Sole Survivor

able to get it done at that hour of the night, all the way from Pueblo. She expected to come back the next day with the tow-truck driver.”
        Barbara said, “What did she do when you told her there was no way to get taxi service from out here?”
        Sliding a sheet of raw dough drops into the oven, Mercy said, “Oh, then I drove them into Pueblo myself.”
        “All the way to Pueblo?” Barbara asked.
        “Well, Jeff had to be up earlier than me. Rachel didn't want to stay over here, and it wasn't but an hour to get there, with my heavy foot on the pedal,” Mercy said, closing the oven door.
        “That was extraordinarily kind of you,” Joe said.
        “Was it? No, not really. The Lord wants us to be Samaritans. It's what we're here for. You see folks in trouble like this, you have to help them. And this was a real nice lady. All the way to Pueblo, she couldn't stop talking about the poor people on that plane. She was all torn up about it. Almost like it was her fault, what happened to them, just because she saw it a few seconds before it hit. Anyway, it was no big deal going to Pueblo… though coming back home that night was the devil's own trip, because there was so much traffic going to the crash site. Police cars, ambulances, fire trucks. Lots of lookie-loos too. Standing along the side of the road by their cars and pickups, hoping to see blood, I guess. Give me the creeps. Tragedy can bring out the best in people, but it also brings out the worst.”
        “On the way to Pueblo, did she show you where her car had gone off the highway?” Joe asked.
        “She was too rattled to recognize the exact spot in the darkness and all. And we couldn't be stopping every half mile or whatever to see if maybe this was the right embankment or then we'd never get the poor girl home to bed.”
        Another timer buzzed.
        Putting on the quilted mitten again and opening the door on the second oven, Mercy said, “She was so popped, all sleepy-eyed. She didn't care about tow trucks, just about getting home to bed.”
        Joe felt certain that there had been no car. Rose walked out of the burning meadow, into the woods, all but blind as she left the blaze for the dark, but desperately determined to get away before anyone discovered that she was alive, somehow sure that the 747 had been brought down because of her. Terrified, in a state of shock, horrified by the carnage, lost in the wilds, she had preferred to risk death from starvation and exposure rather than be found by a rescue team and perhaps fall into the hands of her eerily powerful enemies. Soon, by great good luck, she reached a ridge from which she was able to see, through the trees, the distant lights of the Loose Change Ranch.
        Pushing aside her empty coffee cup, Barbara said, “Mercy, where did you take this woman in Pueblo? Do you remember the address?”
        Holding the baking sheet half out of the oven to examine the cookies, Mercy said, “She never told me an address, just directed me street to street until we got to the house.”
        No doubt it was one that Rose had chosen at random, as it was unlikely that she knew anyone in Pueblo.
        “Did you see her go inside?” Joe asked.
        “I was going to wait until she unlocked the door and was inside. But she thanked me, said God bless, and I should scoot back home.”
        “Could you find the place again?” Barbara asked.
        Deciding that the cookies needed an additional minute, Mercy slid the tray back into the oven, pulled off the mitten, and said, “Sure. Nice big house in a real nice neighbourhood. But it wasn't Rachel's. It belonged to her partner in the medical practice. Did I say she was a doctor down in Pueblo?”
        “But you didn't actually see her go into this place?” Joe asked. He assumed that Rose waited until Mercy was out of sight, then walked away from the house and found transportation out of Pueblo.
        Mercy's face was red and dewy from the oven heat. Plucking two paper towels off a roll and blotting the sweat from her brow, she said, “No. Like I said, I dropped them off in front, and they went up the walk.”
        “Them?”
        “The poor sleepy little thing. Such a dear. She was the daughter of Rachel's partner.”
        Startled, Barbara glanced at Joe, then leaned forward in her chair toward Mercy. “There was a child?”
        “Such a little angel, sleepy but not cranky at