A Thousand Falling Crows

by Larry D. Sweazy

  “Close the door behind you,” Nurse Betty said, as she opened the door to the closet. It was full of boxes and things that Sonny had no clue what their use, or name, was. Metal rods, beakers of all sizes, blankets, sheets, and more utensils that looked like they were designed to inflict pain not heal anyone. Hospitals had always made him nervous.

  He did as he was told and closed the door. But he remained there, watching Betty Maxwell make her way through the closet like she was on the most important mission in the world.

  She was shapely and easy to look at. Sonny liked her, found her pleasant to be around, if not a little too direct, kind of like her son, Leo, now that Sonny thought about it.

  “Ah,” Betty said, “here it is.” She pulled a box out of the closet, put it on the examining table, opened it, and laid the fake arm on the table, gently, like it was real.

  The prosthetic was much like the one at home; a tangle of leather straps, wood painted to look like hard flesh, with a shiny hook attached to the end.

  “Didn’t we fit you with one before you went home?” Betty asked.

  “I refused,” Sonny said. He couldn’t take his eyes off the hook.

  “Oh, yes, I remember. Doc Meyers was not happy with me at all when I told him. I figured you’d eventually come around. It just took you a little longer than I thought it would.”

  “I‘m not sure this is a good idea.”

  “Sure it is. Take off your shirt, Mr. Burton. I think you’ll find this will be an improvement to your life, not a detriment.” Nurse Betty smiled at him, but Sonny couldn’t find it in himself to return the gesture. “Come on, now, no need to be bashful. I‘ve seen men who came back from the war and plenty more.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “I‘m a little older than you might think. But some of those men have had long, productive lives, just like you. They catch colds, too. Now, go on, take it off.”

  Sonny nodded. “I suppose you’re right.” He reached over with his left hand, and fumbled with the top button.

  Nurse Betty stepped toward him, like she was going to help, but he shook his head. She relented, stopped without saying anything else.

  It took a minute, but Sonny was able to unbutton the shirt and pull it off, leaving him standing there with his undershirt still tucked into his pants, and a sock pulled up on his stump. The sock nearly went all the way to his shoulder. He only had about five inches of his arm left.

  “You can leave your undershirt on,” Betty said. “Do you mind if I take the sock off and put a fresh one on? I want to see how you’ve healed.”

  Sonny nodded. It was quiet outside the room. The day had gotten long, the comings and goings for appointments had pretty much come to an end. A ceiling fan whirled overhead, offering a little relief in the room. But he was still hot, uncomfortable. It wouldn’t have mattered what the temperature was in the room.

  Betty stepped up and carefully peeled the sock off his stump. She smelled like a garden of freshly cut lilacs.

  “It looks like it’s healed nicely.” She tossed the sock on the table and went to the cupboard to retrieve another one.

  Sonny watched her intently. It was then that something struck him as odd. As foggy as it was, he remembered back to their first meeting, when Aldo had driven him home. If he remembered right, he thought Betty had looked like she was pregnant or had just had a baby. Aldo had said, “She has problems.” Funny thing was, there was only her son at the house. When Sonny had gone inside to use the phone to call Hugh Beaverwood for Jonesy, there was no sign of a baby at all. Nothing. The house was quiet as a church and neat as a pen.

  It might not have meant anything, but it suddenly felt . . . odd, like seeing something out of place, that didn’t quit fit. There were all kinds of possibilities, mostly tragic, as Sonny toyed with the thought of her earlier condition, but mostly, he decided, none of them were any of his business at all.

  Betty came back, the smile still on her face, and slipped the fresh white sock on his stump. It fit better, like it was made to fit a stump instead of a foot.

  “What’s the matter? You look glum,” Nurse Betty said.

  “Nothing, I was just thinking.”

  “All right.” She picked up the prosthetic and pulled the strap out, then adjusted a buckle at the end of it into a loop. “Here,” she said, holding out the loop, “put your left arm through here.” Sonny straightened his arm and eased his hand through the loop. As he did, Betty pulled the arm to the other side. “Now, ease your arm into the hole.”

  Sonny hesitated, stared directly into Nurse Betty’s cornflower blue eyes.

  “You’re doin’ fine, Mr. Burton.”

  He nodded, then aimed his stump into the end of the prosthetic. It fit perfectly, and it moved when he did.

  “Now, pull the other buckle tight, and there you are.”

  “That’s all there is to it?”

  Nurse Betty smiled. “Yes. That’s it. You’ll need some time to adjust to it, figure out how to move the elbow up and down.” She pulled the hook up, then pushed it down again gently. “It’ll just take some force, either with your hand, or on the wall, your chest, the gearshift. You’ll see. In a few days, you’ll wonder how you got along without it.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do. Why don’t you go ahead and try to put your shirt back on.”

  “How do I get this thing off?”

  “Same way you put it on. Unbuckle it, pull it off, then take the loop on your other arm off. You can do this,” Nurse Betty said. Her voice was strong as steel. There was no arguing with her.

  “All right.” Sonny picked up his shirt, slid the hook through the sleeve, stood up, then reached around and pulled the other sleeve to him. In a second he had his shirt on and was buttoning it with his left hand. The prosthetic felt heavy. Heavier than a real arm. It would take a while to get used to having something there, to finding a balance to it, but to his surprise the arm wasn’t as uncomfortable as he thought it would be.

  “Well, look at you,” Nurse Betty smiled. “How’s it feel?”

  “All right, I suppose. It’ll take some getting used to.” He started to unbutton his shirt.

  “What are you doing?” Betty asked.

  “Taking it off, giving it back.”

  She shook her head. “You can keep it for a while. Try the one you have at home. See which one feels better, then bring me one back. There’s no rush. I want you to be comfortable.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course.” She walked up to him and straightened his shirt at the shoulders. A big smile flashed across Betty Maxwell’s face. “You look fine. Just fine,” she said, as she headed for the door, preparing to leave; her job finished.

  “I was out at your house a little bit ago,” Sonny said, still standing.

  Betty had her hand on the knob but let it fall away. She tensed up, then turned around. “Leo’s not in any trouble, is he?”

  “Not that I know of,” Sonny said. “He was decent enough to let me use the phone.”

  Betty exhaled, relaxed a little bit, though she stared at Sonny curiously, obviously trying to figure out what the problem was. “He can be a handful, sometimes.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Okay, then why bring it up?”

  “Just figured I ought to tell you.”

  “What’d you need the phone for?”

  “Sheriff needed me to make a call.”

  “Where to?”

  “Rather not say. Not my place to spread news before it gets out.”

  Betty Maxwell walked up to Sonny and stopped about a foot in front of him. “You’re bein’ awful coy, Mr. Burton. I know things about half the people in this town that nobody else knows just by the benefit of where I sit and the job I do. Privacy is part of my job. It’s not an expectation; it’s a demand. Do you understand?”

  “I do, ma’am. It’s just that it was for police business, so I‘d best not say much more. You
’ll be able to piece things together come tomorrow,” Sonny said. He was eyeing her as intently as she was him. It was easy to tell that he had upset her, and he felt bad about doing that, but there was something in him that he couldn’t stop—the curious investigator, the Texas Ranger, all focused on that poor dead girl laying out in the field.

  “I‘ll read the paper tomorrow, then.” Betty turned away again.

  “I guess I was expecting to see a child at your house,” Sonny said. He felt bad as soon as he said it.

  She stopped and spun around. “I only have one child, thank you very much, Mr. Burton. And I don’t see what business it is of yours.” Tears suddenly welled up in Betty Maxwell’s eyes, and the room felt like the inside of an oven.

  The bad feeling got worse, like Sonny had just made a horrible mistake. He was embarrassed, ashamed. He pushed by her, hardly able to breath. “I‘m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I should go.”

  Betty Maxwell didn’t say a word. She just let him pass by—but Sonny heard her break into a sob as he hurried out the front door. The depth of her cries echoed behind him like those of a grieving mother of a dead soldier, standing over her son’s grave for the last time. Sonny had been to too many of those kind of funerals. He knew that kind of pain when he heard it.

  CHAPTER 27

  Silence sat between Carmen and Tió like a giant boulder fallen squarely in the middle of the hunter’s shack. They could hardly look at each other. Soft candlelight lit the inside of the shack, exposing floating dust that looked like the sparkle had fallen off an old flapper’s skirt—small pinpoint diamonds of no value that hung suspended in the air like prom decorations. Beauty and tenderness had been replaced by fear and guilt.

  The bread was gone, and only a swig of Dr. Pepper remained in the bottom of the bottle. Tió had offered it to Carmen, but she’d refused.

  There was no sign of Eddie. It was like he had vanished, ran off, and left them there without the intention of returning. Each new sound outside the shack caused Carmen to jump with anticipation. She knew he would come back. He had to. He just had to.

  Tió, who had been sitting on his bunk, finally stood up. “We need water.”

  “The lake’s too far away. You’re not up to it.” The blood had dried on his shirt. It looked like a big brown spot, like Tió had rolled in a deep puddle of mud and just left it there on the shirt that had come from the donation bin at St Michael’s.

  “It only hurts a little,” he said.

  “I don’t want to be here alone.”

  “We need water.” Tió was a little more stern. “I have the gun. I can kill a rabbit.”

  “Have you ever killed a rabbit?”

  “Just chickens. We were hungry. Like now. We are hungry. We shouldn’t have left Mercury behind.”

  “But you didn’t like killing the chicken,” Carmen said. It wasn’t a question.

  Tió shook his head, then made his way to the door. It was open so the air could pass through the shack, offering whatever comfort it chose to bring. “I won’t go too far. If there’s a lake, there’s a stream somewhere close. We need water.”

  “If it’s not dried up.”

  Tió stared at Carmen for a long second, like he wanted to say goodbye or remember how she looked. Even with his bloody, torn shirt and the dirt that had collected on his skin, he still looked innocent to Carmen, like a little boy trying to do the best he could without having all of the moving parts. God, she thought, what had I been thinking?

  The words were obviously lost in Tió’s mind, and he walked away silently, disappearing into the night as easily as he had slipped into her bed.

  The loneliness of the shack was almost immediate. Carmen fell back on the tiny bed, pulled the sheet up and hugged it tight, like it was another human being or a teddy bear like the one her father had won at the carnival and given to her proudly. That was a long time ago.

  Hugging the sheet gave her no comfort. Tears came to her eyes, and she let them fall, did nothing to restrain them. Or the sobs that soon followed. She cried heartily. Cried until she fell back to sleep, back to the land of dark nothingness where she longed to stay—safe from the realities of the world and the two boys who orbited around her.

  Heavy footsteps on the plank floor startled Carmen awake. She opened her eyes, blurred by sleep. In the light from the still-burning candle, it only took her a second to realize that it was Eddie. His near-perfect boots, blue work pants, and St. Christopher medal that dangled from his neck made him unmistakable, hard to confuse with Tió. There was no way she could do that now.

  Carmen sat straight up in the bed, tossing the sheet to the side—the smell of her and Tió’s tryst along with it. “Where have you been?” It wasn’t a demand or anger but concern. At least, that’s what she wanted Eddie to hear—sweetness and concern.

  “It took longer than I thought,” Eddie said. He had an open box tucked under his right arm. It was full of food—a loaf of bread, a bottle of milk, and some canned goods that Carmen could see. “There were cops everywhere. I had to hide until the middle of the night, then try and sneak back here without bein’ seen.” He sat the box down next to the bed, then leaned in and kissed Carmen. She kissed back, but not as hungrily as he obviously expected her to. Eddie pulled away instantly, an odd look crossing his face as he stood up straight.

  “I was worried about you,” Carmen said.

  “You’re sure?”

  Carmen nodded.

  “Where’s Tió?” Eddie asked, looking around, his eyes stopping on Tió’s unmade bunk.

  Carmen didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.

  “I‘m right here,” Tió said from behind Eddie, standing on the door stoop just outside the shack. He had a Dr. Pepper bottle full of water in his left hand. His right hand dangled free.

  Eddie strode over to Tió and tapped the toe of his boot against Tió’s. “I told you not to leave her.”

  “I went after water, Eddie. We didn’t know if you was comin’ back. I was scared and thirsty. There weren’t no rabbits, Carmen.”

  Eddie drew back. “Carmen? You call her Carmen now?”

  “It’s her name, Eddie.”

  “You have never acknowledged her presence, Tió. You wouldn’t call her anything. You didn’t want her here.” Eddie spun around to face Carmen. “What’d you do to him?”

  She didn’t answer.

  Eddie lunged toward the bed, reached out to grab Carmen’s foot, but she scurried back out of his reach, cowering in the corner like a trapped animal.

  “Nothing. I didn’t do nothing, Eddie. I swear. I swear to God,” Carmen said.

  Eddie stood up at the end of the bed and kicked the box of food, sending it crashing into the wall. It tipped sideways. Cans rolled across the uneven floor and the lid pushed off the milk, spilling it like a faucet of white water had been fully opened.

  “You’re a liar, Carmen. A goddamned liar. I always knew you were nothin’ but a little whore.”

  Carmen pushed herself into the corner, burying her head in her arms. She couldn’t see Eddie or Tió. “I want to go home,” she whimpered. “I just want to go home.”

  Eddie crawled up on the bed, enraged like a tiger on the attack. “Look at me, you little bitch. Look at me and swear to God you didn’t do nothin’ to him.” He pulled her arms apart, and Carmen screamed. Screamed so loud it hurt her own eardrums.

  But Eddie didn’t relent. “Tell me!” he screamed. “Tell me what you did!”

  Carmen couldn’t answer. Tears poured out of her eyes, and she was hyperventilating, couldn’t catch her breath. Her lungs burned like they were on fire, and her nose was clogged. She thought she was going to suffocate. She couldn’t tell him what had happened. She just couldn’t.

  When no answer came, Eddie slapped her, slapped her as hard as he could.

  At first, it stung, like he had electrocuted her with the tips of his fingers. Then her head hit the wall and the pain came, followed by teetering woozi
ness. Her stomach lurched, and, since it only had bread and Dr. Pepper in it, the puke was minimal, almost like a dry heave.

  “What did you do!” Eddie screamed again. A shadow crossed her face, like he was reloading, pulling his hand back to hit her again.

  But the strike never came.

  A gunshot echoed inside the tiny room.

  Carmen blinked her eyes open, could taste the gunpowder. Tió was just inside the door, with the gun that Eddie had given to him before he’d left pointed at the ceiling. The Dr. Pepper bottle was on the floor, water draining, mixing with the milk.

  Eddie stood over Carmen on his knees, arm cocked back, frozen like he was posing for a statue. “Put the gun down, Tió,” Eddie said, lowering his voice so he was calm. But it was also an order, a command that Carmen had heard Eddie use a hundred times.

  Tió shook his head. “You shouldn’t hit girls, Eddie. Momma always said that. You know why.”

  “I know why. Poppa hit her and she didn’t like it.” He slung his leg off the bed.

  “Don’t,” Tió said. “Put up your other hand, Eddie. This is a stick-up.”

  Eddie glared at Tió and finally did what he was told when Tió dropped the gun from the ceiling, pointed it straight at him, and nudged the barrel upward.

  “Did you steal my girl, Tió?” Eddie said.

  “Didn’t steal nothin’, Eddie. She was nice to me.”

  “I bet she was.”

  “Don’t be mean, Eddie. I don’t like it when you’re mean.” Tió stepped toward Eddie. “Keep your hands up. I‘m not as stupid as you think I am.”

  Carmen wiped her eyes clear with the back of her hand, then wiped off her face with the sleeve of her dress. She could hardly believe what she was seeing; Tió standing up to Eddie. He never had before. Never.

  The small, single-room shack suddenly felt hotter. All Carmen wanted to do was run, run as far away as she could. But she was trapped. Eddie and Tió blocked her way out.

  Tió stopped a foot in front of Eddie and raised the gun to his brother’s head. “How’s it feel now, Eddie? You think you should have shot me a long time ago? Put me out of your misery?”