(JODIE) 77-year-old Deacon “Deke” Simmons arrived too late on Wednesday night to save Sadie Dunhill from being wounded, but things could have been much worse for the 28-year-old Dunhill, a popular librarian in the Denholm Consolidated School District.
According to Douglas Reems, the Jodie town constable, “If Deke hadn’t arrived when he did, Miss Dunhill almost certainly would have been killed.” When approached by reporters, Simmons would only say, “I don’t want to talk about it, it’s over.”
According to Constable Reems, Simmons overpowered the much younger John Clayton and wrestled away a small revolver. Clayton then produced the knife with which he had wounded his wife and used it to slash his own throat. Simmons and another man, George Amberson of Dallas, tried to stop the bleeding to no avail. Clayton was pronounced dead at the scene.
Mr. Amberson, a former teacher in the Denholm Consolidated School District who arrived shortly after Clayton had been disarmed, could not be reached for comment but told Constable Reems at the scene that Clayton — a former mental patient — may have been stalking his ex-wife for months. The staff at Denholm Consolidated High School had been alerted, and principal Ellen Dockerty had obtained a picture, but Clayton was said to have disguised his appearance.
Miss Dunhill was transported by ambulance to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, where her condition is listed as fair.
I wasn’t able to see her until Saturday. I spent most of the intervening hours in the waiting room with a book I couldn’t seem to read. Which was all right, because I had plenty of company — most of the DCHS teachers dropped by to check on Sadie’s condition, as did almost a hundred students, those without licenses driven into Dallas by their parents. Many stayed to give blood to replace the pints Sadie had used. Soon my briefcase was stuffed with get-well cards and notes of concern. There were enough flowers to make the nurses’ station look like a greenhouse.
I thought I’d gotten used to living in the past, but I was still shocked by Sadie’s room at Parkland when I was finally allowed inside. It was an overheated single not much bigger than a closet. There was no bathroom; an ugly commode that only a dwarf could have used comfortably squatted in the corner, with a semi-opaque plastic curtain to pull across (for semi-privacy). Instead of buttons to raise and lower the bed, there was a crank, its white paint worn off by many hands. Of course there were no monitors showing computer-generated vital signs, and no TV for the patient, either.
A single glass bottle of something — maybe saline — hung from a metal stand. A tube went from it to the back of Sadie’s left hand, where it disappeared beneath a bulky bandage.
Not as bulky as the one wrapped around the left side of her head, though. A sheaf of her hair had been cut off on that side, giving her a lopsided punished look… and of course, she
Then, wearily, she turned her face to the wall.
“Sadie — honey, it’s me.”
“Hi, me,” she said, not turning back.
I touched her shoulder, which the gown left bare, and she twitched it away. “Please don’t look at me.”
“Sadie, it doesn’t matter.”
