Wounded

by Percival Everett

  After the squeeze, the rest of the cave felt a bit more comfortable, familiar. Then, about a hundred yards from the cave’s mouth, my hand-held light flashed over something. I came back with the beam and after a few sweeps found it. It was a bit of paper and some dried brown shreds. I put the shreds of dried leaves to my nose and, though I could not detect an odor, I realized it was tobacco. It had been the butt of a cigarette and it had been field stripped, the paper opened up and the tobacco shaken free, an act meant to avoid detection, for some a mere habit. Fear washed over me, but a different kind a of fear this time. This time it was real fear, the kind that no place, no storm, no animal can make, only humans. It could have been there for years, I told myself. In the dark here, I certainly had not seen everything. In fact, I marveled every visit at how much was new to me. It could have been there for forty years, a Shoshone veteran of the Korean War looking for a quiet place, or a soldier from a hundred years ago. And as I looked at the tiny bit of paper, I realized it could have been left there hours ago.

  It was midday and I was driving through town on my way to the reservation. Daniel White Buffalo had called and left a message with Gus that he really wanted me to come over to his place. His ranch was on the edge of the reservation. He had good water and this rankled a lot of the white ranchers around him; they were even less pleased when he increased his place by buying adjacent, nontribal land. Gus hadn’t picked up any details on the phone, but he thought White Buffalo had said something about somebody or something being shot. I turned off the highway and down the road toward the ranch. I looked across the big pasture and saw a sheriff’s rig parked near the house. I gave the Jeep a little more gas and kicked up some dust getting there. Bucky, Hanks, and Daniel White Buffalo turned and watched me get out and walk toward them. The stocky Arapaho man shook my hand and said he was glad I came. He ran a nervous hand over his hair and stopped at the knot of his braid.

  “Who called you?” Bucky asked.

  “Daniel did,” I said.

  “Yeah, I called him,” Daniel said. “John’s got good sense. So do you, Bucky, but John, he’s like family.”

  I thought this was odd since I seldom saw the man. I’d trained a couple horses for him and it was his mule that was haunting my barns.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Somebody shot a cow,” Hanks said with a slightly dismissive tone.

  “Shooting a cow is a big deal,” Daniel said. “That’s two thousand dollars lying in that gulley.”

  “Let’s go have a look,” Bucky said.

  We piled into Daniel’s open-topped late-sixties Bronco and bounced across the pasture and toward the creek. He’d called Bucky because the cow was shot off the reservation, in the county, Bucky’s jurisdiction. I didn’t know why he’d called me. He came to an abrupt halt that we were all expecting, but still sent us lurching forward.

  The cow was lying about ten yards up the opposite creek bank. I sloshed through the water to the animal. He’d been shot through the head. Just beneath the ear. I looked back to see Bucky and Hanks picking their way over the rocks.

  “Shot, all right,” I reported.

  Hanks turned back to see Daniel White Buffalo leaning against his truck. “What are you doing over there?” he called.

  “I’ve seen him,” Daniel said. “My getting wet again won’t change his condition much.”

  Bucky folded his long frame to a knee beside me. “So, what am I supposed to do?” he asked.

  “You got me,” I said. “He’s been shot. There’s no denying that.”

  “I suppose I can get a vet to dig the slug out of his brain and try to match it up to one of the eight million guns in this county.”

  “He was shot pretty close up,” I said. “Pretty messy.” I stood and walked upstream some yards, then up the bank. I spotted a beer can and beside it a place on the ground where someone had lost his footing. “Looks like he had a picnic,” I said.

  Hanks started toward me. He turned back to the sheriff and said, “At least if the vet dug out the slug we’d know the caliber.”

  “I’d say it was a two-twenty-three,” I said.

  “And how would you know that?” Hanks asked.

  “Shell casing,” I said. I held it up on the end of a stick.

  Bucky gave me a look, a different look than he would have given me if I’d said thirty-thirty or forty-five.

  Hanks picked up the can. “Pabst,” he said. “Still has beer in it. Whoever it was will drink anything, that’s for damn sure.”

  Bucky shook his head. “Hanks, are you holding that can in your hand?”

  Hanks dropped it. Beer spilled out and made a rivulet down the slope into the stream.

  “Well, pick it up again, with a stick this time, and put it in an evidence bag. Maybe we can still get a print off the damn thing. As if that will do us a damn bit of good.”

  “I’m sorry, Sheriff,” Hanks said. The deputy collected the can and the casing in separate plastic bags.

  We walked back across the creek to Daniel White Buffalo.

  “He’s still dead,” Bucky said.

  “I thought so,” Daniel said.

  Bucky looked back at the cow, then at the sky. “I hear that you were complaining in town about Clara Monday stealing your cattle.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been thinking that for a while,” Daniel said. “I’ve lost a couple beefs and I’ve seen her up on the ridge riding that horse. Spooky. Old lady riding around on a horse like that.”

  “You think she might have done this?”

  Daniel laughed. “I believe in my heart that she’s a rustler, but she sure as hell ain’t wasteful.”

  That seemed to satisfy Bucky. “Well, that’s about all there is to see and do here. Let’s go back.”

  “Who do you think did it?” I asked Daniel as I climbed into the passenger seat beside him.

  “I don’t know. I have absolutely no idea.”

  When we arrived back at the house, Hanks jumped out quickly and Bucky worked himself free.

  “I’ll give you a call, White Buffalo,” Bucky said.

  “Yeah, right,” Daniel said, more to the ground than to them.

  Daniel walked slowly to my Jeep. “Sorry about the beef,” I told Daniel. “Scary stuff.”

  “You got that right.”

  We tossed absent waves to Bucky and the deputy as they rolled away toward the road.

  “Speaking of scary stuff, when are you going to come pick up that mule of yours? He keeps escaping.”

  “He’s yours.”

  “He’s a nice ride now,” I told him. “But I don’t need a mule.”

  “Indians don’t get on with mules,” Daniel said.

  “Don’t give me that shit.”

  “You ever see an Indian riding a mule? Not even in the movies.” Daniel gestured to his place with a sweep of his hand. “It’s nice here, and why? No mule.”

  “Not so nice,” I said.

  Daniel remembered the cow, too. “Not so nice,” he repeated.

  “Why did you call me anyway?” I asked.

  “I wanted a witness here for the sheriff, so he could see somebody seeing him.”

  “You don’t trust Bucky?”

  Daniel shook his head, then pulled out a cigarette, lit it. “I trust him about as much as I trust any white man with a gun.”

  “Yeah, well, sorry about the cow.”

  As I backed up to turn around, Daniel said, “Enjoy that mule.”

  I stopped and pulled forward, close to him. “You understand that you owe me for his board and food.”

  “How much?”

  “Near five hundred dollars.”

  Daniel whistled.

  “What happens if I don’t pay?” he asked.

  “Well, the law says, he’s mine to sell.”

  “Have at it, buckaroo.”

  I drove away. I’d been taken advantage of, but I wasn’t too upset. If I had a mind to, I could sell the beast for twelve, fifteen hundred. B
ut I didn’t have a mind to. I actually liked having him around.

  On Thanksgiving morning Morgan’s mother died. I was trimming hooves when Gus called to me from the house end of the barn. “Phone,” was all he said. I found myself trotting, then sprinting. Gus said, “Morgan,” as he trotted behind me. My messy boots slipped on the linoleum as I crossed to the phone.

  “Morgan?”

  “It’s mother.” She was crying. “She won’t wake up. I’ve called nine-one-one.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  On the phone with the emergency operator, Morgan had used the magic words “heart attack.” And so the medivac helicopter was already there when I arrived. The blades were still turning and the horses in the pasture were tearing around through the wet grass and mud. The sky was bright blue and the yellow helicopter set against it made the scene surreal. Emily was being carried to the open craft as I climbed out. Morgan ran to me and I held her, but she didn’t need to be held. She told me that the paramedics would not let her ride in the helicopter with Emily.

  “I’m driving you to town,” I said. “Get in.”

  I opened the passenger side and got her in. Suddenly she was like an elk caught in a bright light. I buckled her belt and closed the door. As I drove away from the house she stared ahead through the windshield.

  “I knew she wasn’t right this morning,” she finally said. “I asked her, I said, ‘Are you okay?’ and she waved me off. Oh, god. I knew it. I just knew something was wrong.”

  I put my hand on her leg. I considered a list of platitudes, but they all seemed unusable. Years ago, I had often felt ambushed by Susie when bad things happened. I would offer a quiet hand of support and she would ask why I wasn’t saying anything. Then I’d say something, admittedly vacuous but meant in the spirit of support, and she would snap at me, asking what that was supposed to mean or accusing me of belittling her fear or grief. Now, I remained silent and if Morgan asked me to speak, I planned to say, “I’m right here.”

  “Do you think she’s going to die?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, realizing that ‘I’m here for you’ wasn’t going to work.

  “She was so limp. Maybe she was already dead.”

  I squeezed her thigh.

  “John.”

  “Yes?”

  “I love you,” she said.

  “I love you, too, honey.” We made the big curve around the mountain. “Twenty minutes,” I said.

  “Twenty minutes?”

  “To town.”

  “Twenty minutes to town.” Morgan closed her eyes and let her head rest against the seat.

  When we arrived, the helicopter was idle on its pad, and a nurse was watching through the emergency-room doors. Morgan looked at me and I pulled her close. We walked to the hospital, knowing already that Emily was gone.

  Emily had been laid on a bed in a curtained stall. Her face still looked alive, with some color in her cheeks. A sheet was pulled up to her shoulders. Her hair was wild about her head and Morgan sought to straighten it. The doctor stood there with Morgan and talked to her. I stood there, feeling sad and sick and weak. I thought of the elderly person I had left at my house. I stepped into the hall and used the phone at the nurse’s station to call Gus. After I gave him the news there was a long silence.

  “Gus?”

  “I’m here.”

  “You okay?”

  “Fine.”

  “I’ll feed. You stay with Morgan.”

  “Thanks, Gus.”

  I arranged for the one mortuary in Highland to come for Emily while Morgan took care of matters with the hospital. I then drove her home. I wanted to take her to my place, but she insisted. I got a fire going while she straightened up. Emily had fallen in the den and things had been left disturbed.

  “It’s cold in here,” Morgan said.

  It wasn’t cold, but I said, “I’ll have the fire good and hot shortly.”

  “She just fell over, John.” Morgan was standing in front of the sofa. “She didn’t make a sound. I didn’t see her face. I don’t think she felt anything. The doctor said she probably didn’t feel anything. He said her heart probably just stopped.”

  I walked to her and lowered her to the sofa. I sat beside her with my arm around her.

  “Do you think she went peacefully?” Morgan asked me.

  “I do,” I said.

  Morgan didn’t cry, but she fell fast asleep quickly. I untwisted our bodies and went outside to feed her horses and check the gates. I came back into the house and called Gus. He took a long time answering and I started to get upset. He picked up.

  “Everything okay?” I asked.

  “All is fine,” he said.

  “What took you so long?”

  “I was busy, do you mind?”

  I caught myself, caught my worry and caught the anxiety that had been working on me. “I’m sorry, Gus.”

  “How’s Morgan?”

  “She’s asleep.”

  “I’ve got things covered here.”

  “Okay.”

  “Get some sleep,” he said. “I mean it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I didn’t wake Morgan, but let her sleep the night on the sofa. I sat nearby in a stuffed chair and watched her, realizing with each sleep-breath she took that I did, in fact, love her. And I didn’t love her because I needed to love someone, but because she wouldn’t go away, not physically, but in my head.

  Morning came and Morgan was still asleep. I went out into the clear crisp air to feed the animals. I put the hay in the feeder in the pasture and noticed Morgan’s horse, Square, arching her neck and coughing. It was an odd behavior, but she went for her food. She wanted to eat, so I didn’t think she was about to colic. Then she arched again and I thought she might be choking, which seemed odd since she hadn’t eaten anything yet. Choking on hay is uncommon and choking on the green grass is really uncommon. I haltered her and removed her from the food. I put her in a paddock and made sure there was water for her. Morgan came from the house in a thick robe, her face already worried.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Square’s acting funny,” I said.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know if there’s anything wrong yet.”

  Just then the horse arched her neck again and coughed.

  “What was that?” Morgan asked.

  “That’s the funny thing,” I said.

  “What’s wrong with her, John?” Everything was piling up on poor Morgan. She started to cry. Since there’s nothing wrong with crying, I didn’t get in her way. I simply proceeded with what I had to do with the horse. “Go to my truck and bring me my red box. I’ve got a speculum in there.”

  She trotted, the robe trailing behind her, crying there and back.

  I had my thumbs in the horse’s cheeks and was trying to see into her throat, trying to spot any kind of obstruction. “I need a flashlight,” I said. “There’s a penlight in the jockey box.”

  She ran crying to get it. She came back and I asked her to hold the lead rope while I looked. I held the light in my teeth and opened Square’s mouth again. I grabbed her tongue and pulled it to the side. She was drooling and I saw that there was a bit of blood mixed in it. I saw a wire or a stick in her throat.

  “Yep,” I said.

  “What is it?” Morgan asked.

  “She’s got something in there all right.”

  “Oh, my god,” she said.

  “She’s okay, Morgan.”

  “Can you get it out?”

  “I’m going to try.” I didn’t want to tell her that if I couldn’t we were going to have to take her to the clinic down in Laramie and have the vet knock her out and find a way to get it out. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell her that. “It’s not too far back there.”

  “John?”

  “Okay, I’m going to give her some butte; that will make her feel better. I’ve got one shot of that left right here. And I’m going t
o sedate her slightly as well, but you’re going to have to hold her. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Tears were streaming down Morgan’s face now.

  I gave the horse the shots. Morgan watched as I found the vein, pulled a little blood into the syringe, then pumped the drug into the horse. In just a few minutes, Square’s head was hanging low.

  “Is she all right?” Morgan asked.

  “High as a kite,” I said. “Come and stand over on this side.” I took the rope and let Morgan walk around me to the right side of the horse. I set the speculum in Square’s mouth, essentially a piece of metal to wedge between the horse’s back teeth, and said, “Morgan, you’re going to have to hold this right here for me, okay, honey?”

  She nodded, taking the metal tee of a handle and bracing it against the nose band of the halter.

  “Oh, John, what if you can’t get it out?”

  I didn’t say anything at first and then I thought that my silence might alarm her more. “This thing, whatever it is, is probably just sticking up through her soft palate. Shouldn’t be a problem.” Of course I didn’t know that at all. The horse began doing what horses do and that was chewing. At least she was trying to chew; the coil of metal of the speculum was in her way. But she was chewing enough that she was catching my knuckles. It hurt like hell, but I had to get the thing out. I couldn’t let this crush Morgan. Instead, my hand was getting crushed. I grabbed the object and it poked me; it had thorns. I didn’t pull back. I was in there now. I grabbed it, a thorn piercing my thumb, and I worked it free and slowly pulled it out. I held it out for Morgan to see. It was a four-inch-long wishbone of a rose twig.

  “That’s it?” she said.

  “That’s it.”

  Morgan looked at my bleeding knuckle and my bleeding thumb. “Your hand,” she said.

  “It’s okay.”

  I was about to tell her I was all right, to take the horse back and not worry about me, but I was proud that I made a good decision for once, a selfless and right decision, a smart one. I let my friend take care of me. I let her look at the damage, wash me and bandage me and it was good. I let her take care of me and it was right.