Wounded (18 page)

“You know this is going to go on your permanent record,” the redhead said.

I smiled and nodded.

The small man stood up and away from the table. I gestured for him to have a seat.

“Are you going to put your gun down and tie me up now?” he asked.

“I think I’ll just let you sit for a while. So, have you men seen my friend? He’s about twenty, brown hair. A white guy.”

“Haven’t seen him,” red said.

“Are you sure? I ask because I believe this watch on the counter is his.”

“My mother gave me that watch,” the little man said.

“That’s a lie,” I said. “We all know you didn’t have a mother.”

“I think you should put that rifle down and tie me up,” the weasel said.

“Yeah,” said the man I’d met outside.

“Where is my friend?” I asked.

“Fuck you,” from the redhead. “I ain’t telling you shit.”

“Your friend is a fucking pussy,” the weasel said. “He didn’t even fight back. ‘Please don’t hurt me, please don’t hurt me.’ Fucking faggot. At least the other faggot fought.”

I was lost in anger. But I knew now that they had, in fact, taken David. I didn’t know if he was alive or dead and I was sick about it. I didn’t know what to do next, what to say it, how to say it. I’d exhausted my tough-guy act.

Gus entered the cabin.

“Fuck me,” the redhead said. “What is this? Nigger heaven?”

What happened next was and still is a blur. I recall a flash and a loud pop and the red beard expanding and breaking, the chair falling over, the weasel sliding across the floor to the wall and Gus, standing there, a.45 in his hand.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” the remaining tied-up man kept saying.

“Nephew,” Gus said, “tape that piece of shit to a chair.”

I grabbed the weasel by his hair and pulled him to a chair, started wrapping him up. I was slowly coming to my senses, understanding what had just happened. “You killed him,” I said.

“It would seem so,” Gus said.

The little man still hadn’t said anything while his friend kept saying
fuck
.

“You killed him, Gus,” I said again.

“I’ve got two left,” the old man said.

At first I thought he was talking about bullets, but I then realized he meant the men. Gus’s face was tired, hard.

Gus pointed his pistol at the weasel’s face. “Where is David?” he asked. “You’ll tell me or I’ll shoot you. Then I’ll point the gun at your buddy. Where is David?”

“He’s up the canyon,” the man said.

“Alive?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Where up the canyon?” I asked, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the dead man, his face flattened in his own blood.

“There’s a trail just after the creek that leads to a hole in a big rock. I think somebody blasted out a place to keep supplies or something. He’s in there.”

“He’d better be,” Gus said. “If my nephew comes back here alone, I’m going to shoot you. Do you understand?”

“That’s where he is.”

I looked at Gus. He blew out a breath, then leaned against the wall. He was sick.

“Go,” he said.

“How far away is the trail?”

“A mile maybe. But he’s probably dead. Jesus, man, don’t shoot me.”

“Was he dead when you left him?” I asked.

“No.”

“He’d better not be dead,” Gus said.

“Where are the keys to that truck?” I asked the weasel.

“In the ignition.”

I ran out to the dually, climbed in and drove up the canyon, looking for the creek. I saw it, stopped, and walked back and forth looking for the trail. When I finally saw it, it was clear to see and I wondered if all of this was making me blind. I couldn’t believe that Gus had shot that man. Then I couldn’t believe that I had put myself in a place where I could have shot him. I didn’t know what was going to happen. How were we going to explain the death of a bound man?

I followed the trail across the frozen creek and, about a hundred yards in, saw the depression in the big rock. It opened like a cave, but was obviously the result of blasting. It got dark pretty quickly, but it wasn’t pitch. I didn’t have a light and so I moved slowly, letting my eyes adjust as I went.

My foot hit something. Not a rock. It was a body. I didn’t think, I just grabbed the legs and dragged the body to the opening and the light. It was David and he was beaten badly. His eyes were closed, his mouth pulp, but he was breathing. He was breathing. I untied his hands and feet. I talked to him, but I couldn’t tell if he could hear me. His arm was badly broken, bending off at a bizarre angle once untied and I tried to straighten it over his chest. He was bruised and bloody everywhere and I just knew he was bleeding inside. I started to cry. I didn’t know whether to leave him and get help or try to carry him to the truck. I couldn’t leave him, I decided. I simply couldn’t. If he was going to die, he wasn’t going to die alone. I dragged him as gently as I could back along the trail and across the ice to the truck. I struggled with his limp body and got him into the bed.

I drove back to the cabin and found Gus nearly asleep as he leaned against the wall. The men were still tied and Gus still held the pistol, but he looked bad.

“Gus, come on, I’ve got David in the truck.”

“You can’t leave us here,” the weasel said.

Neither Gus nor I responded to him or even looked his way. He was still shouting when we were outside.

Gus took control of the situation again. “Drive us back to the truck,” he said. “I’ll ride in the back with David.” He whistled as he observed the man. “They did a number on you, son.”

I drove us back to my truck.

Gus said, “Let’s put David in the cab. He can’t ride in the back. It’s just too cold.”

We gingerly moved David from the bed of the dually and over to the seat of my truck.

“Do you want to get in on this side or through the driver’s door?” I asked Gus and realized I was shaking.

Gus gave me a hard look and I felt the differences in our years and experiences. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Take David to the hospital. Tell the cops you found David anywhere but here or near here.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just do it. We don’t have time to argue.”

I got into the truck and looked at David, slumped over, his head almost to my thigh. He looked so bad I couldn’t believe it. I started the truck and made my way out of the canyon, holding him as still as possible with my right hand. I pulled the truck out onto the highway and picked up some speed. The blood matted in David’s hair was dark and angry.

At the emergency room, David was taken away from me and I called home and then the sheriff. I sat in a stiff plastic chair and waited. Bucky arrived within minutes, sat beside me.

“How is he?” the sheriff asked, pressing his back into the chair. I was actually impressed that that was his first question. I was expecting him to immediately want to know where I had found him.

“He’s in bad shape, Bucky.”

We sat for a few seconds.

“Want to tell me where you found him?”

I’d been constructing my lie all the way to the hospital. “Believe it or not he was lying in a ditch about ten miles west of town. Between here and my place. I wasn’t even looking yet and there he was.”

The sheriff blew out a breath, then bit at his thumbnail.

“He’s been beaten really badly.”

“Is he conscious?”

“He wasn’t,” I said. “I don’t know about now.”

There was a haze between us, but I sensed that he didn’t believe I was lying or somehow didn’t care. The latter made little sense to me.

We sat and waited.

“How is your uncle?” he asked.

“Okay, I guess.”

“I guess McCormack will be glad to hear David turned up,” Bucky said.

“David’s parents are driving here with Morgan,” I said.

He nodded.

We waded through some more silence.

“I hope he’s okay,” Bucky said.

“Me, too.”

“Alongside the road,” he said.

“In the ditch.”

Morgan, Sylvia, and Howard came through the doors just as the doctor came out to talk to me.

“The young man suffered massive internal injuries,” the doctor said.

“How is he?” Howard asked.

“The beating he took about his head.” The doctor paused. “There was a lot of trauma to the brain.”

I could see how upset the doctor was. She was not used to this sort of thing and I thought as I watched her that no one should be.

“He’s gone,” she said.

Sylvia crumpled and I caught her. Bucky backed away from the scene. I reached out and took Howard’s hand. Morgan was crying and we locked eyes. She whispered that she loved me, then looked away.

“I want to see him,” Sylvia said.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” the doctor said.

“She’s right,” I said.

“Who could do this?” Sylvia cried.

Sylvia and Howard sat in the plastic chairs and shared their grief.

“Where’s Gus?” Morgan asked.

“He’s around,” I said.

We all drove back to my house in Morgan’s car. Morgan put Sylvia to bed and Howard sat in the kitchen staring at a bottle of wine he refused to open. I kept wanting to leave and go back to find Gus, but I didn’t say anything. Morgan came into my study and closed the door.

“Where’s Gus?” she asked.

“Over by the reservation,” I said. “That’s where we found David. Gus killed a man today. I think he’s up there killing all of them.” I found it odd how easily those words came from my mouth.

“Oh, my god.”

“He told me to lie to the sheriff, but what sense does that make? I’ve got to go back up there. I should have gone from the hospital.”

Morgan was stunned. She didn’t know what to say and I didn’t know how to have it make any more sense for her. It made no sense to me.

A truck slid to a stop outside. Morgan and I got up and stepped out onto the porch. Gus was getting out of Elvis Monday’s pickup. Gus was unsteady and I ran over to support him. I glanced into the truck at Elvis, asking with my eyes just what was going on.

“How is the boy?” Elvis asked.

“He died,” I said.

Elvis looked straight ahead out his windshield. “I am sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s going on?” I asked, directly.

“Talking is over,” Gus said.

“This is the frontier, cowboy,” Elvis said. “Everyplace is the frontier. Take care of your uncle.”

I nodded and stepped away.

PERCIVAL EVERETT
is a Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California and the author of nineteen books, including
Erasure, God’s Country,
and
Glyph.
He lives in Los Angeles.