The Secret Wisdom of the Earth

by Christopher Scotton

  “I just did for him what he would’ve done for me.”

  “You did a sight more than that, I think,” Kimpton replied.

  Sheriff Binner was nearly at the top, taking one step, stopping to blow out a breath, then taking another.

  “I think we’re gonna need to help the sheriff up over the lip,” I said.

  He came to the top and put both palms on the ledge, which was at his breastbone. “How’s this gonna work?”

  The two deputies, Roy Marker and Bud Jennings, jumped down and positioned on either side of his tree-trunk legs. Skill and Silkwater each grabbed a hand. The deputies laced their fingers and lowered them to knee height. Sheriff Binner stepped into Deputy Marker’s joined palms; Marker grunted and swayed on the weight. Binner put his right foot onto Deputy Jennings’ hands, and together the men slowly stood, raising the sheriff’s body above the ledge as if he was being levitated by some unseen magician. The paramedics grabbed him under the arms and pulled while the deputies pushed his feet up so they were equal to the summit. He stepped off like he was exiting an escalator, momentum taking him forward three steps. He turned to offer a hand to his deputies and easily pulled them to the summit.

  We all stood while Sheriff Binner caught his breath. “Ain’t been up here in eighty pounds,” he said with a chuckle. He moved to a rock and sat down. “Boys, I go down that back side, you’ll be callin the state bird to airlift me out. I’m gonna stay up here an supervise. Y’all head down an check in time to time on the radio.”

  They nodded and we dropped over the edge and slid down the embankment to the beginning of the switchbacks. In a half hour we rounded the last elbow of trail and started on the slight slope that ran through the trees to the river. I was in the lead, with the paramedics behind me and the deputies behind them.

  As we came through the trees, I recognized him immediately and broke into a run. A group of black buzzards was walking his perimeter. “Get away from there,” I screamed. The men ran after me. “Don’t touch anything,” someone yelled from the back.

  Chapter 39

  THE CROSSBOW BOLT

  The crossbow bolt had entered Tilroy Budget’s throat below his Adam’s apple in the hard-cut cleft above his breastbone.

  His eyes, or what was left of them, were half-open, and his mouth was slack-jawed. He had fallen back against a rock and died in a sitting position, with one leg straight in front and the other bent back like he was stretching before a run.

  A rifle with a black scope was at his side, finger curled around the trigger. A single dark line of blood ran from the entry wound to the neck of his black Def Leppard T-shirt.

  I was transfixed on the dead boy, stunned that Tilroy was the shooter. He had taken Mr. Paul’s life in senseless rage, but what he did to Pops and Buzzy was calculated.

  A chill took me as I stared at him—stared at his empty eye sockets, his bloated body, and the still-curled trigger finger. The buzzard-plucked sockets and the bloat made him seem like a giant discarded rag doll, rejected, abused, and thrown down from above. I felt a stark lack of empathy as I gaped at his distended body, and it scared me. I quickly looked around for Buzzy, but the trail was empty.

  The deputies and paramedics fanned out, hunting signs. “I got blood,” one of them called. The others went over, careful of where they stepped. “It’s pooled here, then looks like he dragged himself into the bushes there.” The deputy hounded the blood trail through the mountain laurel and holly. I followed.

  I recognized the rippled black soles of his old army surplus boots through the hanging willow branches that screened him like hippy beads dangling from an open door. I ran forward, pushing down the urge to vomit.

  Buzzy had pulled himself through the brush to a shaded spot under a large willow tree. He was propped against the trunk as he would be if lazing under the tree after a river swim. His eyes were closed in soft sleep, and his mouth was turned up slightly on its ends as if he was entertaining a dream.

  The bullet had hit him in the left thigh and traveled out his side. He had slit his shorts with a pocket knife and had stuffed the wounds with leftover poultice, then bandaged them with strips of T-shirt. I stood and felt bile choke out my throat.

  Wayson Skill leaned into him, put a hand on his chest. “I got a heartbeat,” he yelled. “Ain’t much of one, but it’s there.”

  I started toward him, but Deputy Marker held me back. “Let em do their job.”

  “I’ll do Ringer’s, you do BP.”

  Kimp Silkwater pulled a plastic bag out of the rucksack, unwound the tubing, and handed the needle to Wayson Skill. He turned Buzzy’s forearm up, slapped it to raise a vein, then slid the needle into him. He opened a knife and cut away Buzzy’s shorts. “He’s got all kinds a crap in here,” Wayson said, examining the packed wound.

  “That’s a poultice he made for my grandfather when he got shot.”

  “Let’s truss him with it in. I don’t want to start him bleeding down here.”

  He turned to Deputy Marker. “Tell the sheriff to call for the medevac.”

  The deputy pulled the walkie-talkie from his holster and brought it to his mouth. “Sheriff Binner?”

  Crackle. “Binner.”

  “Fly the bird, we got us a live one.” Crackle.

  “Who is it?”

  “Fink boy.”

  “Roger that. Best bring him up here. Canopy’s too thick down there.”

  “Ten-four.”

  The deputies broke out the stretcher, unfolded the aluminum poles, and locked the crosspieces in place.

  “Is he gonna make it?” I asked.

  They ignored me and kept working on Buzzy, wrapping the wound for the trip to the top of Old Blue.

  “Let’s get him on and go. Bird’ll be here in a half hour.”

  They lifted Buzzy onto the carrier and tied him in with five straps that rolled out from the left side of the stretcher and clipped into the right side. The paramedics each took an end and pushed through the underbrush to the trail where Tilroy Budget lay. They ran past him without notice, but I paused and stood over the boy. I wanted to feel something—wanted to find some understanding in his actions; some empathy in his upbringing; at least a fragment of sympathy for the secret he carried.

  I stayed for just a moment more and thought about my own father, how I still wanted his approval, still craved his love, still drank up drops of attention. I considered the shell of Tilroy one last time and pondered the certainty of rearing; the inevitability of desire; and the turn life takes when the two are set hard against. I turned back to the trail and ran to catch the paramedics and Buzzy Fink.

  The far-off beating of the blades came to us just as we left the switchbacks and started on the steep. The paramedics easily handled Buzzy’s weight up the incline. The drum of the helicopter came closer as each minute passed. By the time we reached the top it was circling overhead.

  The men lifted him to the summit and slid the stretcher onto the rock ledge, then climbed after him. Sheriff Binner pulled Buzzy free of the edge.

  “Nowhere to land up here so they’re gonna send a basket down. How is he?”

  “Lost a lotta blood. Surprised he lasted this long out here. Seems like a tough kid. Filled up the wound with a poultice he made for Dr. Peebles. That probably saved him.”

  The helicopter downdraft created a dust storm that sent dirt scurrying away in rivulets that turned back on themselves into miniature tornados. A large basket big enough for two lowered from the side. Sheriff Binner reached up and guided it to the ground. They quickly unstrapped Buzzy and moved him to the carrier. The basket wasn’t long enough to lay him out so they sat him up against the wall, legs splayed to the other side. Wayson Skill jumped in with him and his partner gave an up thumb to the pilot.

  The basket lifted off the ground and did a slow pirouette in the air as it rose. A man leaned out of the helicopter with a hand on the winch line, guiding it up into the bay door. He swung the basket into the bird and closed the hatch
. After a few moments it banked away from us, the immaculate blue of the sky replacing the crisp shadow of the undercarriage.

  Chapter 40

  LEAVINGS OF THE SOUL

  After two weeks they moved Buzzy down to Glassville General from Louisville Trauma. The bullet shattered his femur but missed an artery by millimeters. The doctors pinned and plated the bone back together and he was bed-bound in a hip-to-ankle cast while bones knitted. On the morning of his arrival, I stopped in to see him on my daily visit to Pops.

  “I was comin round the corner a the trail an he was comin the other way. We saw each other at exactly the same time. He raised up the rifle an I went down on one knee an we both shot.”

  “What did it feel like when you shot him? Was it like Pops said?”

  “I was jus happy to not be kilt an all, but I ain’t feelin no respect for that fucker.”

  “Why was he trying to kill you? Because you saw him kill Mr. Paul?”

  Buzzy shook his head.

  “Why then? I don’t get it.”

  “On account a I seen him doin stuff with another boy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Fag stuff… you know.”

  “What!” I nearly shouted. “Where was this?”

  “In the woods after I ran away. I was hunting with the crossbow pistol up on Round Rock—that’s the mountain with all the big rocks on it. So I’m huntin and I hear noises on the other side of a rock; I think it’s a deer or something, so I sneak around it all quiet, an there’s Tilroy with some boy from Knuckle leanin against the rock with their pants dropped down jus wackin each other off. I mean, I’m like five feet from them an they’re goin at it on each other an don’t even notice me. So I start to back up an accidentally step on a twig or somethin. Tilroy opens his eyes and looks straight at me. I mean straight frickin at me. I jus turned an ran.”

  “You mean Tilroy is a homo? I don’t get it.” I shrugged my shoulders with frustration, confusion.

  “All the older kids at school kinda thought he was, an when Cleo an his friends started teasin him about bein a fag at Mr. Paul’s, I guess he wanted to show them how much he wasn’t.”

  “And he was trying to kill you for that?”

  “For a kid like him, from a family like that, me sayin what I saw woulda been the worst possible thing.”

  I paused for a moment and thought about this new revelation and the sad wisdom in Buzzy’s words. Finally the pieces started to make sense and I began to feel a pensive awareness of circumstances other than my own; a knowing that brings with it a kind of stillness that I didn’t quite understand but accepted it for its own.

  “Cleo told everything,” I said after a few more minutes with the still.

  “He tole me. Says he don’t know what Notre Dame’s gonna do.”

  “You two okay?”

  “Yeah, we’re good. He pologized for bein a dick.”

  “That’s good.”

  More stillness.

  “What did it feel like, getting shot?”

  “Like someone stuck me with a red-hot poker—hurt like a mutha. But the worst part was the dyin part.”

  “You didn’t die.”

  “But I dint know that. I plugged the hole up best I could, but I kept bleedin an gettin weaker. Right before I passed out, I figured I was a goner.”

  “Were you scared?”

  “Hell yeah I was scared. But then it went all weird when I got weaker. The pain stopped an I felt kinda peaceful. Like my body was ready to give it up.”

  We were silent for a while more. A comfortable silence built on shared accomplishment and the confidence of courage earned.

  “Heard you faced down a cougar.”

  I nodded and recounted the whole story, from river to hollow. “I swear it was just like Pops and Red Cloud—like the White Stag was protecting me, giving me strength to keep going.”

  Buzzy nodded, thinking on it. More comfortable silence.

  “So why did you drag yourself through the bushes? We almost couldn’t find you.”

  “After bout a day, them buzzards come an started pickin at him. I tried to throw sticks to shoo em off, but they jus ignored me after a while.” He paused and swallowed. “I seen one pull his eye out an fly off with it.” His voice cracked. “I couldn’t stay there an watch.”

  I couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

  “What the hell took you so long, anyway?”

  “I had to carry Pops back by myself twenty miles. That’s what took me so long.” I paused and tried to remove the image of Tilroy’s empty eye sockets. Tried to get back to the still.

  “How’s your momma doin? Bet she’s glad you an Pops ain’t hurt.”

  “She seems a little better, but Pops says she may never be like she was. Says losing a kid is like a piece of your soul dying. Says it’s different from a wife dying or a brother dying.”

  “I think they all suck.”

  “I guess when terrible crap happens, how much of your soul that’s left behind is how much you can heal. I think losing Josh and watching it happen the way it did took most of hers with it.”

  He turned toward the window and was silent.

  “Hey, look, I’m going to go visit Pops. I told him I’d bring him his mail.” I held up a bundle of envelopes.”

  “When are you comin back?”

  “Tomorrow. I see Pops every day.”

  “I mean when are you comin back here?” He looked out the window again as he said it.

  “Tomorrow, dumbass. After I check in on Pops.”

  He nodded but kept his eyes fixed on a birdbath in the garden in the middle of the courtyard where two blue jays were fighting over water rights.

  Pops’ room was at the other end of the corridor. The second bed was occupied by a thin, gray-lipped man with sinkhole cheeks and an oxygen tube snapped to his nostrils. The infection had taken a week to fully flush; then the doctors grafted skin from Pops’ posterior to cover the wound.

  “I’m wearing my ass on my chest,” he had said and chuckled. “Chester’s gonna have a field day with that.” He would be hospital-bound for one more week to allow the skin to take, then home for a month of recovery. Audy Rae was already planning a party.

  “Here’s Cougar Man, come to bust me outta here,” he said when I walked into the room. “I’ll take another bullet before I eat any more of this hospital slop.”

  Lo and Paitsel were standing by the bed—they both nodded on my entrance. Pops had yesterday’s copy of the Missiwatchiwie County Register on his lap with my picture filling half the top fold.

  Register Exclusive: Kevin Gillooly’s Amazing Journey

  Several editions of the Register from previous days were on the side table.

  One Dead, Two Critically Injured in Glaston Lake Shooting

  Teen Shooter Tied to Pierce Slaying

  Fink Out of ICU

  “Our run-in with Tilroy is giving Chester a bountiful harvest of news,” he said. “After you read this latest piece, they’re gonna have to move me to a bigger room just to fit your ego.”

  “Already read it.” I grinned. “I went into Hivey’s this morning and all the men had it. When they saw me they went all weird, whispering and pointing. Finally Mr. Jensen came up and just shook my hand and said, ‘You done a good thing.’ ”

  “Jesper always gets tongue-tied around celebrity,” Paitsel said. He tried to smile, but his face was pulled down from poor sleep, grief still collecting in bags above his cheeks.

  “But it’s not just them. Everybody’s been looking at me different, like I’m an alien or something.”

  “What you done is big-time, son.”

  “Lo’s right, Kevin. What you did is the stuff of legend. People will be talking about it for years.”

  “I was just trying to save you. I don’t know what I would have done if you’d died.”

  “I know it would have ruined my weekend,” he said, eyes twinkling.

  Lo shook out car keys. “We’ll lea
ve you two for private. You ready, Pait?”

  Paitsel nodded. “Need to stop by Hivey’s. Wanna thank the boys for everthin.”

  Lo patted Pops’ leg. “You take care a yourself, Arthur.”

  “I’ll come up Wednesday with Audy Rae,” Paitsel added.

  As they went, Lo slapped Paitsel’s back. “We might wanna get a game up with Jesper an Bobby while we’re there.”

  “That’d be good.”

  “What are you reading, Kevin?” Mom asked through the porch screen.

  I showed her. She smiled and came out onto the porch. “One of my favorites. Medgar isn’t so different from Maycomb, is it?”

  “At least Maycomb didn’t have a huge strip mine hanging over it.”

  She nodded and sat next to me on the wicker sofa. She opened her mouth to speak; then her mind seemed to wander back to familiar black, taking her silent. It was like that with her in the first few weeks after the shooting—bursts of engagement, filaments of conversation, then hours of silence.

  The shooting seemed to have reanimated parts of the old Mom that were now desperately trying to climb out of the bleak hole of heartbreak, only to be pulled back into the void by the immensity of loss.

  But the bursts still came. Tuesday at dinner she snorted when Audy Rae did a lip-licking Bubba Boyd impression. Thursday she asked me not to slam the front screen door quite so much. Friday she suggested I wipe my muddy feet on the doormat. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for me to construct footings of hope.

  Every afternoon we would drive to the hospital to see Pops and Buzzy, who were now sharing a room at Pops’ insistence. They were at cards when we arrived—Pops in a chair by Buzzy’s bed, Buzzy still immobile for leg healing.

  “You just missed Paitsel and Chester. They would have liked to see you.”

  “Me too. Next time tell them the porch is open for business. They can come by anytime.”

  “Ha, that’s a lot of conversation for a fourteen-year-old to hold up. Think you can handle it?”