Wedding Rearrangement: 9/10
by Nan Smith
Previously:
Bethany glanced back at Lois, who was stepping down from the car into the river. She nodded to Bethany. "That's exactly what happened. I saw you down at the ladies room and Clark saw David waiting for you. We thought something was wrong so we came to find out for sure." She hesitated. "We're newspaper reporters. We won't let you get hurt." Lois reached out a hand. "Hold onto me, just in case, all right?"
Bethany slipped her hand into Lois's and Lois extended her other hand to Clark. Slowly, he began to lead Lois and Bethany downstream.
**********
And now, Part 9:
Rachel Harris pulled her squad car to a stop behind the fire lines. Her trip to Pepper, with the accelerator pressed flat to the floor most of the way, had been hair-raising enough but on arrival she had found that there was a fire at Domino Lake's campgrounds -- one that had in all probability been set. It tended to confirm her theory. Someone else might actually be the culprit but an enforcer was trying to kill Luthor's widow in such a way as to make it look like an accident, and now there was a bad fire where Clark and Lois had gone camping. It was too much of a coincidence for her taste. If her trip to Pepper had been fast, she must have broken all international speed records to make it to the campgrounds.
She killed the engine and left the car, looking around for someone in authority who could answer questions.
One large family accompanied by a dog the size of a small grizzly bear and with a disturbing resemblance to one, occupied three benches near a parking spot where an ambulance sat. A young man and woman huddled together on another bench -- people who had managed to escape the flames without their vehicles, she guessed, waiting for who knew what -- transportation, maybe. Well, it couldn't hurt to talk to them. Maybe someone had seen Clark or Lois this evening.
She approached the group, keeping an eye on the dog. It saw her and instantly began to bark frantically at her.
"Quiet, Bear!" That was one of the kids and to Rachel's surprise the dog instantly became silent.
"Excuse me," Rachel said, speaking to the man who sat on the nearest bench. He must be the father of this small mob of children, she figured -- five by actual count and, if Rachel was any judge, the oldest was no more than eleven.
"Yes?" The man turned to look up at her and then got to his feet. The woman beside him also rose and Rachel wasn't surprised to realize that she was apparently expecting again. She might be three or four months along.
Rachel smiled at them as disarmingly as she could. "Please, sit down. You look like you've had a rough evening."
Slowly, the two of them resumed their seats. Rachel took a precarious perch on the approximately five square inches of unoccupied bench across from them. The two-year-old next to her squirmed and looked reproachfully at her before getting down and running over to fling her arms around the dog's neck and pull on its ears. The animal promptly flopped down on its side and began to vigorously wash the child's foot.
"I'm the County Sheriff,” Rachel informed the parents of the small mob. "I wonder, could you tell me anything about this evening? Do you have any idea how the fire started?"
Both immediately shook their heads. The man glanced at the dog. "The first we knew something was wrong was when Bear started going crazy." He paused. "I'm Ed Walker, by the way."
"Rachel Harris," Rachel said. "Go on."
"Well, at first I thought he was just barking at a squirrel or something but he wouldn't shut up even when Tommy told him to." He nodded at the child who had spoken to the dog. "I went to see what it was and saw the fire above us on the slope. It had blocked off the driving trail and I didn't want to risk trying to drive through it with the camper, so we took off down the trail to the Convenience Center. I guess," he said hopefully, "that it was a good idea to pay extra for the optional insurance the rental company offered after all. I thought it was a waste of money, but Amber insisted."
Rachel fished in her pocket and took out her wallet. A newspaper clipping, with a photo of Clark Kent was folded inside one of the compartments and she took it out. "I wonder -- have you seen this man today? He was supposed to be camping here at Domino Lake."
Walker took the photo and held it so that the headlights of one of the emergency vehicles fell across it. He frowned. "Yeah, I've seen him somewhere. Don't know where, though."
"He's a reporter," Rachel said. "I'm trying to locate him."
Amber leaned over to look at the clipping. "Sure," she said. "We saw him this afternoon. Remember the two people that accidentally came into the camp? They'd got turned around and took the wrong trail."
"Oh yeah --" Ed scratched his collarbone with one finger. "Yeah, sure. I think it was him, later, too, when we were on the way down. He was running back up to get his girlfriend."
"When?" Rachel asked sharply.
"After the fire had started. He said he'd left her up there and had to find her."
"You mean he ran back up where the fire was?" Rachel asked in dismay.
"Yeah. I didn't see him after that, though. I sure hope they didn't get --" He broke off.
Rachel hoped not, too. "Which camping spot were you in?" she asked, already sure of the answer.
"We were on the Lakeside Trail camping area -- campsite #1," Ed told her. He nodded at the young couple that Rachel had noticed earlier. "They were in campsite #2. I guess everybody else got out before the fire blocked off their roads. Just our luck."
Rachel got to her feet. "Thanks," she said. "I appreciate the information."
It was just like Clark to do something stupid trying to save somebody else, she thought as she hurried toward the barricade. Like the time in Smallville when he was seventeen, that he'd charged into a burning house in town to rescue the Anderson family's cat. He'd done it, too, and both he and the cat had somehow escaped with nothing but a few scorches to his clothes and the cat's whiskers. Rachel had been sixteen and hadn't been shy about telling him what a stupid stunt it had been, even if he hadn't gotten hurt.
She hoped fervently that he'd walk out of this one unhurt, too. Telling Martha and Jonathan that their son had been killed in a forest fire was something that she *really* didn't want to do.
Several uniformed rangers were moving about in the lights of the emergency vehicles and with them, she saw, was a man in a sheriff's uniform. Dan Wilson, the Deputy who manned the sheriff's office in Pepper, was using a flashlight to examine a map that the men had spread out on the bed of a pickup truck.
"Dan!" she called. He lifted his head at the sound of his name and saw her.
"Hi, Rachel -- I mean, 'Sheriff'," he said. "I got your message. What's going on?"
"We've had a murder in Smallville," Rachel said. "They told me back in town that there was a big fire up here. What happened?"
"This one was set," Dan said grimly.
"How can they tell so soon?" Rachel asked.
"They saw it from one of the spotter planes," Dan explained, "and caught it on video. Five fires that pretty much started at the same time -- set in a semicircle around one of the camping areas. It was pretty weird. They had to have been on some kind of timer."
"*Which* camping area?" Rachel asked.
"Lakeside Trail," Dan said. "Why?"
"I was afraid of that," Rachel said.
"Huh?"
"The fires were set to kill Lois Lane," she said.
"You mean that reporter who married Lex Luthor last week?" Dan said. "Rachel, what the he -- heck is going on?"
"Plenty," Rachel said. "You want the long version or the short one?"
"Let's try the short one for starters."
"Okay, you asked for it," Rachel said. "The whole thing is about Luthor's money."
"That sounds logical. In the end, most murders are about money."
"Yeah. Well, as you know, Luthor had billions and, as his wife, Lane inherits half of Luthor's legitimate assets, but if she dies of natural causes within thirty days of his death, the money reverts to the estate and is divided between the other heirs."
Dan raised a satirical eyebrow. "Are you saying somebody decided he doesn't want to share several billion dollars?"
"Something like that," Rachel said. "Clark Kent told me there have been two attempts to kill her 'accidentally' in the last week. They've been staying with his parents on their farm, outside town since yesterday and this afternoon I got a call from the Metropolis Police. They'd had a tip that an enforcer for Luthor's criminal syndicate was on his way to Smallville to find the Kents and get Lane's location from them, since Clark is her reporting partner. I think the guy they sent killed one of the reporters that's been hanging around Smallville and took his place. I think he followed them here and tried to arrange for Lane to die 'accidentally' in a forest fire."
Dan's eyebrows had climbed into his hairline by the time she finished speaking. "You mean some big city hit man came out here and tried to burn down Domino Lake Campground to kill Lex Luthor's widow?"
"Yeah," Rachel said. "That's pretty much it."
Dan swore softly under his breath. "If I get my hands on him, you're going to have to arrest *me* for murder," he said. "Let's just hope he didn't succeed."
"I just talked to one of the campers who said he thinks he saw Clark running up into the fire area to try to find Miss Lane," Rachel said.
Dan shook his head. "That's not good. That whole section was pretty much blocked off by fire within about twenty minutes after it started. If they got trapped up there --" He let the sentence hang.
"I'm not so sure of that," Rachel said. She reached out to rap her knuckles on one of the painted wooden sawhorses that made up the barricade. "With anyone else, I'd figure they'd had it but Clark's luckier than anybody has a right to be. His family camped here a lot when he was a kid and he knows the lay of the land pretty well. Where would they go if they couldn't make it back to the Convenience Center?"
"Here's the map of the whole campground," Dan said, pointing to the one spread out on the bed of the pickup. "If they were in the Lakeside Trail area --" He traced a finger across the lines on the paper with the burning area marked in red ink. "If they could make it to the river, they might be able to follow it to the lake."
"Can we get there with the fire and everything?" Rachel asked.
"I guess so. The fire's on the eastern side, but we can go around to the north dock and take an inflatable over to the delta. That's probably where they'd be if you're right." He turned to one of the rangers who had been listening to the conversation. "We need to borrow an inflatable and an emergency medical kit."
**********
Lois hung tightly on to Bethany's hand as they made their way slowly down the river. Clark was moving smoothly and carefully for their sakes; Lois had no doubt that he could move much faster alone. He was looking over the tops of his glasses, and, she suspected, guiding them past the more difficult obstacles with his x-ray vision. Superman, she thought, was well on his way to being back to normal. She hadn't missed the fact that his left arm was speckled with tiny pieces of charred vegetation and that his shirt was dotted with holes where burning specks of debris had landed during that last wild ride but it was obvious that none of that bothered him at all. River water splashed onto his arm, washing away the specks, revealing no burned spots on his skin at all when by rights the arm of an ordinary man would have been reddened and blistered.
Ashes were settling out of the sky, sifting endlessly down like powder. Bethany's mouth and nose were covered with the makeshift mask of Lois's wet swimming shirt, but Lois couldn't hold the handkerchief to her face while holding both Bethany's hand and Clark's. She tugged on his arm. "I need to put something over my face. I don't want to breathe this stuff."
"Huh?" He glanced up. "You're right. I didn't think about it. Just a minute." He fished in his pocket to remove a handkerchief with his initials embroidered on one corner. Lois had noticed that most of his handkerchiefs were embroidered in a like manner but it hadn't occurred to her to ask. Surely Clark didn't spend the evening embroidering his initials on his handkerchiefs, did he?
Clark had followed her gaze and now he grinned. "My Aunt Opal embroiders and she always sends me handkerchiefs with my initials on them for my birthday and Christmas. One year she and Mom got into a contest of how many ways they could embroider my initials onto articles of clothing and sneak it into designs so that I couldn't see it. I always found it, but toward the end it was getting difficult. Let me have your canteen. I need to rinse this thing out. It's soaked with river water."
Lois handed him the canteen and watched as he carefully rinsed out the cloth. After a moment, he handed it back. "Tie it over your mouth and nose. That should help."
Lois obeyed. "What else did they embroider?" she asked, knotting the cloth at the back of her head. She grasped Bethany's hand once more.
Clark took her free hand and they started on again. "You don't want to know."
"Yes I do," she insisted. "Come on, Clark, give. You have to know I'll ask your mom."
"And she'd probably tell you, too," Clark said with resignation. "They embroidered everything. I almost died from embarrassment when I discovered that Aunt Opal had embroidered some of my...um...shorts on the seat and...uh...other places."
Lois nearly broke into giggles. "Really?"
"You'd better believe it. And I haven't dared wear the tie she made. I haven't thrown it away because if I do she's bound to ask me if I still have it and her feelings will be hurt."
That figured, she thought. Clark didn't like to hurt people's feelings. Superman, it seemed, had an unexpectedly soft heart.
“Have you still got the shorts, too?” she asked.
It still amazed her that she was capable of making Superman blush. His face definitely had gotten pinker in just the last couple of minutes.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “I was afraid to throw them away.”
“Oh? Why?”
“If anybody ever found them and figured out who they belong to, what would they think?” he protested. “I mean, good grief! Besides, they're from Aunt Opal. She's really a very nice woman and -- except for things like that. I like her a lot. She really means well.”
And he didn't want to hurt her feelings, Lois thought. She made up her mind that after she and Clark were married that she was going to insist that he model them for her -- but she didn't say so. Instead, she asked. “How far now?”
“Just a little farther,” he told her. He glanced back at Bethany. “How are you doing, Bethany? Can you hang on a little longer?”
Bethany nodded and Lois felt her small hand tighten a little.
“Don't worry,” she told Clark. “I'm hanging on tight to her. We won't let anything happen to you,” she added to the little girl. “After we get to the lake somebody's sure to find us after while. Then we can make a phone call to your mom and dad and let them know you're safe.”
Bethany nodded soberly but now, for the first time, she actually looked straight at Clark. “You're not like David,” she said.
Clark smiled tentatively at her. “No, I'm not. I'm not going to let him get his hands on you again.”
“If we can, we're going to try to help the police put him in jail again -- for the rest of his life,” Lois added.
“I hope he burned up in the fire,” Bethany said, her childish voice low and intense. “I hate him. He hurt me.”
Lois could hardly blame her. “Well, whatever happens to him, he can't hurt you any more,” she said.
“Come on,” Clark said. “Let's get to the lake. The air ought to be clearer there, too.”
They resumed their progress. Lois kept her eyes on Clark as he led them carefully downstream. Ahead, she could see an opening in the trees where the river widened and ran into the lake. It was only a short distance away now.
“Look out!”
Clark's voice startled her and she felt herself grabbed around the waist by one of Clark's arms, and a rush of motion. Then she discovered that she and Bethany were being pinned tightly against the riverbank by Clark's body. Somewhere behind them, she heard a crashing noise and a massive splash, followed instantly by a deafening hiss.
Slowly, Clark released them and Lois turned to see what had happened. One of the larger trees had fallen and now lay partially in the river. Flames still streamed upward from the branches that remained in the air, fanned by the strong wind created by the fire.
“Wow,” she said faintly. “That was close.”
“Yeah,” Clark said grimly. “Let's hurry.”
They sorted themselves out quickly and again Clark took the lead, hurrying them along as fast as they could manage. Bethany's hand clutched Lois's with almost frantic intensity and it was obvious that she was near exhaustion but she made no protest. Lois found herself apprehensively watching the burning trees on either side of them for any signs of another such collapse.
But the delta was suddenly yards away, and then feet. And then all at once her feet were no longer touching the muddy bottom and she found herself treading water.
Clark released her hand, turning to look at Bethany. “Can you make it all right?” he asked.
Bethany nodded, spitting out water. The girl was treading water almost effortlessly. “I can swim.”
“Good,” Clark said. He pointed. “See that line of buoys out there? I want you to head for that. If we hang onto the rope, we'll be able to stay in the water until somebody sees us.”
Bethany nodded and struck out with a sidestroke toward the buoys. Lois raised her eyebrows at Clark and followed. Bethany had apparently had a good deal of swimming instruction from her parents. The girl's form was better than Lois's, and she had always considered herself a pretty good swimmer. Clark brought up the rear. Lois suspected that he had done so in order to keep an eye on them both, just in case. Superman, she thought again. Clark always seemed to take the responsibility on himself to make sure that others were safe. It was just the way he was wired, with or without his powers. Although she thought that if his powers were not all the way back they would be soon.
Far across the water she could see the lights when one of the fire fighting copters swooped in low, filling it's huge container from the lake, and rose vertically once more into the air before it turned majestically and made its way back toward the fire. It roared past overhead, the sound of the rotors so loud that her ears rang after it passed. A smaller plane buzzed by a little to the south, also headed for the fire. She closed her eyes for an instant, hoping that the skilled and courageous men and women who were fighting the monster behind them would come through alive and unhurt. Then she turned her attention to making progress toward the line of buoys.
The water of the lake was choppy in the stiff breeze that was blowing across its surface, but the haze of smoke was lighter here. The breeze, coming from the west, was carrying the smoke to the east, away from them. Lois's throat was still raw but her lungs were already feeling better. The aching sensation from having inhaled too much smoke was already easing in the clearer air above the lake. The silver light of a full moon hanging nearly overhead made everything around them clearly visible.
The roar of an outboard engine caught her attention with a flood of relief. Someone had seen them already and was coming to their aid. She came to a stop in the water and waved.
“Lois!” Clark had moved up close to her in the water. “Make for the buoys! Get Bethany out of here -- quick!”
“What --” Lois started to object but he had turned in the water and she saw that he was moving with better than human speed to place himself between them and the boat. It was a sleek, expensive sport craft, she realized, painted silver with red racing stripes. Not a craft belonging to any of the rescue services.
And then she saw what Clark must have already somehow realized. The man in the boat wasn't a ranger or a cop. He was dressed in ordinary civilian clothing, and he was coming full speed at the three of them, making no attempt to slow down.
He was going to run them down, she thought, changing her sidestroke to a crawl. “Come on, Bethany!” she ordered. "Swim!”
Her recent kidnapping must have made Bethany a good deal less trusting of her fellow man, Lois thought, for at Lois's warning she didn't even pause or attempt to ask a question. She shifted to a powerful racing crawl, pulling ahead even of Lois. Thus it was only Lois who saw what happened next.
Clark submerged in a surface dive so smooth that he barely disturbed the water. The boat was coming toward her at full speed and it was as if she could see the eyes of the man guiding it focused directly on her.
Somehow the forces of LexCorp's new boss must have tracked them here, she realized belatedly, though how he had guessed where she would be Lois had not the faintest idea. However it had been done, he clearly intended to run her down, to stun or kill her and leave her in the lake, the victim of an accident. Clark and Bethany would have to be taken care of too, but she thought he might manage that easily. If he shot them it would be suspicious but it he ran them down, too, it was just an unfortunate accident. He could claim that they had all been bunched together and he hadn't seen them in the dark. Or he could dispose of them a dozen other ways. He might have to face charges of some kind, but LexCorp's lawyers would undoubtedly take care of things the way they usually did, and the important thing would be that Lex Luthor's widow was no longer in the running for the inheritance.
Lois turned and swam as hard as she could, aware that she stood no chance at all against a speedboat, but praying that Clark had some kind of rabbit up his sleeve. The lights of the boat seemed to pin her against the lake's surface like a fly on a plate and the roar of its engine grew to deafening volume. She glanced back once to see the boat barely twenty feet behind her and coming hard -- and at that second it happened.
The speedboat flipped smartly upward into the air, spinning, and its pilot flew free. Lois couldn't imagine what had happened. Dazzled by the headlamp of the boat, she couldn't see anything that it could have encountered in the water but it must have hit something, she thought.
And then the boat stopped in midair, and she caught her breath, staring up at a miracle. She couldn't see his face, but the brilliant blue and red of Superman's uniform was clearly visible as he slowly lowered the craft to the surface of the water with one hand. In the other hand he grasped the craft's pilot by the back of his belt.
As he came closer, Clark's face became clearer in the bright moonlight and he was smiling.
“Hello, Lois,” he said, “fancy meeting you here.”
“Superman!” she sputtered.
“In the flesh,” he said. “Why don't you and your friend keep swimming for those buoys. I'd pick you up right away, but I think the police will want to speak with this fellow -- and I don't want him to dispose of any of the interesting things that he seems to have in his possession. There's a rescue raft on its way, just a little north of you. I'll let them know where you are on the way past. You can tell them that I said Clark is all right, too. He'll be along in twenty minutes or so.”
He probably would, Lois thought as she turned back toward the buoys and Bethany Gordon, who was treading water a few feet away, her gaze fixed on the superhero as he vanished upward into the hazy night sky. It probably would take Superman about that long to help the firefighters get the blaze under control. And Lane and Kent would get the story of that as well as the one about Bethany and her return to her parents. The Metropolis Star could kiss goodbye any pretense it had of taking the place of the Daily Planet in Metropolis.
Lane and Kent were coming back with *style*.
**********
tbc
