by Tom Abrahams
There was the Scourge that left them alone but self-reliant. Then came men who took her, held her against her will, forced her to draw every ounce of strength from her core.
She never doubted her husband would come for her, and he had. He’d brought with him a hardened man who’d helped to give them a second chance at life.
That man, Marcus Battle, was also their undoing. Violence followed him. Or more likely, he courted it. Like people who couldn’t exist without drama, Marcus was a ghost without death around him.
He’d settled with them here in Baird. He, Lou, and the two virtually mute women who’d left without notice long ago made a home for a short time.
She stroked Rudy’s face absently as she thought about those days. They were good. At least, they were as good as one could dream in this wasteland.
Then she’d told Marcus to leave, and he had. Then they’d found a bigger piece of land outside town, one better suited for the drought.
Lou fell in love; she married Dallas; they had a child. Those were the days better than the dream. Rudy and Norma were like grandparents. They were grandparents.
A wave of nausea washed through Norma’s body. She rubbed her fingers against the coarse texture of Rudy’s beard. Her jaw clenched and Norma held the tears at bay. The knot in her throat was sore. It hurt. She swallowed past it and thought about what was coming.
Now Marcus was coming. The violence, as if sensing his approach, had returned ahead of him. It was a harbinger of Marcus’s reemergence in their lives, and it had cost Rudy his. It had cost Norma. What was worse was that this was only the beginning. More violence was on the horizon.
Norma wanted to scream. She wanted to vomit. She wanted to blame God, and the Scourge, and the drought, and the Llano River Clan, and Marcus. It was irrational.
The damned Pop Guard and the junta that proclaimed itself the government was at fault. Norma knew that. But she needed someone tangible to blame as she traced her husband’s lips and the lines that framed his cheeks.
His skin was cold to the touch. His lips were changing color.
“I love you,” she told him. “You are my hero, Rudolfo. My rock. My companion. My reason for being.”
A noise behind Norma startled her. She jerked around to see Lou standing in the hall, David in front of her, her hands over his eyes.
Tears streamed down Lou’s face, leaving clean streaks through the sheen of dirt and dust. Her olive skin, usually radiant and softly glowing, was dull. Her bright, intelligent eyes were reddened and puffy. The confident way in which she carried her thin, muscular frame was turned inward, making her appear smaller.
“Is he…?” Lou let the question hang in the air between them.
Norma stared at her for a beat, locking eyes with her, giving her the answer without saying it. It was too hard to say it.
Lou’s chin trembled. Her voice warbled with abject sadness. “He died saving me,” she said. “Saving us. If it weren’t for—”
Norma held up a hand, stopping her from saying any more. “Don’t say that. Rudy loves—loved—you. He would do anything for you.”
David whimpered. He pressed his hands against his mother’s over his eyes. His little chest heaved up and down. Lou hadn’t covered his eyes and ears.
“Let him see,” said Norma.
Lou drew away her hand, her son holding onto it and keeping his eyes shut. Norma extended a hand to him.
Tears were coming now. Norma couldn’t hold them back any longer. “Come here, sweet boy,” she said. “Come say goodbye to Rudy.”
As the boy moved toward him, Rudy’s eyes opened. His chest rose as he took in a deep, rattling gasp of air. A pained groan filled the house as he exhaled.
“Rudy?” Norma’s voice was a squeak. “Rudy?”
He gasped again and tried speaking. His lips moved, but nothing came out.
“Hurry,” said Lou, “let’s get him onto the bed. He’s going to need help.”
Norma sat frozen for a moment, not processing that her husband was alive. Her mind had already drifted to burying him. She’d put him next to their dog Fifty.
She thought he’d like that. That old dog was faithful to him to the last.
The dog that had been as good a companion as any human, maybe better, had lived a long, good life, which was more than Norma could say for a lot of animals post-Scourge.
Lou shook her from the reverie. “Norma, c’mon now. If his pulse was weak enough you thought he was dead, he’s damn near it now. We gotta help him. I can’t do it on my own.”
Norma moved out from under her husband’s body. Together, and with difficulty, the two women managed to half carry, half drag Rudy to the master bedroom. Then they’d collapsed with him onto the bed.
Now his feet were elevated. His head was on a pillow. His shirt was off and Norma was cleaning him to find the source of the blood, the holes and gashes threatening to drain the last ounces of life from his wounded body.
Norma sat on the edge of the bed next to her husband. Exhaustion began to take hold. She wasn’t sure she could stand if she tried and wondered if she looked as tired as Lou did. The poor girl had one hand at the small of her back and the other cupped under her belly. It was awkward looking, but Norma imagined being nine months pregnant in this environment was always awkward. She felt for the poor girl, for the life growing inside her.
“David asleep?” asked Norma.
“I think so,” said Lou, motioning with her head toward the parlor across the house. “He’s tired.”
“We all are.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Lou.
Norma swallowed, putting her hand on her husband’s leg next to her. It was under the blanket, but she could feel the muscle of his thigh above his knee. “Sorry about what?”
Lou shifted from one foot to the other, from one side of the door frame to the other. Both hands were underneath her belly now, caressing it. The girl looked at the floor. “Everything. The pregnancy. Sending Dallas to get Marcus. Today. Everything.”
“You didn’t think you could have another baby,” said Norma. “It’s not your fault. And sending Dallas to get help was the right thing to do.”
Lou looked up from the floor. “Was it?”
Norma tilted her head to one side. Inhaling through her nose and drawing in a deep breath, she considered the question. She concluded an honest answer was the best.
She eyed her husband’s chest and torso. There were three bullet wounds, not counting the nick at his neck that seemed to bleed more than the penetrating wounds on his side, in his hip, and on his arm.
“I’m not sure Marcus would have been my first choice,” she said. “Blood follows that man everywhere, Lou. You know that. We all know that. That’s why he left. It’s why he didn’t come back. I so much as told him not to come back.”
Blood preceded him too. It was everywhere. Norma listened to her husband’s breathing. It sounded odd, like air through a straw.
“I think he’s got a sucking chest wound,” said Norma. “He might have a punctured lung.”
Norma scanned the first aid supplies she’d spread out on the bed next to her husband. There was a plastic card amidst the gear that explained how to shape a splint. Norma found a petroleum jelly packet and squeezed it onto the edges of the card. Then she wiped away the excess blood at the wound in Rudy’s chest and pressed the card against it.
Norma watched as Rudy inhaled. It pulled the card tight against his chest, creating a vacuum so he could breathe. When he exhaled, the card lifted and blood oozed through the jelly.
“I don’t think there’s anything else I can do for that,” she said. “He seems to be breathing okay right now. I can’t risk trying to pull out a bullet or anything else.”
Lou stood behind her now, hovering. “Is there anything I can do?”
Norma shook her head. “I’ve got to treat these wounds, stop the bleeding. Maybe you could get him some water? A cold cloth?”
Lou nodded and left the
room. Norma could hear her shuffling in the kitchen.
The wound in his side appeared to be a clean shot, through and through. She carefully rolled him onto his side and poured iodine over the entry and exit wounds.
Rudy groaned and coughed, his face contorting in pain. Sweat drenched his forehead and cheeks, matting his hair to his head.
Norma shushed him and told him to stay calm. She checked both wounds, wiping them clean again. The exit wound on his back was wider and more ragged than the entry wound.
She slathered gauze with Neosporin and stuck it on both sides, using surgical tape to affix the gauze. They looked like weirdly shaped patches above his love handles.
Although Rudy still hadn’t said a word, he was conscious and tolerating the pain. That was good.
“Can you move your fingers and toes?” she asked, taking his hand.
He squeezed. It was weak, the grip not enough to open a mason jar of preserves, but it was there. She looked at his feet. His ankles shifted.
She moved to his thigh. There was no exit wound. The bullet was lodged in his leg. For now, she’d have to leave it there. Like the chest wound, Norma saw no advantage in trying to remove the bullet. She wasn’t trained to do it. Basic first aid was about as far as she’d advanced.
Lou came back with a large glass of water and a damp rag. She handed Norma the rag first. Norma folded it in half and placed it gently on Rudy’s forehead. He opened his eyes and closed them again.
“I need you to take a sip of water, Rudy,” she said. “And swallow some pills.”
She ripped open a package with her teeth and shook a pair of white tablets into her hand. Lou handed her the glass. Together they managed to lift Rudy’s head enough for him to take the pills and swallow two sips of water.
“They’re pain pills,” Norma said. “I don’t know if they’re any good, but it can’t hurt. Says they were made in Atlanta three years ago.”
“Where’d you get a kit from Atlanta?” asked Lou.
Norma shrugged. “I guess Rudy bartered for it.”
Both women turned their attention to the patient. He was propped up on pillows. His eyes were half open, his skin pale. Sweat had dried and bloomed again.
“You’re a mess,” said Norma. “But you’re my mess.”
Rudy opened his lips and said something below a whisper. Norma couldn’t hear it, so she moved closer to him. She turned her head and put her ear next to his mouth.
“I love you,” he said.
Tears welled in Norma’s eyes. A tremor shook her chest, but she held it at bay. She had to be strong right now. The time for tears was later, when he was out of the woods.
With her hands on both sides of his face, Norma lowered her lips to his and kissed him gently.
Norma glanced back at Lou.
Aside from the lack of an Astros ball cap, Norma thought Lou looked like the young girl she’d met so many years ago. It was hard to believe so much time had passed, so many things had happened in that time. Time was different since the Scourge, even more so since the drought took root. While the days were long and dragged, weeks and months flew past, and years dissolved into a collection of fleeting moments like powder into water.
“Marcus is old now,” she said. “Like Rudy.”
“What do you mean?”
Norma pulled her shoulders back, lifted her chin. “Rudy did what he could today. Ten years ago and this happened? He’d be dragging the bodies to a hole in the ground. Age takes things from people. Marcus is no different, Lou.”
Norma watched the gears turn in Lou’s head. The girl—she still thought of her as a girl even if she was in her thirties now—was easy to read. Anger. Fear. Joy. Lou wore every emotion as if it were a T-shirt with the words stenciled on it.
“I wouldn’t have sent for Marcus,” Norma said with a shrug. “I’m being honest. But what’s done is done. And you need to go now. Take David and get out of here.”
“I’m not leaving you and Rudy alone,” said Lou. “I can wait until Dallas gets back with Marcus.”
Norma moved her hand from her husband’s face and put it on the mattress beside her. She pushed herself to her feet. Her knees ached; her shoulders were sore. She rubbed her neck with the back of her hand. Tendrils of her gray hair twisted and strained against her touch, pricking as if pulled.
“I’ve worked too hard for too many years not to give you this chance,” Norma said. “I never planned on you needing it, but you do. The time is now.”
“I know you’ve worked hard,” said Lou. “I know opportunities on the railroad don’t happen for everyone. But I can wait for my husband, for Marcus.”
Norma sighed. “I’m going to keep it real here, Lou. We don’t know if they’re getting back. For all we know, Dallas didn’t make it. Or he did and couldn’t find Marcus. Or Marcus wouldn’t come. Or they don’t make it back. Or—”
Lou pulled back her shoulders and crossed her arms over her chest. Her expression hardened defensively and she shook her head. “I get your point. I get it. I get it.”
Norma bit her lower lip. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be so negative. Let’s say they’re on their way. They can help me once they get here.”
“You just said—”
Norma stepped closer to Lou and put a hand on her shoulder. Lou tensed for a moment, then relaxed.
“I know what I said,” Norma said, her voice maternal. “I was wrong to say it. You have to get out of here. For all we know another group of soldiers is on its way already. And if not, it will be soon. We don’t have any idea how long you have. If you’re here when they come back…”
Lou’s eyes drifted past Norma’s shoulder. Like she was staring through some portal into the past, her face twitched and her eyes welled with tears as she appeared to relive the events of the day. Then she blinked and looked directly at Norma. “How do you think they found us? We’re out here in Baird. Actually, we’re not even in Baird. I don’t get it. I’ve been so careful.”
Norma shook her head. “Probably one of the neighbors. You know they walk by on the highway. They wander the north side of the lake looking for water. All it takes is one person with a scope or binoculars. A mother might turn in her daughter for the bounty they offer now.”
“We should have run when we saw them coming,” said Lou. “We shouldn’t have waited.”
“It was too dangerous at that point,” said Norma.
Lou nodded at Rudy. “No more dangerous than what happened. We should have fought from the beginning. We could have picked them off as they rode up. Rudy wouldn’t be fighting for his life.”
“That was never the plan,” said Norma. “You know that. Rudy thought it was best to try to avoid any violence. There was always a chance they’d move along.”
Norma lifted her other hand to Lou’s shoulder and pulled her into her. Sliding her hands to Lou’s back, she held the girl tightly against her. Between them, the bump shifted and moved. Norma relished the sensation of the baby kicking.
“You need to go,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. “Let’s go get David.”
Lou tightened her grip on Norma, and her body shuddered as she cried. Beneath her hands, Norma felt the girl’s back rising and falling with her sobs, and she fought to maintain her composure. She had to be strong despite what the day had wrought.
When we woke up this morning, this wasn’t the plan, she thought, stroking the back of Lou’s head. In the bed behind her, she’d awoken next to her husband, his warm body touching hers. Even after all these years, they still slept with their legs intertwined, faces toward one another.
He’d told her, his rank morning breath as intoxicating and familiar as it was foul and off-putting, he loved her, running his thick and calloused fingers along the side of her face.
“You need to trim your nails,” she’d said. “They could cut glass.”
He’d snorted a laugh. “That could come in handy. We’re always looking for good tools.”
Norma had scoo
ted closer to him and buried her head in his chest, inhaling him. She loved his smell. It was home.
“You’re a tool,” she’d replied. His long nails raked softly across her back. She’d flexed like a cat, relishing the moment. “A good tool,” she’d purred.
Norma swallowed against the thought and pushed it from her mind. Now wasn’t the time to wallow. There was plenty of time to feel sorry for herself. Rudy needed her now. Pulling away from Lou, she steeled herself and forced a smile.
“You know where to go?” she asked, searching Lou’s face, taking in its complexities. She wanted to remember it.
Lou nodded. “I’ve got the directions you gave me.”
“You’ll take back roads. And you’ve got Rudy’s coat to hide that bump?”
Lou wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Yeah,” she said. “I do.”
“I’ll send Marcus and Dallas for you. They can meet you there.”
“Okay.”
“But at a certain point,” Norma cautioned, “you’re going to have to go on your own.”
“I know.”
“You have the location? The contact?”
“Yes.”
Norma pursed her lips and eyed the baby bump. She put her hands on the round top of it. “What will you do if—”
“I’ll be fine.”
“But—”
“I’ll be fine,” Lou cut in. “It’s not like I haven’t done it before. And it’s not like Dallas was a whole heck of a lot of help last time.”
Norma laughed. “Or Rudy.”
“Men,” said Lou.
“They’re all little boys when you get down to it,” said Norma.
“Don’t I know it. Some of them even name their weapons.”
Norma stepped back, appraising the girl in front of her. Lou was a woman, a strong woman who, in earlier times, would have fought for the right to vote. She would have marched for equality while at the same time eschewing safe spaces or overbearing political correctness. She would have demanded that everyone get a fair shake. A woman of color, she would have had a powerful voice. People would have listened. Norma was convinced that, in another time, Lou would have done great things beyond the scope of her own life.