The Legend of Safehaven by R. A. Comunale Page A

enlisted, not waiting for the lottery to call his number. College wasn’t for him. The stories of his ancestors defending the kings of Poland moved him, as only a young man with no life experience can be moved. He relished the military life of discipline and structure, and he believed in the cause that his superiors offered him.
    And so it was that his unit moved to Saigon, and then to Da Nang and the Mekong Delta. The coal miner’s son saw his friends die, singly, in pairs, and in some cases groups. Yet his beliefs remained fixed, until the day he and his best friend—the big, black kid from Chicago everyone called “Bandana”—went to help the old lady with the baby carriage. The machine-pistol fire cut Bandana in half and wounded Ben in both legs, before he pulled his sidearm and shot a bullet into the woman’s brain.
    After that he was shipped home, a hero with medals and lifelong guilt for not having been more observant. He would never make that mistake again. But he knew it wouldn’t bring Bandana back.
    *   *   *
    At twenty-three, honorably discharged, and seeking meaning to his life, he faced the world with wounds that had healed and no residual weakness in his slightly bowed legs.
    The G.I. Bill would pay for his education. His natural inclination was law enforcement, so he took some courses at the local community college before applying to the Pennsylvania State Police Academy in Hershey. Then he took one final step.
    Ben was never quite sure why he did it. Maybe it conferred on him an added sense of protection, or perhaps he needed to hide from the ghost of Bandana. He changed his name to its English translation: He became Ben Castle.
    *   *   *
    College still wasn’t for him, but it did bring him Irene—beautiful Irene Strzewski. Shortly after completing his training at the academy, they dodged the rice tossed at them and headed with his wedding party to the reception hall. His mother greeted the couple at the entrance, holding out the traditional offering of bread and salt to the newlyweds. His two older brothers, sharing their younger sibling’s haunted look, slapped him on the back and told him he would always be a Zamek.
    They danced, the stocky, blue-eyed, state policeman and his auburn-haired, hazel-eyed Irene. She seemed doll-size next to him, her petite body complementing his intrinsic strength. But she fed him the doughy, triangular piroghis and the bowtie-shaped, sugar-coated cruller cakes—the krusziki . She also decided the order of those with whom she danced the Pani Mloda. And she held him tightly, her tiara of mock orange blossoms scenting the air below his nose. As they danced to the final verse of the Polish Money Dance, the rest of the party sang, “Take the bride away with you and love her ‘til your death.”
    *   *   *
    He heard voices hovering above him.
    Is that Dr. Galen?
    “Get the interventional radiologist to TPA him now. His atrial fibrillation is controlled, and the scan shows definite embolic blockage in the middle cerebral artery where it branches. Ken Drake’s a good man. Had him as a student.”
    More gibberish, Ben’s brain decided, and retreated back in time once again...
    *   *   *
    He felt on top of the world, as he joined his sergeant in the patrol car. Even the veteran of the force who had mentored him mellowed his usually gruff voice, as he spotted the unmistakable symptoms.
    “So, what’s it going to be, Ben, boy or girl?”
    The words startled him, but he grinned and nodded up and down.
    “I don’t care, as long as it has Irene’s good looks.”
    The sergeant laughed and added, “Hopefully her brains, too!”
    They headed along the road just outside Scranton, Ben reading the dispatch reports he had picked up on the way over.
    “She’s going to see the doctor again today. It’s getting pretty close.”
    Just then the squawk box blared, “Car one-twenty-one, car one-twenty-one, robbery in progress. Go to…”
    The sergeant hit the