by J. M. Snyder
Adam spoke again. “He can’t walk on it, you know. He shouldn’t put any weight on it until the skin closes up. I did the best I could—”
“You did fine.” Ronnie. Court’s heart melted at the sound of his friend’s gruff voice.
“Still, they’re only butterfly stitches,” Adam said. Court pictured a line of butterfly-shaped bandages flitting up the side of his leg like a colorful tattoo. “They’ll only hold if he stays off it for a while.”
“So he won’t walk,” Ronnie said. “I’ll make sure of that.”
He must’ve been sitting on his bedroll, on Court’s left side. Adam’s voice came from Court’s right. Court felt Adam’s hands tighten on his leg, as if the wound were wrapped and Adam wanted to make sure the covering was secure. When he spoke again, his voice was a loud whisper across Court’s body. “Ronnie, you can’t…all the others want to leave now. Tonight. They’re scared that whatever attacked those prisoners is going to come down here and snack on us next.”
“I know what they think,” Ronnie said.
“We can’t take Court with us,” Adam continued. “Leave him here, with enough food for a week or so, I don’t know, some pain pills, maybe a gun. Let him fend for himself. When he gets well enough, he can follow us.”
Court wondered if now would be a good time to let them know he was awake and listening in, but he wanted to hear what Ronnie wanted to do. What Ronnie would say.
For a long moment, nothing came. No response. Court knew his friend well enough to picture the hard look Ronnie was leveling at Adam right about now. The fact that Adam wasn’t running for the hills said something about his own character, and Court couldn’t fault him for wanting to leave with the others. He didn’t know the guy, really. They’d only met a few weeks back, when Adam fell in with Ronnie and him. If he wanted to keep going, let him.
But Ronnie…what would he do?
An eternity seemed to pass before Ronnie spoke. “Leave him to die, you mean.”
“You don’t know that,” Adam hurried to explain. “There were a lot of men at that other camp. Whatever attacked them might’ve felt threatened. Court might be safe on his own.”
“Or he might be dead by this time tomorrow,” Ronnie said.
Adam sighed. “Look, I’m not saying it’s what I want to do. If it was up to me, we’d wait until he healed. But everyone else—”
“Fuck everyone else,” Ronnie spat. “If he’s staying here, so am I.”
Court felt his chest swell with emotion; he bit the inside of his lower lip to keep from crowing in joy. Yes!
Adam tried one more time. “I’m just saying…”
“Get out,” Ronnie told him.
“Ronnie—”
He lashed out with barely contained fury. “You want to leave? Fine. I’m not stopping you. No one’s asking you to stay here with us. So go, get out, hit the road. You can probably get a few miles in today if you leave now.”
“Ronnie, I didn’t say me,” Adam pleaded. “Everyone’s saying we should move out tonight.”
“And I’m saying get the fuck on the road already if you want to go that bad!”
Ronnie’s voice raised in an uncharacteristically angry shout. Court had to ball his hand into a fist to keep from reaching out to place a calming hand on Ronnie’s knee.
Adam spoke lower, as if hoping that might somehow bring Ronnie down. “We can’t leave without you, man. You’re sort of the leader of this whole thing, you know?”
Court felt Ronnie’s emotions emitting like a heat wave and wondered why Adam couldn’t feel it, too. “I never asked you to join us,” Ronnie said, dropping a hand to Court’s shoulder to show Adam just who all was included in that one word. Us. His palm was hot through Court’s shirt, his fingers heavy and strong. “You want to leave? Get someone else to show you the way. Dizzy, maybe, I don’t know. I don’t care. I’m not going anywhere without Court.”
Adam sighed in defeat. “Ronnie, I—”
“Get out.”
The quietness of Ronnie’s voice finally broke through to Adam. Court heard him stand, heard the tent flap unzip as Adam exited, heard the murmur of voices outside like a breeze rustling the last of the leaves still clinging to the trees as those gathered around the tent commented on what they’d overheard. Heard the zipper again, creating a canvas wall between those inside and the rest of the world.
Then he was alone with Ronnie.
For a moment, he kept his eyes shut. His leg throbbed, and he wondered if Bree had anything else he might take to dial back the pain. Then he wondered if Bree was among those who wanted to move on. He hoped she would leave them some food, at least. Most of the stuff in her shopping cart, he’d gathered himself. He didn’t want to lose that, especially not now when he couldn’t go out and get more.
Finally Ronnie squeezed his shoulder. “You can stop pretending you’re not awake.”
Court opened one eye and looked at his friend. Ronnie’s hair was a disheveled mess of spikes, and a dry speck of Court’s blood smeared the line of his jaw like a five o’clock shadow. Despite the pain in his leg, Court grinned. “How’d you know?”
A faint smile crossed Ronnie’s face. “I’ve slept beside you long enough to know when you’re up and when you’re faking it.”
“That almost sounds sexual,” Court teased. Before Ronnie could move away, he licked his thumb and wiped away the smudge of blood. “So they want to ditch us.”
“Sounds like it.” Ronnie pulled back from Court and reached behind him, bringing a Thermos filled with light-colored soup into view. “Bree said to tell you she’s sorry but all she has is chicken and stars. It’s probably still mostly warm. Can you sit up?”
With Ronnie’s help, Court managed to sit upright, his left leg curled under his right, which he kept straight out to avoid aggravating his injury. The soup was tepid but edible. Court was surprised at how hungry he was, and downed it in a few hearty gulps. Ronnie gave him a bottle of water and a couple of pain pills Bree had left for him. “She likes you, you know,” Ronnie joked. “Though I can’t imagine why.”
“I know, right?” Court grinned as he screwed the Thermos top back into place. Then a sobering thought hit him. “Everyone really wants to leave me behind to fend for myself? How cold is that?”
“They’re scared,” Ronnie explained. “And most of them are assholes. Let them go.”
Setting aside the Thermos, Court touched the back of Ronnie’s hand. When his friend didn’t pull away, he traced the pale lines of veins just beginning to stand up beneath the thin skin. He wanted to thank Ronnie for…well, for everything, really. For helping him back to the camp. For holding his head while Adam worked on his wound. For not leaving him behind when everyone else wanted to. For…for everything, yeah. That just about summed it up.
But he didn’t want to make the moment awkward between them. He loved Ronnie, yes, but he didn’t want to force his feelings onto his friend. Whatever Ronnie felt for Court would be enough, it would have to be. It’d always been before.
So to keep from getting maudlin, Court said softly, “That was the first time you ever shot someone, wasn’t it?”
Ronnie snorted, a quick burst of something that might’ve been amusement under different circumstances. “That’s the first time I ever shot a gun, period.”
“You have pretty good aim,” Court said, impressed.
Ronnie shrugged and pulled his hand away. Without meeting Court’s gaze, he gathered up the Thermos and empty water bottle and made a fuss of putting them by the tent flap for later removal. “It was pure reflex. He shot at you, I shot him. What else was I supposed to do?”
Chapter 7
Inside their tent, Court fiddled with the radio dial as Ronnie cleaned his gun. Court kept his injured leg straight out in front of him. When he first got back to camp, he remembered someone cutting his jeans so Adam could get to the wound, but the scissor-wielding fiend hadn’t stopped there. No, the jeans had been trimmed to the knee on that leg on
ly, which looked strange and left the lower half of his leg feeling a little cold in the brisk autumn air. Even inside the tent, his knee felt chilly. A large white bandage encased his calf. Below that, he wore a white athletic sock that didn’t match the one on his other foot. Apparently someone had taken off the blood-soaked sock he’d been wearing and put on a new one, instead.
He suspected that someone might’ve been Ronnie.
He didn’t want to ask, though. From the corner of his eye, he watched Ronnie’s fingers move fluidly in the familiar motions of disassembling and cleaning the gun. Now, though, a faint odor of gunpowder mingled with the tang of oil in the air, and the chamois cloth came away from the barrel dirty with residue. The weapon’s clip was shy three bullets. Even though Court couldn’t actually see the missing spaces, he knew they were there, just as he knew the spent casings lay on the asphalt a few miles down the road beside what remained of the body of a man who had tried to kill him earlier.
The thought made Court shudder.
So he turned his attention away from Ronnie, even though he loved watching his friend’s hands in their ancient dance, and he focused on the radio. It was too early to get any signal from as far away as Sumter, but he could hope. He barely moved the dial as he listened intently to the static, trying to pick out words amid the white noise. Anything to keep his mind off the gun beside him, and the dead man down the road, and whatever creature had attacked the poor bastard in the first place.
Someone tapped on the outside of their tent flap. “Knock, knock.” It was Bree.
Court glanced at Ronnie, who smirked back at him. “Shut up,” Court muttered, even though Ronnie hadn’t said a word. He didn’t have to—Court could read that look on his face well enough. She likes you, it said.
Yeah, well, she knows I like you, Court thought with a sly grin of his own. What would Ronnie say to that if Court told him?
Which I won’t. I can’t. And lose this intimacy between them? Never.
The flap’s zipper tugged up and down a moment. “Hello?” Bree called out again. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”
“Come in already, will you?” Court called out. It was obvious Ronnie wasn’t going to invite her in.
Bree unzipped the tent flap and ducked inside, another Thermos of soup in her hands. “Hey guys,” she said, though she barely looked at Ronnie. Her bright gaze was turned on Court. Kneeling beside him, she held out the Thermos. “More soup. How are you feeling?”
“Honest? My leg hurts.” Court took the Thermos and wrapped both hands around its warmth. “I was shot, remember?”
“You were grazed,” Bree said in an off-hand manner that suggested he wouldn’t be able to milk her sympathies much longer. “In and out, that’s what Adam said. You didn’t even need any real stitches, just those little butterfly things.”
Court unscrewed the top of the Thermos and breathed in the rich scent of tomato soup. “I was bleeding like a stuck pig.”
“Whining like one, too,” Ronnie murmured from his side of the tent.
Court glared at him as Bree giggled into her hand. “Listen to you,” Court groused, “Mr. I’m-So-Glad-You’reAlive.”
Ronnie didn’t look up from cleaning his gun. “I never said that.”
“No,” Court granted. “It was more like, I’m not losing you, too.”
If he had hoped to embarrass his friend, it didn’t work. Ronnie simply shrugged and continued working the chamois cloth over his gun’s barrel. Beside Court, Bree leaned closer and whispered, “Did he really say that? Oh my God, how sweet!”
Ronnie glanced up at her but stayed silent.
Court felt his own face flush, and he tucked into the Thermos to keep from looking at anyone. This soup was much warmer than the last, almost hot, but he savored the heat and hoped the steam would mask the color rising in his cheeks. Go now, he thought at Bree, but he didn’t want to put it into words and seem ungrateful. Still, he shouldn’t have said what he had about Ronnie. Those words had been meant for Court alone, and they should’ve stayed in him. The memory of Ronnie cradling Court’s head in his lap was too dear to spread around like yesterday’s headlines.
After an awkward moment of silence, Court wiped his mouth with his arm and asked, “So when’s everyone leaving?”
Bree shrugged. “No one’s left yet. I mean, they all want to, but they don’t want to go on alone. Someone needs to get out there and organize things, if you ask me—”
“We didn’t,” Ronnie said.
Court glanced at him, but he was still bent over his gun. It was as if he weren’t even listening in on their conversation. “You should maybe say something.”
“What?” Ronnie asked. “If they want to go, I’m not stopping them.”
“Oh, right, I forgot,” Bree spoke up, her voice bitter. “Fuck them all, isn’t that what you said?”
Court ducked his head and stared into the Thermos. “Y’all heard that?”
“How could we not?” Bree asked. “You’re in a tent, Court. This isn’t private, no matter what you might think.”
An image flashed through Court’s mind—he and Ronnie lying together in the night, bodies twined around each other in sleep. Surely that was private, no? Kept only between the two of them? No one else knew…
With an annoyed huff, Ronnie set the gun aside. “Look, I have nothing to say to anyone out there.” He spoke in his normal tone of voice, but Court almost felt a collective breath being held, as if everyone else in their traveling party hovered immediately outside the tent, hanging on Ronnie’s every word. “I never asked anyone to join us, did I? No. I never set myself up as a leader. I didn’t care if anyone came with us or not, because when this whole thing started out, it was only Court and me. We were getting out of the city, moving south because we knew the weather was going to change, and if it were still up to me, I wouldn’t have picked up anyone else along the way.”
“Well, you have a group of about twenty people outside now,” Bree told him. “What’d they do, just fall in line behind you?”
Court smirked. “Must be your winning personality.”
Ronnie gave him a hard look. “No, not mine. Yours. You’re the one who has to talk to every single damn person we meet. You’re the one who says hey look, we have some food, sit down and eat. You’re the one they’re all following, not me.”
But they all looked to Ronnie as a leader, and why? Because Court himself followed Ronnie. There was never any question of who led between them. Never any argument over what to do next, or which way to go. Ronnie said jump and Court obeyed, simple as that. Even if none of the others outside their tent realized it, they had all begun to see Ronnie through Court’s eyes. A man might be able to live under the idolizing gaze of another, but twenty?
No wonder Ronnie wanted to leave them all behind.
In a soft voice, Bree suggested, “You should still say something.”
“What?” Ronnie snapped.
She shrugged. “Apologize, at least.”
Ronnie glared at her. Before he could say anything, though, Court piped up. “Appoint someone to lead them on instead.”
Ronnie’s gaze swung to Court. Bree flinched, as if expecting a harsh reply, but Court could see his friend’s mind working behind those dark eyes. When Ronnie did speak, his voice was calm. “Get Dizzy in here.”
Bree didn’t move immediately.
“I said—”
“Can you get Dizzy?” Court asked. He flashed a quick grin to Bree and motioned at his stretched-out leg. “I’d go but I have to stay off my feet for a while. Doctor’s orders.”
Now she stood and headed for the tent’s flap. As she zipped it behind her, Ronnie muttered, “Why do they think I’m the leader? No one bothers to listen to me except you.”
When Bree returned, she did that little “knock, knock” bit again and waited for Court to tell her to enter. “Why bother?” he asked. “We aren’t in the middle of doing anything private.”
“You never kn
ow.” Bree sank to her knees beside him in the same spot she’d just left. “The first time I don’t knock, I might walk in on something I don’t want to see.”
Court rolled his eyes as Dizzy filled the tent’s opening. The man nodded at him in greeting. “How’s the leg?”
“Hurts,” Court admitted.
Dizzy leaned on his walking stick and nodded. “At least it was a clean shot,” he said. “I have a bullet fragment in my right hip that starts up something fierce every time it’s about to rain. Doctors at the VA hospital told me to make an appointment to come in and they’d dig it out for me, but I never got around to it. Now I guess I’ll just have to live with it.”
“You’ll be fine,” Bree assured Court, as if anyone had voiced any doubt.
Turning to Ronnie, Dizzy asked, “What’s up, boss?”
If anyone other than Court noticed the way Ronnie’s lips pressed together in frustration at the term of respect, they didn’t point it out. Court could see the rest of their little congregation milling about outside the tent behind Dizzy, trying to overhear without being too obvious about it. The sun shining high overhead threw long shadows across the tent’s canvas, and Court thought maybe a few of those were people pressing as close as they dared to listen in.
Patiently Ronnie reassembled his gun and didn’t look up at Dizzy or Bree or even Court for a full minute, maybe longer. As the last piece of the weapon clicked home, he ran the chamois cloth over the gun and nodded. “I hear some of you want to get back on the road,” he said at last.
Dizzy grunted. “Yeah, some of us do.”
Some of us. Court caught that. Somehow, it didn’t surprise him Dizzy wanted to keep moving.
Ronnie continued to polish his gun, watching the way the cloth rubbed over the smooth barrel. “What do you think got those guys down the road?”
Dizzy glanced at Court, who shrugged. He wasn’t sure where Ronnie was going with the questions, but he knew everyone outside the tent was hanging onto every word that passed between the two men. “Some kind of animal,” Dizzy offered. “Mountain lion, maybe. Wolf, I don’t know. Something that escaped from a zoo.”