Sounds Part 5: Private Sounds

Katherine's Diary

January 24th, 1994

"Danny!" shouted Kitty, the teenage girl with Down's, who was on holidays at our estate. The two kids had been walking about one hundred yards ahead of us adults. Kitty's voice sounded frightened.

Ed Brown sprinted off, his long legs almost flying. So he still could race, and fast, I thought.

Eve started to run too, although considerably slower than her tall husband, and I pushed Robert's wheelchair towards the spot where Danny had vanished out of sight as fast as I could.

We reached Kitty and bent over the abyss. In a breakneck act Ed was climbing down the vertical rock face. Below him was his son hanging, motionless. Obviously his fall had been stopped by a small outcrop which had caught his jacket. But there was a tear in this jacket. How much longer would it hold the boy's weight? The abyss was deep. Danny was in mortal danger!

Now Ed reached the child. Hanging on to the outcrop he grabbed Danny before he fell further down.

"Eve, we need a rope. The Crawfords' estate is closest." Robert pointed towards the building. "And tell them to call an ambulance and the police!"

Eve is still quite an athletic woman, and she understood immediately what she would have to do to save her husband and son. Nevertheless I was surprised at how fast she could run in her pumps.

"Ed, how is he?" Robert shouted down.

"Unconscious," answered Ed. His voice sounded pressed and his breathing labored.

He clung to the wall, with one hand steadying himself on the outcrop and with the other pressing his child's body to his own.

He was still convalescent. Doubtlessly this effort would overexert his limited strength once more.

In the distance we saw that Eve was ringing the bell of the Crawfords'. Hurry, Eve! I thought.

"Chief!"

"What is it, Ed?" I heard the alarm in my husband's voice.

"Can't... hold on... much longer."

Oh my God, don't let them fall! I prayed.

I could almost see how Robert reflected feverishly about how he could help his friend. Yet his voice sounded very cool, "Don't move. I will throw my belt over you."

I understood what he had in mind, and I was sure that Ed Brown would figure it out too.

Quickly I helped Robert pull his leather belt from his pants. He looped it and, taking aim thoroughly, let it fall down onto Ed, around his shoulders. He hit his target perfectly. "Now you slip it over Danny's head and one arm, and fix it at the outcrop!"

Ed struggled to carry out the task. He had only two hands to hold himself, the boy and the belt...

Finally he managed.

Audibly my husband exhaled. He didn't ask if his friend could hang on now; the weakened man needed his breath to survive.

After what seemed an eternity Eve came back with a rope. Robert let one end down to Ed who fixed it around his son's chest. For a moment I feared that he would faint, now that he knew that Danny was safe.

"Ed!" shouted my husband, who must have been aware of this danger, and it sounded very harsh.

Brown looked up. "Look out that he doesn't bang into the rock!" commanded Robert - probably more because he wanted Ed to stay alert than because he could actually have done anything. Slowly he pulled the rope. For his strong arms the boy's eighty pounds were no problem at all.

Quickly Eve loosened the rope and together we laid the child onto the road. He moved his head – then he groaned.
"Ouch!" he complained, palpating the bump on his head.

"Danny, can you hear me?" asked Eve worriedly.

He opened his eyes. "Why should I not hear you? I'm not deaf."

I could not suppress a smile. This autistic boy* was always so logical! Eve was at least as relieved as I. "Thank God!"

We heard the siren of an ambulance and a black and white up on the main road. I hurried towards them to show the rescuers the way. They would have to put Danny onto a stretcher since the path was too narrow for the vehicles.

Meanwhile my husband had let the rope down again. "Secure yourself now!" he said in a firm voice. Ed fumbled around with the rope. He had totally spent himself. Robert noticed that he couldn't manage with the knot anymore. Therefore he commanded, "Keep very still. The police will get you up."

It would have been far too dangerous to pull the exhausted man up alone, if he could not rely on the knot.

Danny protested when he was laid onto a stretcher. He could move his arms and legs without any problems. Still his mother and the paramedics insisted that he be examined in the hospital. Eve was allowed to ride in the ambulance with him.

A strong policeman, perfectly equipped, roped down to Ed. He talked to him patronizingly like to a child – or to a silly old man. "Come on, mister, let's get you out of here. Relax, I have everything under control..."

His partner secured the rescue from above, and together they managed to pull up our friend in no time, as if they did such things every day.

"It won't last long until the ambulance is back," said one of them to Robert, as if Ed were a piece of wood. He treated Robert with respect though since it was well known that he had helped the Sonoma police solve several crime cases.

Ed tried to preserve a rest of dignity. "Thank you for your help. I'm all right, I don't need an ambulance."

Robert wasn't quite sure about that, but he understood that Ed hated being pushed around.

"Thank you, gentlemen. We will manage," he said therefore.

The policemen nodded, happy that the job was already done, and left, not in the least interested in the circumstances of the accident.

"Danny was fully conscious when they left. I suppose he has just a bump on his head and probably a slight concussion, nothing to worry about," explained Robert.

Ed nodded. Obviously it took a load off his mind.

Kitty, who had been clinging to my hand for the last few minutes, approached the two men. "So sorry! Only pushed him a little for joke, because he said silly things! Didn't mean him to fall down!"

"It's not your fault, Kitty." Robert had been thinking about that for a while now. "This was a trap. Look, there is a hole in the shoulder of the road. It was covered with a very thin layer of veneer wood. I wonder what or who it was meant for..."

He had spoken to me, thinking that Ed was still standing behind him. But now he noticed that Ed was walking away, down the path. "Hey, what in blazes...?"

"Shall I run behind him and bring him back?" I asked. "Do you think he is somehow confused?"

"No, let him go. Ed's not someone to get confused over a simple accident which doesn't even have any serious consequences. He may want to be alone for a while."

"But Honey, he was so strange this morning..."

The Browns had asked if they could make up for the holidays they had missed right after Christmas**. The mild Sonoma climate would hopefully help Ed to get well. Two days before they arrived here the telephone had rung and Mrs. Granger had asked if the Browns could host Kitty*** for about two weeks since she had broken her leg and had to stay in the hospital, and since the girl's father and sister were in jail; Kitty had said that she wanted to stay with them.

Typically for them Eve and Ed had not been able to say no. Of course we had agreed that they bring her along. Where there is room for five, there is room for six as well. Kitty is a kind, cheerful girl, and we all thought that it would be good for Danny to have to socialize with another kid.
Yet Danny's stamina in supporting the girl turned out to be all but great. Therefore Ed often takes care of her. He keeps playing easy games with her, trying to stimulate her abilities. He shows the patience of an angel. Maybe he also wants to prove to himself that he is still good for something, even though he can't work right now.

But this morning he had been depressed and uncharacteristically impatient. Eve had noticed it and to relieve him she had asked Kitty to join us in the kitchen.

"Something must have happened yesterday," agreed Robert. "Maybe I'd better follow him. Take Kitty home, will you?"

Later he told me how he found Ed sitting in the winter grass, leaning against a tree.
It was far too cold for him to sit on the ground. His weakened immune system was not up to that yet.

"Is that your way of dealing with things now – just walking away from them?!" asked Robert sharply.

He read in Ed's face a trace of anger, which was better than no reaction at all. He waited a long time – by his standards – but he didn't get an answer.

"What in blazes happened yesterday – or this morning?" he asked finally annoyed.

Ed didn't look up. He took a deep breath, which still caused pain, but this time the pain was almost welcome, in a weird way. He felt that he somehow deserved it... that he deserved a punishment...

"Yesterday I was in Healdsburg, at the police station. I had applied for reserve deputy. Now they told me that they had got the Denver police doctor's report on me. They turned me down due to insurance and technical reasons."

All at once Robert understood. The medical report must have been devastating. "And you thought that if I became a special consultant, then you had to become one too?! When will you stop trying to copy me?"

Feeling that the dejected man could not cope with his usual rough tone he joked: "Don't you know that there is just one Robert T. Ironside who can't be copied?"

Dutifully Ed tried to smile a little, but he could fool neither Robert nor himself. "No, I don't want to be you. Just somebody."

Robert laid his hand onto his shoulder.

"Ed, you are somebody, whether you have a paid work or not."

Ed looked away.

"I watched you over the last few days, my friend. You have a very special gift with handicapped children. It's obvious, not only with Danny, but also with Kitty. You always liked working with kids and with difficult youths."

Ed shook his head. "It's not that I don't know what to do with my life. I think it's being rejected – and then noticing that they were right. They were perfectly right not to accept me. I almost let my son fall today. It's this horrible weakness I can't live with. Without you Danny might be dead now." His breathing became erratic again, a sure sign that the thought stressed him. It just emphasized what he said.

"Calm down, will you? I could help you rescue Danny, but I can't help you breathe." Robert's voice was deliberately cool now. It was the way he had talked to the young sergeant Brown decades ago, and after all these years Ed was still conditioned to obey him.

To give him time to – hopefully – recover his breath Robert quietly talked on. "I haven't counted. But I suppose you have saved my life as often as I saved yours. That's what friends are for. And if I had kids they would be included in this arrangement. We were quite a team back in San Francisco, you, Mark, Eve and later Fran and me, and I think we still are. You will have to live with your limits as well as I have to with mine. But before you throw in the towel I want you to help me solve our case at hand. Just like old times."

For the first time Ed looked up, although he couldn't talk yet.

Robert answered the question in his eyes. He told him about the trap.

"Let's find out who set up that trap and for whom. Can you stand up? Use my chair as a support!"

The scene of the accident was a welcome place to take a break.

How had Ed climbed down there? There were only a few tufts of grass and minimal cracks in the rock to hold onto.

Robert saw his friend's face harden when he looked down the abyss again, and he divined what went on in his mind. "Danny was so close to death because I wasn't strong enough to hold him..."

Again Robert answered his unspoken thoughts, "Look at it the other way round for a change. Three weeks ago your life was hanging by a thread. Today you saved Danny's. And yes, he'd probably be dead without you. I could not have done it... since before World War two, that is; since then I have been too heavy to climb down there."

When they reached the street I encountered them. I had gone to get the van. I think they were quite happy to climb in and being taken home.

Not much afterwards the phone rang. It was Eve. She asked if someone could come to Healdsburg and get her and Danny. He didn't need to stay in the hospital overnight.

Tonight was the first time in 1994 that Ed earnestly tried to finish his plate.

* See ff story "Patterns"

** See ff story "Christmas Carols", part 1 of "Sounds"

*** See ff story "Swoosh in the Press", part 4 of "Sounds"