminable seconds, the machine beeped its readiness. "Clear!" Brackett jerked against the straps securing him to the litter. John abruptly repositioned the paddles, staring at the defibrillator's monitor. A straight line bisected the screen. "Flat line." Gage scrambled for the drug box.

"Go ahead, 51."

"Rampart, patient's asystolic. Requesting epinephrine."

"10-4, 51. 1.0 mg 1:10,000 Epinephrine IV push."

"1.0 mg 1:10,000 Epinephrine IVP," confirmed Roy, reaching over his shoulder and rapping on the communicating window. "Hit it!" The driver glanced back and raised his hand. The ambulance accelerated.

John adjusted the dosage and inserted the needle. "Epi's in," he announced. Time dilated as he preformed CPR. Sweat ran down his back and his hair flopped in his eyes. He glanced up at Roy.

"Rampart, no response," reported DeSoto, flatly.

"51, repeat Epinephrine."

"10-4, Rampart."

Gage injected another dose and forced the drug through the doctor's body. A weak, abnormally slow wiggling rattled to life on the screen. He pressed his fingers against Brackett's throat, felt a faint pulsing, and nodded.

"Rampart, we have a ventricular rhythm of 30. No spontaneous respirations," said DeSoto.

"1.0mg Atropine IV push," ordered Morton.

"10-4 Rampart, 1.0 mg Atropine, IVP," repeated Roy.

Gage grabbed the vial and syringe, popped the tops off, screwed the two pieces together and administered the medication.

"Atropine's been administered, Rampart," confirmed Roy.

Gradually the doctor's heart rate accelerated.

DeSoto peeled back Brackett's eyelid. The huge black circle of the doctor's pupil did not contract as the light struck it.

Still holding the syringe, Gage shook his head.

******

"Oh my God, it's Kel," breathed Morton, falling into step alongside the gurney.

"...Pulse 50, BP 90/66, no spontaneous respirations, pupils fixed and dilated," recited Roy, following the litter down the hall. Johnny trotted at the head, squeezing the ambu bag, forcing O₂ into Kel's lungs.

Dixie looked up as they came through the door. Her eyes went wide; her mouth opened and closed soundlessly. Then McCall's face stilled, going expressionless. "Carol, Louise, get over here." She gestured toward the litter.

Roy hooked the two IV bags onto the stand as Morton and the nurses prepared to transfer Bracket to the exam table.

"One. Two. Three," counted Dixie, her voice quiet and steady. They lifted. She nodded sternly for the blue-smocked student nurse to relieve Gage.

"...No idea how much cocaine he consumed," finished DeSoto.

Johnny ducked beneath Roy's arm, exchanging cables, attaching Kel to the ER's cardiac monitor. He frowned as DeSoto concluded his report.

"Draw blood for CBC, SMA - 12, CK with isoenzymes, ABG, PT, PTT, blood alcohol, and serum tox screen," instructed Mike, pushing past Roy. "We need a UA and urine tox screen. Chest films." Morton leaned over, listening to unconscious doctor's lungs. He pulled the stethoscope from his ears and looked at John. "Sounds like shit. Did he aspirate?"

"Yeah," nodded John.

"Let's tube him. Hyperventilate," ordered Morton, gesturing for McCall to bring him a tray of instruments. While Mike tilted Kel's head back, the nurse slit the tape sealing the sterile blue covering over the instruments. "8.0 french," mumbled Mike, pushing the other tube aside and sweeping the doctor's limp tongue out of the way with the laryngoscope blade. Without looking up, he took the airway from Dixie, slipped it into place and reattached the bag.

"Rate 50, BP 92/66," reported the student nurse, confirming DeSoto's last readings.

Gage reached behind Carol, who was bent over the doctor's arm filling tube after tube with blood. Quickly, he grabbed the datascope.

"Again," directed McCall, moving the bell of the stethoscope to the other side of Brackett's chest. "Placement's OK."

As she straightened, Johnny looked into her blue eyes. He bowed his head, refusing to acknowledge what he saw there.

Mike attached the ventilator to the airway.

Joe Early burst through the door, practically knocking Roy to the floor. A group of nurses and attendants stood in the hall just beyond the door. Joe was wearing rumpled, sweat-soaked scrubs and looked like he had come straight from surgery. "Mike, I just heard."

Morton glanced at Early out the corner of his eye. "Dix, start an isoproterrenol drip."

"Yes," said McCall, tearing open the white paper sack covering a bag of saline.

"What happened?" asked Early, pulling out his penlight and pushing back Brackett's eyelid. He frowned.

"Gage and DeSoto found him in a crack house. Looks like cocaine toxicity." Morton continued to stare at the monitor. "Increase the rate a little, Dix."

"How long was he without oxygen, Johnny?" asked Joe, looking at the paramedic.

Louise pulled the no longer necessary, esophageal airway from Kel's throat. Gage shrugged. "One, maybe two minutes. But he didn't really pink up, even with the EOA."

"Mike, did you see," started Early, nodding toward Brackett's eyes.

"Yes," snapped Morton, not looking up.

******

John leaned against the windowsill in the Captain's office, peering between the slats of the blind, watching the stars slowly fade from the sky over the refinery. The surface of the rough brick pushed uncomfortably into his forearm. Gage clung to the sensation, a welcome distraction from his thoughts. Another whiff of disinfectant drifted in from the apparatus bay. Roy had been inventorying and cleaning the squad and its equipment since they had returned, searching for a reason for their failure to successfully resuscitate Brackett, trying to avoid his role as the Angel of Death. Johnny could hear Hank talking to Roy. The station officer had stayed up waiting for his paramedics and was now alternating between cleaning the dayroom and fussing with a new coffee cake recipe he had gotten from the engineer at 110's.

Sighing, Gage turned from the window and sat in front of the desk, staring at the run sheet sticking out of the typewriter. Lines of neat type covered the page and in their cool recitation of the events utterly failed to explain the real reason why Brackett was now as good as dead. A pile of crumbled, equally unrevealing drafts littered the desk. John slumped, resting his head between his hands, and contemplated pacing some more. He rubbed his burning eyes.

"Johnny," said Roy, slouching wearily against the doorframe, a pair of mugs in his hands. Splashes of cleaner darkened his white tee-shirt and fine lines and wrinkles had appeared on the firefighter's face. "Cap made some coffee." He walked over, sat on the corner of the desk, and handed Gage a cup. "You look like hell," observed DeSoto between swallows.

John snorted humorlessly. "I was going to say the same thing about you." His words trailed off as he sipped the hot coffee. He yanked the paper from the typewriter and offered it to DeSoto. "See if this makes any sense."

Roy read. "Seems fine to me," he replied, his frown deepening as the words intensified his depression.

"Find anything out there?" asked Gage, pointing to the apparatus bay with his chin.

DeSoto shook his head. "The defibrillator battery is fine, everything is in date.... Just like it was at the beginning of shift." He took a drink. "Just like it always is."

"And we did everything by the book," said John, his voice tinged with anger and frustration. He leaned back and closed his eyes, seeing the entire run all over again.

"Yeah," agreed Roy, setting down his cup. "Still, I keep looking for a reason."

John looked up, meeting Roy's gaze. "Me, too," he finally replied, leaping from the chair and stalking across the room. "Maybe if I'd have..."

"Johnny..."

"Stop it. This has nothing to do with how either of you did your jobs," interrupted Stanley. Firmly he took John's shoulder and steered the paramedic back to the chair. He set a plate of still warm coffeecake in front of Gage.

Johnny stared the slab of cake Stanley placed on the desk and picked at the thick streusel topping. He pushed the plate away and shook his head.

"Things like this happen. You both know that sometimes, no matter how well you perform, the patient dies... or worse," added Hank, recalling what Roy had told him about Brackett having been deprived of oxygen for too long.

Roy nodded reluctantly.

"But this time," began John, remembering all the strangers who had died under his care -- remembering Drew.

"No buts. This happened because he was doing cocaine," finished Stanley coldly.

"True," whispered Roy.

"Go get cleaned up," ordered Hank, taking the run sheet from the two paramedics. "It's almost time for wake-up call."

Neither man moved.

"Go on," repeated Hank softly, jerking his head toward the washroom.

******

John stood next to the stove in his apartment, dressed in a pair of threadbare jeans and a worn flannel shirt. His smooth brown elbows poked sharply through holes in the sleeves. The dark spore of fatigue marked his face.

Absentmindedly, Johnny stared out the window at the distant mountains, while twisting the handle of a can opener. Shaking his head, Gage turned back to the steaming skillet and dumped the can of green chilies in with the sizzling diced potatoes. The sharp smell mixed with the warm odor of browning butter as he stirred, making his mouth water.

Gage set the hot pan on a folded dishtowel and sat at the kitchen table. He shoveled a forkful of steaming potatoes into his mouth and frantically sucked in cool air. Tilting the vinyl-covered chair John yanked open the refrigerator door, grabbed the milk, and drank directly from the carton. The cold liquid soothed his burnt tongue. Sighing, Johnny let the front legs of the chair drop to the floor. For several moments, he remained slumped over the skillet, immobilized by the weight of the past night. His neighbor's dog barked, sending a shiver up his spine. Shaking his head, Gage lifted the fork.

Abruptly, Johnny stopped eating, the potatoes swelling and turning dry on his tongue. He struggled to swallow. Gage dropped his fork and looked up...

...To meet the clear and critical gaze of Kel Brackett's gray eyes. John gasped. He squeezed his eyes shut, and scrubbed the heels of his hands over his face. Outside, the dog yelped frantically.

"Johnny."

The hair on the back of Johnny's neck stood up as he remembered what his mother used to say about dogs barking for no reason: 'Cinksi, a ghost goes past.' He frowned. "I'm tired. It was a long night," mumbled Gage. Reluctantly, he opened his eyes. The doctor still sat across from him. Instead of the soiled orange and navy stripped knit shirt, Brackett wore crisp green scrubs and a fresh lab coat.

John jumped to his feet, overturning the chair and upsetting the carton. Milk splashed on the floor, spreading in white streams across the linoleum.

"You're making a terrible mess," grunted Brackett.

"But, you're alive...."

The doctor laughed -- a harsh sound more like a bark. "What caused you to think that?" Brackett stood, pressing his hands against the table. His knuckles were white. "The vital signs? Spontaneous respiration? The pupils' response to light? How much alive?"^† he asked, quoting his first encounter with the firefighter.

Gage backed up, fell over the chair, and slid down the wall. The rough stucco tore his elbows and blood ran in warm rivulets down his arms.

Kel walked over and stood looking down at the paramedic. "Enough epi and a stone will have a pulse."

Brackett's voice gritted between John's teeth like broken glass.

"Amateurs," snorted Kel. He turned and walked toward the kitchen wall. He passed through the thick slab, like a pebble falling into deep water. The dog howled once and then was silent.

John lay on the floor until the blood beneath his palms turned thick and cold.

******

Gage sat on his heels next to the squad, the datascope laying on the concrete by his knees. Methodically he untangled the patient cable, re-rolling it carefully around his hand, trying to pretend everything was normal. He could hear Roy on the opposite side of the squad opening the bays, making a quick inventory of the physical rescue gear. The other paramedic whistled tunelessly as he worked, behaving as though nothing had changed.

Johnny slipped the rolled leads back into their compartment and attached the patch cable to the back of the scope and to the biophone. He reached for the handset, preparing to transmit the morning EKG calibration.

"Rampart, this is County 51, how do you read me?"

"We read you loud and clear. Go ahead, 51," replied Brackett's voice.

John stared at the receiver in horror. The back of his neck prickled.

A puzzled noise came over the radio. "Go ahead, 51," repeated Morton.

"Preparing to transmit EKG calibration." John's words sounded strangely hollow in his ears.

"10-4, 51."

Gage flipped the switch on the radio and reached for the datascope. His hand shook as he punched the test button.

"Calibration received"

"10-4."

"Rampart out."

"Radio problem?" asked DeSoto, standing beside the rear of the squad, his hand resting on the shiny rail surrounding the top of the squad.

John willed his voice not to waver. "No. It seems to be OK now." Unlike you, Gage, he added silently. He stood, returned the equipment to the bay, closed the door and brushed off his hands on his pant legs.

"Let's go to Rampart and pick up those supplies," suggested Roy, pushing away from the side of the vehicle. "And check on Brackett," he added softly.

At the mention of the doctor's name, Johnny's blood ran cold. Sweat began to trickle down his back.

"Johnny?"

"Yeah -- uh -- right," John stammered.

Canting his head, DeSoto looked at his partner curiously. "You OK?"

"I'm fine," replied Gage, shortly. Liar! accused the voice in his head.

******

DeSoto stopped in the opening of the cubicle. Johnny peered over Roy's shoulder. Drs Morton and Early were at the head of the bed. An unfamiliar nurse stood next to the physicians. Brackett was nearly invisible, surrounded by machines, his chest moving with the mechanical evenness of the ventilator. The harsh blue-tinged light turned Kel's pale skin a ghastly shade.

Gage studied the monitor mounted over the comatose doctor's head. The sharp spike of an artificial pacemaker preceded each beat, tearing through the normal electrical signature of a healthy heart. Johnny frowned.

Early set down the stack of flowsheets he held. Deliberately, he peeled back Brackett's eyelid. The black ring of the pupil remained unnaturally large and still, despite the brilliant slash of light falling across the glistening surface. Slowly and gently, Joe trailed a wisp of cotton over the corner of Kel's eye. Roy winced in sympathy. But, Brackett did not blink. Early lifted the other eyelid and repeated the test. For a second, the gray-haired doctor's hand shook as he threw away the cotton. "Negative corneal reflex," Joe reported, forcing a faint tremor from his voice.

Mike nodded. He made an adjustment to the corrugated tubing attached to the slender endotracheal tube protruding from Brackett's mouth. "Turn off the vent," Morton instructed the nurse.

She adjusted a knob. "Vent's off."

The comatose doctor exhaled once and then lay unmoving. Morton eyed his watch, glancing away from the oxygen saturation monitor. Early stared at Brackett's chest. The room became quiet. The muted chatter of dispatch on Roy's HT seemed abnormally loud.

John watched as the number in the corner of the screen fell. Still, the doctor did not move.

"Four minutes. Draw a blood gas," ordered Mike.

"Restart the vent," said Early, his voice barely audible. "He's apneic."

"Let's do another EEG."

Joe nodded, defeated.

Morton looked straight at the two paramedics. Gage noticed for the first time the gray peppering the hair at the physician's temples. Mike locked eyes with John, his dark gaze boring into Johnny. Gage thought he detected more than a hint of blame. He turned away.

"51, what's your status?" asked Sam Lanier, his voice distorted by the radio.

John nudged Roy, gently. "We got to get back." He nodded toward the handitalkie, clutched in DeSoto's hand.

"51, available," replied DeSoto slowly, still staring at Brackett's limp body.

"10-4, 51. Stand by for response."

"10-4."

******

"...40mg Lasix IVP," repeated John, reading back the orders. The paramedic clamped the handset against his shoulder and, still holding the pen, rubbed his nose.

"10-4."

Roy swabbed the IV line and injected the medication. "This should make you feel better real soon," he reassured, dropping the syringe into the disposal container. The elderly woman slumped in the recliner nodded between gasps. He glanced at the long-term care facility's nursing supervisor, who stood by the chair.

"Keep..." started Gage, glancing at the attendants guiding the stretcher into the room. A crowd of residents and staff had gathered in the hallway outside the door. In the middle stood Brackett. John stared.

"Johnny?" asked Roy, holding out the IV bag and looking up at Gage.

Gage blinked. Instead of Brackett, there was a dark-haired man in blue coveralls. "Keep her head up," stammered Johnny, reaching for the IV, still staring at the man.

Frowning, Roy followed his partner's gaze and saw nothing but the nursing home janitor. "Let's go," he instructed.

******

"Roy, do you believe in ghosts?" asked John, his voice shattering the late night quiet in the cab of the squad.

"Been watching too many of Chet's scary movies?" teased DeSoto. The minute the words dropped from his lips, Roy realized he had said the wrong thing. He risked a glance away from the light traffic to look at his partner: John was slumped against the door, the headlights of the oncoming cars flashing on his face. As DeSoto watched Gage's expression altered, sealing over.

Johnny gritted his teeth. "No," he replied, shortly. He turned and gazed out the window.

Roy was silent until the squad was stopped at a traffic light. "Sorry." He listened, waiting for the sigh and shift in position that would indicate John's forgiveness. The light changed, he accelerated. After a few moments, the vinyl seat next to DeSoto crackled. "No, I don't," said Roy. "Do you?"

Gage shrugged. He watched the familiar signs advertising used car dealerships and bars pass. "What do you think happens when you die?"

"To a person's soul?" asked DeSoto.

Johnny nodded.

"When I was a kid, I used to believe if people were good they went to heaven. Streets of gold, dessert everyday..." His voice trailed off and he snorted.

John smiled thinly.

"I've seen an awful lot of people die since then. Now, I just don't know." Roy paused. "They say you see a white light and feel at peace... I've never seen anybody who looked happy when they died." DeSoto shrugged as he turned the squad onto Main Street.

Gage nodded, remembering the scowl twisting Brackett's face.

"What about you? Do you believe in ghosts?"

Johnny opened his mouth; for half a second he thought the story of Brackett's visits would spill from his lips. He closed his mouth and swallowed, recalling the psychotic woman who had set her house on fire to free the ghost of her daughter. He shivered. "My people do," he answered, slowly. "You hear a lot of ghost stories growing up on the rez." Gage stared at the lights and remembered.

******

"There she is," said Howard Red Owl, pointing.

Johnny looked up. The breath of his uncle's horse rose in a white cloud, blurring the edges of the brown and white spotted cow into the snow-covered skeletons of wild plums and willows. The cow stood ankle deep in the middle of the creek, her muzzle beneath the surface of the water. Blood and pus trickled down her swollen right foreleg, flowing over a brown crust of old, dried blood. Rolling her eyes and flicking her tail, she lifted her head and exhaled in a loud whoosh.

"Don't spook her," instructed Red Owl, handing a coil of rope to his teenaged nephew.

Gage touched his heels to the side of his horse and clicked his tongue, urging her off the soft, silt bank. The rotten ice bordering the water crunched beneath the mare's hooves. Plumes of muddy gray flowed downstream from each footstep, swirling and eddying before disappearing. Carefully, he rode alongside the cow and slipped the rope over her neck. She stamped and turned a white-rimmed eye toward Johnny as he tightened the rope. Slowly, John led the cow out of the water, the animal limping docilely after him.

Howard swung down from the saddle and bent to inspect the inflamed leg.

Johnny watched the cow uneasily. He felt cattle only respected a man on horseback. The two ribs he had broken as a child when Dwayne had dared him to ride one of the young steers ached with the memory of the kick. He watched his uncle touch the cow's leg.

"Barb wire," remarked Howard. "I'll get the trailer, I don't wanna walk her all the way back."

" 'K," acknowledged Johnny, leading the injured cow to a sheltered bend choked with a thick growth of dead grass, crusted with a thin layer of snow. Overhead low, moisture-heavy clouds gathered, turning the light pale and watery. A cold wind tore up the draw.

Shivering, Gage slid from horseback, stretching his stiffening thigh muscles. For a moment he stood, rubbing the velvety muzzle of his horse, savoring the warmth of her breath on his face. She nuzzled at his shoulder. Johnny looped the reins over the branch of a fallen tree and wandered into a thicket of willows, cottonwood and wild gooseberries, trying to walk the warmth back into his legs.

A flash of orange among the grays, browns, and whites caught John's attention. Gage took a step closer, pushing back a thorny tangle. Raggedy Ann's stupid grin gazed back at him. The doll was tied by her neck to a stout chokecherry stick. The snow beneath the toy was stained red and green, and the sharp smell of peppermint rose from the melted Christmas candy. Red and yellow cloth pouches of tobacco dangled from another stick -- waunyanpi. Coyote or dog tracks next to a third fallen offering revealed the fate of the sack of wasna, once tied to the stick. John jumped back, dropping the branches.

Gage stared at the makeshift altar in the bushes and recalled the stories he had heard. Late March, the warm east wind -- the enlightening breath -- had blown in. Overnight Sage Creek and the tributaries of the White River swelled with murky gray snowmelt. A group of children had gone to the low bluffs overlooking the creek turned to a raging river. Little Darlene Olsen had wandered a ways from the rest of the group, walking along the rain-soaked bank. The floodwaters lapped away at the softened gumbo clay beneath her feet and the girl fell screaming into the foaming water. For days the tribal police and local ranchers combed the banks and draws as the waters receded, poking the sodden bush, probing piles of silt. Finally, the family buried the child's communion dress. While the priest said his blessing and the father shoveled dirt over the tiny white coffin, Darlene's mother walked the banks of Sage Creek, wailing broken-heartedly. Her mourning songs echoed off the clay banks for months as she wandered the brush day after day, searching for her daughter's body. To assuage his daughter's grief, old man Pretty Weasel -- the girl's grandfather -- took a half a beef and a bag of tobacco to a Yuwipi man down in Kyle. The medicine man told them the spirits said the girl's body was lying face down in a snag of willow with a wild plum in her mouth. The next day Darlene's father and uncle found her in the thicket, a withered fruit clenched between her dead teeth and brittle lips. Ever since, people had whispered about a small ghost seen walking the bluffs.

Shivering, John imagined the sweetness of the plum and gritty bitterness of the mud. From the bole of a lightning-struck cottonwood, an owl hooted, announcing a pending death, then it took flight in the gathering dusk, its wings soundless as it wove among the branches. Abruptly, Johnny caught a whiff of rotting flesh. Pulling the collar of his jacket over his mouth, he nervously walked around a narrow spit of gravel and clay.

Lying against the base of the bluff was the body of a black-tailed deer, long ago trapped and frozen to death in the deep snows, which had piled in the draw. The thawing body was slowly swelling. The air carried the odor of stale blood and rancid fat, sour and terrifying. Johnny gagged. Behind him the brush crackled and somewhere something whistled in the wind. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. Gage stood, heart pounding, afraid to turn.

Suddenly the rattling of the metal sides of a stock trailer echoed off the walls. His uncle's pickup bumped along the road above the draw. "Johnny!" yelled Howard over the grinding of the engine.

"Coming," called Gage, scrambling for his horse.

******

"Johnny?"

"Huh?" muttered Gage. The squad had quit moving and was parked in the apparatus bay. Turning, he looked up into Roy's concerned eyes. "Oh." He grabbed the mic. "Squad 51 in quarters."

DeSoto studied Gage. "You thinking about Brackett?"

Johnny struggled not to jump at the question, for a moment afraid Roy could see the mad delusions visiting him. He shrugged. "A little, maybe."

"We did the best we could." Roy's voice turned cold. "He made a bad choice." DeSoto opened the door of the squad.

******

Gage rolled over, closed his eyes and breathed slowly and evenly. Maybe if I pretend long enough I'll actually fall asleep, he thought. Since he had gone off-shift the day before -- really since the night they had found Brackett -- he had not been able to sleep.

In the distance a dog barked and Johnny's heart leapt. Jerking fully awake he looked at the alarm clock beside his bed. "Three-forty," he announced to the empty room. He lay, sweaty palms pressed against the sheets, straining to hear. Outside the dog quieted. Gage slowly relaxed. Suddenly the dog howled mournfully.

Johnny threw aside the blankets and struggled to his feet. He staggered into the hall, determined this time not to be taken by surprise.

******

"Doughnuts," crowed Kelly, watching DeSoto approach the table. A huge grin split his face as he grabbed the box from the startled paramedic's hand.

Roy backpedaled, barely getting out of Chet's way. His cup of coffee sloshed. Drawing a sharp breath between his teeth, DeSoto shook the hot liquid from his burned fingers.

Kelly tore open the top. "Jelly-filled. Raspberry?"

Roy nodded. "They only had one raspberry left. But I got lemon and chocolate cream too...."

Henry raised his head, sniffing the air.

"Forget it, mutt," warned Chet, shaking his finger at the dog. "You too, Gage. You got the last one last time." He moved the cartoon carefully out of John's reach. Gazing open-mouthed into the container, Kelly frowned -- all the pastries looked the same. He started to root through the box.

"Don't you dare handle them all looking for the raspberry one," ordered Marco, grabbing his colleague's arm and crinkling his nose in disgust. He picked one up with a napkin and examined it. "There," he said, handling it to Chet.

Kelly bit into the doughnut, the confectioner's sugar powdering the hairs of his dark brown mustache. "Mmmm," he moaned.

Roy rolled his eyes, trying to decide if it was safe to reach for the box or whether he would still be at risking for losing a limb -- only this time to Johnny. He looked at Henry. The dog had resumed his contemplation of his paws, having concluded no treats would be forthcoming this shift. Roy turned back to the table. Gage made no move toward the remaining doughnuts; instead he sat staring into his cup of coffee.

Chet waved the bitten pastry beneath John's nose. "Mmmm, Johnny."

Johnny gazed at the crimson goo oozing from the firefighter's teeth marks. "Get that thing out of my face."

"Jealous," gloated Kelly.

"No."

"What's wrong; get dumped again?" Chet's words were muffled by another mouthful.

"I'm not hungry," snapped John.

"Must be sick," commented Marco, munching on a lemon doughnut.

Kelly studied the paramedic's face. "Yeah, he looks feverish. Been playing with any monkeys lately, Gage?"

Gage flushed with anger. "I'm going to finish mopping the apparatus bay," he said stiffly, standing.

DeSoto watched his partner leave the room.

"Roy," began Chet, his face serious, the doughnut sitting forgotten on the table, "What's with Johnny? I was just teasing."

"Things haven't been going too well lately."

"Dr. Brackett?" asked Kelly quietly.

Roy nodded. He swirled the dregs around the cup, watching the brown liquid spin. "That's part of it."

"There wasn't a thing Johnny could have done," offered Marco.

Kelly's eyes narrowed. "It's not like anyone forced the crack pipe into his mouth."

DeSoto nodded again and met Kelly's gaze. He could tell from Chet's expression that the firefighter had heard that the doctor was brain dead. "I know. But..." Roy heard his voice falter. "We worked with Dr. Brackett a long time -- he trained Johnny. Then when he needed us we couldn't get his heart going again in time."

"It wasn't you or Johnny's fault," comforted Kelly.

"I understand that." Roy smiled thinly. "Or at least my head does." He stared at the door to the apparatus bay, imagining Gage scrubbing grimly at the floor as though trying to remove a different stain. "In time so will Johnny."

******

Johnny counted out ampoules of dextrose, setting each carefully inside a cardboard box. "Three," he murmured, closing the steel and glass cabinet door and turning the lock. "Anything else?" he asked.

"Sixteen gauge Angiocaths," replied Roy.

"Already got 'em." Johnny touched the long thin packages.

Roy shook his head. "That's it then."

"OK." Gage leaned forward and signed the drug inventory form.

Dixie stepped out of the base station enclosure and grabbed a student nurse. "Get exam 2 ready. We have a burn victim on the way in." The young woman scurried off. Sighing, Dixie sat behind the nurses' station counter, looking pale and drawn.

"Dixie?" Roy looked into her blue eyes.

Johnny leaned on his hip against the cabinet. "Brackett," he whispered.

"How is Dr. Brackett?" inquired DeSoto.

McCall's face got very still. "They withdrew life support at 13:38."

Pursing his lips, Gage drew a slow deep breath. He shook his head.

"He's dead," finished Dixie, lifting a chart.

Roy looked at the radio clenched in his hands. "I'm sorry."

******

Gage watched DeSoto's lips soundlessly shape, "Faking it." Fingers wrapped around the old man's bony wrist, John finished counting the strong, steady beat. Sighing, he studied the man's still form, then looked up at the circle of drunken men surrounding them in the dingy hallway of the cheap motel. Slowly, he raised the limp arm above the unconscious man's face and let go.

At the last moment the limb miraculously flopped away from the old man's head, striking Johnny's leg.

"Bill," began Gage loudly, "open your eyes."

"He can't," offered one of the bystanders, turning to Roy. His foul breath caused DeSoto to narrow his eyes. "He has these fits."

"Every time his bottle is empty," added the hotel owner, his words clipped by a strong Delhi accent. He pushed through the crowd, pulling a brightly colored bathrobe tighter around his waist as he walked.

Involuntarily, the old man's head twitched.

"Is he diabetic?" asked Roy, even though he knew Bill's medical history better than the old man did. Bill was an old, lonely drunk who got himself checked into a hospital whenever his money ran out.

"Bill," snapped John. "I know you're awake."

Under the old man's grimy lids, his eyes flicked toward Gage.

John pointed with his chin to the movement. "OK. Roy call Rampart and get authorization for an IV." He ignored his partner's wide-eyed stare and ripped open an alcohol prep. He inflated the blood pressure cuff and scrubbed away the dirt covering the man's arm. "Roy," he repeated, making eye contact with DeSoto.

"Johnny," started Roy.

"He wants to go to the hospital, so let's get it over with." John selected a 14 gauge needle from the drug box, pulled out a bag of saline and an administration kit. Below his fingers Bill's arm twitched.

Horrified, the alcoholic stared at the large needle from beneath his partially closed eyelids.

"Johnny." Roy reached for John's arm.

"Call it in!" exploded Gage, pulling out a second alcohol-soaked pad and finishing cleaning the patch of skin.

Roy released John's arm, threw open the biophone, and twisted the antenna into place. "Rampart, this is County 51. How do you read me?"

"Go ahead, 51."

"We have a male," began DeSoto.

Bill yanked away from Gage. "I don't wanna go to the hospital," he slurred, fumbling with the Velcro securing the blood pressure cuff. He tossed the device aside.

"Stand by, Rampart," instructed Roy.

"Standing by, 51."

"Make up your mind, Bill," ordered Gage, feeling the liquid evaporate from the pad he held, praying the coolness would drain from his fingertips into his heart.

"I don't wanna go." Unsteadily the man pushed himself upright. "Gimme the form."

John dropped the soiled gauze and picked up the clipboard. He shuffled through the papers, selecting the correct sheet. He offered the board and pen to Bill.

"Rampart, the patient is refusing treatment," finished Roy, forcing his voice to remain calm and even.

"10-4, 51."

"Bill this form says...." recited DeSoto, explaining the papers his partner held before the drunk. The whole time Roy talked, he never removed his gaze from Johnny's face.

******

DeSoto slid the biophone into the compartment. He glanced out the corner of his eye at Gage. His partner's expression was closed and dark. "Johnny," began Roy.

"Don't start with me, Roy," warned Gage. "We both know there is nothing wrong with that guy." He slid the drug box into the compartment, listening to the solid thump of plastic against metal. "Five times this month. He's a frequent flyer."

"It's not our place to decide that."

"Someday someone is gonna die 'cause we're transporting Bill. Him and all the other jerks out there who are poisoning themselves," snapped John, slamming the compartment doors.

DeSoto looked at Gage, seeing the reflections of the night Brackett had died playing across the other paramedic's eyes. He turned away, remembering the unearthly calm of Dixie's voice this afternoon as she told them that the doctors had pulled the plug on the physician.

"We can't be expected to save them if they're determined to commit slow suicide."

Roy bit his lip.

******

"...And this concludes our broadcast day," proclaimed the mellow voice of the nameless TV announcer. The colored bars of the test pattern replaced the image of flags and mountains.

Gage switched off the television. He peered into the shadows in the corners beyond the set, willing the shapes he saw there to remain still. Shivering, he remembered searching the apartment for Brackett's ghost. "Get a grip," he whispered, talking to himself. "Keep this up and they'll be taking you out of here in a straightjacket." He stood up. "All you need is to relax and get a good night's sleep."

John walked into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and removed a beer. Slowly he pulled off the tab and lifted the can.

"Tsk. Tsk."

Gage whirled. The blood drained from his face.

Brackett looked at the can in the paramedic's hand. "That's how it starts."

"Go away," John defiantly hissed.

The doctor stepped closer and grabbed John's wrist. "It's just one beer -- this time."

Gage yanked his arm free from Brackett's icy fingers. The apparition's words angered him. "What do you know about it?" he demanded.

"It starts just like this. A little stress -- a little trouble sleeping -- and you turn to chemicals to help you cope." The ghost stared into Johnny's eyes, holding the paramedic frozen. "Just this once."

"Leave me alone," beseeched John, starting to shake. "I need to sleep."

"By all means drink up," encouraged Brackett, smiling. "Soon you'll be crawling on the ground, begging for nickels -- just before you get really desperate and start drinking Sterno, antifreeze, and aftershave."

The spirit leaned closer, until Gage could feel Brackett's cold breath on his cheek.

"Then we can spend eternity together, discussing how you killed me."

"I did my best," protested John weakly. He tried to back away but got trapped against the kitchen sink.

"Well, it wasn't good enough was it?" Brackett grabbed Gage's arm, forcing the beer to his mouth, crushing the skin of John's lips against his teeth.

The bitter taste of aluminum mingled with the salty flavor of blood. Gage fought to push the can away, but the ghost held his wrist with an uncanny strength. The burning, bittersweet brew trickled out the sides of his mouth. John choked.

"Drink up!"

Gage released the can. The sticky liquid spattered and foamed on the floor, releasing its sickly smell. The beer ran in brown rivulets through the space where the doctor had stood.

******

Johnny ducked the grimy hand, clenched in a tight fist, and the blow swished through the air above his head. Gage grabbed the trauma box and held it in front of him like a shield. A second blow slammed the hard-sided case into his hands, the pattern of the plastic shell pressing painfully into his palms. "Roy!"

"We could use some help here!" bellowed DeSoto, hanging on to the man's arm. The frail-looking drunk pulled the fair-haired paramedic off balance with a chemical-enhanced strength. DeSoto fell. The man dived toward Gage. The victim, an alcoholic vet who self-medicated away his demons, was familiar to every paramedic in the district. Johnny and Roy pulled him out of various gutters at least dozen times a year, but never before had he been violent. But tonight he had been beaten and robbed by a drinking buddy.

"Bastards, you took my bottle!" screamed the man.

"Chet, Marco!" shouted Gage, trying the slip under the next blow and grab the man's arm. "Damn, there goes the IV." John's fingers caught a filthy sleeve; he tugged. As he wrinkled his nose, trying not to inhale the choking stink of the soiled clothing and unwashed skin, he could hear Stanley radio for police assistance.

Kelly dived in, seizing the waistband of the victim's trousers with his gloved hand. "Settle down," he ordered calmly.

Marco grabbed the man from behind and held his arms tightly. Together the four of them wrestled the injured man to the ground. Chet pressed the man's legs against the cold, rough pavement.

"Let me up! You..." The alcoholic cursed viciously.

"Calm down. Let us help you," instructed Stanley, his voice strained and harsh.

Panting, Roy pushed to a kneeling position. His hair stood on end and his shirttails hung askew. "Johnny, can you please get me a fresh set up," he gasped.

John turned.

Suddenly the drunk yanked his leg free from Kelly's grasp. "Damn," swore Chet, struggling to again restrain the man.

The heavy military boot heel smashed into John's hip. Gage folded, the IV supplies dropping from his hands. A second kick slammed him in the chest. Johnny flew backwards, landing on the pavement, his head hitting the hard concrete. The world exploded in a shower of yellow stars. Soundlessly, he curled, fighting for breath.

"Johnny!" yelled DeSoto and Stanley simultaneously. The station officer squatted beside the crumpled paramedic. He lifted the HT. "LA, this is Engine 51. What's the ETA on the sheriff's deputy?"

"Stand by, 51," crackled the radio.

"Johnny?" repeated Roy.

At last John caught his breath with a whoosh. Drawing a great gasp of air, he waved a hand, signaling he was uninjured. " 'M OK," he finally wheezed, struggling to his knees.

"Two minutes, 51."

"10-4," acknowledged Hank, steadying Johnny as he straightened. "Are you sure?" he asked, examining the paramedic.

Gage nodded, retrieving the IV setup. He started to hand the needle to DeSoto.

The drunk spat.

The spittle struck Johnny in the neck. He flushed. Gage stared at the gaunt face of the victim, twisted in rage, sickness and drink. Involuntarily John's hand flattened; he drew back his arm slightly. The blow never fell. The movement transmuted into a shiver, twitching the muscles of his arm.

"Johnny?" asked Roy, gently pulling the needle from his partner's hand. His blue eyes met Gage's dark ones. John stared back in mute horror.

Rapidly Gage stood, wiping his neck. He walked stiffly toward the arriving ambulance.

******

The ambulance door slammed on a stream of corrosive profanity. Johnny stood for a second, watching the rig drive away. Sighing, he straightened and walked toward the clutter of discarded medical supply wrappers.

"We'll clean up, Johnny. You go get checked out." Hank nodded to Chet, who bent to pick up the discarded bags and papers.

"I'm fine, Cap," argued Johnny.

"He kicked you pretty hard."

"Cap, I'm OK!" snapped Gage

Stanley glared at the paramedic. He shook his head. "Do it!"

Johnny nodded savagely, lifting the trauma box. He threw open the rear compartment door, setting the thin sheet metal rattling angrily, and shoved the case into the bay.

"Gage," warned Stanley, his eyes flashing.

John gritted his teeth, biting back the angry comments that seemed too close to the surface nowadays. Wearily, he climbed behind the wheel, slammed the door, and started the engine.

The traffic light turned red, Gage braked to a stop. Frowning, he thought about the drunk, his neck burning where the man's salvia had struck him. He had come so close to hitting a sick, helpless man. John pounded his fist on the steering wheel.

"Not what you expected?"

A prickle of dread ran up Gage's spine. He struggled not to turn his head, not to look at the apparition in the seat next to him, not to give Brackett the substance of his acknowledgement.

"Didn't get to ride in on your white horse -- excuse me -- shiny red fire engine," persisted the doctor, "and save the victim, amid the cheers of his family and friends. Have him reach up from the gurney, clutch your hand in gratitude." Brackett's voice dripped sarcasm.

Johnny glanced out the corner of his eye. The ghost's icy eyes were fixed unblinkingly on the paramedic. His white hand was positioned on the seat inches from John's leg. Gage shifted. "Why are you tormenting me?" he demanded in frustration and fear.

Kel ignored John's plea. "You nearly lost it out there. I was watching." Brackett's voice fattened with glee. "We're more alike than you'll admit. Only I just destroyed myself. I never tried to take anyone with me."

Cold sweat began to pour down John's sides and his heart pounded in his ears. Behind the squad, a car honked its horn. Startled, Gage drove through the intersection. He risked a glance at the passenger seat. The bench was empty -- the doctor was gone.

Johnny took a slow deep breath. His bruised ribs ached.

******

Roy slipped into the treatment room, slowly closing the door on the noisy, crowded hallway. Johnny sat bare-chested in his turnout pants, the suspenders dangling around his knees. His coat and tee-shirt lay in a crumbled pile on a chair in the corner of the room. A new resident was completing a neurological check. She glanced up when DeSoto entered.

"Well, Doc?" demanded Johnny, impatiently.

Roy watched, trying to decide whether or not he really had seen Johnny nearly hit a patient. Slowly he shook his head. Gage would never do such a thing, he decided.

"I'm not done," she answered, feeling the back of John's head. Gage winced. "You're going to have a lump." She turned her attention to the purple bootsole-shaped imprint on John's chest.

"I noticed," remarked Johnny, wearily. He inhaled sharply as the doctor's fingers traced the ribs beneath the discoloration. Grimacing, he looked at Roy.

DeSoto caught his breath. Dark circles ringed John's eyes, like holes burned in a blanket. Gage's left check was scraped. His partner looked more tired than he had after the Mt Hillyer fire, when they had worked first aid detail in a brush camp for six straight days. Silently, Roy cursed the understaffing and budget cuts that had all the county's paramedics working heavy overtime.

The resident gestured for Johnny to stand. She tugged on the waistbands of Gage's turnouts and underwear, baring his hip. Her fingers probed the dark blotch marking the crest of John's hipbone.

Roy stifled a sigh of frustration at John's slender form. It seemed that age was going to distill Gage to bone and sinew, while it left DeSoto battling a receding hairline and a bulging waistline. Roy felt himself sucking in his belly and shook his head in disgust at his misplaced vanity. He looked at his partner again, seeing the sharp lines in the harsh light. This was too skinny even for Johnny. Lately they had been missing more meals than they had been eating. And he suspected John had not been eating too well off-shift either. Silently, he vowed to surrender more easily next time Gage wanted to grab some fast food.

"I don't think anything is broken, but we're going to take some x-rays. Just to be on the safe side." She turned to the nurse.

John glanced at Roy, giving a half smile. "Any more x-rays and I'm gonna grow two heads." He heaved himself on the exam table, lay down and closed his eyes.

DeSoto snorted, trying to hide his concern. "Another photo for your album." He started for the door. "Johnny," he said, pausing with his hand on the wooden panel.

"I'm OK," reassured Gage, not opening his eyes and refusing to recognize the voice that whispered in his head, telling him that he was far from okay.

******

"Listen to that," exclaimed Roy, jabbing his finger toward the radio. "Rampart, Harbor, Kaiser, St Luke's..."

"Yeah, I heard. The list might be shorter if they just told us what ER's aren't on divert." John slid down in his seat and glared through the darkness at the traffic light.

DeSoto chuckled.

Unexpectedly Gage sat up, leaning forward and peering out the windshield. The full moon appeared in a crack in the thin clouds.

Startled by John's sudden movement, Roy glanced away from the traffic.

"It's the damn moon; it's got everyone acting nuts." He rested his hand on the dash.

Shaking his head, Roy turned the squad onto Alameda. "That full moon stuff is nonsense."

"Really? They've done studies.... Look at our last call." Johnny slapped his hand on the vinyl-covered seat. "Green death rays leaking from the TV."

Roy shrugged. "You could've helped me."

John rolled his eyes and sighed. "I’m a paramedic -- wrapping tin foil around televisions is not in my job description."

"Where's that famous Gage compassion?" teased DeSoto

"I lost it along with my trauma shears about 400 calls back." John turned and stared out the window. The dark shadows from the street filled his eyes.

DeSoto frowned at the bitterness in John's voice. Concerned, he looked at his partner. This was more than the usual Gage Rant.

John's stomach growled.

Roy remembered the sharp lines of John's ribs and decided to change the subject. "When did you... we last eat?"

"Last shift," replied Johnny, sourly.

DeSoto sighed. Somehow, he suspected Gage had unwittingly told him the truth. "I vaguely remember getting about two bites of lunch."

"Chet cooked dinner so don't get too excited." John's face contorted. "Leftover macrobiotic Tofu Surprise...."

Roy made a rude noise. "Nickoli's," he announced out of the blue, naming a twenty-four hour, vaguely Greek mostly eclectic drive-through restaurant by CSU-DH.

Johnny stared at Roy.

"Only place in LA where you can get moussaka, lo mein and burritos at 3 am." He grinned at Johnny.

"Why bother? It's not like you'll get to eat it."

DeSoto glanced at Gage, slumped against the door. "What'd'ya say, best -- and greasiest -- gyros in town?"

John hesitated.

"My treat."

"OK."

******

Roy sat at the kitchen table in the dayroom, the paper takeout bags spread in front of him. He took a bite of the soft pita bread and lamb; tahini sauce dripped down his chin. He grabbed a napkin. Henry gazed hopefully at the food.

John fished a slice of onion from his sandwich.

"OK, Johnny, what's with you lately?"

Gage stiffened. For a second, Brackett's ghost came close. "Nothing," he finally lied, his voice tight.

"Look at yourself," ordered DeSoto.

Expression hardening, Johnny pulled a strip of meat from his sandwich and threw it to the dog sitting on the couch. Henry caught the tidbit in midair. "Roy," he warned.

"Johnny," persisted Roy. "You look like you haven't slept in forever, you've lost weight. You haven't gone out on a date in months."

"With the hiring freeze, who has time for women?" joked Gage feebly. He stared at his gyro, remembering his last date. The woman had leaned across the table and asked him how long he had been a paramedic. When he answered, her lovely eyes grew wide and she asked the question he dreaded: 'What's the worst thing you've ever seen?' He thought of the woman mutilated by her jealous boyfriend, backstroking in terror through the sea of blood covering the floor; or of the paramedic from 36's shot by a gang member, his brains landing in the front seat of the rig between the panicked ambulance attendants. John watched her soft lips wrap themselves neatly around the slice of pizza as she ate and tried to imagine conversing about death and dismemberment over dessert. Instead he had smiled and whispered, 'Discussing my job with a beautiful woman when we could be doing something better.' Shaking his head, he picked up his sandwich.

"Johnny..."

"Don't give me that all-knowing senior partner bit. I've been doing this for thirteen years, just like you." John's eyes flashed angrily.

Roy ignored him. "...I've seen you flirt with nurses when you were too sick to sit up on your own. For you, there's no such thing as not enough time."

"Maybe I've grown up," interrupted John, loudly.

"And you almost hit a patient," finished DeSoto.

Gage dropped his food and bowed his head. His hands shook. He stuffed them under the table.

Roy picked at his own sandwich for a few minutes. "Johnny," he said gently, reaching for his partner's shoulder.

Gage leaned back, withdrawing from DeSoto, and stared at his palms. "You know, I've done almost a hundred hours of training this year -- updating, re-certifying. I've worked four shifts of overtime already this month." He looked toward Roy, his eyes staying in shadow. "I've been kicked, hit, spit on -- hell, even run over. But, it was worth it. We came out ahead, you know, more alive than dead. Lately..." His voice trailed off.

Roy sat, not moving, just listening. He looked at the table and thought about the bad streak they had been going through, about the plague of drugs and violence that had descended on the city.

Gage's chair creaked. "Lately, we are losing more than we are saving."

"Johnny," started Roy.

"Station 51. Structure fire. 1-6-7-2-0 Moneta Ave cross street 226th...."

John pounded his fist on the table. "Damn it!"

"...Time out 4:01."

******

Johnny knelt on the filthy carpet; suddenly realizing his knees were in the exact center of a pool of dried something -- a something that he sincerely hoped was fossilized vegetable soup. Forcing himself to ignore the mess, he readjusted the position of the needle and stuck it through the skin over the vein. The resistance to the needle slackened, but blood failed to appear at the base. Gage made an irritated noise and selected a new spot. A line of puncture marks traced his path up the man's arm.

"Johnny?" asked Roy, desperately. The cardiac monitor continued its mournful wail.

Gage tried again. "He has garbage for veins."

"Let me in there," ordered DeSoto, stopping CPR and shoving Gage aside. Roy gripped the arm, placing his thumb just below the spot he had selected. The bevel of the needle sparkled just before it disappeared beneath the skin. Blood bloomed in the flashback chamber. "OK."

John grabbed the IV line, swabbed the brown bubble capping the medication port and slowly injected the medication. "Epi's in," he reported, watching the monitor. The beam of electrons continued tracing a straight line across the screen.

"Nothing," said Roy. He glanced up at John before resuming chest compressions.

Johnny bowed his head and pursed his lips in frustration.

"You took too long," accused the victim, his words broken by DeSoto's ministrations.

Gage looked at the supine victim, the hair on the back of his neck standing up.

Brackett stared back at him, his pupils huge in the fading light. "You killed me," he sighed. "My fault I suppose -- you can't run a code by remote control. Especially not with hose jockeys." The doctor spat out the last words as though they tasted bad.

"I tried," offered Johnny lamely.

"Of course you did," comforted Kel, pulling the conductive patches from his chest. "To the best of your somewhat limited abilities." The doctor reached over and unfastened the paramedic pin from Gage's uniform.

Numbly, John watched the doctor toss his hard-won insignia into a pile of trash in the corner of the room.

Brackett tore open Gage's shirt. The buttons popped like firecrackers. Gently Kel attached the electrodes to John's chest. "Maybe with a little more practice, you might be -- adequate." He gestured to the drug box. "Roy, do you mind?"

"Normal saline?" inquired Roy, positioning an oxygen mask over Gage's face. He retrieved a fresh setup from the drug box.

"Please."

"Wait," objected Gage, trying to stand.

DeSoto pushed him back down. "Please calm down, sir."

"Roy!" Startled, John turned his head to gawk at his partner. Roy's hands forced him into a reclining position. The trash covering the carpet dug into Gage's spine.

"Please relax, we'll take good care of you," replied DeSoto distractedly, as he flushed the air from the IV tubing.

"Johnny," said Brackett, his voice mild, even tender. "What is this dysrhythmia?" He pointed to the datascope.

"But..."

"Come on, Johnny, you need to be able to identify a rhythm quickly."

"Second degree heart block," snapped Gage, struggling to his elbows and pulling the mask from his mouth. "But..." DeSoto grabbed his arm.

Roy pushed the needle through John's skin.

"Ouch!" Gage jumped. "Roy, that thing is huge."

"This?" quizzed the doctor.

Unwillingly his attention was drawn from the IV to the monitor. "Atrial flutter. But this is me..." John looked to Roy for support, but DeSoto was busy popping the caps off a dose of lidocaine.

Brackett grinned evilly.

"...I feel fine," finished Johnny weakly, pointing to himself.

"This one?"

John glanced at the monitor. "V-fib." His chest exploded in pain. Frantically he fought to draw a breath of air. His head fell against the dirty rug.

Brackett smiled sweetly. "Correct. Three hundred watt-seconds, please, Roy," he requested, lifting the paddles. He positioned the electrodes. "Clear!"

Gasping Johnny sat up. The bedclothes were tangled in sweat-soaked knots around his legs. Outside the neighbor's dog barked hysterically. Rubbing his chest, Johnny reached for the alarm clock, staring at the face. "4:32," he read, dropping back onto the damp pillows.

"I borrowed some shampoo," commented Brackett, emerging from the bathroom without opening the door. The ghost wore Gage's robe, the garment stretching awkwardly over his bulkier frame, and scrubbed at his wet hair with a towel. "Hope you don't mind."

Gage closed his eyes. "Yes, I do. Go away." Sighing, he opened his eyes, disappointed but not surprised to see Brackett still standing in the middle of the room.

Kel ignored the paramedic. "Did you sleep well?" The doctor's mouth widened in an unpleasant grin. His gray eyes fixed on John as though he could see the other man's dreams, reading his terror.

"Why don't you leave me alone?"

"Being dead is boring." The ghost sat on the edge of the bed, forcing Johnny to scoot away. "Besides, we're having so much fun together."

******

Roy sat in his car, parked in front of Johnny' apartment, debating whether or not to turn around and drive home. He examined the scraggly oleander bushes beneath the windows and the ailing eucalyptus tree, whose roots had fractured the sidewalk, and tried to dismiss his partner's disturbing behavior. Perspiration beaded on his lip as he waited undecided. The glare of the bright afternoon sunlight was giving him the beginnings of a headache. DeSoto fumbled with latch on the glove compartment, pulled out the bottle of aspirin Joanne kept there, and swallowed two tablets, grimacing at the bitter taste.

Sighing, DeSoto slumped, closing his eyes and waiting for the medication to work. Images of Johnny's flattened hand and haunted expression floated before him. Roy opened his eyes.

Johnny stood at the passenger's side door. "Are you lost?" He squinted at DeSoto. Dark circles still ringed the paramedic's eyes.

"No." Roy opened the door and climbed from the car. "But, are you?" he asked, startling himself with his own abrupt approach.

"What?" Gage stopped and frowned, remembering. "Are you still going on about that?"

"You were pretty upset."

"It was a momentary lapse."

"Johnny," began DeSoto.

"I'm OK," interrupted Gage, his voice low and tense.

"Johnny, you are far from OK."

Paling, John swallowed hard as his partner's words echoed the warning voice that had been whispering in his head for weeks.

Watching Gage's face, DeSoto frowned. "You need to talk about this."

"No, I don't."

Shaking his head slightly, Roy took a slow deep breath. "You know I'm right." Deliberately, he slipped his keys in his pocket and folded his arms across his chest.

Gage sighed. "I suppose if I go back in, you'll sit out here all day."

Roy ignored the unpleasant tone of John's voice and leaned on his hip against the side of the car. "Yes."

"Leave it alone, Roy," warned John, stiffening.

"I can't," began DeSoto.

"It's none of your business." John's voice grew louder. He looked past Roy, studying the horizon.

"I'm your partner, that makes it my business," replied DeSoto calmly, avoiding looking John in the eyes, not wishing to force a premature confrontation. "And I'm also your friend."

Gage worked his jaw, angrily. He began to sweat, dreading what was to come.

Roy pointed to the adjacent duplexes. "Do you want to do this here?"

Defeated, Johnny shrugged and walked to his apartment door.

******

Settling back in the infamous convertible chair, Roy watched Johnny pace. The apartment was a mess. The disarray was nearly unheard of for his normally neat partner. Barely visible through the half-open bedroom door, John's uniforms lay crumpled next to the hamper. A pile of JEMS, still in their crisp brown mailing sleeves, leaned against the sofa. Dirty dishes soaked in the kitchen sink and old coffee grew an oil slick in the pot.

Gage saw DeSoto's eyes linger on the open box of stale Cornflakes atop the refrigerator. He dared the other man to make a comment. Instead Roy turned his gaze back to John.

Gage pivoted on the ball of his foot, turned, and careened toward the kitchen, snatched the box of cereal, and shoved it into the trash, desperately trying to outrun his own madness. He ran his hands nervously through his already ruffled hair.

"Johnny, please sit down," requested DeSoto gently.

John glared at Roy and made another circuit of the room before dropping onto the sofa and elaborately propping his feet in the coffee table. Despite his pose, an aura of bone deep weariness radiated from the paramedic. "Happy?" he demanded sarcastically.

DeSoto ignored Gage's words. "We need to talk about what happened," repeated Roy.

"Like I said, a momentary lapse."

"Not good enough."

"It's all you're going to get." Gage pushed himself upright, his eyes sparking angrily. Inside he shook. " 'Cause that's all there is to it." His words sounded hollow.

DeSoto cocked his head skeptically.

Johnny plowed on. "I lost my temper for a second. It won't happen again. There's nothin' to discuss." He stopped.

"Then let's talk about Brackett," said Roy softly, after a long pause. The name exploded in the middle of the room, ricocheting off the walls.

Gage resisted the urge to turn and see if the doctor's ghost was standing behind him. A chill ran up his spine; he shivered. Johnny's expression softened and he caught his lower lip between his teeth. "He made a bad choice," he finally replied, gazing stiffly past DeSoto's head. "We did everything we could. He gambled and lost," recited John, his face dark and still.

Frowning, Roy studied the back of his hand for a moment. "Do you really believe that?"

Johnny thought about the ghost's face as the spirit tormented him -- the malevolent grin. Anger pushed up from his belly, burning his throat. "Yes," he retorted, meeting his partner's eyes. "Don't you?"

DeSoto bowed his head and poked at his cheek with his tongue.

In the silence Gage could hear the beating of his own heart.

"No," answered Roy softly. "I keep wondering if I missed something."

Closing his eyes, John remembered his dream. The anger crumbled leaving him empty. He took a deep breath. "I keep thinking if I'd have just gotten the line in faster, or the airway..."

******

Roy pressed the cup of freshly-made coffee between Johnny's hands. Gage was finally silent, staring at the ceiling, his eyes glittering in the yellow light from the single lamp. The hours of words, pain, grief, and guilt hung in the air like the damp smell of old smoke. John's fingers tightened convulsively around the mug, drawing the warmth into his body. For a second Roy let his hand linger, touching his friend's arm. "Drink," he ordered.

Gage looked down, avoiding DeSoto's eyes. His jaw muscles worked frantically. Sniffling, he sipped at the steaming liquid. "Thanks," he whispered.

Standing and drinking deeply from his own cup, Roy considered the darkening streets outside the window. The mountains were gold and dusty green against the indigo sky and a single star twinkled on the eastern horizon, while the breeze stirred the scraggly weeds breaking through the curb surrounding the drive. The streetlights came on as he watched. Roy sighed, exhausted. Behind him Gage stirred.

"I've been seeing Brackett's ghost." The words burst from John's lips and spilled across the floor.

DeSoto turned. Johnny was slumped against the back of the sofa, his chin resting on his chest. Roy studied his partner's face; John's expression was a mixture of alarm and relief. He met Johnny's eyes and remembered.

The call had come in just before dawn -- an automobile accident, station wagon versus bridge abutment. All he could see as he pulled the squad to a stop alongside the crumbled vehicle was the sprung doors and the crimson splash of blood across the shattered windshield. The car had recoiled a twenty feet after hitting the concrete pillar and had come to rest on the crest of a weedy embankment. Fragments of glass and metal glittered in the lights of the engine and crunched beneath his feet as he ran toward the car, the biophone and oxygen tank banging against his legs.

Johnny was already inside, checking the driver -- a woman -- and Marco had his arm under the accordioned hood, fishing for the battery cables, when Roy squeezed in the passenger side door. DeSoto felt his jaw tighten as the smell of blood and gasoline hit him. The dash had been forced back and down pinning the driver's legs. He lay on his belly and forced his head and flashlight into the narrow space. Beneath the dash, her legs were hopelessly mangled. "We're gonna have to roll it, Cap," he advised, sliding out of the car. For the first time Roy let himself look at the woman's face.

A film of blood, makeup, and salvia covered her features. The injured flesh was already a swollen angry purple and bubbles of blood formed on her puffy lips, spattering the oxygen mask Gage was fitting over her face. Frowning, Johnny caught Roy's eyes and slowly shook his head. DeSoto turned away, knowing his partner was right. She had suffered massive internal injuries and was going to bleed out before they could get her free.

"Call Rampart, get permission for two IV's and an airway," ordered Gage, his words nearly obscured by the noise of the compressor for the jaws.

Roy stood and sprinted for the biophone.

"Roy!" yelled Mike, his voice uncharacteristically frantic.

DeSoto peered into the shadows. Stoker was at the bottom of the embankment, kneeling in the weeds. The engineer's torso moved in a frenzied dance over something hidden in the long grass. Roy scrambled and slid down the steep hillside.

Mike was bent over the limp form of a toddler, breathing into her mouth and pumping on her chest. In the red and blue lights of the engine, his face was a ghastly white.

Roy dropped to his knees beside the child. For a moment his mind refused to process anything other than the color of her tiny overalls. Then some synapse closed and he began to think again, to evaluate her condition. The girl's face was blue and her limbs were bent at cruel angles. Her head was angled oddly back. Reaching for her, Roy's hand touched something warm and wet; he switched on the flashlight and looked. Gray matter glistened on the gravel and weeds. Turning off the light, he swallowed hard. "Mike, stop," he ordered, his voice cold.

Panting, Stoker gawked at him.

DeSoto stood.

For weeks after the incident DeSoto had seen the little girl's face everywhere. He had even followed a young mother through the grocery, trying to get a second look at her young daughter's face. Alarmed the woman had snatched up her child, abandoned her purchases and disappeared into the parking lot, all without him getting another glimpse of the girl's face. He had begun to avoid looking at children, afraid. Then one day he abruptly realized it had been months since he had seen the toddler.

"...I'm so tired I'm not makin' sense," babbled John.

Roy shook his head, realizing Johnny had been talking for a while. "I understand what you mean," he said, sitting on the chair across from Gage.

"You've seen him, too?" asked Johnny, straightening slightly.

"Not Brackett. Other victims, though."

Gage sighed in relief. "What did you do to get rid of them?" he asked after a long moment.

DeSoto shrugged. He sipped at his coffee, shivering in the clinging dark fog of memory. He stood up again, and wandered to the window. More stars speckled the now black sky. He watched the twinkling lights of a plane arcing over the San Gabriels. "Made my peace with them, I guess."

"Peace," breathed Johnny.

Roy glanced over his shoulder. Gage's eyelids were sliding shut. DeSoto stood, staring into the night, guarding both of their dreams from the demons lurking in the darkness.

******

Gage parked few blocks from the crack house and he walked down the broken sidewalk. Tattered streamers of yellow police line tape fluttered from the rusty posts supporting the sagging chain fence. Large orange placards, loudly proclaiming "Condemned" in English and Spanish, were stapled over the boarded up windows and doors. Johnny picked his way through the weedy yard, past two nearly dead palm trees. With each step, he inspected the ground before cautiously placing his hiking-boot-clad foot.

Someone had already pried the plywood from the back door. A ripped screen covered the warped wooden frame. Beyond the door, John could see a filthy stove blackened by abuse. Litter covered the floor. His sweaty hands crumpled the small fast food sack he held. A scrawny cat with a torn ear fixed its yellow eyes on him, some small creature squirming between its jaws. Gage slipped through the door.

He blinked in the sudden dimness. The dark stink settled on him as his eyes adjusted. He looked at the garbage-strewn living room and decided he could make his offering here. Gage stepped forward, a discarded glass vial crunching under his foot.

Johnny opened the sack, removing a paper-wrapped Egg McMuffin. He tore the sandwich in half, lifted the halves to the sky, and laid the two pieces on the counter. Fumbling, he reached in his pocket, pulling out a small sack of tobacco. He took a pinch and held it aloft, offering it to the four directions. He stopped. Uncertain of the words for what he was about to do. Uncertain whether it would work. Uncertain whether it was even appropriate.

Gage bowed his head.

"Maybe you should try offering some crack."

John stiffened, refusing to turn toward the doctor.

"After all, shouldn't you feed a ghost what it loved?" Brackett walked past John, looking through the doorway into the living room. The scowl that twisted his face relaxed. "That is what you were trying to do?"

Johnny nodded, mutely.

"Do you really you think you can get rid of me that easily?" asked the apparition, turning to face Gage.

Shrugging, John sprinkled the dried leaves on the floor. "I thought maybe it would help you get wherever you're going." The sweet odor of the tobacco rose around him, masking some of the foulness of the building.

"And where is that?" Kel's eyes flashed.

"I dunno," sighed Johnny, finally.

"Maybe it's Hell and I don't want to go there." Brackett leaned close to the paramedic. "Or maybe you need to try harder. Aren't you suppose to offer your flesh?"

Gage shuddered, the hair on the back of his neck standing up as he remembered the one time he had seen flesh offerings taken.

******

Johnny drifted between waking and sleeping, riding on the plaintive entreaty of a half-heard spirit calling song. The song disappeared into a concerned buzz of adult voices. His stomach muscles ached with the dully painful aftermath of two days of vomiting. Slowly, he became aware of something moving on his arm. John lay, eyes closed, trying to decide whether the pressure bothered him enough to make it worth the effort involved in moving. Outside, Roddy Gage's heavy rubber galoshes thudded on the porch and the mudroom door slammed. Water splashed in the basin on the washstand.

With difficulty, Johnny pried open one eye. The watery winter afternoon light reflecting off the heavy snow made the chipped white paint covering the iron footboard glow softly. Dwayne Baptiste -- the cousin he was learning to call brother -- had his chicken pox covered hand wrapped around John's prized motorcycle model. Dwayne had used magazines and books to cover his side of the bed with a complex array of ramps and jumps that ended on Johnny's arm. Gage tried to complain about the abuse of his toy, but his dry lips cracked when he opened his mouth and his tongue struck to the back of his teeth. The lesions on his nose itched furiously. John wished his brother would crawl back beneath the covers and help keep the bed warm, but he decided he didn't have the energy to care and started to close his eyes.

"Niye," rumbled Roddy, sweeping the books from his son's arm. He frowned severely at Baptiste, who bowed his head in shame. The huge man bent over the bed, scooped up John, and wrapped him in a blanket. "Son," he whispered, settling Johnny on his shoulder.

Gage let his head loll against his father's rough chapped neck. The bitter cold of the Dakota winter still breathed from Roddy's clothes and, despite having shed his barn overalls, the man smelled faintly of cattle and horses.

"He tohan yatkan he?" Aunt Kate's sweet Lakhota leaked into the hall.

"Anpetu topa. Hanhepi k'un hehan he istime ehantanhan, he leje sni ksto...." Marie Gage fell silent as Roddy carried Johnny into the kitchen. Despite the weak light from the window, the glass oil lamp on the kitchen table was lit. A spool of cotton string, a muslin bag, scissors, scraps of red cloth, and a razor blade lay on the faded Formica surface. Uncle Howard stood in the mudroom door, shrugging on his coat. Between his dark fingers, he held a string of tobacco offerings. The air was heavy with the odors of kerosene, coffee, meat, and tobacco.

John's eyes widened in alarm at the sight of his Aunt Kate standing in front of the stove, stirring a pot of dark liquid. His stomach roiled at the thought of another of her bitter Indian medicines. "Momma," he moaned.

Marie took him in her arms. Her face was tight and frail, like it had been the entire year. She had looked that way ever since the day he had come home from school to find his Grandmother Baptiste in the kitchen, telling him his mother was in the hospital because she had 'lost the baby.' Johnny gazed into his mother's dark eyes. No longer were they dead and unseeing, but now were bright with unshed tears. Marie shifted his weight, settling Johnny's head against her warm breast, the soft blue fabric of her blouse moving against his cheek as she breathed. Her fingers were cool against his forehead. Gently, she rocked him.

"Drink," instructed Kate, holding a mug in front of John. Steam fogged her glasses and her stiff dress creaked as she leaned over him. The red pipestone turtle she wore around her neck swung free of her collar, swaying over his head.

Johnny closed his mouth, too weak to turn away. His mother stroked the underside of his chin, like was done to infants to make them swallow. "Cinksi," she murmured, "you need to drink something."

"It's just broth, T'oshka," reassured Kate.

"Let me have it," requested Roddy, taking the cup from his sister. He squatted next to Marie and lifted Johnny's head. "Take a sip." He gestured with his chin toward the mug he pressed against John's lips.

Gage took a mouthful of the warm liquid and swallowed. The rim of the cup stuck to his lips. Roddy wiped a drop of broth from Johnny's mouth with the side of his blunt fingered hand. "Good boy."

John struggled with his stomach and the strange emotions stirred by the oddly gentle actions of his normally distant father. "Huh," he groaned, his mouth filling with bile.

Kate held the trash pail as he threw up. The sight of his vomit mixed with old potato peelings almost made him get sick again. He shivered miserably. Worried voices bubbled around his head.

"We're taking him to the hospital," announced Roddy, pulling his coat from the hook. He ignored his sister's worried glance at the drift-filled dirt roads. "I'll warm up the truck." The door closed over the end of his sentence.

"I'll stay with the boy," offered Kate, referring to Dwayne.

Marie carried Johnny back into the bedroom and laid him on the bed. John shivered in the cold. She removed his old underwear and threaded him into clean clothes. His mother rolled him on his side, pulling up his jeans. As she worked, she pushed up the sleeves of her blouse. Lines of tiny, round, very fresh scabs ran up her arm, disappearing under the fabric. "Momma," he mumbled in surprise and fear.

"Shh," hushed his mother.

The marks were left by the taking of flesh offerings. Johnny had heard the kids at school whisper about how the 'blanket Indians' did such things. Now he knew what else was inside the tiny pouches on the string Howard had tied in the cottonwood by the creek.

"I mourned too much. Now they are going to take..." whispered Marie, falling silent. She tucked and folded the quilt tightly around his body.

Johnny looked at the crusted red circles and shook with something other than fever.

******

"Coward!" yelled Brackett.

John closed his eyes, considering the piles of flammable trash surrounding them. It would be so simple; a candle left burning, until it burned down into the papers. The structure would be fully involved before the neighbors noticed. If arson investigators found the remnants of the candle they would assume a homeless person had set the place on fire.

"Coward," repeated Kel as though he could read Johnny's mind.

Slowly, Gage opened his eyes. He was alone except for the flies crawling on the sandwich.

******

Roy carried his dirty plate to the sink. "Fine meal, Mike."

"Yeah, Mike, the best manicotti I've had in ages -- since the last time I visited my grandparents back east. It's as good as the stuff they make in a little place in the North End," started Chet, his words interrupted by a loud belch.

"Kelly," reproached Stanley, standing and picking up his dishes.

"Excuse me, Cap," apologized Kelly, heading for the television.

Frowning, Johnny followed the officer to the sink. "Chet, you're not fit to be in the company of civilized human beings."

DeSoto surreptitiously glanced at Gage's plate. Most of the food was gone -- not Johnny's usual stripped clean of everything save the pattern, but better than he had been eating. The other paramedic had looked somewhat more rested when he had arrived at the station this morning. Maybe the black sickness that had been riding Gage was beginning to lift. Smiling slightly, Roy turned on the water and began to rinse the plates.

"Chet, soccer's on 39. Brazil vs. Argentina," suggested Lopez, switching on the set.

"Marco," began Kelly.

The bebop sprang to life. "Station 51, Truck 127. Structure fire. 3 - 0 - 0 - 8 East Albreda, cross street Martin. 3008 East Albreda. Time out 18:38."

A chill shot up DeSoto's spine as he trotted toward the squad. As he turned the ignition Roy heard Hank acknowledge the call. "Isn't that...?" he asked, opening the driver's side door.

"Yeah. Where Brackett died," finished Gage, cinching the strap on his helmet. He reached across, taking the run slip from DeSoto.

******

Johnny leaned forward watching the smoke billow from the second-story windows as Roy turned off Martin. The clouds rose gray against a blood-red sky. A crowd milled in the street. In the fading light the assembly radiated a vaguely sinister air. For a moment it seemed that the spectators were not going to allow the firemen to approach the building. DeSoto slowed, muttering under his breath at the people blocking the squad's path.

Behind the squad, the engine rumbled to a stop. Lopez leapt from the jump seat, grabbed the suction hose and ran toward the pockmarked yellow hydrant. Mike threw the engine into gear and white hose rippled out behind the vehicle.

"Engine 51 at scene," crackled Stanley's voice over the radio. "We have a two-story abandoned residential structure with smoke showing."

Chet dropped from his place behind Hank and snatched the hose clamp from its bin. He locked it over the line and twirled his finger in the air over his head, motioning to Marco.

Gage climbed from the squad and pulled his turnout coat from the bay behind cab.

A slender black woman broke from the crowd and stood in front of the paramedics. "Hellfire," she screamed, her once beautiful face scarred by poverty and anger. "Can't you smell it?"

Roy retreated half a step from her intensity. Involuntarily, he tightened his grip on the radio.

"Let the fires of Hell rise up and swallow the evil. You're interfering with the hand of God." She raised her fist in the air. The last rays of the sunset sparkled on the thick strands of her dark hair which were worked into an intricate pattern of cornrows.

The sing-song rhythm of her voice reminded John of the old Kiowa minister who would come up to the rez every summer to hold tent revivals, preaching against the evils of alcohol, sex, peyote, R n' B, and capitalism. Gage shivered, feeling the powers moving in the flames tearing through the walls, feeding on the wood, trash and junkie dreams.

"Yes, the hand of God!"

"L.A., this is Engine 51 requesting police assistance for crowd control," hissed Stanley over the HT.

"10-4, 51. PD has already been dispatched..."

In the pause the woman's voice exploded. "Murderers! They killed my nephew. Let it burn!"

The crowd took up the woman's cry. "Let it burn!"

John could sense the firemen behind him tensing. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hank gesture for Marco and Chet to come closer to the safety of the engine. Roy edged nearer to the squad. Gage eased back toward the still open passenger side door.

"...ETA 1min," the dispatcher concluded.

The sirens of the approaching apparatus were loud in the tight air. The woman lurched toward John, her arms upheld beseechingly. Gage stepped forward.

"Let it burn," she begged, her knees folding.

Johnny caught her as she collapsed. "Roy!" Her head sagged against his arm.

DeSoto ran to the side of the squad and pulled out the drug box and biophone.

"Let it burn," the woman pleaded, tears pooling in her eyes.

"Let it burn," echoed the throng.

From the crowd a tall, muscular man emerged. He gently took the woman's shoulders, dragging her away from Gage. "Mom," he murmured. The people in the street surged forward.

"Gage! DeSoto!" warned Stanley, stepping closer to his paramedics.

The woman's tears splashed on the sleeves of John's turnouts, making dark spots on the ashy fabric. "Let us help her," offered Johnny.

The expression on the man's handsome face was bleak. "You've done enough," he said, gathering his sobbing mother in his arms. He gently stroked her hair.

"Let it burn!"

Truck 127 glided to a stop, its lights flashing off the darkly angry faces surrounding the men, and the dying wail of its siren bouncing off the walls of the crumbling houses lining the street. A police cruiser pulled up behind the fire truck. The officer slid from behind the wheel, placing his hands on his gun belt. The arriving vehicles changed the forces raging in the mob. The woman and her son disappeared among the shifting ranks of bodies. The cry trailed off.

"Gage, DeSoto, make a sweep looking for trapped victims," ordered Stanley, slowly relaxing.

Dragging his SCBA from the bay, John took one last look at the crowd. For half a second he thought he saw the old preacher, standing on the curb, grinning as he watched the smoke rise into the heavens.

******

Gage yanked at the damaged screen door hanging askew across the back door, tearing it from the single hinge holding it to the jamb. The twisted wooden frame dropped to the porch. Expertly Roy tied the end of the lifeline to the porch railing, while he forced open the door and stepped into the house. A thin pall of smoke hung in the kitchen, a slowly shifting veil. The sandwich and tobacco John had offered to Brackett still lay on the counter. Johnny looked away, following Roy through the door into the front of the house toward the stairs. In the stairwell thick black smoke hung like a second ceiling, seeping and swelling with every movement of the dank air.

"Upstairs first," instructed DeSoto. He crouched, playing out rope before mounting the stairs.

John crawled after Roy, straining his eyes, searching among the barely visible drifts of garbage for discarded syringes. Smoke and heat slammed the paramedics against the floor. Scuttling along behind DeSoto, Gage kept one hand on the lifeline, feeling rather than seeing the walls rimming the hallway. He did not need to see the battered plaster; the outlines of the rooms were seared into his mind. The rope pulled between his gloved fingers as Roy scrambled into the first bedroom.

DeSoto probed the smoke-shrouded perimeter with his axe handle. "Clear," he announced, backing out of the room.

Johnny slashed his chalk across the wall next to the empty doorframe. The blue scrawl faded behind a curtain of smoke as he followed his partner down the hall. At the end of the corridor a faint red line -- exactly the shape of the bottom of a closed door -- flickered briefly before disappearing into the thick blackness. The fire was roaring just behind the thin panel -- the door to the room where they had found Brackett. John jumped as an axe splintered the front jamb door, sending it crashing open.

Roy felt Johnny start. "It's just the engine company."

"Yeap," agreed John

Marco emerged out of the haze, hose clamped in one hand, pry bar in the other. Kelly trailed Lopez, attached by the thick canvas umbilical of the hoseline.

Gage watched the firefighters press against wall, crouching below the level of a possible flashover. Marco fumbled with the locked doorknob. He wedged the pry bar against the knob and snapped the mechanism. The door swung open. An even darker wave of smoke and hot gases flowed into hallway, spilling along the ceiling like a living thing. The cloud boiled over Johnny's head, the heat reflecting down on his helmet. Inside the room was a solid wall of black, illuminated by faint flashes of orange and red. Lopez opened the bail, releasing a stream of water at the base of the flames. They danced and darkened angrily. A white cloud of steam rose from the burning mass.

Suddenly there was the brittle clatter of splintering glass. The smoke began rising up and away, revealing the wire frame of the rotten mattress writhing in the blaze. Lying on the bare and blackened springs was Brackett, not even flinching as the flames caressed him. The doctor's skin bubbled and charred. Gage blinked frantically, but Brackett did not disappear. The water from Marco's hose fell on his body, boiling. Kel turned and grinned at John.

"Johnny?" repeated DeSoto, glancing worriedly at Gage. "Johnny!"

"Huh?" John shook his head. Brackett's apparition rose, floating through the hole 127's had hacked in the roof. "Sorry. For a second, I thought I saw someone."

Roy looked back at the room. "If anyone was in there, they're gone now."

Johnny gazed at the flames dimming and guttering under Marco's assault. "Yeap," he sighed, relieved.

******

Johnny pried the molding from the window, exposing the casement. The nails squealed as they were yanked from the old wood. A plume of smoke rose from the smoldering frame as air hit a hot spot. Gage stepped back, debris crunching underfoot, and let Kelly play a gentle stream of water over the blackened wood.

Behind the two firefighters, Stanley led the arson investigators. The men looked at the conical smear of soot and char on the wall of the bedroom closet. The black wedge pointed to a pool of wax. "Candle," announced Hank.

The photographer leaned over the puddle and snapped a picture.

"If you ask me," said Chet, draping the nozzle over the windowsill and picking up his axe, "they should give the guy a medal -- not jail time." He sunk the head of the axe into the plaster and tore away the wall adjacent to the window frame, looking for fire spread.

Johnny watched the investigator chip fragments of board and wax from the floor and drop them into a sample bag. "We were just lucky that no one was hurt." The man straightened and looked at Gage. Shuddering, John turned back to the window.

******

"Squad 51 in quarters," said Johnny, holding the microphone and watching the last flashes of the lights on the door as it lowered. He felt a strange stirring beneath his ribs -- he was hungry.

Roy slid from the squad and stretched. "I'm going to hit the sack," he yawned, watching the engine crew head for the dorm.

"I'll be there in a minute. Gonna get a snack." Gage's stomach growled eagerly at the mere thought of cold manicotti.

"What?"

"I'm starving. I'm going to get something to eat," repeated Johnny, slowly. He turned and walked into the dayroom.

DeSoto watched him disappear. "He's hungry," Roy whispered, feeling better than he had in a long time.

******

"Johnny," started Chet, turning from the dirty basement level window. "I see him! Looks like he's unconscious."

"Here," offered Stoker, holding out a halligan tool.

"Thanks, Mike." Gage pushed the v-shaped end of the prying tool against the lock cylinder. The teeth bit into either side of the plate. John leaned against the bar, popping the cylinder free. The door sprung open.

The oily smell of decomposition slipped past the jamb and spread like a dark, clinging blanket. "Whew," gagged Stanley, backing away. He lifted his radio. "LA this is Engine 51, requesting a sheriff's deputy at scene."

"10-4, 51."

John leaned the pry bar against the wall. He peered down the stairs and then looked back at Roy and Chet. DeSoto's face was white and rigid. Kelly's head was bowed, his eyes shadowed. "Gimme a flashlight," Gage instructed, quietly. Slowly, he descended the dark stairs.

Trash littered the floor: junk food wrappers, old newspaper, rags... Faint movements fluttered at the edges of the circle of light. The beam of Chet's flashlight moved nervously, darting among the trash, peeling paint and rusting pipes. In the center of the room sat a broken-down cardboard box.

In the box, cradled by a soiled sleeping bag, lay a child. He was dressed in dirty red pants and a frayed blue sweatshirt. His face was swollen and mottled with the blue pattern of lividity. A brown extension cord was wrapped around his neck.

"Mother of God," breathed Kelly. "How could anyone..." His voice trailed off.

DeSoto made a faint straggled noise.

"Get out of here, Roy," ordered Johnny, firmly. He didn't turn, allowing his partner the privacy of his shock. "I'll wait for the coroner." He listened for DeSoto's footsteps on the stairs.

"Gage," called Stanley, reaching past DeSoto, holding out a blanket pack.

"Thanks, Cap." Johnny ripped open the plastic sack and unfolded the yellow sheet.

"Johnny," whispered Chet, helping spread the blanket over the body. "Look at his fingers."

Gage covered the boy's face and walked away. He squatted at the base of the stairs, staring past the body at the peeling concrete block wall. "Rats," commented Gage matter-of-factly. "I saw them running when we came down." His face was an emotionless mask.

******

"Johnny," instructed Roderick Gage. "Stay in the truck." He looked down at the boy on the seat next to him. Then he slipped from the beat-up truck out into the winter white cold, leaving the keys in the ignition and the heater running.

John pressed his face against the window, holding his breath to avoid icing up the glass. Stamping to break a path through the deep snow, his father climbed the stairs of the board and tarpaper shack. No white plume of smoke and steam rose from the tin pipe sticking out the roof.

"Kunsi!" yelled Roderick, pounding on the door. "Kunsi!" After a few moments, he returned to the truck and dug behind the seat.

"Where's old woman Otter Necklace?"

"Hush!" Roderick pulled out a tire iron. "Stay here." He closed the door.

Johnny turned, scraping the growing layer of ice from the window. He chipped open a narrow peephole. His father struck the old-fashioned lock, springing the door open. He disappeared into the house.

Gage stared for a moment then opened the truck door. The bitter cold took his breath away. He plowed into the drifts, the powdery snow burning the bare skin of his face. Panting, he squatted beside the propane tank attached to a narrow tube that ran through a tiny hole beneath the window. The gauge over John's head read zero. Wrapping his fingers around the windowsill, he pulled his chin over the edge.

On the kitchen floor the old woman's yellow-brown mutts gnawed on something beneath the table. From under the edge emerged the hem of a long dark woolen skirt. John's father entered the kitchen, holding Otter Necklace's late husband's rifle. He pointed it at the dogs.

Johnny's scream drowned out the sound of the shots.

The cold flakes stuck to Johnny's wet checks, freezing to his lashes. He whirled away from the window, stumbling in the heavy snow. He floundered in the drift, his nose and mouth filling with the choking whiteness.

"I told you to stay in the truck!" Roderick plunged through the snow, dragging John to his feet.

"Sorry," blubbered Johnny. His father twisted the collar of his coat, propelling him into the truck.

"Stay here!"

******

A red-faced whiteman pulled a stretcher from the back of a hearse. "What'cha got?" A tribal police officer, a thick felt cowboy hat covering his GI haircut, grabbed the other end.

A thick-waisted man, wearing a heavy fur cap and sitting inside a BIA car called to the mortician. "Some old drunk. Ran outta propane and froze to death." He chuckled. "Her dogs were eating her."

Beside Gage, Roderick stiffened. John looked at his father; the man's jaw worked angrily.

Outside the policeman dropped his end of the stretcher, leaving the man from the funeral home trying to navigate the heavy drifts. "Well, you know how they are," commented the mortician, glaring at the Indian.

******

"I got to get some air," stated Chet. The firefighter's face was pale and his eyes looked tired and old.

"OK," nodded Gage, watching Kelly climb the stairs. Chet's retreating footsteps echoed on the dank walls. Johnny stood, stretching his legs, trying not to look at the bundle lying in the middle of the room.

"There's not enough epi in the world for this one," observed Brackett. The ghost bent over the child's body and lifted the blanket, studying the boy's face. His jaw tightened.

Johnny glanced out the corner of his eye at the ghost and shook his head. The specter had not left his life. Suddenly, he realized that gut-twisting terror no longer accompanied the doctor's presence and accepted that he was going slowly mad. In fact, he reflected, it may be the most sensible way to deal with a world where people strangle toddlers, junkies poison themselves, kids blow each others brains out, and paramedics are expected to walk around acting like this mayhem is the normal business of the day.

"Another one you didn't save." Brackett shook his head.

Gage shifted. "And how many have you failed to save, Doc? How many like him have you seen in your ER and let slip through your fingers?" The paramedic's voice was cold. "Did you set his broken arm, and take his parents' assurances that the boy was just clumsy?"

The ghost glared at John.

"This time you're shooting the messenger."

"John?" inquired Stanley, peering through the basement door.

"Sorry, Cap," called Gage up the stairs. "Talkin' to myself." He turned back toward the body. Brackett was gone.

******

The pre-dawn buzz of rising traffic on the San Diego Freeway seeped slowly through the windows of the dorm, competing with Chet's snoring. Awakened, John rolled over. He glanced at DeSoto. Roy was breathing softly, asleep despite the noise. Gage pulled the pillow over his ears.

The alarm rang. "Station 51, traffic accident. Harbor Freeway at Sepulveda. Use the northbound ramp at Sepulveda."

Across the aisle, DeSoto rolled to his feet, pulling up his turnout pants.

"Harbor Freeway at Sepulveda. Time out 5:01," finished the dispatcher.

Stanley grabbed the microphone of the radio sitting on the desk by his bed. "10-4. KMG-365," he acknowledged, adjusting the suspenders of his bunkers with his free hand.

Groggily John trotted toward the squad. Abruptly he stopped.

By the back bumper stood Brackett. The doctor held his arms behind his back, concealing something. He grinned and lowered his hands.

"Johnny?" asked Roy, looking at his partner.

From behind the ghost stepped a small boy. The child looked up at John and smiled. A thick red welt marred the milky smoothness of his neck.

"Come on, Johnny," snapped DeSoto.

The toddler held up his arms.

"No!" shrieked John, throwing himself away from the child.

In the shadow of broad daylight:

"Johnny," said Roy gently. He twitched nervously. This was the critical moment: either Gage would turn and face him or ignore him. DeSoto wished the attendant would take the jangling ring of keys he was fidgeting with and leave. It's a mental hospital, he reminded himself forcefully, privacy is not a real big concern. He looked carefully at his partner while John decided.

Johnny's hair was too long and messy and he wore a faded fire department tee-shirt. His pants were wrinkled; he had again been carefully rolling them up like turnouts. Gage turned his head very slightly toward Roy. He had reached his decision.

I exist today. Roy smiled at Johnny. "Come on, let's sit down," he said, walking down the hall toward the day room. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched, making sure Gage was following him.

Shuddering, DeSoto remembered. "No!" John had shrieked when the bebop sounded. Roy had sprinted for the squad, then stopped, suddenly conscious that he was alone. Johnny still stood, frozen, staring into some unspeakable nightmare. When they had tried to help him, Gage had fought. It was the last time Johnny had spoken to him.

As they walked down the hall, he kept up a quiet line of chatter about the station. All Roy knew about Johnny's private hell was that he was still a fireman. DeSoto sighed, wishing yet again some different demon had devoured his friend. At least with fire or falling masonry, he would have been able to help or grieve when there was no more he could do.

Roy sat at the small table by the window. John took the seat opposite him and leaned forward, turning his face toward the bright sunlight streaming through the panes. DeSoto placed the foil-wrapped piece of cake Joanne had sent on the scarred surface, yet another treat she had prepared to tempt John's sweet tooth. Roy never had the heart to tell her Johnny would not eat them, but instead carefully broke her gifts in half and pushed them away. When he first started coming, Roy would eat the broken pieces on the drive back, hiding the evidence of Johnny's rejection. He had continued this practice until the taste of Joanne's cookies had became irrevocably entangled with the odor of the ward and Johnny's blank expression, causing him to gag at even the smell of baking chocolate chips. Now he threw her presents in the trashcan in the parking lot.

Roy unwrapped the slab of cake, listening the crinkling of the foil. The smell filled the room. He knew it was irrational but he wanted Johnny to eat this piece. Last Tuesday had been Gage's birthday. In a strange and sad way this was his birthday cake.

Johnny reached slowly across the table and pulled the cake toward him.

"It's chocolate. Your favorite," Roy said quietly. Eat the damn cake.

Gage lifted the cake upwards, breaking it in two. He carefully set the two pieces on the foil and slid it back to Roy.

"Johnny, it's real good." Roy picked up one piece, biting into it to demonstrate his point.

John smiled at him. For a second Roy saw a flicker of light behind his eyes. Then Gage stood and slowly licked the crumbs and icing from his fingers -- a pale shadow of the bachelor table manners of his former life. He nodded, disappearing into the hallway.

Roy watched him walk away.

"Land, does that smell good," remarked the nurse.

Roy jumped, startled by her voice.

"Sorry, didn't mean to sneak up on you." She stood behind him and was half a head taller than he was, and her hair was gathered into hundreds of thin mahogany braids.

Roy held up the other piece of cake, offering it to her. "Help yourself. My wife made it."

She hesitated a second, then accepted taking a small bite. "Umm," she moaned. "Thank you. You a friend of his?" she asked, sitting in the chair Gage had just left.

"We used to work together." He looked away from her intent gaze, staring at some crumbs on the table.

"Maybe you can answer a question for me. What's with the pants?"

"Oh," said Roy, smiling slightly. "It’s a firefighter thing. At night when you're on shift, you roll your turnout pants over your boots so you can put them on quickly if you get a call."

"Oh," she replied, nodding.

"What does he do in here?"

"If we let him, he cleans things. He likes to make beds. He sleeps some during the day, 'cause he sure doesn't at night." She shrugged, swallowing the last of the cake.

DeSoto shuddered at the thought of Johnny endlessly repeating the daily round of station housekeeping tasks. He closed his eyes trying to block the images his mind was creating.

"Does he talk much?"

"Not really." She shrugged. "Please, thank you, stuff like that. Very polite."

Roy looked up.

"To be honest, your friend makes me nervous," she said, standing. "He has nightmares about things I know I don't want to see."

Roy watched her walk away. Me either, he decided, slowly rolling the tin foil around the crumbs. Without looking back, he followed the attendant to the door.

~~~~<51>~~~~

^† From "The Wedsworth-Townsend Act" written by Harold Jack Bloom and R.A. Cinader, directed by Jack Webb.

Author's notes: This story was originally a little Halloween trifle. Then I remembered a late night in the Frontier Restaurant on Central listening to two off duty EMT's tell "war stories" to a EMT student. One tale following another, until everyone within earshot had moved and the EMT student began to see the dichotomy of the best/worst job on earth. After that the stories friends and relatives had told me about working in the field began working their way into this tale. The story turned serious and very dark. It became a sojourn into areas of the profession, which were not touched on in the series or not fully acknowledged at the time. I am aware this story is a very one-sided (and an outsiders) representation of the job.

About half way through the writing process, I finally got a chance to see Bringing Out the Dead and was startled by the similarities between my story and Joe Connelly's. This was unintentional.

I probably should have put this before the story, but I hate reading lengthy notes before getting to the meat of a tale:) In Lakhota tradition, like any culture, there are all sorts of signs and omens. I used a few of these in this story. It is believed that dogs see the living and dead and bark at both. Therefore, when a dog is barking at nothing it is said, "a ghost goes by." Owls are messengers of death. They tell Yuwipi men, medicine men and certain types of prophets of imminent death. The snowy owl is an associate of Hinhanwin -- Owl Woman -- the guardian of the ghost road. Black-tail deer are believed to have a power that is not entirely benevolent. Indeed, in some quarters they are regarded as quite ill-omened.

Finally but not lastly, I'd like to thank a few people: Aline, MA, Maggie, LH and HB for sharing their stories and insights. Mary for friendship, endless encouragement and the cyber equivalent of a firm hand when I came unglued. Susan for her support and friendship. And MJ, Aline, and Inkling for beta and technical reading.