Equal Access (21 page)

Maybe it was Dad’s armadillo.

Dulsie wasn’t going to take the chance of
some unidentified varmint getting into the turkeys and wreaking
havoc. She slipped out of bed and opened the nightstand drawer to
grab a small headlamp and snap the elastic band around her head.
Then Dulsie reached under the bed and pulled out a footstool that
she carried to the bedroom door and set in front of it.

Dulsie stepped up on the footstool to grab
the .223 rifle perched on forked sticks nailed over the door.

If Shad, who was a light sleeper so he would
also get up, were here, he would pull on some pants and hold a
flashlight for her so Dulsie would have complete freedom to shoot
any treacherous predator. The headlamp would help if Dulsie needed
light, but it would limit her range of sight. At least the skies
were clear tonight and there was half a moon out, and her eyes were
already accustomed to the dark. Dulsie hoped to locate whatever was
agitating Sadie without having to depend too much on the
headlamp.

She pushed the stool aside with her right
foot and got a box of ammunition from a drawer in the nearby
dresser. Dulsie loaded three cartridges into the rifle. It was a
number she could load quickly and Dulsie knew from experience it
was all she needed: one to drop her target; one to be sure it was
dead; and one as back-up.

Dulsie stepped through the bedroom door and
padded quickly through the living room and kitchen. At the back
door she slipped on the flip-flop shoes she kept there, and then
quietly opened it. When she stepped out on the tiny porch, Dulsie
could see Sadie standing to the back and side of the house, between
it and the turkey pen. The dog’s white coat dimly glowed in the
faint moonlight, and she was staring directly toward their
driveway, which was at the front corner opposite Dulsie’s location
and therefore beyond her sight. Sadie glanced toward Dulsie, and
then barked a couple more times toward the road.

Dulsie started to step off the short stoop to
see if she could spot anything without using a light. No sooner did
both her feet hit the grassy ground than Sadie erupted into a
vicious snarl and charged forward.

A loud shot cracked to Dulsie’s right, and
from the corner of her eye she spied a flashpoint beyond the corner
of the house and near the road. Dulsie spun toward the disturbance
and felt herself squeezing the rifle trigger even as she heard
Sadie yelp in a pitiful wail.

Another shot echoed in her ears, but Dulsie
couldn’t remember seeing anything because at the same instant a
horrific explosion of pain shot from her left shoulder. Dulsie
staggered against the stoop. The excruciation seemed to course
through every fiber of her body. Her right hand was still grasping
the rifle but Dulsie’s left arm was dangling almost uselessly at
her side.

In her agony and confusion, one reality shot
to the surface of her mind: She needed to protect the baby. Dulsie
had to get herself under cover to keep her unborn child safe.

She lunged over the stoop and toward the
door. Dulsie had to drop the rifle so she could turn the knob with
her right hand because her left arm wasn’t working right. So she
kicked the gun into the house with her and slammed the door. Dulsie
engaged the deadbolt, grabbed the rifle, and staggered through the
kitchen. That was when she realized her gait was probably affected
by the fact Dulsie was becoming light headed.

She stumbled through the living room and into
the bedroom. Dulsie slammed the door shut by throwing herself
against it, and dropping the rifle again, turned the lock on the
knob.

She dropped to her knees beside the bed. Was
she safe yet? Dulsie looked up, and in the dark bedroom determined
that the air conditioner was blocking the window on the wall at the
foot of the bed. If she stayed low beside the bed, Dulsie would be
blocked from the window on the other side of the room.

She felt soaked and was trembling. Dulsie
could feel her head growing even lighter, and the waves of pain
were causing her to feel queasy.

Dear God, she couldn’t pass out and choke on
her own vomit. She needed help.

Luckily her side of the bed was closer to the
door, so Dulsie could easily snatch her cell phone from the
nightstand. As she pressed against the mattress and wedged her
throbbing shoulder into the space between the bed and the
nightstand, Dulsie realized the wetness covering her was too thick
to be sweat.

Call the sheriff.

No. There was no telling how long it would
take for the nearest deputy to drive out here to the house.

Call her parents.

No. Mom and Dad lived nearly twenty minutes
away.

Call Pax. Yes, Uncle Pax and Aunt Maddie
lived only ten minutes away. Surely that time was short enough.

Dulsie opened her phone and was grateful to
have their number on speed dial and she could actually remember
what it was. The room seemed to be swimming around her, and
Dulsie’s light headedness and nausea were increasing.

She held the phone to her ear and the
electronic ring Dulsie heard only seemed to increase her urgency to
hear Uncle Pax’s voice.

Therefore was the first man, Adam, created alone, to
teach us that whoever destroys a single life, the Bible considers
it as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a single
life, the Bible considers it as if he saved an entire world.

--Mishnah

The clanging jangle of the cradle phone on
their bedroom nightstand made Paxton awake with a start. As he
grabbed for the receiver without sitting up, Paxton glanced at the
alarm clock and saw that it was nearly one-thirty.

A phone call in the middle of the night
couldn’t be good. Trepidation already began fluttering in his
stomach as Paxton pressed the receiver to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Uncle Pax!” The gasping voice on the other
end of the line was panicked and breathless. “Call the sheriff! Get
over here! Somebody’s here with a gun! I’ve been shot!”

Paxton sat bolt upright. “Dulsie?”

“Please be careful! He’s got a gun! Get the
sheriff over here, but I need you!” Her voice seemed weaker.

“I’m coming right over!” Paxton scrambled out
of the bed and grabbed at his jeans and light brown shirt hanging
at the foot of it while the cord of the phone pulled taut. “Where
are you exactly?”

“Be careful! Please be careful....”

“What is it?” Maddie was wide awake and
already swinging one leg to the floor.

“Where are you?” Paxton didn’t like the way
Dulsie’s voice had trailed off. “Can you hear me? Dulsie, where are
you?
Dulsie
!” Paxton yelled into the phone as he began
pulling on his jeans with his free hand.

“What’s happening?” Maddie asked urgently as
she finished getting out of bed.

“Dulsie!”

When silence remained his only response,
Paxton slammed the receiver into its cradle.

“Call the sheriff!” He gasped to Maddie.
“Dulsie said there’s an intruder at the house with a gun. She’s
been shot.”

“My God!” Maddie scrambled across the bed to
grab for the phone.

Paxton shrugged on his shirt but didn’t
button it as he strode toward the bedroom door. “And tell the
sheriff not to shoot
me
when he gets there!”

“You can’t go by yourself!” Maddie froze in
the midst of dialing as she looked at him.

“I have to!” Paxton grabbed the rifle hanging
above the door.

“Let me call the sheriff and then I’ll –”

“
NO
!” Paxton thundered. “I need you to
stay here!” He darted out the bedroom, through the hall, and down
the stairs without looking back.

As he entered the kitchen and yanked open a
cabinet drawer to grab a box of ammunition, Paxton noticed a slight
trembling in his hands. He assumed it was caused by the terror that
flashed through him from the thought Maddie could get hurt – or
worse – if she came along. But Dulsie was already hurt. Paxton had
to pull himself together for her.

Where was Shad?

Paxton disregarded a few gun safety rules by
going ahead and loading the rifle before pulling on his boots and
running out to the pickup.

By disregarding a few traffic laws he made it
to Shad’s and Dulsie’s house in a very long five minutes.

He saw only their Buick at the house as
Paxton slowed the truck to pull into the driveway. He also saw
something white lying off to the other side of the house. Paxton
squinted at it as he drove past. The house was completely dark.

Paxton could feel his heart pounding in his
chest and hear the blood roaring in his ears as he braked the
pickup to a stop. He turned off the engine and took out the keys
but left the headlights on, and tightly gripped the rifle as he
stepped out of the truck.

So far, so good. Paxton wasn’t shot at
yet.

The headlights illuminated the front of the
house and their car parked to the side. As Paxton stalked to the
porch, fiercely trying to hear above his own heartbeat, he noticed
he couldn’t see their pickup.

Dulsie hadn’t mentioned Shad. Where was
Shad?

Paxton sidled up the steps of the porch and
cautiously slinked to the far end of it to peek around the corner
and see the other side of the house.

The white mound was still there. It looked
suspiciously like their dog. It looked suspiciously like the dog
was dead.

A chill crept through his bones.

Paxton scrambled to the other end of the
porch and peeked around that corner as well. This side was lit up
by the headlights, and he still saw nobody skulking around.

Paxton strode to their front door, and the
storm door readily opened. The entry door was locked.

He fished out the keys he had dropped in his
pocket and found the spare that Shad had given him to this door.
Paxton unlocked it and stepped into a dark room.

He immediately turned on the light. Paxton
wasn’t about to make himself into a lovely backlit target for some
lowlife that might be hiding in the corner. There was no intruder
lurking about, but what Paxton did see made him gasp in horror.

Smudges and drops of blood stained the floor
from the kitchen through the living room, and ended at the closed
bedroom door.

Paxton strode toward it, and as his heart
managed to beat even harder he called out.

“Dulsie?”

She didn’t respond. Nobody shot him.

Paxton grasped the doorknob. It was
locked.

Still grasping the rifle in one hand, Paxton
took a couple of steps back into the short hallway. He lunged
forward and kicked the door with all his strength just below the
knob.

The door jamb splintered, and with a second
kick Paxton stumbled into the room.

Dulsie was right in front of him. She was
collapsed on the floor, next to the bed, a varmint rifle in front
of her and the cell phone near her limp hand. Most of her torso was
covered in blood, and blood stained the bed and floor around
her.

“Dulsie!”

Paxton never liked hospitals. He became less
fond of them during the time he actually had to stay in one to get
his tumor removed. They were dreary and somber in spite of trying
to decorate themselves in cheerful colors. And at three o’clock in
the morning hospitals were even worse.

He, Maddie, Jill and Karl were the only ones
in the waiting room. Dulsie was still in surgery, and all they knew
at this point, besides the fact Dulsie was still alive, was the
surgical team was making sure they removed all the fragments of the
bullet.

Nobody felt like sitting. All of them were
roaming around the room and keeping a lookout for a nurse who might
have some news for them. Paxton knew that Maddie was as
particularly agitated as he was.

Where was Shad?

Paxton was wearing a different pair of jeans
and a dark blue shirt. His other clothes became bloodied when he
held Dulsie in his arms and tried to stop the bleeding. Luckily the
ambulance arrived on the heels of the deputy, and Dulsie was
quickly transported to the hospital.

Paxton answered what questions he could, then
hurried home to inform Maddie and change clothes. Maddie had
already called Jill and Karl, and when she discovered Shad was
missing, she called his cell phone. But her call went directly to
voice mail.

Paxton and Maddie had arrived at the hospital
shortly after Jill and Karl.

They both wanted to hear everything Paxton
knew, and the more Paxton told his story, the more frustrated he
became at knowing so little. When he informed them that Shad was
missing, Karl looked stunned and Jill looked, well, angry.

The nurses were remaining scarce, and once
the family members ran out of questions that still didn’t have any
answers, nobody seemed very inclined to talk for a while.

Karl was the first to finally break the
silence. “I’ve just realized I haven’t thanked you yet, Pax.”

Paxton shrugged. “We’ve all got a lot going
on.”

“But I really appreciate what you did. If it
hadn’t been for you....” Karl seemed to become at a loss for words,
which wasn’t usually like him.

“Yes.” Jill spoke almost absent-mindedly
while she gazed down the hallway from the entrance of the waiting
room. “Thank you.”

Karl’s tone took on a slight growl. “And
thank God we live in a country where not only the outlaws get to
have guns.”

Jill glanced over at her husband. “We don’t
know if Dulsie ever actually fired that rifle.”

“There were only two shots loaded in it.”
Karl had also had a little talk with the deputy. “Dulsie always put
in three. One way or another the scumbag found out she had a gun,
too. You know the reason he left was because he didn’t want a
showdown with Deadeye Dulsie.”

“Maybe she didn’t have time to load her usual
three.” Jill sounded contemplative. “Maybe the scumbag left because
he already knew what a good shot she is and he realized she’d
gotten that rifle.”