by Billie Letts
“What was that?”
“Huh?”
“That noise.”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
“Sounded like a shot.”
“Probably Hooks’ truck backfiring.”
The gelding, frenzied now, whinnied and stamped the ground, then reared, legs windmilling the air.
Holding his injured hand before him as if offering it in greeting, Bui took a step forward as Sam fired twice more.
The first bullet spun Bui like a wind-up toy, the second slammed him to the ground.
“Hell, those are gunshots.”
“Came from out back.”
“Oh, my God! Bui’s out there.”
The gelding, half-crazed with fear, shuffled from side to side, kicking up clods of dirt that stung Bui’s face and arms.
In the weakening beam of the flashlight a few feet away, Bui could see boots crossing the ground in long, quick strides, coming close, and someone said, “Em yêu Nguyt,” but the sound seemed to come from some great distance.
Then, his vision beginning to cloud, he saw in a haze of shadow and light the boots just inches away. Saw the gelding rear again, towering, heard the rough bark of human fear. Another shot fired. A powerful huff of the gelding’s breath. A crack of bone.
The shudder of earth as some great weight dropped to ground.
Vena was already out the back door, running, when the last shot was fired.
Halfway across the field, she stumbled and fell to both knees; then, gasping, she pulled herself up and ran on.
Just before she reached the gate, she heard Caney call her name, but didn’t have enough breath to answer.
As moonlight broke through the clouds, she saw them—the gelding on its side, legs thrashing, and Bui, still as death.
Then she saw another figure, a man, his legs pinned beneath the gelding’s hindquarters. And she recognized Sam Kellam, even with part of his face caved in.
Chapter Thirty-Two
CARL PHELPS and his deputy were the first to arrive, but not by much. A highway patrol trooper pulled in a minute later, followed soon by a city police car, then another and another, until the pasture looked as if one of Big Fib’s spaceships had landed, whirling flashes of red and blue lighting the night sky.
The lights and sirens had, of course, attracted so much attention that by the time the ambulance arrived, the parking lot of the Honk was a maze of vehicles, and a steady stream of the curious was snaking across the field, spilling through the fence and into the pasture.
The ambulance driver, slowed by traffic on the road, negotiated his way across the lot and around the cafe, but before he reached the gate, he had to stop twice, once for a stooped old woman walking with a cane and again for a little girl in pajamas and cowboy boots who ran across his path.
Caney had made his way into the pasture just seconds before the sheriff arrived, but he might not have made it at all without help. As he was trying to maneuver the chair across the ravine, it toppled and would have tipped over if Bilbo had not caught up in time to right it and push Caney to level ground.
He couldn’t make out much in the dark as he rolled across the pasture, but when Carl pulled in and drove past him, the headlights of his cruiser illuminated all too clearly what lay ahead.
Sam Kellam was pinned beneath the horse, but Caney could tell it didn’t matter. Sam wasn’t going anywhere.
The gelding, wild with pain and fear, tried to get up when Carl’s cruiser roared in, but his legs, jerking spasmodically, could not purchase ground. When Carl cut off the siren, the animal gave up the struggle, but not before a flailing hoof crushed Sam’s watch, leaving it as ruined as the man who wore it.
Bui lay ten feet away, sprawled on his back, his head twisted to the side and his right arm extended as if stretching to pick up a carrot just beyond his reach.
Vena, kneeling beside him, used one hand to brush dirt from his cheek, the other to press against his side where blood seeped between her fingers.
“What the hell happened here, Caney?” Carl asked as he stepped out of the cruiser and slammed the door.
“The ambulance…”
“On the way.”
Caney rolled in beside Vena, leaned forward and touched her arm. “Is he… Can you tell if—”
“He’s got a pulse,” she said, “but it’s not very strong.”
Danny Starr, the reporter for the Weekly Ledger, pulled up and parked behind Carl’s cruiser as two more police cars sped through the gate. When the gelding began to thrash again at the sound of the sirens, Danny hauled his camera out and started shooting pictures.
By then, a ring of onlookers was forming, pressing forward as more pushed in behind. Their conversations were hushed except for two teenage boys who laughed in false bravado, too loud and too long. But when a toddler cried, “Mommy, man’s got a boo-boo on his head,” the crowd was stilled as they parted to let the mother carry her child away.
When the ambulance arrived, the medics hit the ground running, but as they hurried toward Sam, Carl said, “You boys can’t do him any good.”
As they moved in on Bui, Vena scooted to the side to give them room, then watched without comment while they started to work. But when they tore his shirt open, she got up and stepped to the edge of a twisted knot of bystanders straining for a closer look.
One bullet had ripped into his shoulder where splinters of bone protruded through the skin. The other had pierced his side, just below his ribs, where blood, more black than red, ran in a rivulet across his belly and pooled in the depression of his navel.
Danny had worked his way to the center of activity, aiming his camera first one way, then another, but when he leaned between the medics to get a close shot of Bui, Carl yelled at him to “stay the hell out of the way.”
Danny, accustomed to such warnings from the sheriff, got the shot he wanted, then turned to train his camera on Sam and the gelding, while Carl made his way around the medics, then hunkered beside Caney’s chair.
“What can you tell me about this, Caney?”
“Not much. I was in the cafe when Bui came out here….”
“What for?”
“Oh, he’d started coming out every night about this time. He liked to check on the gelding.”
“Was Sam in the cafe tonight?”
“Huh-uh.”
“I heard you two mixed it up in there a few weeks back.”
“Yeah, we did.”
“What was that about?”
“Sam took in after Bui, and I—”
“So there was bad blood between them then?”
“Hell, Bui didn’t even understand what was going on. It was just Sam. You know how he was.”
“Did Bui own a gun?”
“Not that I know of….”
“So you figure—”
“I figure Sam was out here waiting for him.”
“Look’s like it could’ve happened that way.” As Carl stood, bones popped. “Damned knees.” He took a couple of half steps to work the stiffness out. “You got a smoke?”
Caney shook a cigarette from his pack, but before Carl took it, he saw the district attorney coming toward him, trailed by a lawyer from the courthouse.
“Oh, crap,” he said as he headed to meet them.
Caney turned his attention back to Bui as one of the medics ran to the ambulance for the stretcher.
Vena moved in beside Caney and put her hand on his shoulder just before someone called his name. They turned to see Hooks and Quinton elbowing their way through the gawkers.
“You okay, Caney?” Hooks sounded like he’d been running.
“Yeah.”
Quinton looked him over, then spit into the dirt and shook his head. “We run into Wanda Sue down at the Texaco. She said you’d been shot.”
“Hell, by tomorrow, she’ll have me buried,” Caney said, but with no trace of humor.
“He gonna be all right?” Hooks asked, gesturing toward Bui.
“
I don’t know.” A shiver made Vena rub at goose bumps on her arms. “But he’s still breathing.”
They watched as the stretcher was positioned and the medics lifted Bui onto it. He had a tube down his throat, an IV in his arm, monitors attached to his chest, but there was no sign of consciousness.
“I’m going with you boys,” Caney said, rolling in behind the medics as they moved toward the ambulance.
“Sorry, but we’d have to have clearance to take you.”
“I’ve already got clearance,” Caney said.
“No, sir. What I mean is, we’d have to radio in and—”
“I’m going in that ambulance.”
When the medics lifted the stretcher inside the ambulance, one climbed inside to tend to Bui while the driver turned to Caney and said, “Sir, it’ll take time, and I don’t think you want to slow this down.”
“No, sir. I don’t. So let’s just—”
“But I have to have clearance.”
“He’s got clearance,” Carl yelled as he broke away from the DA and came striding toward them. “Mine!”
Then, without hesitation, Quinton and Hooks lifted Caney, chair and all, into the back of the ambulance. The medic shrugged, slammed the doors and crawled into the cab, firing up the siren as he pulled away.
By the time the second ambulance arrived, Vena, with the help of Bilbo and Carl’s deputy, had the gelding up and moving—stiff, slow, limping—but moving. And as soon as the medics removed Sam’s body, the last of the spectators wandered away, having less interest in a wounded horse than a man half-dead, and another who’d made it all the way.
The vet, Doc Corley, pulled in as Vena was leading the limping gelding into the barn.
Doc had been in Sequoyah for over forty years, but recent back surgeries following a tussel with a Black Angus bull had limited his mobility. He’d been trying for three years to take in a partner to do the heavy work of treating livestock, leaving him to work with small pets, the animals he favored anyway, but so far he hadn’t had any luck.
“Well, is this the killer horse?” Doc asked as he shuffled into the barn.
“He look like a killer to you?”
The exhausted gelding stood unmoving, his head hanging, his ears drooping, as Vena rubbed his muzzle.
“So what’ve we got here?”
“Bullet wound, right foreleg.”
Careful to keep his back straight, Doc took his time getting down on one knee. When he reached for the damaged leg, the horse threw his head and whinnied, but Vena had a halter on him and held it steady.
Doc tilted his head so he could see through his bifocals as he examined the gelding’s leg.
“Cannon bone’s splintered. Bullet’s still in there.”
“Can you take it out?”
“Don’t want to try,” he said. “Start digging around in there, sure to damage some tendons.”
“So what do you think?”
“Well,” he said as he grunted with the effort of standing. “Doubt he’ll ever recover from this. I’d say the humane thing to do is put him down.”
“You mean without even trying—”
“Lady, I guess I’ve treated four, five thousand horses. Snakebite, gangrene, broken legs, twisted intestines, crushed hooves… and bullet wounds. And in my opinion, this animal oughta be put down. Save him a lot of misery, a lot of pain, and it’ll all come to the same thing in the end. Might as well do it now and—”
“No, I can’t do that.”
“I was under the impression that this horse belongs to Caney. Brim Neely told me that he—”
“It’s Caney’s, but he’d say the same thing if he was here.”
“You sure of that?”
“Yes. I am.”
“Okay.” Doc reached for his bag. “I’ll give him a tetanus shot, start him on antibiotics. And something for pain. But I’ll check back tomorrow,” he said, cutting his eyes at Vena, “when Caney’s here.”
When Vena got back to the Honk, she found Duncan Renfro, the only one inside, going silently about the business of measuring the shelves along the back wall. She picked up the phone to call Duncan’s wife, but midway through dialing, she saw Life’s pickup barrel in and slam to a stop when it hit the guardrail out front.
MollyO jumped out before the truck had even stopped bouncing and hit the door yelling.
“Oh, God! Is it true? Vena, tell me it’s not true.”
She went limp then and might’ve fallen if Life had not rushed through the door in time to steady her and lead her to a chair. Crying, she lowered her head to the table.
“He’s still alive.” Vena slid an arm around MollyO’s shoulder. “When he left here, he was still alive.”
“How bad off is he?” Life asked.
“I don’t know. I stayed here to wait for the vet. Even if Caney knew anything, I doubt he’d try to call, knowing I would be out back, and—”
MollyO raised her head, dazed by what she’d just heard. “Caney? You mean he’s—”
“That damned Wanda Sue!” Life pulled off his cap and slapped it against the counter. “She said Caney was dead. Said Sam killed him.”
“Well, she got that wrong. Sam’s dead. And Bui’s in pretty bad shape….”
“I don’t understand,” MollyO said. “I don’t—”
“Look, let’s get Duncan out of here first, then we’ll go to the hospital.”
“I’ll take Duncan home,” Life said. “You go on and I’ll lock up here.”
“Then MollyO can go with me in Bui’s car.”
“But—”
“Come on. I’ll tell you about it on the way.”
They were all gathered in the surgical waiting room except for Bilbo, who’d gone outside again to smoke. Vena, MollyO and Hooks sat side by side in a line of chairs against the wall while Quinton dozed in the corner and Life paced the length of the room. Caney, with his back to them, stared through a window overlooking the emergency entrance.
At the sound of approaching footsteps, Vena tensed and leaned forward, MollyO’s unopened magazine slipped from her lap, Life came to a stop and Caney turned from the window. But when a man in scrubs passed without comment, they slumped with disappointment, then rubbed at tired eyes and stiff necks.
“How about I get us some coffee,” Life said.
“Here. I’ve got some quarters.”
“None for me.”
“I’ll take mine black,” Carl Phelps said as he stepped through the door.
“You’re puttin’ in a late night,” Hooks said.
“Looks like I’m not the only one.” Carl pulled a chair up beside Caney, sat down and stretched out his legs. “How’s he doing?”
“Still in surgery,” Caney said. “You get your business settled out at the place?”
“For tonight. Still some loose ends to wrap up, but that kind of thing takes some time. Damned DA’s got a notion the Vietnamese fella hit Sam in the head with a rock. He wants an autopsy on Sam, though I think it’s a waste of time.”
Bilbo, just back from his smoke, said, “Right. Sam shot the kid twice and while he was falling, he picked up a rock and bashed Sam’s head in. Shee-ut!”
Bilbo looked for a place to spit, his way of showing disgust, then thought better of it and shook his head instead.
“I went by the Hi-Ho,” Carl said. “Found out Sam had been in there for a couple of hours drinking straight shots of Wild Turkey. Did some tough talking, said he was going gook hunting. Tried to stir up some interest, wanted the Mosier brothers to go with him, but they weren’t drunk enough to take him up on it, so he left alone. About fifteen minutes before he ambushed the Vietnamese guy, the way I figure.”
“Sam could never handle his liquor,” Quinton said.
“He was a mean son of a bitch, even when he was sober.” Carl pulled off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. “Guy told me he saw Sam string a German shepherd up by the neck, then beat it to death with a two-by-four ’cause it muddied the door of
his truck.”
“Shee-ut.” Unable to control his anger, Bilbo spit into a potted plant. “Shame that horse didn’t bash his brains out sooner.”
“Oh, Brim Neely came by your place, Caney. Caught me just before I left. Said he wasn’t much surprised when he heard about what happened. Told me that gelding had always gone crazy around guns. Said he threw him once when they came up on some target shooters, and you know yourself that Brim’s not been on many could unsaddle him.
“Anyway, I’m going to need a statement from you, Caney. But we can take care of that later, when this is—”
Carl was stopped in midsentence when he looked up and saw Galilee Jackson, Reverend Thomas and several parishioners of the AME Church standing in the doorway.
No one spoke for several moments, then Galilee stepped forward.
“We’re here to see about Mr. Boo,” she said. “He’s a friend of ours.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
THE HONK, closed for three days, didn’t reopen until after the funeral on Friday morning. But when it did, those who came didn’t come because they were hungry. Most stopped by just to talk, trying to understand all that had happened.
A few came directly from the cemetery. They’d gone simply to pay their respects to Sam’s mother and his brother, Don, who came in from Idaho where they’d moved not long after Kyle Kellam died. But though Don had gone into the ministry, he didn’t conduct the graveside service for Sam as most had expected. He’d left that up to the Baptist preacher who hadn’t known Sam at all, figuring a stranger might find better things to say about Sam than he could.
Many of the conversations that Friday morning took place at Caney’s counter where those assembled were as hard-pressed to find praise for Sam as his brother was. But since they felt bound not to speak ill of the dead, and with Sam barely into his first hour underground, they recalled with admiration that his boots were always polished and he’d kept his pickup clean.
But much of the talk following Sam’s funeral took place out back where a half dozen men, black and white, were working to restore Caney’s bus.