by A. J. Thomas
“Quiet,” Doug hissed, drawing his own gun. He saw bits of white through the trees, where the road curved up ahead. He motioned toward the forest, dove into the underbrush, and made his way around a wide perimeter. Delgado followed, crashing through the shrubs and bushes like an elephant. Doug glared at him, but the other man was too caught up trying to detangle himself from a fallen tree limb to notice.
Doug slowed down and crept closer. The white coalesced into a large fifth wheel Dodge pickup, and it was definitely Brubaker’s. He recognized the license plate and the gun rack in the back window. A dark wooden structure that looked like a two- or maybe three-room cabin blended into the forest just ahead of them. He kept low and moved closer to the truck, scanning the forest around them and listening for any strange noises.
Their passage through the underbrush had silenced all of the birds and small animals that normally made a racket in the forest. If Brubaker was listening, he would know something was off already.
Doug crouched lower when he heard the creak of a screen door. Through the brush, he saw Brubaker emerge from around the corner of the cabin. He looked amazingly calm as he walked down the wooden stairs with a bounce in his step. He swung a large white plastic jug on his finger as he headed toward the truck. Doug got a better view of the man when he climbed onto the open tailgate. He was dressed in blood-stained jeans and a heavy blue flannel shirt. If Doug hadn’t known the blood was most likely his lover’s, he might have mistaken Brubaker for any other deer hunter.
Brubaker opened up the childproof cap on the bottle and shook the contents out over the bed of his truck. Bleach, or possibly lye, Doug guessed. Doug watched him climb down and slosh a bucket of water into the truck bed, then climb back up again with a stiff deck brush. Brubaker bent down and began to scrub at the bloody mess left in the truck.
A touch at his elbow startled Doug, but he didn’t make a sound. Delgado motioned around toward the back of the cabin. Doug nodded and then he slowly made his way toward the back. He kept listening to the scraping of the deck brush. He glanced back once when he noticed Delgado wasn’t following him. The other man had taken cover behind a larger tree and was keeping an eye on Brubaker.
As soon as Doug cleared the corner of the cabin, he moved closer to the wall and peered through a filthy window. He could see the open door of the cabin through the glass, along with a small iron stove, a cooler, several speckled pots and pans, and three long shelves of dry goods. He saw no sign of Christopher.
Doug ducked down and shuffled to the next window. There, he saw a cramped bunk room with one large cot, a single sleeping bag stretched out down the center. Several plastic storage bins were stacked against the far wall. Around the next corner, Doug looked through the last window. From there, he could see across the length of the cabin to the first window he had come to. Crumpled on the floor, beneath the window in the main room, lay Christopher.
Blond hair and blood-streaked skin stretched out over a tangled, unmoving pile of limbs. Doug stared at the awkwardly splayed limbs and felt his world crumble. Through the grime on the window, he couldn’t even tell if Christopher’s body was in one piece. He tightened his fingers around his pistol, squeezing the grip so tight his knuckles ached.
Christopher’s chest rose slowly, so subtly Doug thought he’d imagined it. Then Christopher shifted, trying to roll from his side to his back.
Doug fumbled with his gun as relief surged through him and left him trembling. He didn’t know how Christopher was still alive, but he was going to do everything he could to make sure the man stayed that way.
He put his pistol back into his harness, used his pocketknife to pry the window up, and pushed himself up into the window frame. It hurt like hell to put his weight on his left arm, but he forced his muscles to work. When he got in, he went straight to Christopher’s side.
He already knew Christopher was breathing, so he checked his airway quickly and then felt for a pulse. His pulse was steady, but very fast. He was in the early stages of shock, but that was normal for the amount of blood he'd lost. Doug watched him take several shallow, slow breaths, and then began to assess his injuries, trying not to move him in the process. Christopher’s entire right leg was swollen, from his hip to his heel, indicating several fractures. Part of his shinbone had torn through the skin, and the wound was still bleeding. He had several deep cuts and gashes along his hip and right side, and a swollen laceration along his right temple that looked like it came from the butt of a handgun. On the back of his head was a small bruise. Dried blood was matted into his hair over the bruise.
Christopher must have been conscious when Brubaker dumped him in the cabin, so he’d hit Christopher on the temple to knock him out. That was encouraging, because it meant the rest of Christopher’s injuries hadn’t been bad enough to leave him unconscious.
As Doug checked for swelling around his torso, Christopher’s eyes cracked and fluttered open. Doug looked into his eyes, watched that beautiful shade of blue dilate and contract around his pupils, and slowly, finally, come to focus on him.
“Don’t you dare die on me,” Doug whispered.
A soft breath that carried a hint of sound escaped from Christopher’s lips.
“Shush. Don’t try to talk.”
Christopher raised his left hand and touched Doug’s cheek with his fingertips. “Only been a week,” he whispered. “Why am I so crazy about you?”
“Shush,” Doug said again. He leaned forward and pressed his lips against Christopher’s forehead. He tasted like salt and copper. “We have to get you out of here.”
“I don’t think either of you are going to be leaving, Dougie. Hands on your head. Now.”
“Greg.” Doug took a deep, quivering breath. “What’s going on, Greg?”
“Hands on your head, Dougie.”
Doug slowly brought both of his hands up, fingers splayed wide. “I can’t raise my left arm any higher,” he whispered, trying desperately to force his arm up.
“Stand up.”
“Why did you do this, Greg?” Doug asked, rising slowly to his knees.
“Why?” The sheriff laughed. Doug was surprised. He expected the man to sound insane. Instead, he heard the same good-natured laugh he always heard coming from Brubaker’s office. “You expect a long drawn-out explanation? Give me a bit of fucking credit, Dougie. Stand up. Hey, how’d you find us, anyway?”
Doug felt the gentle, slow tug at his holster. On the floor, Christopher still looked like he was on the edge of consciousness, but the fingers lifting Doug’s sidearm and tugging it forward inch by inch were steady. Doug leaned forward, as if trying to get his feet under him. He brought one knee up and leaned forward more, until he felt the comforting bulk of the Sig slip free. He held his breath as Christopher tightened trembling fingers around the grip. Doug tried to meet Christopher’s eyes, but the blond man kept his eyes half closed, and his head stayed limp on the floor.
“Who else knows we’re up here, Dougie?”
“Everyone,” Doug said. At least he hoped. It didn’t even occur to him to lie. “The FBI is coming, Greg. They know what you’ve done.”
“How did you find us?”
“I tracked his cell phone,” Doug said.
“What?” The man behind him laughed. “I barely turned the damn thing on for a minute, and I didn’t call anybody.”
“You’ve got to keep up with technology, Greg,” Doug chided.
“Drop your weapon or I’ll shoot!”
At first, Doug thought the voice might belong to Brubaker, but there was a trace of Spanish accent to it. At his feet, Christopher opened his eyes, and Doug saw a relieved, almost predatory grin on his face.
Doug turned to look over his shoulder. Brubaker’s revolver was still trained on Doug, but he was looking back over his own shoulder at Delgado.
“Another one! How dare you!” Brubaker shouted. “You come into my town! My jurisdiction! And treat me like a criminal! I will skin you and your little faggot partner
alive!”
“Final warning,” said Delgado, with a calm he couldn’t possibly feel. “Drop your weapon or I will shoot.”
“He corrupted you too, didn’t he? The both of you! Everything him and his brother touch ends up turning just as rotten as they are! Infected! It’s all his fault!”
“His fault? You mean Peter?” Doug asked. He knew he shouldn’t push it, but he was curious. And the more they could divide Brubaker’s attention, the better their chances were of bringing him down.
“It’s all his fault!” The revolver swung down toward Christopher. “It was all his fault from the start! If he hadn’t fucked Pete over, if he hadn’t gone to the police, if I had just never met his fucking brother!” He adjusted his grip on the gun, bracing his shoulders for the kickback, and the world exploded.
The sound of three guns firing at once made the walls of the cabin shake. Doug felt something wet splatter across the side of his face, saw Brubaker drop the revolver. A spot of deep crimson blossomed across Brubaker’s chest and he fell to his knees, then toppled forward. The life and rage had faded from his eyes before he even hit the ground.
For a long while, all three of them froze, staring at the fallen sheriff. The shot to the back continued to bleed. As the blood in his body, no longer driven by the pumping of his heart, succumbed to gravity, a pool of blood began to form around him. The exit wound from Christopher’s shot had left a hole the size of a softball in the top of Brubaker’s head, killing him instantly. It had to have gone in just under Brubaker’s chin, a difficult shot at the best of times. Christopher had managed it, despite using his left hand and being stuck on the floor.
“Ouch,” said Christopher.
“Are you hit?” Doug’s mind snapped back to reality. He was only too happy to have something to distract him from the hollow cavity in Brubaker’s head—and from the realization that whatever splattered across his face had come from that exit wound. Now was not the time to throw up, he told himself.
“Bullet hit the wall. I cut my hand,” Christopher gasped. “I got the grip wrong, sliced my thumb open. You?”
Doug shook his head.
“Ray, are you okay?”
Christopher’s partner was casually removing a pair of foam rubber earplugs from his ears. The smug look, the one Doug suspected was Delgado’s own version of Christopher’s too-bright smile, was back in place. “I’m good. You look like you got run over by a truck, though.”
“Funny you should say that…. What the hell took you so long, anyway?” Christopher tried to laugh. His head rolled back down and his eyes dropped shut again.
Doug pulled the trauma kit out of his pack and began pulling out the few supplies he had, oblivious, for the moment, to the corpse just a few feet away.
“Get over here!” he shouted. “Locator beacon. Looks like a yellow stun gun. Take it outside and follow the instructions printed on the label. Leave it outside, and then get back in here.”
Delgado obeyed without question, and Doug was once again grateful for that. He could shift into first-responder mode more easily without an audience. He pulled up the lists and acronyms he used to memorize emergency first-aid procedures and went to work. All he could really do was assess Christopher’s vitals, try to stop what bleeding he could find, find a way to keep him warm, and wait for a helicopter. But at least it was something.
“Now what?”
“Get down here and hold this,” Doug replied, gesturing to the compress he was holding over the torn, bleeding muscle in Christopher’s calf.
“Is the bone supposed to be sticking out like that?”
“No. That would be why it’s bleeding. Press down and toward the center a bit, hard.”
“But it will hurt him.”
“Do you think he’d rather bleed to death? Press as hard as you can.”
Delgado knelt beside him and pushed down on the bandage with him. When he was satisfied that Delgado was applying enough pressure, he moved up to check Christopher’s pulse again. Too fast, but still steady.
“Is there supposed to be sand under this bandage?”
“Keep pushing down or I will hurt you! It’s a hemostat powder. It speeds coagulation. Now shut up!” Doug applied a bit of the same powder to the cut on Christopher’s thumb and then wrapped it in a bandage. He checked his pulse again, kept his fingers on Christopher’s wrist, and used his other hand to pull up his eyelids. His pupils were dilating normally.
Doug froze as he felt the fast rhythm under his fingers falter. He dropped over Christopher’s chest, ready to begin compressions, and then felt the heartbeat beneath his hands again. It had just skipped a beat, and now it was beginning again, faster still. “Fuck.” He looked at his watch, trying to count Christopher’s heart rate. It was going too fast to count, but Doug guessed it was at least a hundred and sixty beats per minute.
Doug didn’t even spare himself time for a deep breath. He scanned the cabin and dragged the larger cooler toward Christopher’s feet. He hoisted Christopher’s solid leg onto the cooler, bending it at the knee. Then he began searching for anything that would work as a splint to stabilize his right leg. The only thing close at hand was a long-handled ax. He removed his leather belt and harness, grabbed the ax, and hurried to Delgado’s side.
Delgado stared, wide-eyed, at the ax. “Oh, hell no!”
Doug wanted to roll his eyes, but he just shoved him aside. He carefully positioned the ax handle beneath the worst of the swelling, centering it below the protruding shinbone, and strapped it to Christopher’s leg as best he could.
“Oh,” Delgado breathed. “Okay, that makes more sense.”
Wishing he had something better, he carefully lifted the splint and leg together and braced the splint against the cooler. “Hold his leg up, hold it still, and keep pressure on the wound.”
He ran into the bunkroom and returned with Brubaker’s sleeping bag. He tucked it around Christopher’s body as best he could, then he picked up Christopher’s wrist and tried to measure his pulse again.
“He’s tachycardic,” Doug said aloud. “I can’t even get an accurate count.” Then he remembered he didn’t have a search-and-rescue team backing him up. He had a cop who normally only dealt with traumatic injuries long after the victim had already died. “Hypovolemic shock,” he tried instead. When that also was met with a blank, pale stare, he felt like screaming. “He’s lost too much blood. He’s been in shock too long. He needs oxygen. He needs a blood transfusion. He probably needs a defibrillator. I don’t have any of that.”
“Shock? Bleeding-to-death shock?” Delgado began to shake.
“Shock. His body is trying to compensate for the blood loss. Less blood volume means the heart needs to beat faster to keep supplying all of the major organs with oxygen, because there’s less blood to transport it. The faster the heart rate, the more the body is compensating for and the closer it is to the point where it can’t keep up. Tachycardia is a heart rhythm that’s too fast. His is getting up toward two hundred beats per minute. All we can do is try to use gravity to raise his blood pressure. Unfortunately, his heart rate is also becoming irregular. Skipping beats, slowing down, getting faster… I’m more worried about cardiac arrest than shock at the moment.”
Doug kept his fingers on the inside of Christopher’s wrist while he spoke, focusing on the fast thrum of his pulse. It was slowing down steadily, with Christopher’s legs elevated, but every thirty seconds or so, the rhythm fluttered.
“So do something about it!”
“All we can do now is keep his feet elevated, keep monitoring his heart rate, and start CPR if we need to.”
“CPR?” Delgado shrieked.
“Just keep his leg steady and keep putting pressure on that bandage. It’s helping.”
Doug focused on the fast, fragile pulse and shut his eyes, trying to will Christopher’s heart to keep beating. He knew it didn’t work that way; he knew a whole chemical symphony went into regulating the nervous-system responses that controlle
d the human heart. Nothing so naive as prayer or positive thinking would change it.
Doug prayed anyway. Prayed, hoped, and begged for any kind of divine intervention, for Christopher’s heart rate to hold steady.
He toyed with the idea of praying aloud, just to see if Christopher would get angry enough to open his eyes.
When the rotary blades of a helicopter finally came into earshot, he raced outside to wave them down. Doug couldn’t tell how much time they had lost, but within a few minutes of the first helicopter landing, another arrived, and then a dozen FBI vehicles. He watched the paramedics load Christopher—covered in an oxygen mask, soft splints, and bandages—into the helicopter bay and carry him off into the sky.
Then, the surge of adrenaline he had been riding, that had given him the control he so desperately needed, broke. His composure and focus broke. His sanity broke. His heart broke.
The people and voices swarming around him blurred together and he couldn’t make sense of any of it. Someone was holding him by the shoulders. His arm throbbed with pain, but he couldn’t force it to move anymore. The only thing clear was that there was a very good chance that Christopher would die. A man he’d hardly known two weeks. A man he was never supposed to fall in love with. A man he couldn’t live without.
He fell to his knees as his stomach once again decided to fuck him over. Right there, in front of two dozen FBI agents, paramedics, and his own search-and-rescue team, he threw up.
The beep was maddening. The pain was maddening. Every sound made his entire body throb. If Christopher had been able to move, he’d have been breaking things. Between the splint and traction system holding his leg in the air, the leather restraints holding his arms and torso down, and the handcuffs holding his hands to the bedrails, all the equipment in the room was completely safe from him. And that was maddening too. He had been in handcuffs since he woke up. In any fatal shooting, everyone involved was placed under arrest until a prosecutor reviewed the case and cleared the subject of any potential charges. In San Diego, Delgado had been in custody for a whole twenty minutes after shooting the suspect who was running from Christopher. The entire county was in chaos and a federal prosecutor had arrived overnight and taken over the case. Belkamp promised he’d be cleared by morning, so the FBI agent had left Christopher in restraints and left so he could rest.