Not Just on the News

K Hanna Korossy

Written: 2005

Published in: Compadres 29, 2007

            David Starsky awoke with a start, knowing something was wrong.

            He felt it a moment later, the seizing of muscles in his back at the unwary movement, wrenching a gasp from him at the ferocity of the spasms.  He sucked in a breath.  "Hutch?"

            "It's all right, Dave."  There was an awkward pat of his arm, both the touch and the voice not what he expected.  "Try to lie still."

            That was about all he could do at the moment, frozen motionless while his muscles settled into an irritated throb, daring him to so much as twitch again.  Starsky eased back onto the pillow, on his stomach for reasons that were quickly becoming clear.  But not the why, and the who.  "Cap'n?" he whispered.

            "Yes."  A reluctant answer.  "The doctor said you're going to be fine, you've just got some deep bruising.  It's a miracle you didn't break anything."

            Answers, but not the ones he wanted.  Starsky's vision was finally clearing, revealing only white walls and a shelf with medical paraphernalia on it.  With a muted groan, he turned his head by inches so it looked the other way, and finally the captain came into view.

            Dobey looked tired.  Old.

            The news was bad.

            Starsky swallowed, feeling like he hadn't drunk water in years, and tried again.  "Hutch?"

            Dobey's eyes slid away from him.  "What do you remember, Dave?"

The use of his first name scared him even more than the body language.  Starsky stared at the older man a moment longer before turning his gaze inward.  Remember…

            A wall of muddy water sweeping toward him; the utter panic of knowing he couldn't outrun it.  And then, just before it slammed into him, realizing it was coming from the direction he'd left Hutch.

            Starsky jolted again, arms flailing this time as he sought to get up.

            The captain moved faster than Starsky thought possible, gentle hands on his shoulder, upper arm, everywhere but his back.  "Starsky, take it easy!  You're just going to make yourself worse!"

            Worse?  Worse than Hutch not being there, and what his absence implied?  Starsky's eyes pricked.

            A long release of breath from Dobey as Starsky went limp.  "You remember the mudslide?" he asked grimly.

            Mudslide, not water.  Starsky dully filed that away.  Hutch was gone; what did the details matter?

            "What were you doing out there?"

            He had to drag himself out of the bleak hole he'd fallen into, and Starsky blinked heavily.  Hutch wasn't there to sit with him, to take his mind off the pain and watch his back while he slept.  Hutch wasn't there, and that caused its own far deeper pain than the muscles that still throbbed, threatening Starsky if he took the deep breath he craved.  A momentary instinctive panic flashed at not getting enough air, then faded away.  It wasn't air he was lacking.

            "Starsky?"

            At least it wasn't "Dave" anymore, Starsky thought humorlessly.  He licked his lips, blinked again.  "We got a flat tire."  His voice didn't carry, and he sensed his captain bending closer to hear him.  "On Sunset.  Hutch's spare was flat, too." They'd argued about that, too, just as they had been doing the whole drive, but Dobey didn't need to know it.  "I went… t' get a new one from the gas station.  Wasn't far – less 'n a mile.  I was almost there when I heard it coming."

Mud, not water, and his sluggish mind was starting to process what that meant:  suffocation instead of drowning, live burial instead of washing away: a brutal way to die.  Starsky closed his eyes again.

"Hutch stayed with the car," Dobey said softly.

Starsky nodded fractionally against the pillow.  Hutch had, under protest.  He'd wanted to get the tire himself, but Starsky was mad and wanted to walk off some steam.  His last sight had been of Hutch kneeling by the tire in the rain, struggling to get the flat off.  His last sight.

"That whole area's gone, covered in mud.  They only found you when they were digging around the gas station to make sure the pumps weren't going to go up in flames."

The gas station – he'd been nearer than he'd realized.  All Starsky remembered after the mud caught him up was slamming against something with a force that had blacked him out before the pain even hit.  The back of the station, maybe.  The mudslide would have hit the road harder and with less warning.  Hutch would have been…

Starsky swallowed, asked hoarsely, "How long?"

"It took them a few hours to dig you out.  That was this morning."

Less than a day.  A new kind of pain speared through him, and Starsky's breath caught.  That meant they were probably still finding survivors.  People outlived mudslides.  They got trapped, bruised as he was, buried, but many still made it.  Hutch hadn't been completely out in the open; he'd been near the Ford, and facing the hills.  If he'd seen it coming, he might just have been able to get to cover.

No, not might.  He had.  For no reason he could have stated, Starsky suddenly knew that for fact.

He opened his eyes and began to slowly slide his legs toward the edge of the bed.  Bruises he hadn't felt before on his thighs and hip started to ache as they stretched and brushed against the sheets, and his back drove knives of pain through his lungs.  But Starsky breathed shallowly, riding it out, and moved determinedly onward.

"Starsky!"  Irritation this time, and the captain moved again to check him, but Starsky clumsily dodged the hands.

"I gotta get back there."

"The doctor said–"

"I don't care what the doctor said.  Hutch's out there."

"Dave," Dobey said gently.  "It's all gone:  the road, the nearest houses.  It could take a week before…"

…they found the body, and with that attitude, it would just be a body by then.  Starsky shook his head as his shaky feet found the floor.  His legs felt rubbery, the muscles spent, but he was getting out of there if he had to drag himself the whole way.  "We have to find him."

"We will.  They're already looking–"

            He didn't understand.  Starsky gave him an impatient glare, even his neck muscles complaining.  "I can find him.  Where're my clothes?"

Dobey didn't budge, just studied him, but his expression had changed.  Starsky sometimes forgot he was a cop, too, and a former partner.  "You think you can find where Hutchinson and the car were?"

            Starsky nodded once.  Breathing was an ongoing struggle with his knotted back muscles, and he wasn't going to waste air on unnecessary words.

            "It's all gone, Starsky," Dobey said, but he was cautious now, not outright forbidding.

            "I can find him," Starsky said stolidly.

            Another moment, then Dobey nodded.  "I'll track you down something to wear and get you checked out."

            Starsky gave him a grateful look and watched his boss leave, then focused again on his feet.  That gave him a few minutes to make sure he wouldn't fall on his face the moment he stood, and make them rethink releasing him.  Hutch needed him.

            Sometimes it really was as simple as that.

            The nighttime air was starting to cool even inside the car, and Starsky burrowed a little deeper into his jacket as he watched Dobey's mars light and repeated flashes of his badge clear their way.  And then the car's headlights fell for the first time on the devastation before them, and Starsky leaned forward with suspended breath, momentarily forgetting his bruised back.

            It was all gone.

            Dobey had said that, had tried to warn him, but nothing could have prepared Starsky for the sight.  He'd been to a few mudslide sites when he’d still been in uniform, mostly doing crowd control and helping the paramedics, but none had been this vast.

A slice of the mountain had slipped down, leaving a wide, solid muddy trail in its wake to mark its path.  It had rushed down over road and into the houses that lay beyond, totally obliterating some, leaving others twisted wrecks poking up above the mud.  Any landmarks were gone, covered over by the caked and cracking mud and, now, small swarms of rescue workers digging, looking for survivors.  Rescue equipment stood by in rows, waiting for business that might never come.

And Hutch was somewhere in all that.

"Starsky?"

Dobey had stopped and was watching him darkly, and Starsky straightened a little in his seat, hiding a wince.  "I'm here," he said softly.

"This is as close as I can get with the car."

Starsky nodded, reached for the door handle.

"Starsky–"

"I have ta get closer, Cap'n."  He stopped, turned to look back at Dobey.  "Please."

Another hesitation, then a single nod.  There were some things you just didn't deny a man looking for his partner.  Of course, Dobey thought he was looking for a corpse, but Starsky knew better.  Even though turning back to the expanse of destruction made his heart quail for a moment, too.

No.  This wasn't how it was going to end.

Starsky got out, bobbed for a moment, then, taking careful, small steps, headed for the collapsed hill.

"I don't like this, Starsky."

He'd bristled at Hutch's tone, the immediate disapproval in it before he'd heard Starsky's side.  "Who says you have to?"

"They could get anybody to do this – why you?"

"Christian knows me.  He asked, Hutch – I could've said no."

The rain drumming on the roof of the car didn't dull the timbre of Hutch's frustration.  "So why didn't you?"

"Why should I?  We've done this a hundred times."

His partner shook his head violently.  "Together, Starsky – that's a big difference."

"You sayin' I can't do it alone?" he asked belligerently.

Hutch stiffened up like a board.  Darn it, that wasn't what he'd wanted to say.  Starsky bit his tongue, considered apologizing.  And then Hutch's expression changed.  Starsky could see it even in profile, and all too clearly when Hutch turned to him.  "I didn't deserve that," Hutch said quietly.

He didn't.  Starsky grimaced, feeling ashamed now and not liking it.  "It's just one day," he wheedled.

"Without back-up, that's a long time, Starsky."  But his voice was soft now, without the earlier fuel of anger.

"I'll be careful."

Hutch shook his head, resigned now instead of denying.  "You're going to make me say it, aren't you?  Fine.  I don't like you going in alone, Starsky, and you know it has nothing to do with the fact you're the best person for the job."

Starsky had been struck silent by that, not knowing how to respond.  There had really only been one thing to say, but he didn't want to say it.  And when the car suddenly quivered a moment later, then fishtailed to a stop, the stiffness in Hutch's shoulders as he'd climbed out showed he was just as aware of the omission as Starsky.  Soon they were yelling over the flat and the useless spare, but Starsky had known what they were really arguing about.

I don't like you going in alone.  So much for that one, Starsky thought tiredly.  This was as alone as it got.

He had to make his way around several knots of people digging, some with shovels, some with light earth-moving equipment.  He was ignored, one person in the controlled chaos, and Starsky only glanced at what they were doing.  He kept walking, feeling the soft give of drying mud under his feet, the deep, angry ache in his body as he pushed it past what he knew he should, the hollowness inside that would persist until he knew Hutch was all right.  The certainty his partner was alive was still there, but so were the fears they would be too late, or the damage too severe.

The sign they'd passed before the tire had blown was gone, as was any trace of the road.  Starsky paused, swaying, and gratefully felt Dobey pile another coat on his shoulders from behind.  Its weight almost toppled his already tenuous balance, but the warmth felt good.

To the right, Starsky could just make out the end of the road disappearing under the edge of the slide.  He traced its erased curves with his eyes, hugging what was left of the hill.  Scrub bushes on either side of the muddy slide had survived, and Starsky eyeballed them with an eye for detail developed by years of police work.

And then he just stood and stared at the featureless mud for a long minute.

"There," he said softly.

Dobey shifted behind him.  "What?  Where?"

Starsky pointed.  "There.  He's under there."

            It was just a gentle swell, in a field of mud full of them.  It could have been a car, a house, or just a random swirl of mud, but Starsky allowed no doubt in his mind.  True, the Ford could have been swept away by the slide, but that small lump and its location – the bushes, the approximate distance they'd gone past the curve, the shape of the hill as it had loomed above them and, well, a quiet inner homing instinct Starsky knew would bear no close scrutiny- - all helped him decide: the Ford was there.  It had to be.

            "You're sure?" Dobey asked doubtfully.

            He nodded without hesitation.

            The captain moved off.

            And now, Starsky sank wearily onto a nearby trashcan the mud had glued into place, he just had to wait.

            "Coffee?"

            The cup was warm and smelled terrific, and Starsky took it with a bare smile for the faceless stranger.  "Thanks."  It melted his frozen body going down, nudging his weary brain to work again.  His back, locked and frozen into place, screamed when Starsky lifted his head to drink, and he quickly hunched again under the coat.

            "You could at least wait in the car," Dobey chided gently.

            "Can't.  I have to…"  Starsky waved vaguely at the cluster of people his eyes hadn't strayed from for the last several hours.  The lights they'd erected to work by in the darkness made his eyes burn and chafe, but he kept staring, looking for some sign they'd found something.

            The captain sank onto the trashcan next to him, their combined weight making the metal creak.  If it hadn't been filled with dried mud, it probably would have collapsed under them.  Starsky took another conservative sip of his coffee and rubbed his eyes with an arm that felt like lead.  There was no point in telling Dobey, but he would never have made it back to the car now if he tried.

            A cry had gone up to their left a half-hour before, and Starsky finally dragged his eyes away to watch the procession that was now heading from that site to the nearest ambulance, a stretcher balanced in their midst.  Starsky's eyes blurred as he saw the blanket pulled up over the body.  That was the third one since he'd arrived.

            "Sir?"

            Starsky turned heavily, blinking without comprehension into a new light shining in his eyes.  He didn't see the microphone at first.

            "Channel 3 news, sir – could you tell me who you're waiting on news for?"

            Dobey rose from beside him with a growl, and Starsky watched emotionlessly as the captain chased the reporter and his cameraman away.  It should've been funny… so many things should've been different than they were.

            I don't like you going in alone.

            "So don't leave me here," Starsky whispered.

            Another shout came from one of the digging parties.  It took Starsky a minute to raise his head to see which one and what they'd found.  And then he lurched to his feet, seeing the group he'd been watching suddenly speed up into a flurry of movement, excited voices carrying back to him.

            "Cap'n…"  He groped blindly to his side, felt Dobey brush by his hand.

            "I'll see what I can find out.  You stay put."  The last was called over his shoulder as the older man scrambled closer to the knot of people working in feverish pitch now.

            Starsky stared harder, trying to make out details between the bodies.  He stumbled a few steps closer before his energy ran out again, then just stood and stared, gasping for breath when his burning lungs reminded him he needed air.

            It was a car hood, brown with mud.

            Starsky strained for a further glimpse, forgetting exhaustion and pain for a moment.

            Then a familiar movement caught his eye.  Before he could place it, a silhouette shrugged itself free of the crowd.  The outline he knew without even seeing a single feature, and Starsky's gut twisted.  And a second later, the light caught a glint of butter-blond hair.

            His knees felt shaky.  The air burned his throat.  A few spots gathered in his vision, none of them obscuring the form that had paused for a moment to talk to Dobey, then looked up at Starsky and started walking toward him.  No stumbling, no cautious movement, not even a limp.  A few others raced behind him to keep up, trying to throw a blanket over his shoulders, slow him for a moment, but he was having none of it, just strode faster in Starsky's direction.

            Starsky's legs wobbled, no strength left in him to keep his bones locked.  He started falling.

            "I've got you."  He was caught, first by the arms, then a careful grasp around his waist.  It hurt… but Starsky found himself grinning as his vision narrowed.  The mud-streaked face inches from his grinned back.  "Miss me?"

            It was the last thing he heard before everything faded to black.

            Starsky awoke slowly to the comfortable awareness he wasn't alone.

            Warm skin stroked over his palm, an easy path back and forth.  He felt it before he felt the heat and discomfort of his back and sides, but the distraction of the motion kept even those from capturing his whole attention.  Still, as he took a deep breath, the stab in his chest made him moan.

            "Easy, Starsk."

            The quiet voice made him smile into his pillow.  It hadn't been a dream.  "Hutch?" he mumbled.  Starsky pulled his eyes open, discovered only a darkened hospital room, and let them close again.

            "Right here."  Hutch's thumb kept moving over the hollow of his palm, and Starsky drowsily traced its motion.  Distraction, yes, but also a constant reminder he wasn't alone.

            "Y' okay?"

            "Nothing some soap and hot water won't cure."  There was a shuffle of movement, but the soft rubbing across Starsky's hand didn't stop.  "That car's built like a tank, Starsky – your tomato would've gotten squashed."

            He snorted a faint laugh.  "'Least I still got mine."  Starsky sobered.  "Glad you had enough time t' get in.  Y'had enough air?"

            "It got a little stale in there, but I was okay.  I heard the slide coming, I just didn't know if you had any place to go."  And for the first time there was an edge marring the soothing voice, the pressure on Starsky's hand increasing very slightly.

"No chance."  By the time he'd realized what was coming, the wall of mud had been on him.  Starsky almost felt like apologizing.  "The doc said I'll be fine."

"Yeah, well, you haven't seen your back.  You're gonna be sore for a while, partner."

            That didn't seem too important just then.  Starsky would have shrugged if the very idea hadn't been acutely painful, and settled for a dismissive sound.  "'Least it's a good excuse to get out of that assignment for Christian."

            Hutch's thumb stilled.

            Starsky blinked again into the darkness, making out the faint shadow of his partner, the shape and bearing he'd recognized in the dark fifty yards away.  "I don't like goin' in alone, either," he said quietly, curling his fingers over his partner's.

            There was a long pause.  "They've already found twelve bodies," Hutch said very softly.  "Only three survivors so far."

            Only one person besides them.  And twelve being mourned by loved ones.  Starsky tried to put himself in their place but was too spent to feel anything more than a muted sorrow.  "I'm tired," he murmured.

His hand was gently turned so it lay more comfortably palm down, and Hutch's thumb began that same light sweep along its back.  "Why don't you get some sleep?  Doc said if you behave, he'll let you out this afternoon."

            "Sounds good," Starsky sighed, already halfway to dozing just at the thought of it, then struggled back awake.  "Hey, thank the cap'n–"

            "Already did."

Starsky sank back into the bedding.  Twelve dead.  Just another headline until somebody you cared for was one of them.  He'd gotten lucky that day and Starsky knew it.

His eyes traced the outline of his partner one more time, then he let them close.

"'Night."

            "'Morning," he heard the quiet teasing in the response, and would have shaken his head if he'd been awake enough to do it.

            But the soft motion along the back of his hand followed him even into sleep with the promise he wouldn't wake alone.