Two minutes later the gunman shouted “On your feet, Jim!” His eyes widened. He stuffed the dead security guard’s gun in the waist of his pants and pulled his blond hair back. He leveled the forty-five at Jim. “On your feet.”
Jim didn’t move. He rocked and sobbed, rocked and sobbed.
Adam’s breath caught in his neck, swelled to an apple, nearly choked him to death.
The gunman rushed over, grabbed Jim with his free hand, and threw him to the other side of the room. His voice lost all gentleness. Instead, anger steeled it. He shouted commands, rather than offering them as suggestions. “To the door! I want everyone to see this—they need to know they killed you! Adam, get the signs down.”
Jim dropped to the floor and curled into a ball like a sleeping cat. Sweat soaked his shirt. Hostages wailed and covered their eyes.
The gunman yanked Jim up with a quick, strong tug, and stuck the muzzle of the forty-five in his ear. He marched Jim to the door.
“God please, please,” Jim said.
Adam moved to the front door as ordered, but never planned to take down the signs. That’d get Jim’s head on the floor faster than anything. Instead, without thinking, without feeling fear or nausea, he pulled the scissors from his pocket and hoped his half-formed plan would work. If he could grab the gun with his right hand and sink the scissors into the gunman’s lower back, where it was soft and painful, he might be able to get the gun away from him for good.
He’d have to get the guard’s gun away from him too, but the distraction would give the others time to help him. Together, they could overwhelm one man. It took the courage of one to inspire, to rally others, to chase fear from their hearts and replace it with hope.
Armed with hope, armed with a furious fervor for resistance, the fight would be fair.
Things didn’t go as he hoped.
Adam pulled the scissors from his pocket while he grabbed the gun. He hadn’t planned on the gunman being so strong.
The gunman pulled back fast, hard, and pulled the trigger. Jim dropped.
Adam rammed the scissors into the gunman’s back and heard a scream like a train braking on wet tracks.
“Help me!” Adam shouted.
The gunman twisted, and Adam lost his grip. The barrel of the forty-five came at him and he ducked and spun.
A crack like a bat, like a clap of thunder.
The gunman’s fist sank into Adam’s back. But it wasn’t his fist.
Adam fell to his knees, looked down at the blood spurting from his stomach, and passed out.
* * *
Adam opened his eyes to a white world. Slowly, the blizzard brightness dimmed. He blinked twice, tried to speak, but nothing came out. He couldn’t feel much, not his legs, not his arms, not his fingers or toes.
He took a breath, filled his lungs with air, and a stabbing scissor-like pain raced up his spine. He tried to scream, but it dribbled from his lips like a muffled whimper.
His senses evened out and told him where he was: the machines surrounding him, the consistent beeping, the nurses shuffling on padded shoes told him “hospital.” He checked for a television, but found none. What kind of hospital didn’t have a television in every room?
A dim figure stood up. He was short and bald. “Thank God!”
Adam remembered the voice, but couldn’t place it, like a casual acquaintance from high school. He didn’t recognize the man. His mind moved slowly, a train building up steam, but not quite racing down the tracks. “I …”
“Take it easy. It’s me, Jim. From the bank.”
Adam didn’t understand.
“You saved my life.”
Agony accompanied each breath. He wished he could fall back asleep, slip into blissful darkness where pain couldn’t reach him. “I ...”
Jim smiled. “Nurse said you’d have trouble speaking, and that you probably wouldn’t remember much. You bled a lot. They had to put you in a coma to help you rest, give your body time to heal. Been like that a couple weeks now. But the rest is good news.”
Adam closed his eyes, focused on his fingers. Move.
Jim put a hand on his shoulder. “Doctor said you looked good this morning, so they pulled you out a couple hours ago. He says the bullet missed your spine by an inch. It punched through pretty cleanly, but did a lot of damage on its way out. I guess they sewed you up pretty good, though.” Jim paused as if waiting for a response.
Adam didn’t oblige.
“Anyway, a few more surgeries should fix you up, maybe good as new. Well, after the physical therapy at least.”
Adam blinked.
“You don’t remember it, do you? The bank robbery couple weeks ago? You saved my life. Stabbed the guy with some scissors right in the small of his back. Caught him in the kidney and got a vein or artery or something because he bled and bled. But he got me too.”
Jim bent at his hips and pointed to a bandage atop his bald head. “You pulled his gun out of my ear and he shot me. Just nicked me, though. I’ll have a good scar, a good story, but that’s about it.” He paused and laughed. “I passed out. Thought I was dead, but when I came to, there were paramedics and police and everything. They got in pretty quick and slowed your bleeding long enough to get you here.”
Adam needed a nap. Pain stabbed up and down his spine, then, like malevolent static-electricity, through each of his limbs, first the arms, then the legs.
“Don’t hear too good out of this ear now, but that’s okay ‘cause I still got my kids. I’m still alive. Because of you, Adam. You’re a genuine hero. Genuine.”
Adam smiled. His face burned.
“Hope you don’t mind, but I went through your cell phone. I called your folks in Florida; they hopped a flight out here. They’re sitting out in the waiting room with your girlfriend now. They were nice enough to let me back for a few minutes. Just got lucky you woke up on my watch.” He laughed nervously. “I’m sure you want to see them more than you want to see my ugly mug. I’ll call them in, but before I go, is there anything I can do for you? You have bills to pay I can help with?”
Adam’s mind moved now. He gathered his strength to speak. “Something for the pain?”
Chapter 32
Wednesday, September 9th
I rubbed my nose. The cigarette smoke and sour stench of an unwashed kitchen burned my eyes. “That’s when it started?”
He nodded and laughed. “Still hurts, too. Can’t hardly stand, can’t hardly sit. Moved to Percocet when Vicodin wouldn’t cut the pain. Worked for a while, but I had to start mixing. Meth, coke, whatever.” He got quiet for a minute. “Got pretty expensive, and living on disability in LA, you don’t make much. Moved up here to Hailey where my disability would go further.”
I crossed my legs and tapped my pen on my notebook. “Sounds like quite the sacrifice you made.”
“I don’t have family. No wife or kids. Jim’s a good man. He’s a good dad. Me, what am I?”
“You’re a hero.”
He had a wet, throaty laugh. “Some hero I turned out to be. I’ll be dead before I’m forty.”
I tried to bury the surprise on my face. I’d figured him to be in his mid-forties. I wanted to say something comforting, assure him he’d have a long and happy life, but I could make no promises. “Considered rehab?”
“Tried it all. Doc Slate helped me kick most of the bad stuff, but still can’t kick Perc.”
Not so subtly, I checked my watch, flipped my notebook shut, and stood up. “I wish you all the best, Adam. Appreciate your time.”
He stood up and walked me to the back door. “Thanks. And good luck with your articles.”
I shook his hand, and he smiled. I ducked my head as I ran to my car, the hail bouncing off my neck and shoulders. Adam’s road had deteriorated into a muddy creek. My tires
slushed through until I came to 29. I hurried back to the hospital.
Caleb stood beside Nadine’s bed, hands behind his back, holding a Bible. When he saw me, he smiled. “Good to see you again.”
He met me at the door to the room and gave me a hug. I turned my face from his scarred cheek, returned his embrace, awkward as it was. “Likewise.”
He smiled, returned to Nadine’s side and put his hand on the head of her bed. “Good news.”
She hadn’t smiled so broadly since before the cancer hit. “I can go home.”
My breath caught in my throat. “Really?”
“Soon. Maybe tomorrow morning.”
“Home home?” Colorado seemed a world and an era away. I missed it; I wanted more than anything to pack her up and drive back right away.
“Yes.” A mouse laugh, small and adorable. “You’re done with the interviews, right? You can write up the last two tonight, and we can leave tomorrow morning.”
I rubbed my forehead and sat down. “Colorado?”
“Colorado.”
“Have you told Aida or Mason?”
“No.”
“We need to tell them,” I said. “If we leave, Hailey may be finished.”
Her smile vanished. “That bad?”
“I’m a horrible judge of character, but I can’t shake the feeling that we need to stay.”
Caleb set his Bible on the side table. “If it’s okay, may I read the articles?”
“Of course.”
“And I’d love to have you both, and Mason and Aida as well, over to my house tomorrow. We can have brunch and discuss the articles? I’ll clean up. Promise.”
I looked at Nadine, who shrugged.
I nodded. “Okay. I’m game.”
* * *
The skies traded hail for snow. We watched the thick, doughy flakes accumulate on the frozen mud outside. Caleb put together a pot of coffee and some hot herbal tea for Nadine. He sweetened it with honey and handed her a flowered mug. She sipped it, eyes closed, and smiled. “Been a while since I could drink tea.” I kissed her head and put my arm around her. It felt good to see her sitting up again.
We waited for Mason to finish the final article. He read with his hand over his mouth, as if he mouthed the words to a secret. He scratched his chin, tossed the article on the coffee table. He stood up and walked to the window. “Snow in September. That some sort of sign?”
“Signs are more your thing,” I said.
Mason shook his head. “This was Bernard’s idea. I wish he was here to help us with this, give us some insight.”
I perked up. “Can you call him?”
Caleb frowned. “Bernard’s passed away.”
“He’s dead? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Aida set her coffee down on a coaster. “Day after Gloria shot Mason. We didn’t want to overwhelm you.”
“Nadine, did you know about this?”
She shook her head and put her hand on my knee. “First I’ve heard of it. But it can’t be good for us.”
“Not at all,” Mason said. “You figure the easy ones: Aida, Veronica, Bernard. Pretty safe to say they’re righteous, but one of them is dead, and that leaves three.”
Caleb rubbed his bad shoulder and asked Mason, “What about you? You saved Shannon’s life.”
Mason reached for a box of cigarettes he kept in his sweatshirt. His hand held it, though he didn’t take it out. “I should have pulled her from the tracks, but I didn’t. I was frozen.”
“Panic doesn’t make you unrighteous,” Aida said. “That’s just being a kid.”
I scratched my head. “We could say most of them are good, with the possible exception of Greg and Nick. Even then, we could argue either side. It really comes back to the basic question: who decides?”
Aida asked Caleb. “What’s your take?”
Caleb stared out the window at the snow crusting the perimeter of the window. “I’m with Connor. They can go either way from a human standpoint, but this isn’t a human standpoint. This is God we’re talking about. His only measure of righteousness is the acceptance of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.”
The windows rattled, and the snow swirled. The walls shook in the wind.
“That can’t be good,” Aida said. “We have to decide, and we have to do it soon if we want to have a chance of getting out of here alive.”
“No.” Everyone looked at me. “If we take off, Hailey’s done. I don’t know how I know it, but I do.”
“But there’s no guarantee that staying here will save the town,” Aida stood next to Mason and put her arm in his.
“You’re right. I’m not sure if staying here will save Hailey. But I know leaving will destroy it.”
Mason looked at me. “How do you figure?”
“It’s a feeling. I know it in my gut. Here’s what I’m thinking: If God can change me, He can change anyone. Who are we to judge someone’s righteousness and spirituality? I never bothered asking these people if they knew Jesus. At first I didn’t think it mattered. Then, I didn’t ask because of what Caleb said happened to people who pushed Jesus. And with Bernard’s kids coming after us, I chickened out.
“But I’m done being afraid. I’m done running. I say we stay. We make a stand. We show God our faith in Him, in His ability to change Hailey for the better.”
Nadine hugged me. “What about Colorado? I thought you wanted to go home?”
I kissed her forehead. “I’ll miss our house, but home is where you are.”
She smiled and kissed my lips.
Aida glared at us. “How long are you talking about, Connor? I love Jesus, but it doesn’t mean I want to be on the wrong end of a tornado.”
Mason cracked his knuckles.
Caleb turned his attention from the window to me. When had I become the expert on what God wanted?
“I say we stay. For now. For good. I say we change Hailey. There are good people here who may or may not be righteous, but they all can be. What they need is someone to tell them, someone to make them listen. And maybe that’s where we come in.”
Outside, the wind howled and shrieked like a wounded animal.
END
Epilogue
HAILEY’S HEROES
World News Weekly—Connor Reedly
October 08—Hailey, CA
Mason Becker walks down the aisle with his new wife, Aida Mitchell. He walks tall, back straight, smile splitting his face. You’d never know he’d been shot a month ago.
The journey down the aisle takes no more than thirty steps. They exit the back of the rustic chapel and enter the desert beneath a piercing white sun. Reverend Caleb Harper plunks out hymns on a piano that holds its tune with a limp grip. Outside, a small reception has been prepared by the staff of Sue’s Diner, a nostalgic eatery off Route 29.
Mason takes a seat on a weathered bench in the unseasonably warm weather. He smiles before he embarks on a story about Hailey in the twenties, a habit he’s developed of late. The patrons gather around him, interested in the history of the town they call home.
“It’s a Sunday night. The whole town’s gathered here in this chapel for evening service. Standing room only. Things are normal. They’re singing, they’re praying, and then someone stands up in the back and shouts ‘Fire!’ The whole place explodes in chaos. They rush out the back and down to the general store.”
Here, he points to a blackened building about a hundred yards to the south. Its charred lumber sticks out of the ground like gangrenous fingers. “So the pastor takes charge. He’s also the fire captain, so it makes sense. He has them grab buckets by the well and make a human chain from the river to the store. They work together while smoke darkens the moon. It’s almost pitch-black, but they keep dumping. Bail and dump, bail and dump. Pail
after pail. This goes on for an hour, when someone finally shouts, ‘Hey! We need a new store anyway. Let the deviled thing burn. We’ll build a new one.’ So they put their buckets down. They take hands, surround the burning store, and sing hymns together. The pastor finished off the evening when the last of the embers winked out.”
Outside the chapel, Mason points out landmarks like a tour guide: a pile of rubble that was once the well, the dry wash that was once the river, the pile of blackened sticks that was once the general store.
This is Mason’s first marriage, but his second love. This is Aida’s second marriage, but her first love. They hold each other and smile, her in her ivory dress, him in his pressed tux. The image is something you’d see in a picture frame in a store, a black-and-white photo of happiness, of hope. Their joy, their contentedness, is a stark contrast to the sparse creosote bushes, diseased Joshua trees, and miles and miles of beige sand. Golden cottonwoods spring up near the wash. There’s an underappreciated beauty here, one the citizens take for granted more often than not, and one travelers seldom stop long enough to see.
The desert doesn’t make a strong first impression. A month ago, my wife and I drove into Hailey to visit her sister, Aida. A Denver native, I immediately noticed the lack of urban development. Where were the McDonalds? The shopping malls? The Target? A forty minute drive separated Hailey from the nearest town. Sparse buildings stood in disrepair, a good breeze away from collapsing like their fallen peers.
But the town has a history, an image that burned long and hot and, like an overused bulb, dimmed, flickered, and expired.
Originally, the town sprang up along the Mojave River south of mountains that, in 1898, George Hailey insisted were filled with gold. Confident prospectors sold their homes and moved in by the wagon-load. Hailey had lied. There was no gold, and only George Hailey found a fortune. He fled the town two years later, running from an angry, poverty-stricken mob with a noose. Years later, California and Nevada constructed Route 29, a major artery connecting Southern California to Las Vegas. The road breathed new life into a dying town. Investors built hotels, gas stations, general stores, homes, and hope.
The Bargain - One man stands between a destitute town and total destruction. Page 29