196---
"Uncle Dom? Wake up, Uncle Dom! Someone wants to talk to you."
Dominic Santini woke with a start although not a tremor showed in his big frame. He cracked open one eye to stare at the generator of this shrill and less than welcome beckoning. Lounging on his spine and feet up on his desk, he was just on level with the large blue eyes that stared solemnly back. "Joanna Elouisa Santini," he growled, his use of her full name a warning. "It's ninety degrees outside and I've been working on that old Steerman since seven o'clock this morning."
His niece, distinctly unruffled by his forbidding expression; continued to work her jaws on a piece of pink bubble gum. When Dom paused for a response, she calmly blew a bubble and waited him out.
Santini, scowl deepening exponentially, was the first to crack. "You'd better have a very good reason for interrupting my nap, young lady. You've visited me often enough to know naps are special." He slapped his barrel chest, coughing slightly when he hit too hard. "Gotta recharge the old batteries, you know."
"Oh. Recuperate. Check." Jo popped another bubble, an impish smirk dimpling her round cheeks. For a minute Santini couldn't decide whether to pinch them or swat her butt. Considering she was just shy of her ninth birthday it could go either way.
"So, what did you want?" he prodded gruffly, refusing to be mollified by the fact that she was his favorite niece and he always enjoyed the rare visits her grandmother -- his sister-in-law -- permitted. "You've got grease on your dress," he added by way of revenge.
He tapped her pink jumper and she looked down, her scowl matching his own. "Darn! I knew I should've stayed away from Billy Baker and his dumb ol' model airplane. He had machine oil all over the wings."
Dom opened his other eye, lifting his head slightly until he could see her better. "Who is Billy Baker? Not Billy Joe Baker, Carlton's kid?" She nodded irritably. "I thought I told you--"
"Someone's on the radio," she interrupted before he could swing into full disciplinarian mode. She was good at that, he reflected sourly. Perfect sense of timing.
His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "This better not be another one of them rock and roll bands. I thought we discussed this before -- rock and roll is not proper for a little Italian girl to be listening to." He snorted. "The Mosquitos...."
"The Beetles," she corrected calmly -- entirely too calmly for someone not even nine yet, in Dom's opinion. "And not that radio, t'other one."
"Other?" He followed her grimy finger to the transceiver unit sitting in the far corner of the office next to the coffee pot. By straining his ears he could make out the faint crackle of an open channel. "Someone's on the radio?"
"That's what I just said," Jo huffed, stamping one foot. "Aren't you going to answer it?"
He debated. His leather desk chair was very comfortable and he really didn't want to be disturbed for something like a friendly pilot-to-pilot chat. Then again it could be a job, something his struggling air transport service needed badly. Jo was waiting expectantly, and he sighed and swung his feet to the floor. "Yeah, yeah, I'm going to answer it. Could mean money and I've got to keep little girls in chow, don't I?" He poked Jo in her pudgy little tummy in passing, and she giggled, managing to turn it into a ladylike huff before joining him at the radio. "WCSA," he hailed, adjusting a few dials to clean up the static. "Come back."
"Uncle-Uncle Dom?" It was a youthful voice that answered, a boy's, with the roughness of tone that bespoke an ongoing deepening to a man's timbres.
Even across a hundred miles of airwave the voice was familiar. "Saint John?" he hazarded, naming his oldest friend's fourteen year old son. "Izzat you?"
"Uncle Dom!" The answer was more wail than reply. "Uncle Dom, you've got to come! You've got to!"
Jo touched his shoulder nervously, and Dom spared her a smile although his full attention was focussed on the mike. There was something in the boy's voice that went beyond upset. He interrupted the babble with as soothing a tone as he could manage. "Slow down, son, and tell me what's wrong."
There was an audible gulp from the other end of the wire, and when the boy's voice resumed there was a fine edge of control. Hysteria had never been one of Saint John Hawke's propensities. "It's-it's Mom and Dad," he began again, speaking slowly. "I think they're ..." He mumbled something, repeating at Dom's urging, "... dead."
Whatever Dom might have been expecting, it wasn't that. "Dead?" he echoed hollowly, feeling Jo's little fingers dig deeper into the blue cotton of his coverall. Alan and Carmella Hawke -- dead? Dom's mind reeled even as he snapped out, "Saint John, tell me what happened."
There was another noise on the line, this one sounding suspiciously like a sniff. "We were all out in the boat," he went on as though giving a book report. "Me, Mom, Dad and String."
"Good," Dom praised him, proud of the fiber the boy was showing. You could always count on Saint John to keep his head in a crisis. "Go on."
"We were all supposed to be fishing but Mom and Dad were fighting again, like they do, you know? Mom said she didn't want us spending the holidays with Dad after the divorce, and String and I were just kind of sitting there...."
"Never mind that part now, kid," Dominic interrupted the stumbling monologue before the boy could go too far. He reached up to encase Jo's hand in his own, drawing strength from her surprisingly firm grip. The pending divorce of two of his oldest friends was a disturbing point. It was especially hard on Saint John and young Stringfellow, the Hawke's second son. "Tell me what happened to your parents."
"D'ya think String killed them?" Jo asked sotto voce.
Surprised away from the mike, Dom turned to meet her wide eyes. "Of course String didn't kill them," he snapped. "Hush." The line crackle reclaimed his attention. "Go ahead, Saint John."
"We were out in the middle of the lake," the boy went on even more deadly quiet. "Mom and Dad started fighting and Dad got mad and started the motor up instead of using the oars. The ... the motor ... it ... exploded."
"Oh, my--" Dom breathed, feeling his heart leap into his throat.
"The boat went down." The boy's throat also caught over another sob and it was several seconds before he could continue, resuming in that same deadpan voice. "I grabbed one of the oars but ... but I couldn't see Mom and Dad!"
"Saint John," Dom spoke quietly again, his gruff voice penetrating the incipient hysteria he heard. The boy was only fourteen, after all. "What about String? Did he ... did he go down, too?" He mentally pictured Alan's younger son, a quiet, small boy with a shy smile, unable to contemplate the child gone as well. "C'mon, kid, I need you to tell me."
That worked. Saint John calmed again. "No, he's all right. At least ... he's alive."
"What do you mean, at least?" Jo demanded over Dom's shoulder, startling him badly. He'd forgotten she was there.
Saint John stopped, apparently surprised by the new voice. "He went down," he said at last, "but he came up and I ... made him hold onto the oar...."
"You got him back to shore?" Dom asked, quelling an impatient Jo with a look.
"Got us both back," Saint John replied slowly. "But the water was cold ... I couldn't find Mom...."
In an impulsive move, Dom swept Jo into his lap, holding her tightly. "You did good, Saint John. Real good. Are either of you hurt?"
"String has some burns on his arm," the boy replied. "And a bump on the head but ... he won't stop shaking." From the quiver entering his voice it was apparent that was true for them both. "And...."
"And what?" Dom prodded, realizing the boy was fast reaching his limits.
"He won't talk to me!" This was blurted out so fast it was almost a single word. "He just sits there and looks at me. I don't know what to do! Uncle Dom, please...!"
Please what? Help me? Bring back my Mom and Dad? Help my brother? Make it all go away?
"Hang on, kid," Dom returned easily, hugging poor Jo so tight she squawked she couldn't breathe. "I'm on my way. Until I get there, you get your brother and yourself into some dry clothes before you catch your d-- catch'a cold." He stopped, a rapid mental calculation estimating travel time to the cabin at fifty minutes even at full throttle. Even then he'd be there long before the authorities could arrive, and Dom didn't feel like delaying his departure with long explanations better made airborne anyway. Fifty minutes was a long time to leave two traumatized little boys alone, but it couldn't be helped.
No, not alone -- they still had each other. "If you want to," he went on more gently, "you can help your little brother until I get there."
"How?"
The question was so pathetically hopeful that Dom nodded with vague satisfaction, knowing his instincts were taking him in the correct direction. "Sounds like he's in shock," the man said, answering a look from Jo with a nod. "Keep him warm and quiet. The best way to do that is to just hold him for a while ... if he'll let you," he amended, recalling the youngest boy's intensely independent nature.
"I'll take care of String." The youthful voice grew strong again now that Saint John was finding a focus outside of himself. He'd always been fiercely protective of his younger brother, and Dom was counting on that nature kicking in now. "Just ... hurry, okay?" Saint John finished, sounding for a moment very young himself.
"On my way." Santini snapped the radio off. Despite his need to hurry, he sat hugging Jo to him for a long time before heading for his helicopter.
***
"Uncle Dom? Wake up, Uncle Dom! Someone wants to talk to you."
Dominic Santini woke with a start although not a tremor showed in his big frame. He cracked open one eye to stare at the generator of this shrill and less than welcome beckoning. Lounging on his spine and feet up on his desk, he was just on level with the large blue eyes that stared solemnly back. "Joanna Elouisa Santini," he growled, his use of her full name a warning. "It's ninety degrees outside and I've been working on that old Steerman since seven o'clock this morning."
His niece, distinctly unruffled by his forbidding expression; continued to work her jaws on a piece of pink bubble gum. When Dom paused for a response, she calmly blew a bubble and waited him out.
Santini, scowl deepening exponentially, was the first to crack. "You'd better have a very good reason for interrupting my nap, young lady. You've visited me often enough to know naps are special." He slapped his barrel chest, coughing slightly when he hit too hard. "Gotta recharge the old batteries, you know."
"Oh. Recuperate. Check." Jo popped another bubble, an impish smirk dimpling her round cheeks. For a minute Santini couldn't decide whether to pinch them or swat her butt. Considering she was just shy of her ninth birthday it could go either way.
"So, what did you want?" he prodded gruffly, refusing to be mollified by the fact that she was his favorite niece and he always enjoyed the rare visits her grandmother -- his sister-in-law -- permitted. "You've got grease on your dress," he added by way of revenge.
He tapped her pink jumper and she looked down, her scowl matching his own. "Darn! I knew I should've stayed away from Billy Baker and his dumb ol' model airplane. He had machine oil all over the wings."
Dom opened his other eye, lifting his head slightly until he could see her better. "Who is Billy Baker? Not Billy Joe Baker, Carlton's kid?" She nodded irritably. "I thought I told you--"
"Someone's on the radio," she interrupted before he could swing into full disciplinarian mode. She was good at that, he reflected sourly. Perfect sense of timing.
His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "This better not be another one of them rock and roll bands. I thought we discussed this before -- rock and roll is not proper for a little Italian girl to be listening to." He snorted. "The Mosquitos...."
"The Beetles," she corrected calmly -- entirely too calmly for someone not even nine yet, in Dom's opinion. "And not that radio, t'other one."
"Other?" He followed her grimy finger to the transceiver unit sitting in the far corner of the office next to the coffee pot. By straining his ears he could make out the faint crackle of an open channel. "Someone's on the radio?"
"That's what I just said," Jo huffed, stamping one foot. "Aren't you going to answer it?"
He debated. His leather desk chair was very comfortable and he really didn't want to be disturbed for something like a friendly pilot-to-pilot chat. Then again it could be a job, something his struggling air transport service needed badly. Jo was waiting expectantly, and he sighed and swung his feet to the floor. "Yeah, yeah, I'm going to answer it. Could mean money and I've got to keep little girls in chow, don't I?" He poked Jo in her pudgy little tummy in passing, and she giggled, managing to turn it into a ladylike huff before joining him at the radio. "WCSA," he hailed, adjusting a few dials to clean up the static. "Come back."
"Uncle-Uncle Dom?" It was a youthful voice that answered, a boy's, with the roughness of tone that bespoke an ongoing deepening to a man's timbres.
Even across a hundred miles of airwave the voice was familiar. "Saint John?" he hazarded, naming his oldest friend's fourteen year old son. "Izzat you?"
"Uncle Dom!" The answer was more wail than reply. "Uncle Dom, you've got to come! You've got to!"
Jo touched his shoulder nervously, and Dom spared her a smile although his full attention was focussed on the mike. There was something in the boy's voice that went beyond upset. He interrupted the babble with as soothing a tone as he could manage. "Slow down, son, and tell me what's wrong."
There was an audible gulp from the other end of the wire, and when the boy's voice resumed there was a fine edge of control. Hysteria had never been one of Saint John Hawke's propensities. "It's-it's Mom and Dad," he began again, speaking slowly. "I think they're ..." He mumbled something, repeating at Dom's urging, "... dead."
Whatever Dom might have been expecting, it wasn't that. "Dead?" he echoed hollowly, feeling Jo's little fingers dig deeper into the blue cotton of his coverall. Alan and Carmella Hawke -- dead? Dom's mind reeled even as he snapped out, "Saint John, tell me what happened."
There was another noise on the line, this one sounding suspiciously like a sniff. "We were all out in the boat," he went on as though giving a book report. "Me, Mom, Dad and String."
"Good," Dom praised him, proud of the fiber the boy was showing. You could always count on Saint John to keep his head in a crisis. "Go on."
"We were all supposed to be fishing but Mom and Dad were fighting again, like they do, you know? Mom said she didn't want us spending the holidays with Dad after the divorce, and String and I were just kind of sitting there...."
"Never mind that part now, kid," Dominic interrupted the stumbling monologue before the boy could go too far. He reached up to encase Jo's hand in his own, drawing strength from her surprisingly firm grip. The pending divorce of two of his oldest friends was a disturbing point. It was especially hard on Saint John and young Stringfellow, the Hawke's second son. "Tell me what happened to your parents."
"D'ya think String killed them?" Jo asked sotto voce.
Surprised away from the mike, Dom turned to meet her wide eyes. "Of course String didn't kill them," he snapped. "Hush." The line crackle reclaimed his attention. "Go ahead, Saint John."
"We were out in the middle of the lake," the boy went on even more deadly quiet. "Mom and Dad started fighting and Dad got mad and started the motor up instead of using the oars. The ... the motor ... it ... exploded."
"Oh, my--" Dom breathed, feeling his heart leap into his throat.
"The boat went down." The boy's throat also caught over another sob and it was several seconds before he could continue, resuming in that same deadpan voice. "I grabbed one of the oars but ... but I couldn't see Mom and Dad!"
"Saint John," Dom spoke quietly again, his gruff voice penetrating the incipient hysteria he heard. The boy was only fourteen, after all. "What about String? Did he ... did he go down, too?" He mentally pictured Alan's younger son, a quiet, small boy with a shy smile, unable to contemplate the child gone as well. "C'mon, kid, I need you to tell me."
That worked. Saint John calmed again. "No, he's all right. At least ... he's alive."
"What do you mean, at least?" Jo demanded over Dom's shoulder, startling him badly. He'd forgotten she was there.
Saint John stopped, apparently surprised by the new voice. "He went down," he said at last, "but he came up and I ... made him hold onto the oar...."
"You got him back to shore?" Dom asked, quelling an impatient Jo with a look.
"Got us both back," Saint John replied slowly. "But the water was cold ... I couldn't find Mom...."
In an impulsive move, Dom swept Jo into his lap, holding her tightly. "You did good, Saint John. Real good. Are either of you hurt?"
"String has some burns on his arm," the boy replied. "And a bump on the head but ... he won't stop shaking." From the quiver entering his voice it was apparent that was true for them both. "And...."
"And what?" Dom prodded, realizing the boy was fast reaching his limits.
"He won't talk to me!" This was blurted out so fast it was almost a single word. "He just sits there and looks at me. I don't know what to do! Uncle Dom, please...!"
Please what? Help me? Bring back my Mom and Dad? Help my brother? Make it all go away?
"Hang on, kid," Dom returned easily, hugging poor Jo so tight she squawked she couldn't breathe. "I'm on my way. Until I get there, you get your brother and yourself into some dry clothes before you catch your d-- catch'a cold." He stopped, a rapid mental calculation estimating travel time to the cabin at fifty minutes even at full throttle. Even then he'd be there long before the authorities could arrive, and Dom didn't feel like delaying his departure with long explanations better made airborne anyway. Fifty minutes was a long time to leave two traumatized little boys alone, but it couldn't be helped.
No, not alone -- they still had each other. "If you want to," he went on more gently, "you can help your little brother until I get there."
"How?"
The question was so pathetically hopeful that Dom nodded with vague satisfaction, knowing his instincts were taking him in the correct direction. "Sounds like he's in shock," the man said, answering a look from Jo with a nod. "Keep him warm and quiet. The best way to do that is to just hold him for a while ... if he'll let you," he amended, recalling the youngest boy's intensely independent nature.
"I'll take care of String." The youthful voice grew strong again now that Saint John was finding a focus outside of himself. He'd always been fiercely protective of his younger brother, and Dom was counting on that nature kicking in now. "Just ... hurry, okay?" Saint John finished, sounding for a moment very young himself.
"On my way." Santini snapped the radio off. Despite his need to hurry, he sat hugging Jo to him for a long time before heading for his helicopter.
***