Eden Bound

by Darrell Maloney

  He was fascinated about biology and dove into the courses, determined to learn as much as possible about first aid and emergency medical procedures.

  And he did indeed save lives because of his training.

  He was gasping for breath and having trouble breathing. And he could feel the warm blood start to pool on the pavement beneath him.

  His wound was through and through. The bullet that destroyed his spinal cord had gone completely through his body, wreaking havoc as it went.

  He was well aware such a wound was not survivable, unless a fully staffed trauma center was very close by.

  He knew other things as well.

  Like, for example, that his death would be slow and drawn out. And agonizing as well.

  He knew that his shivering was a desperate attempt by his body to warm itself. And that along with the shivering he’d get goose bumps. His body would start to constrict. His blood vessels would constrict as well. And as a result of that process his bleeding would be slowed.

  In certain circumstances that would be a good thing.

  If he were being loaded onto an ambulance for a fast trip to the trauma center, such slowed bleeding could buy him a few extra minutes. And those few extra minutes could be the difference between whether he lived or died.

  But there was no ambulance. There was no trauma center. Not within a hundred miles, anyway.

  There would be no last chance to survive.

  He would bleed to death on this cold and lonely highway, and all the constriction of his blood vessels would do would be to prolong his pain. To drag out the process.

  To take him longer to bleed out.

  As if that wasn’t bad enough, he had to put up with Johnny’s taunting.

  As soon as Johnny heard the shot and saw the deputy go down he started laughing. He stumbled to get to his feet, because doing so with your hands cuffed behind your back is difficult in any conditions. It’s even more so on an icy surface.

  When he was on his feet, though, he was standing over Sonmore, laughing at him and celebrating the unexpected turn of events.

  “Yeah!” he shouted. “What are you gonna do now, you son of a bitch?”

  He first spit in Sonmore’s face, and then kicked him in the side.

  A stunned Tina appeared at his side.

  Sonmore thought for a moment he saw a look of concern upon her face. Maybe even a touch of regret.

  She certainly had what appeared to be the beginnings of tears in her eyes.

  There was no question, though, that she was the one who shot him in the back.

  She still held the rifle in her hands.

  “Quick,” Johnny told her. “Get his handcuff keys and let me loose.”

  Sonmore watched as she placed the rifle on the ground. Then she moved it farther away, out of his reach. It wouldn’t have mattered. He had no inclination to try to reach for it, and wasn’t sure his arms would cooperate anyway.

  He noticed her hands were trembling as she went to him and reached for his duty belt.

  She unclipped the handcuff key and stumbled to free an impatient Johnny.

  “Hurry up, damn it. I’m getting cold.”

  This woman he claimed to love had just committed the ultimate sin for him.

  And not only that, but she’d become a cop-killer for him. She’d just murdered an officer of the law and thrown away her whole future. In all likelihood she’d either have to go out in a blaze of glory or spend the rest of her life in prison while he ran free.

  If he felt any gratitude he didn’t show it.

  Not at all.

  He seemed not to care that she’d sacrificed her everything for him.

  He cared only for his own comfort.

  The truth was, she stumbled with the handcuffs partly because she was shivering from the cold.

  But also because she was in a daze, very close to shock. She was having trouble focusing and coming to terms with what she’d done. She was dizzy and on the verge of passing out.

  And she made a huge mistake in looking directly at her victim.

  They locked eyes for a brief moment and it was then she realized two things.

  First, that this mountain of a man who’d struck her as strong and invincible was in reality neither. He was merely a man like any other and was therefore no match at all against a well-placed bullet.

  She’d brought him down in a moment of panic. She, a little spit of a woman who couldn’t fight her way out of a paper bag.

  Yet she’d felled this giant with a single shot.

  The other thing she realized when they locked eyes was that a lifetime in prison was the least of her worries.

  All those Sunday mornings of her childhood came rushing back to her all at once, as though someone had forced open the floodgates holding back her memories. She suddenly remembered the Bible school classes, and learning the Ten Commandments.

  She remembered the preacher’s booming voice, telling his flock that those who broke the commandments were sinners.

  He spoke of eternal damnation for those who scoffed at God’s laws.

  And she realized then and there that her eventual death wouldn’t finally give her peace.

  And that surely she’d just bought a one-way ticket on the fast train to hell.

  Sonmore was the first to break the eye contact. He looked away first.

  In a rather odd display of irony he felt sympathy for her. He saw what he thought was sorrow in her eyes. Maybe regret. In any event he knew what she was thinking as she realized she’d just thrown away her life. He felt pity.

  Then things started to blacken as he finished bleeding out. He gave into the darkness and closed his eyes.

  The pity he felt for her was the very last thing he’d ever feel.

  He sighed one time and drifted into nothingness.

  -36-

  They were on opposite ends of an emotional spectrum.

  Johnny was on cloud nine. He’d just been rescued from a prison sentence that could have been decades. And even if he eventually got caught, he knew he wouldn’t serve any additional time for the murder of the deputy.

  He knew that Tina would crumble under questioning. She was just that way. She was weak and would fold under pressure. As soon as she sat at a table across from a detective she’d crack and admit to the whole thing.

  No, she’d say. Johnny didn’t’ know of her plans. She saw him being handcuffed and just lost control. She acted on impulse, completely on her own.

  Johnny knew enough of the law to know he couldn’t be charged as an accessory under such circumstances. Tina would take the fall all by herself.

  The loyalty and sacrifice she displayed to him would never be reciprocal. They both knew that.

  If Johnny were arrested in the future and asked about Sonmore’s murder he’d throw her under the bus in a heartbeat to save himself.

  They both knew that too.

  She had absolutely nothing to gain by doing what she did. But she did it anyway.

  Johnny, on the other hand, had everything to gain. He’d just gotten a “Get out of jail free” card. It was no surprise he was in a celebratory mood.

  She stood there like a zombie, unable to share his joy.

  She couldn’t take her eyes off the deputy she’d just watched die.

  The tears flowed freely down her cheeks until they froze on her face from the bitter wind, yet she didn’t feel cold.

  She didn’t feel much of anything, really.

  She existed.

  That was all.

  She felt close to passing out, yet couldn’t look away.

  It was like her own mind was chastising her in the same way her mother used to when she’d made a mess.

  “Look at it! You did that! Just look at what you’ve done!”

  She had the vague sense that Johnny was dancing around her. Laughing and carrying on about… something.

  But she couldn’t share his joy.

  Perhaps later. But not now.

  He m
ight be joyous. But her life was over.

  How could he not see that?

  Actually, he did see it.

  He just didn’t care.

  She turned slowly to look at him, disgusted and at the same time fascinated by his behavior.

  She wasn’t angry at him, though.

  It wasn’t him who pulled the trigger. Wasn’t even him who told her to. This one was on her.

  She wasn’t sure why she did it. She panicked when she thought of being all alone out here in the cold, heading to Johnny’s cousin’s house, to seek shelter from people she barely knew.

  And who might be even worse than Johnny.

  She was well aware that if they ever arrested him on his fugitive warrants he’d be going away for awhile. Totaled together more than twenty years. Perhaps she freaked because she didn’t want to do without him for that long.

  She was feeling the tension inside her rise again. Her panic was starting to rise as well.

  She finally spoke for the first time since she pulled the trigger.

  “Come on,” she said to Johnny.

  “We’ve got to get the hell out of here.”

  That was okay with Johnny. He never needed much encouragement to beat feet and run.

  That was why he was a fugitive in the first place. He had two existing bonds on two felony cases and fled both of them.

  He’d always done that. Ran to avoid facing the music. Ever since he was a boy playing with matches and accidentally set an apartment building on fire. He was six at the time and ran home and hid under his bed for hours.

  He heard the sirens. First the fire trucks and then the police cars. But he stayed under the bed softly bawling. Feeling bad not because he destroyed someone else’s property, and not because someone might be hurt or killed due to his stupidity and carelessness.

  No, he was worried he might be found out and spanked for his deed.

  Hours later he finally came out when called to supper by his mom. He was yelled at, which wasn’t uncommon at all.

  She went through a lot of trouble and paid a lot of money to put good food on the table for him, she screamed. It was damned disrespectful for him not to come running and be appreciative of her generosity.

  He sat there that night, looking at the cold canned spaghetti she’d dumped out onto his plate and unable to eat. He listened to the evening news, on the television in the next room, that his mother was watching while swilling her gin and chain smoking her cigarettes.

  He heard the newscaster tell of the fire which took hold at the back of the apartment complex just up the street from him. How it spread quickly in the old wooden structure. And how two elderly people died from smoke inhalation because they couldn’t get out quickly enough.

  He’d started crying again.

  Not for the people who died, for he didn’t care about them at all.

  No, he cried for himself, because surely they’d be coming after him.

  The newsman went on to say the fire chief found matches in the tall grass of the alley behind the apartments. Arson was suspected, but that they had no leads. No witnesses. No clue as to who was responsible.

  It was early summer. There was no school to go to. Johnny had friends up and down the street, but he didn’t go see them for weeks.

  He didn’t go anywhere. Not until he finally decided he was safe. He’d gotten away with it.

  Johnny didn’t have an empathetic bone in his body. It just wasn’t in his DNA to care for anyone else but himself.

  He kicked Deputy Sonmore square in the face, breaking his nose and shattering his eye socket; then followed Tina back to their truck.

  Thankfully the lawman was incapable of feeling it.

  -37-

  He put the truck in gear and started to pull out when Tina stopped him.

  “Wait. We’ve got to get his keys.”

  “What? What in hell are you talking about?”

  “We’ve got to get the keys out of his vehicle and take them with us or throw them into the snow.”

  “Why?”

  “They’ll come after us. And if the keys are still in his vehicle they’ll catch us for sure. But if it has no keys it’ll block the road behind us. It’ll slow them down and give us more time to get away.”

  Johnny had always been the scumbag in the relationship; Tina had always been the more rational and the thinker. He’d come to rely on her judgment and usually did as he was told.

  Now, in light of her cold blooded murder of Deputy Sonmore, it could be argued she’d far surpassed him on the scumbag scale.

  But despite that, she was still far better equipped to make decisions than he’d ever be.

  He didn’t argue with her often, but he did this time.

  “Bullshit. They won’t be coming after us. We’re all the way out here in the middle of nowhere. We haven’t seen any other vehicles besides the cop’s and Frank’s in three days. Nobody even knows we’re out here.”

  “Oh, yeah? Then how did he know you had warrants?”

  That stopped him cold.

  It made him think.

  And even though he really sucked in the thinking department, her words rang true.

  She laid it out for him to make it easier to comprehend.

  “He must have finally got around to calling in your plate. Back at police headquarters they’ll have a record of him doing that. They’ll have the name and license number of the last person he stopped. You. And don’t you think they’ll come looking for him when he doesn’t call in anymore?

  “Now do what I say and go get those damn keys.”

  As much as he hated the idea of getting back out in the cold he couldn’t argue the logic of her words.

  He opened the door of the pickup and jumped out of it, so carelessly he forgot about the slippery ice and fell hard against the pavement.

  He was up quickly, though, lest he look like an idiot in his girl’s eyes.

  But she already knew.

  Even though a confession from Tina would likely clear him, for the time being they knew who he was and he was the prime suspect.

  He had to move quickly and get the hell out of Dodge. And if taking the keys from Sonmore’s vehicle could slow down the pursuit it was probably the best move.

  He no longer felt triumphant as he’d felt just a few minutes before. No more joy, either.

  He had the opportunity to kick Sonmore’s body again as he hurried past it, but was really no longer inclined to do so. He was like that scared little boy once again, lying under his bed and wishing he could go back and undo what was done.

  But he couldn’t.

  His only choice now was to run away and hide.

  It took them only five minutes or so to pull their vehicle behind Frank’s, but that was plenty of time to get into a fully blown argument.

  “The safest place to go is my cousin Tony’s house,” Johnny said. “They can hide us out. He can go out and sell our dope for a small cut. We can lay low at his house until the thaw. Then we can go anywhere.”

  “Johnny, no…”

  “I’ll bet some of the houses on his block are vacant. Every block in Lubbock had suicide houses. Or houses that people abandoned to go live with their relatives when the first freeze was coming. We can move into one of them if there’s no room at Tony’s house. We can steal a generator so we can have power. We can…”

  “Johnny, shut the hell up and listen to me.”

  He finally quit talking, but probably not for long. So she jumped right in.

  “Johnny, it’s my ass on the line. Not yours. I’ve got to run and not look back. You can stay here with Tony if you want. But it’s the first place they’re going to look for us.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Jesus Christ, Johnny, how stupid are you? They have your name and your vehicle information. How long do you think it’s gonna take them to call Big Spring PD and tell them to look out for your truck? How long is it gonna take to look in their database and figure out you’ve go
t family in Big Spring?

  “How long do you think it’ll take for them to surround Tony’s house with a SWAT team and yell for us to come out with our hands up? How long, Johnny? Tell me that.”

  A lot of women in abusive relationships stay there until the bitter end.

  They make all the sacrifices and he gets all the perks.

  They cook for him, clean for him and overlook his faults and transgressions.

  They defend him and claim he’s good for them even when the whole world can see otherwise.

  They’ll take beatings and verbal abuse from him and accept it every time. Even forgive him when it’s beyond all reason.

  Sometimes they’ll break the law for him, and yes… sometimes they’ll even kill for him.

  Oh, and one more thing.

  They’ll fall on their sword for him.

  Tina was one of those women.

  For several minutes, while they were following Frank at a snail’s pace, they said nothing.

  They were lost in their own thoughts.

  Finally she said, “We’ve got to split up. It’s the only way.”

  “But how…”

  “Johnny, it’s the only way to save you from going to prison for life. It’s the only way. You’ve got to listen to me.”

  She finally found the magic words to get his attention, and to give him the incentive he needed to listen to her plan.

  -38-

  Once she said she had a way to keep him from taking the fall with her he was all ears.

  And all in.

  He didn’t mind much if she went to prison for murder. He just didn’t want to go as an accessory.

  Yes, she’d been faithful and good to him for a very long time, and he’d been lucky to have her.

  But there were a lot of other women out there who’d just love to be the girlfriend of a drug dealer and get their goodies for free. Maybe he’d get lucky again and find another girl who’d cater to him and put up with his crap.

  And he damned sure couldn’t find such a girl if he went to prison.

  So he listened.

  He did what he always did.