Bloodstone

by Gwen Hunter

  The men rolled, contorted. A hand pulled me behind an outcrop. I was screaming. Over and over.

  A splatter of something hot hit my cheek.

  I rolled again, seeing a spurt of red arc overhead. Blood.

  A haze of anger welled up in me. He had shot my friend. I screamed again, now with rage, and placed a hand on the wound. Pale skin beneath my bluish fingers. Scarlet blood. I balled my glove into the wound and covered it with my other gloved hand. Blood welled around my fingers, fast, spurting and falling in crimson rivulets. Jubal had taken the shot high in the back of his arm, near the shoulder. A second hole, bigger than the first, was high on the front of his chest under the collarbone. I grabbed the balaclava off my head and thrust it into the second wound.

  Isaac was shouting into a cell phone. Evan scanned the surrounding terrain, searching. More shots sounded, carefully spaced, echoes like a primitive drum around the hills. Rock shattered and flew.

  “We have to get around the hill,” Jubal said, his voice sounding calmer than the rest of us. “The shots are coming from there.” He pointed with his good arm, and Evan immediately shoved us around the nearest outcrop into a place of relative safety. He returned shots in the general direction Jubal had indicated.

  “Give your belt to Isaac,” I said to Jubal.

  One-handed, he unbuckled the belt and pulled it through the loops. I had a single second to think about AIDS or hepatitis, and then felt shame. This was my friend. “Isaac, pull off your sweater and give it to me.”

  Keeping his body low to the ground, Isaac stripped off coat and sweater, and two shirts. He gave them to me and I put one tee into the shoulder wound, then one over the arm wound. He talked as he stripped. “Sheriff and park service are both on the way. They can get a chopper off the ground in twenty minutes. Ten minutes after that they can be here. If we can find them a place to land. If they think they can get it all done before the storm gets too bad to fly.” He looked at me, dark eyes flashing. “I didn’t tell them the shooter was probably still around or about the wind.”

  I shook my head, teeth starting to chatter. “Loop the belt under his arm and up over the exit wound, here,” I jutted my chin to show the site. “Then pull it tight. Right,” I said as he followed my instructions. “Tighter. Good.

  “Now take the end and loop it around his upper arm.” I lifted Jubal’s arm from his side and allowed the belt to slide in freely. Then as it cinched tight, I eased my hands away. The bleeding had slowed to a trickle. “How do you feel?” I asked Jubal.

  “Like I’m going to pass out. All girlie.”

  “Very funny,” I said.

  “The shooting has stopped,” Evan said. “I’m going around the trail uphill to see if we can get out that way. You people stay put.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Jubal said. His skin was ashen, lips blue. I helped him to lie down and Isaac covered him with his jacket, seemingly unaware that he now wore only a thin V-necked undershirt and pants. I pulled off my jacket and one of my T-shirts, giving the stretchy shirt to Isaac and covering Jubal with the jacket. I was wearing a single shirt and a thin insulated vest and I started shivering instantly. The wind cut like a knife, slicing along my exposed skin. The blood on my hands froze, drying to a crust where it was thinnest.

  “He’s going into shock,” Isaac said.

  I elevated Jubal’s legs, and Isaac shoved a rock under them.

  “We may have to carry him out to a landing site,” he said. “We can put two jackets under him, tie the sleeves together, and carry him by the sleeves.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  We rearranged the clothing, trussing Jubal into them. His breathing was fast and shallow. Isaac curled around him, shielding him from falling snow, warming the exposed skin of his ears. Jubal had lost his hat. Isaac pulled off his own, exposing his bald pate to the frozen wind, smoothing the knit cap onto Jubal’s head.

  I looked up into the snow, felt it landing and melting on my neck and face. My shivers worsened. Long minutes later Evan reappeared. He was hard-faced, blowing clouds of breath that were quickly whipped away. His voice was cold steel. “There’s a new road over the crest of the hill. Looks like it was cleared in the last week. Cut greenery is still fresh, tree limbs oozing slightly. If we can get Jubal up there, we can be close to a landing site.”

  “And close to where the shooter is parked?” Isaac asked.

  “I don’t think so. No vehicle close by.” Evan scanned the surrounding area as he spoke, watching for attack. He put down the weapon and unzipped his jacket, slipped out of it and handed it to me. “Don’t argue,” he said when I opened my mouth. “The tracks are old. Made before the last snow melted. How is he?” He picked the gun back up, cradled it as if it was his best and only friend.

  “We think he’s in shock,” I said. Turning my back, I yanked off my remaining T-shirt and handed it to Isaac before pulling on the oversize coat.

  “What’s his pulse?”

  Pulse? I almost slapped myself. Then I reached under the coats and felt for Jubal’s wrist, found the right spot and checked his pulse. In his uninjured wrist it was fast. I guessed about 120 beats a minute. It was erratic in the other wrist, fast a few seconds, then nothing. “One-twenty. Give or take. And his breathing is way too fast.”

  “Time?” Evan asked Isaac.

  He checked his watch, shivering as badly as I. “Maybe ten minutes till the chopper gets here.”

  “Let’s move. Can you two carry Jubal?”

  “Yeah,” Isaac said. “We’ll manage. You take the phone and talk the chopper in.”

  I got on Jubal’s right side and looked at Isaac. Our eyes met. We lifted together. Isaac was much taller than I and Jubal rolled toward me. I felt something pull in my shoulder and back. I gripped the burden with both hands and ignored the pain. Concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, concentrated on not falling, not sliding, not dropping Jubal.

  We made it around the rock outcrop and up the hill, over the crest. Just as we reached a possible landing site, I heard the sound of rotors. “Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I prayed. It was only then that I realized that I had been praying the whole time out loud, as if I really thought El might hear.

  We eased Jubal to the ground. I fell beside him, Isaac to his other side. The cold air burned and tore at my throat as it went down.

  The air ambulance appeared out of the clouds, white with blue markings and a slash of red. Evan burst from the rocks and directed the helicopter to a place to land. The roar and the wind were incredible. I looked at Jubal, who was far too pale. I couldn’t tell if he was breathing and fear whipped through me. Then he took a breath, shuddering and rough. His eyes opened and he found my face. He smiled. It was a smile of goodbye. I started to cry. Searching the coats, I found his hand. It was scarcely warmer than mine, exposed to the frigid air.

  Jubal twisted his head as if it cost all the energy he had left, and found Isaac. He mouthed Isaac’s name. The big man cradled Jubal’s face, bending over him a moment. I couldn’t hear what he said, but his lips moved. I looked away, sobbing once in a movement that caused my chest to ache. I watched through my tears as the helicopter tried to land. It rocked side to side, tossed by the wind. The pilot had to be a maniac or an adrenaline junkie to fly in this. The chopper came to rest.

  Medics burst out of the side doors, carrying a stretcher and an orange tool kit. They swarmed my friend and I stepped back, bumping Isaac. He wrapped his arms around me, his shivers so strong they were small quakes through him. I pulled off Evan’s coat. Isaac put it on and pulled me inside with him. His body was cold and hard against mine. I prayed as I watched Jubal. There was so much blood.

  Evan was talking into a cell phone. I closed my eyes, shutting out the sight of my friend and the jumpsuited medics, but the suspense was too much. I opened them to watch. One medic was carrying a unit of blood. They unfolded him from the coats and pulled his uninjured arm free, then wrapped on a blood-pressure
cuff and started an IV. They added padding to the makeshift bandages I had applied. I wondered why they hadn’t pulled off the old bandages first. They shouted over the sound of the helicopter engine, which didn’t shut down. The rotors kept twisting, creating a swirling pattern in the wretched wind. Snow started to fall harder. It seemed ages as they worked on Jubal. He looked so pale.

  It was only a shot to the arm. You couldn’t die from a shot to the arm, could you?

  Evan came over to us, pausing to speak to the medics on the way. When he reached us, he shouted, “They’re ready to go, but they can’t take all of us, so I told them we’d stick together. But we can’t make it back down the mountain without proper clothes. I have a transport on the way, but we aren’t sure where this new road comes out. Seems no one knows about it—it isn’t supposed to be here. We have to reach these coordinates.” He handed Isaac a scrap of paper. Isaac compared the GPS device to the scrap.

  The medics lifted Jubal and carried him to the chopper. He was strapped onto a stretcher, our blood-soaked coats still beneath him, arms dangling. We all stopped and watched. Jubal lifted two fingers to wave. His fingers were covered in dried blood, crusty brown. We waved back, shivering horribly in the cold wind. A medic tossed a bundle on the ground and moments later the chopper took off, rotors swirling snow and leaves and detritus around.

  The snow was suddenly a solid sheet of white falling from the heavens. Evan raced to the bundle the medic had tossed and discovered blankets. He handed Isaac one and wrapped another around himself. Though I protested, Isaac gave me Evan’s coat and wrapped himself up in the blanket. “We have to get moving,” Evan said. His voice was a normal tone and pitch, odd sounding after the screaming and shouting and mechanical noise. “Which way?” he asked Isaac. When Isaac pointed, he holstered his gun and said, “If you have water, drink it now. Let’s go.”

  We drank the rest of our water and headed down the mountain, following the road, though the term applied only loosely. It was new track, piles of stumps and trees to either side, the earth a half-frozen mess beneath us. My feet slipped in wet mud, and I stumbled over a freezing bulge between two ruts. My frozen hands were in my pockets. I was shivering so hard I could barely walk, and seeing was nearly impossible through icy tears and mucus and swirling snow. Hours passed, or it seemed that way. I stopped trying to see the track ahead and concentrated on the white blanket in front of me. When it suddenly stopped, I crashed into Isaac. “What?” I asked. My voice was a croak.

  “The road’s stopped.”

  I looked around. Equipment was gathered in a clearing. Earthmovers, bulldozers, stacks of construction equipment. A flatbed truck loaded with supplies and brick. A mortar maker. And no way out.

  “Over here,” Evan shouted. I turned to his voice and saw him on the other side of the clearing. When we got to him, we saw an old logging road meandering through the trees. It was a well-used, muddy mess. “They came through here. Will this take us to the pickup point?”

  I looked at him. His lips were blue tinged. Isaac’s were gray. I pulled off the coat and held it out to Evan. “No,” he said.

  I tried an eye roll, but I was too cold to make it work, so I dropped the coat on the ground and ripped the blanket off him in a single motion. “Come here,” I said to Isaac. I wrapped the blanket around him, then lifted the front edge and crawled into the blankets with Isaac. “We’ll be slower, and we may fall, but we’ll survive. And you can pull the gun if you need to. Put it in the pocket so you can get to it easier.”

  This time Evan didn’t argue and retrieved the coat, putting it on. With snow so thick it was like a sheet surging in front of our eyes, we started down the logging road. I don’t know how long it took us, but suddenly I felt something harder and smooth beneath my feet and I realized we had been walking along a real road for several minutes. In the distance, I heard a horn blowing, three beeps, then silence then three beeps, a continuous signal.

  After what seemed like days, or even weeks, later, I heard Isaac grunt and looked up to see two lights ahead in the snow. Headlights. There were headlights to go with the beeping.

  We picked up our pace, Isaac almost carrying me. We reached the lights. It was a van, dark green, sitting in the middle of the road. The doors opened and the air inside rolled out, a searing flash of heat. I heard voices and fell inside.

  I found myself against a leather seat, so warm it was like a little piece of heaven. I closed my eyes and breathed the heat. Someone handed me a cup of something and I wrapped my frozen fingers around the warmth. It wasn’t full, which was the only reason I didn’t slosh the contents out with my uncontrollable shivers. I managed to get the cup to my mouth and sipped it. Soup. The taste was an explosion of chicken, pepper and carrots. It felt scalding hot, but it was the best thing I had ever tasted. My teeth made little cracking sounds as I drank.

  Jane crawled into my lap and put an arm around me. “Don’t cry, Aunt Tyler.” She wiped my face with a tissue, the weave harsh on my skin, and I saw mucus and slime come away. “Don’t cry.”

  “I’m not cryin’, shweetheart.” I tried to enunciate, but couldn’t. I tried to focus, but could make out only a pale blur surrounded by a darker halo. Her face and hair.

  She laughed once, and I heard relief in the single chuckle. “Then why are tears pouring down your face?”

  “Col’. Jus’col’. Bu’de soup is good. Too hot, but good. You ha’ no idea how good.” My shivers suddenly worsened and I had to put down the cup. It was the top of a Thermos jar. The soup wasn’t steaming, and I realized it wasn’t as hot as I had thought.

  I took another breath of the blessedly warm air and blinked, becoming aware. The van was moving slowly down a mountain, headlights bright against falling snow. Lopez was driving. Evan was in the seat beside him.

  Aunt Matilda was in the back with Isaac and Jane and me. Lopez was speaking and I had trouble concentrating on his words as lethargy stole over me. Something about a hospital. Then I remembered. Jubal was at a hospital. “Yesh. Take us to de hospital,” I said, my words a mumble. I met Lopez’s eyes in the rearview mirror. As if stunned, he looked back at me before gunning the motor and adding speed to our progress.

  I shuddered once and closed my eyes. We were safe.

  16

  Sunday, 8 p.m.

  The nurses at the hospital treated us for dehydration and hypothermia, which was no fun at all. I had hoped it would be a prescription of hot cocoa and heated blankets, and got heated IV fluids and blood drawn instead. Because my body mass was so small, I had a lower core temperature than the men, so I got the most attention from the needle-bearing fiends in scrub attire. Whoopee. At least they sent us home, though my body still felt cold and prickly all over, like I had hives or the first telltale sting of poison ivy.

  I climbed the stairs to the loft with feet so tired they dragged. Behind me, Aunt Matilda and Evan were closing up the shop and setting the alarm system. Jane was with them. Lopez, who had stayed with us throughout the evening, drove off in the still-swirling snow, his lights raking the shop and up the stairs.

  I used the extra key—mine was in the SUV on the side of a mountain—and stuck it in the lock. I turned it and pulled it out, then placed my hand on the knob.

  I felt like I was being sucked through the keyhole, a feeling so strong, so vivid, it was more reality than vision. I saw the apartment from a higher plane. From the other side of the door.

  I walked through the place, hugging myself. It was cold. The little redheaded tramp likes it cold. She’d better. She’s getting enough of it right now. I laughed and it sounded ugly. I modulated the tone and laughed again, the sound prettier. It echoed through the cold apartment.

  Only cheap people live above a store. Commoners. Shopkeepers. Trash.

  I touched a candle, my nails a bright and cheerful peach that matched my toenails and my bra and underpants. I wasn’t trash. I lifted a bowl and turned it over. It was an antique. A Roseville. I stifled the impulse to throw it to
the floor to see it shatter. I set it carefully back on the shelf. I wasn’t trash.

  I wrapped my arms around myself. It had all gone wrong. All of it. What should I do? Had I done the right thing? If I had kept at him, would he have given himself to me? And what about Quinn? He wasn’t supposed to die. No one was supposed to die. It was all supposed to be so easy. Get the gold, make David fall in love with me again, get married. Live happily ever after. David had been in love with me once. I know he was, I could feel it. It should have been easy to make him love me again. It should have been so easy.

  I saw David, the memory of David, in the closet. I saw myself slip out of my dress. Walk toward him. He was handcuffed to the bed. He couldn’t say no.

  I snapped my hand away from the knob, breaking the vision. Sickness rose up in me, acid gorge, bile tasting. I stared at the knob. She had touched it twice. When she entered and when she left. And she had a key.

  Opening the door, I stepped inside. She had been here. She had been in my house. David knew the security code to the house and shop. He had given it to her. What had she done to make him give her the code?

  Suddenly I understood. He hadn’t been able to tell me when I scanned for him. He had been…conflicted. Or afraid. Of what? Of whom? But he had given her the code. Why had Davie given her the code? So I could figure out who she was? None of it made sense.

  Behind me, Jane and Evan and Aunt Matilda climbed the stairs. I entered the loft, catching Dyno as she sprinted for freedom.

  Jane lay on the sofa with Dyno stretched out on her chest, which rose and fell with sleep. Evan and I were curled up on the floor in front of the blazing fire, the gas turned up so high the flames roared and jumped with the air flow. We were huddled under blankets, while Aunt Matilda was bare armed, sitting in the rocker, as far away as she could be and still be in the loft, overheated but uncomplaining. We had just finished a second helping of yeast rolls and soup. This time the soup was actually hot, and not the room-temperature brew that had felt like it was boiling in the rescue van.