by Lopez, Rob
Fick dragged Lauren away. Reid was bent over the table, clutching his precious parts and breathing heavily. Connors patted him on the back.
“You wait outside, Judge,” he said.
Steering him toward the door, he shoved him out, closed it behind him and strolled over to the cell.
Back on the bunk, Lauren glared balefully at Connors and Fick.
“Nice display,” said Connors.
“You go to hell,” spat Lauren.
“I think you’ll get there before me. It’s a shame you won’t cooperate, Mrs. Nolan. Your stubbornness has cost several lives already. All I wanted was a chance to talk to your husband.”
“That’s not all you want.”
“No,” reasoned Connors. “I also want a chance for the people of this state to prosper in peace, governed by a law that functions as it’s meant to. We can’t have people running around who think they’re above the law, and that includes you and your husband.”
“You’re a fraud.”
“Says the woman who tried to deny her own name. Well, have it your way and see where it gets you.” Connors turned to leave. “Oh, by the way, just to let you know the damage you’ve done already. I believe there was a soldier by the name of Scott who was with your husband. Another deserter who failed to report for duty. He’s dead now. Think on that, plus all of the other wasted lives you insisted should be sacrificed to protect your husband.”
*
Connors shut the cell door behind him, ignoring the shouted abuse that came his way. Outside, he met Judge Reid on the courthouse steps. A light rain fell from an overcast sky. In the small park opposite the courthouse, men were at work hammering together a scaffold. Reid stared at it, his face as gloomy as the clouds.
“I’m not sure I should be doing this,” he murmured.
“You were quick enough to take the job when it came with free rations,” observed Connors.
“I did no such thing,” shot back Reid. “Governor Jeffries asked me to take the position because he knew I’d studied law.”
“Well, there you go. You’re the right man for the job.”
“I studied law, Major Connors. I didn’t practice it.”
“Always a first time. Besides, how hard can it be? This isn’t contract law. A murder either happened or it didn’t. If you can pin it on a perp, all’s good.”
“Yes, but I have only one sentence at my disposal. Do you know how difficult it is to send someone to their death?” Connors raised an eyebrow, and Reid did a double-take. “Fine, you do know, but I’m not a soldier like you.”
“That you are not, and be grateful. No one’s asking you to tie the noose, though. Listen to the evidence and make a judgment. It’s not like she’s got family living next door to you, so nobody’s going to be giving you nasty looks when you go to the store or nothing. Trust me, nobody cares.”
Reid gave him an incredulous look. “I like to think I care.”
Connors smiled magnanimously. “Of course you do. Now, run along before you get too wet.”
Reid scowled and tramped down the steps, holding the briefcase over his head.
Fick stood by Connors and watched the judge go.
“If you want, I can follow him and make sure he understands exactly what he’s got to do tomorrow.”
Connors, still smiling, shook his head. “No need for that. The evidence will speak for itself, and I don’t think her ladyship in there endeared herself to him. He’ll play his part. He cares more about his own skin than he does anything else, and he doesn’t really want to lose this job. Otherwise, he’ll have to hunt for his food like the rest of them.” Connors turned to Fick. “Besides, we need to keep things civil. Have you distributed the leaflets?”
Fick nodded. “All the way to Black Mountain, and nailed to the trees in Round Knob.”
“Good. Tomorrow should be an interesting day. Make sure you have everybody in position, but hidden well.”
“I still think it’s a dumb idea.”
“I’m not asking your opinion. Just do your job.”
Rolling his eyes, Fick walked away. Pulling the hood of his coat up, Connors made his way to where he’d left his horse. He didn’t notice the approaching figure of Sheriff Eagleburger until he had his hand on the saddle horn.
“Hello there, Sheriff. Everything good with you?”
The sheriff bore down on him, waving a damp pamphlet. “No, it damn well isn’t,” said Eagleburger. “What the hell’s this about?”
Connors mounted his horse, forcing Eagleburger’s rugged, pock-marked face to look up into the rain to maintain eye contact. Eagleburger had survived a debilitating illness over the winter before recovering to take the vacant position of city chief of police, but he’d been a county sheriff before that, and insisted on keeping the title. Underneath his slicker, he wore his old county badge.
“Isn’t it obvious?” said Connors. “It’s a notification of tomorrow’s trial. Got no newspapers to announce it in, so we improvised.”
“I didn’t authorize this.”
“Well, you looked kind of busy, so I saved you the trouble.”
Eagleburger balled up the pamphlet. “I don’t need that kind of help from you. This isn’t a military matter and you’re outside your jurisdiction. Anything connected to law enforcement within the city limits is my responsibility, and I don’t need this advertised as some kind of spectacle.”
Connors nodded toward the scaffold. “The law’s gotta be seen to be done. People have gotten too used to thinking there isn’t any.”
Eagleburger stabbed a finger at Connors. “That ain’t for you to decide. I don’t need people all riled up and looking for blood, so you keep the hell out of this.”
Connors gazed at the sheriff for a while, weighing his words. “Nope, you’re right,” he said finally, turning his horse. “Everything within the city is your responsibility, and I stepped over the line. My apologies, Sheriff. Good luck with tomorrow. It’s all yours now.”
Clicking to his mount, Connors rode slowly off, leaving Eagleburger staring suspiciously in his wake.
3
Harvey laid out the surgical tools, still hot to the touch after being boiled. Sally washed her hands with a precious sliver of soap and made a sign of the cross. Scott, his eyelids heavy, watched her.
Sally shook her hands dry, turned to him and said, “Are you ready for this?”
Scott, pallid and weary, replied, “Are you?”
Sally grimaced. “I need your permission for this. I need to be absolutely sure, because this can kill you.”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Of course you have a choice. You can choose to linger painfully until eventually you pass away, perhaps peacefully, perhaps not. Or you can risk an intervention that will hurt you more, and which may succeed, or may not. The chances of making it through for either option are … well, I don’t know what they are.”
Scott tried to smile. “Don’t sugarcoat it.”
“Trust me, I’m not.”
“Just do it.”
“I’ll try and remove the bullet and repair what damage I can, but I need something else from you.”
“What?”
“You have to want to live.”
April, sitting by the bed, spoke up. “What kind of talk is that? Of course he wants to live. We all want him to live.”
Sally continued to look at Scott, holding his gaze. “He knows what I mean by that. He’s in a dark place, right now. Weak, exhausted and ready to quit.” Sally turned to April. “The temptation to slip away and end the pain will be very great. I need him to fight with every ounce of his strength. I want him to hold the reason he wants to live uppermost in his mind at all times.”
April made to protest, but Scott swung his arm over to grasp her hand. “I understand,” he said. He slid his hand to her pregnant belly. “I got all the reason I need.”
“Very well,” said Sally. She nodded to Harvey, who brought forth a thick, rolled joint. “I
need you to smoke this,” she said to Scott. “We managed to get hold of some cannabis leaf, and Chuck added some kind of mushroom to it. It’ll act as a sedative.”
Scott pulled a face. “I’ll be better if you give me some booze.”
“If your intestine has been punctured at all, you won’t be able to ingest anything. This is the best I can do.”
Scott paused for a moment, then nodded. Harvey lit the joint and offered it to him to take a puff.
Sally looked to April. “I need you to leave now.”
“Like hell,” said April testily. “I’m not leaving him.”
Sally pursed her lips. “Please. This will be distressing enough, but I can’t do this if you’re in the room. Emotionally, this will be very hard for you, and I can’t have any distractions. I’m sure you understand how crucial that is. And you need to take Daniel somewhere else. This is something that no child should ever have to witness. I implore you, just this once. Go.”
April burst into tears, stroking Scott’s hand. “I don’t want to go,” she said.
“There’s nothing more you can do here. Please, let me do what I have to do. I’ll call you as soon as it’s done.”
“Go, girl,” said Scott. “I’ll still be here when you come back. Go, and take our boy.”
Sensing that she was holding things up, April leaned over to kiss Scott. Pulling away, she hesitated, then kissed him again. Wiping her eyes, she picked Daniel up and walked briskly to the door. Daniel stared back at Scott, who winked at him once. Then they were gone.
Scott sank his head back onto the pillow and took a deep drag from the joint, his eyes wet. “Let’s do this,” he murmured, his voice breaking.
“Let’s wait a moment for the sedative to work,” said Sally.
Scott took another drag, began coughing, then twisted his face in pain. “This ain’t no sedative,” he said, tossing the joint. “Just do what you gotta do.”
Sally nodded to Harvey, who opened the door and called two men in. They wore plastic garbage sacks as improvised aprons, and looked deeply uncomfortable as they took up their positions on either side of the bed.
“They’re here to hold you down,” said Sally.
Scott didn’t need any explanation why. He simply blinked in acquiescence and stared up at the ceiling. Harvey gave him a whittled piece of wood to bite on, and the two men gripped his arms and shoulders, pressing their weight down.
Sally removed the towel from the wound. It was already starting to smell bad, with the skin around the hole looking infected. Sally paused to swallow, took a scalpel and began to cut the wound a little wider. Scott tensed, snorting hard and champing down on the wood. As gently as she could, Sally teased away the layer of skin and tried to identify something from the mess beneath.
In spite of the light coming through the window, she couldn’t see well in the shadow of the wound. With a clean towel, she dabbed lightly at the blood and fluids, then brought a lamp over to examine the damage done by the bullet.
It took a while to identify the organs, trying to recall her anatomy classes and what she’d learned as a field nurse, but gradually she was able to classify what was there – and what shouldn’t have been there.
“It looks like the bullet’s entered the stomach,” she said. “There might be some hydrostatic shock to the liver, but it’s difficult to tell. It might have hit the edge before it entered the stomach. I’m going to probe now to see how far the bullet has gone. If it’s passed through the other side, then …”
She left the sentence unfinished. Taking a thin metal rod, she tentatively inserted it into the hole, trying to feel the bullet’s solid lump.
Scott bucked and jerked against the restraining arms and spat out the wood to scream.
Sally swiftly removed the probe and let Scott flop back down, breathing fast. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I think I’ve found the bullet. It hasn’t penetrated far. With luck, it will only have made the one hole.”
She reached for a pair of forceps.
“Harvey, can you hold down his hips? I don’t want to have to do this a second time.”
The wood was put back between Scott’s teeth. As Sally inserted the clamp to try and grip the bullet, he growled hoarsely, the tone rising as the pain increased. The three men strained to hold his body still as he fought against them.
“I’ve done it,” said Sally suddenly, lifting up the forceps with the bullet in its jaws. It had barely deformed, and it looked to be about an inch long. Sally examined it to make sure no part of it had broken off to remain in the wound. “I don’t know how this didn’t kill you,” she said. “I’ve seen the damage these things can do.”
Scott didn’t answer and Sally let him rest a while, waiting for his pulse to return to normal. Harvey carefully dabbed at the fresh blood around the wound.
“Scott,” said Sally. “I’m going to probe the stomach again. I need to see if the bullet punctured the other side. It is likely swollen and tender, so this will hurt again. The good news is, if there is only the one hole, I can suture it, and you’ll be able to take fluids again. The bad news is that this could take a while, so I need you to bear with me. Do you understand?”
Scott, his face drenched in sweat, nodded feebly. Sally picked up the probe and looked to the men holding him down, to make sure they were ready.
*
April sat outside on the wooden steps of the clinic, rocking Daniel in her arms. With every scream that emanated from inside, she flinched and covered the boy’s ears. A light rain began to fall, pattering gently on the porch overhang and compounding her misery as the shadows gathered about her. The rest of the camp was deserted, as if everyone preferred to hide away from what was happening, and she felt utterly abandoned. With Lauren gone and Rick somewhere in the mountains, the group she’d grown to feel a part of was scattered and broken. Even Josh and little Lizzy seemed to have disappeared. Each shriek of pain from Scott emphasized the loneliness, underlining the distinct possibility that soon he might be gone too. Going crazy with the sound, she pulled Daniel in under her coat and covered her ears.
*
On the far side of the Camp Grier compound, on a gravel parking lot by a stream, stood a motorhome with flat tires and mildew spreading from the roof and down the fiberglass sides. Packy, naked, leaned out the door and presented his face to the sky, drinking in the rain. Grabbing some soap from inside, he lathered up his face and chest, then did the same with his groin, washing the lather off with vigorous rubs. Shivering from the chill, he danced back inside and grabbed a towel. From the double berth at the back of the motorhome, Dee watched him, the bed sheets up to her chin. By the bed, baby Jacob slept peacefully in a crib.
Seeing her attention, Packy began his version of the dance of the seven veils, revealing and covering himself with the swirling towel, trying in vain to elicit a smile from her.
“Why are you so weird?” she asked.
Packy strutted across the laminate floor. “Why wouldn’t I be?” he replied, tossing his head. “People think I’m crazy. So I act the part.”
Spinning to face her, he dropped his towel, drew imaginary guns from his hips and shot her with his fingers. “People think you’re crazy too,” he said, blowing smoke from a finger. “I think we’re made for each other.”
“I’m not crazy,” murmured Dee.
“Why not? Let yourself go. I mean, look at us.” Packy spread his arms to encompass the interior of the motorhome. “We’re practically trailer trash now. All we need is a rangy dog and opioids.”
“You shouldn’t joke about things like that.”
Packy leaned against the open door, gazing across at the clinic and April’s pitiable form. He’d heard the screams of pain earlier. “We could do with some opioids,” he said quietly. For a moment, he looked serious, then spun around. “What’s that gas they give you in childbirth? Laughing gas?”
“Entonox,” said Dee.
Packy snapped his fingers. “That’s right. It’s nitrou
s oxide. I knew some guys who used that to soup up their engines. I should have added it to my list. That’d be worth a lot, right now. Think I can find me a chemist who can make some?”
“Why are you always thinking about making a profit?”
“This isn’t about profit. It’s about knowing if it can be done. Don’t you ever get that urge to do something different and prove people wrong?”
“No.”
“Sure you do. Everyone does, right?”
“No.”
Packy rolled his eyes. “Well, they should,” he said.
Dee gazed impassively at him. Packy glanced once at her.
“Don’t read me wrong,” he muttered. “Everyone else does, but I can’t stand it when it’s you. My father never even tried to understand me but … he ain’t you.”
“I don’t know how to read you,” said Dee.
“Well,” said Packy, softening, “that’s different. I can show you that part. If you want to know me better, that is.”
Dee said nothing.
“You don’t have to answer that now,” added Packy hastily. “We’ve got time.”
“I don’t know how much time we have,” intoned Dee.
Packy conceded the point. “It’s tough, but I’ve got ideas. That’s the first thing you need to know about me. I’ve always got ideas. Girl, I can idea my way out of any problem. You watch. Once I get myself a set of wheels, we will roll. And I’ll take you anyplace you wanna go. Hey, how about Disneyland? I bet that’d be cool right now. It’ll be great to wander around without all the crowds.”
Dee stared at him, hiking her sheet up a little higher.
“Ahh, you know I’m only joking,” quipped Packy. “Unless you really wanted to go there — and tell me if you do. But, yeah, it’ll be a crappy mess right now. Totally overrated. Ask me to take you to Santa Barbara instead. Now that would be a trip worth taking.”
The pair of eyes above the sheet didn’t look convinced.