“I told you twice, Evan. There ain’t gonna be a third time.”
“What the fuck—”
Carson grabbed Evan’s wrist. Evan wrenched his hand free and pushed his brother away. Carson lost his footing, stumbled backward, his right thigh colliding with the small table. Carson grabbed at it instinctively, but the table fell sideways with a crash. He ended up on his ass, looking up at his younger brother. It was the final ignominy.
“You have become such an asshole, Carson,” Evan said, and before Carson had a chance to say a word, Evan had stormed back into the house and slammed the door behind him.
Carson heard the engine of their father’s pickup gunning into life, selfsame pickup he’d been driving when he met on the road with Ralph Wyatt. Carson got to his feet and ran after his brother, caught a final glimpse of the truck as it passed the end of the driveway and reached the road. Evan was headed for Ector County Hospital and Rebecca Riggs, oblivious to the fact that just as his dalliance with her after the party had resulted in a life, so his reunion with her now would result in, not one, but two unnecessary deaths.
If God was at work, then he was a fiercely retributive God. Seemed that this was the way of things, and there was nothing that could be done to avert it.
By the time Henry Quinn came to in the emergency room at the County Hospital, it was all over Calvary that Sheriff Carson Riggs had gone crazy, was holed up in Roy Sperling’s house, that Sheriff’s Department people from both Sonora and Ozona were on the way, if not already there.
Clarence Ames showed up, took one look at Henry’s busted-up face, at the shocked and wan expression with which Evie returned his wordless gaze, and he took off again.
Doctors came and went. Someone told Evie that Henry needed X-rays, that his cheekbone might be broken, that there were signs of busted ribs, other things. There was some mention of internal bleeding, but no one seemed intent on doing anything to determine this one way or the other.
“What the fuck is happening?” Henry asked Evie. He lay on a gurney. She stood beside him, held his hand.
“Sheriff Riggs took off,” she said. “Apparently, he went over to Roy Sperling’s place. I don’t know what he’s doing there. I don’t understand any of this … I really don’t …”
For a moment it seemed as though she was set to cry, but she gathered herself together, her jawline resolute even as she finger-tipped tears from the corners of her eyes.
Henry started to get up.
“What the hell are you doing?” she asked.
“Getting up,” Henry said. “I ain’t lyin’ here waitin’ for him to come back and beat the shit out of me some more.”
“He’s not going to come back,” Evie said. “He’s over at Roy’s place—”
“Roy Sperling is one of the people who knows what’s really going on here,” Henry asked. “What if he went over there to kill him?”
Henry was on his feet, wincing and holding his side. Evie knew she wasn’t going to convince him to do anything other than exactly what he wanted to do. He’d proven his stubbornness plenty already.
She turned back toward the hallway as she heard a familiar voice. Her father was running down the corridor, head going left to right as he sought her out.
“Dad!” she hollered, and he came rushing, threw his arms around her.
“Jesus Christ Almighty,” he said. He took one look at Henry and visibly paled. “I heard Alvin Lang shot himself.”
“He did … Shot himself right in front of us,” Evie replied.
“And Riggs did this to you?”
Henry nodded, his eyes narrowing as the pain in his face reminded him of how hard Riggs had beaten him.
“And he’s where now?” Chandler asked.
“We heard he was over at Roy Sperling’s,” Evie said. “Henry thinks that Roy knows what’s really going on here and that Riggs might kill him.”
“This is unbelievable,” Chandler said. “This is just utterly beyond—”
A confusion of voices erupted from the far end of the hallway. Both Glenn and Evie turned. There were uniforms coming, three or four of them, and Glenn recognized the Ozona sheriff, Ross Hendricks, and a couple of his deputies, Al Hines and Jim Newell.
Hendricks saw Glenn Chandler, made a beeline for him.
“So, what the fuck is going on here, Glenn?” he said. He looked at Henry. “This the guy you told me about?”
Glenn Chandler nodded. “Henry Quinn, this is Ross Hendricks, Sheriff of Ozona.”
Henry grimaced, trying to smile. “Excuse me if I don’t get all excited about meetin’ another sheriff,” he said.
“So, what in God’s name has been going on here, boy?” Hendricks asked.
“Sheriff Riggs beat the hell out of him is what’s been goin’ on,” Evie said. “Lang shot himself, Riggs showed up, beat the hell out of Henry, and then took off. Last word was that he was over at Roy Sperling’s house, doin’ whatever the hell crazy shit he’s set his mind to doin’.”
“I crossed paths with Bob Arnold coming down from Sonora with a couple of his boys,” Hendricks said. “Said he was headed over there. Don’t know what the hell you done started, boy,” he said to Henry, “but you got two sheriffs and a half dozen deputies chasing Carson Riggs down. And Lang done killed himself. Lord Almighty—”
“He shot himself right in front of my kid,” Chandler said.
“Had my way, he woulda shot hisself a good long while back. Him and his father and his father before him. Assholes, the lot of them.”
“You have any idea what Riggs is into?” Chandler asked.
“Don’t know and don’t want to know,” Hendricks said. “Lesson learned from hard-won experience … If it don’t concern me, I don’t get concerned.”
“I want to get out there,” Henry said, and once again moved toward the corridor.
Both Hendricks and Chandler stepped up.
“Best stay right where you are,” Hendricks said. “You look like the sky fell on you. You don’t know what the hell you done broke or busted, son. Don’t make it worse.”
Henry smiled grimly. “What’s the worst he can do?”
“He can kill you,” Evie said. “Seems to me he’s lost his mind already. Lord knows what he’s capable of.”
“Son, seriously—” Hendricks started, but Henry interrupted him with, “Look, I been on this from the start. I gotta see this through one way or the other.”
“Seems like a foolish thing to be doin’,” Hendricks said. “But hey, I can’t stop you. You ain’t done nothin’ I can arrest you for.”
Henry moved, grabbed Evie’s arm, and she held him up. Chandler stepped in, took Henry under the shoulder, and Henry sort of moved awkwardly until he could lean against the wall.
“I’ll be okay,” he said. “I’m just a bit unsteady. Ribs hurt, face hurts, but I can walk.”
Hendricks motioned for one of his deputies. “Jim, go get the boy some painkillers. Anything. Half a dozen of something that won’t knock him out.”
The deputy complied, then met Hendricks, Chandler, Evie, and Henry outside as Henry was maneuvering himself into the back of Sheriff Hendricks’s car. Evie got into the back from the other side, Chandler fetching his own car and pulling up behind them.
Hendricks wound down the window and took a bottle of painkillers from Deputy Newell. He gave them to Evie, and she took a couple out for Henry. He crunched them dry, wincing at the taste.
“You and Al follow us,” Hendricks said. “Get Al to call ahead. Speak to Bob Arnold and find out what in God’s name is going on over there, will you?”
“Will do, Sheriff.”
The convoy rolled away, Hendricks up front, Chandler behind him, the two squads behind Chandler. It was no more than a half dozen miles out to Sperling’s place, but before they’d even made it halfway Al Hines patched through on the radio to say that Bob Arnold and one of his deputies, Maurice Whyte, were out in Roy Sperling’s front yard, and Carson Riggs was hollering at them from an upstairs window. Said he was gonna shoot Roy Sperling if someone didn’t get John Lang down there.
“John Lang?” Henry asked.
“Alvin’s pa,” Hendricks said. “Big shot in Texas Corrections, far as I recall. Hell, the whole family are a bunch of liars and thieves. Don’t give a damn what anyone says, Lieutenant Governor Chester Lang is about as straight as a sleeping rattler. If Carson Riggs is neck-deep with them, then there’s gonna be something awry going on, for sure.”
Evie leaned forward, her face between the front backrests. “Alvin said something about shame.” She looked back at Henry, holding on to his side as the car jolted and bounced on the uneven road. “You remember what he said?”
“Something about the past,” Henry replied. “Said it all comes back. Something about shame, and that only real shame was that he wouldn’t see Riggs’s face when it all fell apart. Something like that. I don’t remember exactly. I just remember the fucking gun he was waving at us …” Henry grimaced again, reached for the bottle of painkillers in Evie’s hand.
They hit the end of the street where Sperling’s house was. Sonora Sheriff’s Department cars were parked at angles in front of the house. Bystanders and onlookers huddled on the facing sidewalk.
“Goddamned circus already,” Hendricks said. “Haven’t these people got lives to be gettin’ on with?”
He drew to a halt thirty yards away. Chandler and the two deputies drew up behind him, and for a while it seemed as though no one was going to move.
Then Hendricks opened the driver’s side door and got out. Everyone followed suit, Chandler coming forward to help Henry up out of the back of the vehicle.
“Right,” Hendricks said, “let’s go see how deep a hole Carson Riggs has dug for himself and who else is gonna fall in.”
Evan Riggs’s voice was like some sort of air-raid warning, careening back and forth between the walls, echoing down the corridors as he charged through Ector County Hospital looking for her.
“Rebecaaaa! Rebeccaaa!”
People got out of the way, wondered if this was one of the crazies from upstairs gotten loose. The receptionist tried to stop him, but he pushed past her and took off on his own. She called the police, and hospital administration sent for three or four orderlies from the fourth floor with orders to detain the man before he did any real damage or disturbed too many people.
Evan was cornered on the second floor by a man called Richard Deacon. Ex-US Navy, came out of the war with a half dozen medals, insomnia, blinding headaches. He was not averse to a fight.
“I just want to see Rebecca Riggs,” Evan said.
“You gotta calm down, sir,” Deacon said.
“I am calm. I just want to see my sister-in-law.”
“You don’t seem too calm to me, sir. You gotta stop shoutin’, okay? You gotta stop runnin’ up and down these corridors. You are upsettin’ people, and that upsets me.”
Evan was breathing heavily, sweat running down the inside of his shirt. He felt light-headed.
“You know her? You know someone called Rebecca Riggs?” Evan asked.
There were other orderlies now, tough-looking, didn’t look like they’d have a problem getting him down on the ground and dragging him out of there.
“The pregnant girl?” Deacon asked. “The sheriff guy’s wife? She’s your sister-in-law?”
“Yes, that’s her,” Evan gasped. He felt as if he was going to puke right there. He leaned back against the wall, right there in the corner of the stairwell, and then he slid to the ground.
Deacon turned and waved back the small gathering of orderlies. It was okay. He could deal with this.
The crowd dissipated. The place started to resume its own order. The hum and murmur of routine traffic and voices.
“So, what’s the deal here, man?” Deacon asked. “What you doin’ here?”
“I came to see my sister-in-law,” Evan said. “I don’t even understand why she’s here.”
“Her husband … your brother, right?”
Evan nodded. “Yes, Carson. Sheriff Riggs. He’s my brother.”
“Well, she’s only been here a couple of weeks. Came in here all wound up and distressed. Don’t know details, you know? I just make sure these folk don’t do themselves any injury. Some of them are pretty wild.”
“Can I see her?” Evan asked, getting to his feet, holding on to the banister and pulling himself up.
“What’s your name?”
“Evan. Evan Riggs.”
“It ain’t visiting hours, Evan,” Deacon said. “You’re gonna have to cool off someplace and then come back when it’s visitin’ hours. This is a hospital. There are rules and regulations. You can’t just have anyone and everyone wanderin’ in and out of here like it’s—”
“I really need to see her,” Evan said. He looked at the name tag sewn across the pocket of Deacon’s scrubs.
“Richard, right? Richard Deacon.”
Deacon nodded.
“Well, Richard, I gotta see her. Somethin’ wrong is happening here. She shouldn’t be here, you know? There’s nothing wrong with her. She doesn’t belong in any psychiatric place—”
Deacon smiled sardonically. “I hear that every day, Evan, both from the visitors and the people they come to visit. It ain’t nothin’ to do with me. If they’re here, then they’ve been put here by family, and usually there’s a doctor behind that and a lawyer, too. Folks don’t wind up in here because someone takes a dislike to them. There’s a process, you know?”
“I need to see her, Richard … I really do.”
“I understand you, Evan, but I gotta abide by the rules and regulations myself. Visitin’ time is visitin’ time, and there ain’t nothin’ I can do to change that.”
Evan stood up straight. “I don’t want to cause any more trouble—”
Deacon smiled. “Believe me, you ain’t gonna cause me any trouble, Evan.”
“I reckon I can have a pretty good go.”
“You’re tellin’ me what I think you’re tellin’ me?”
“I am.”
“I can put you down real fast, my friend. Done it before. Will do it many times again, I’m sure.”
“You served?”
Deacon nodded. “I did. US Navy.”
“I did infantry,” Evan said. “Learned a few things. We get into this, then neither one of us is walking away undamaged.”
Deacon laughed. “I like you, man. You got a bad fuckin’ attitude, but I like you.”
“I like you, too, Richard, but if you don’t let me see Rebecca, then I am gonna give it my best shot and they’re gonna be stitchin’ up your face.”
“What happened here? You get up this mornin’ and decide to be the worst asshole you could be?”
Evan shook his head. “No, sir. I got up this morning and found out that my brother is the worst asshole he could be, and he’s put his wife here for some reason I do not understand. She is pregnant, and now I am getting scared. I need to see her, Richard, and I need to see her now, and we’re either gonna agree on that or we’re both gonna wind up in triage.”
“That’s really the way it’s gonna be?”
“It is.”
Deacon looked Evan up and down, shook his head resignedly. “Third floor,” he said. “But I’m comin’ with you.”
Rebecca looked at Evan as if they were dreaming different dreams. Her eyes seemed washed-out, almost devoid of life.
She lay in a bed in a room on the third floor of Ector County Hospital Psychiatric Facility, and when Evan appeared in the doorway, there was little enough recognition for him to even be aware that she knew who he was.
“Jesus Christ, what the hell … ?” he started, and Richard Deacon walked with him to the side of the bed and watched him as he sat down and took Rebecca’s hand.
He could so easily see that she was pregnant, and the fact that she was evidently drugged into some sort of mindless stupor concerned him, not only for her own well-being, but for the well-being of the child.
“What have they done to her?” Evan asked.
Deacon shrugged resignedly. “I don’t know. I’m no doctor. Like I said, I’m just here to make sure the really crazy ones don’t kill the less-crazy ones.”
“Does she have a doctor?”
“Sure she does.”
Rebecca smiled weakly. “Evan,” she whispered.
“Rebecca,” he replied. “Jesus, I am sorry … What happened here? What the hell is going on?”
“Get me out of here, Evan,” she said, and the way her gaze drifted toward the window made Evan feel as if she were halfway toward being a ghost.
“I am gonna get you out of here,” he said, and with that he turned and looked for someone to speak to, someone in charge, someone who could make a decision and let Evan take her home.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Deacon said. “She’s not goin’ anywhere, man. You can’t just take her out of here, and she sure as hell can’t discharge herself.”
“She’s coming with me, Richard. Now either you help me, or we’re gonna get into even more trouble.”
“Wait a minute now—” Deacon started, interrupted then by the sound of commotion and voices at the far end of the corridor.
“Ah, hell,” Deacon said, and walked to the door. He looked out and down the hallway, shook his head, turned back to Evan.
“We’re both in the crap now, my friend,” he said, and before the last word left his lips, a group of orderlies, doctors, and nurses appeared in the doorway. Following them was Carson, and he looked at Evan as if he had now brought all the anger and hatred the world had to offer along for the ride.
“Get the hell away from her,” Carson said. His voice was hard and bitter. “Get the hell away from my wife right now.”
One of the doctors put his hand on Evan’s shoulder. “Sir, you need to get up off the bed. You need to step away from the patient—”
Evan shoved the man aside.
Deacon stepped up.
The doctor turned on him. “Get back, Deacon. You are on notice. You let this man up here.”
Another orderly tried to grab Evan, but Evan pushed him back into the doctor and the two of them lost their balance and fell against the wall.
Carson charged through the group and grabbed his brother. Before Evan had a chance to wrestle himself out of Carson’s grip, Carson had cuffed one hand and pulled Evan down to his knees. Carson was half a head taller, in better shape, and Evan was at a disadvantage. Before Evan knew what was happening, his hands were behind him, cuffed hard and fast, and Carson was standing over him.
Rebecca fought to sit upright. She possessed no strength, it seemed, and she just collapsed back to the mattress and started to cry.
“Carson … I’m so sorry … I never meant—”
Carson turned and glared at his wife. “Enough,” he said. “Not another word, Rebecca.”
The doctor was on his feet. “I need you all to leave,” he said. “I need this room cleared. This is outrageous. I cannot have this kind of commotion and noise—”
“We’re leaving,” Carson said. He pulled Evan to his feet and turned him toward the door.
“Evan!” Rebecca called after him. “Tell him how sorry I am … Tell him we never meant to hurt him …”
Carson turned on her once more. “Silence!” he shouted. “That is enough from you!”
“Evan!” she called again.
Evan looked back over his shoulder at her.
“I need you here … I need you to be with me, Evan. I want you to see our baby …”
The world stopped.
There was silence, as if throughout the entire building.
The doctor looked at Carson Riggs, his face now red and livid, his eyes wide with hatred. Carsone pushed Evan aside and rushed to the side of the bed.
Rebecca barely had time to raise her hand in self-defense before Carson rained punches down on her like a whirlwind.
It was Deacon who dragged Carson Riggs back, but by that time it seemed that the place was bedlam once more.
Rebecca was screaming for Evan, Evan screaming at his brother, Carson hollering abuse at his wife, how she was a bitch, a good-for-nothing tramp, a whore.
Orderlies were tasked with getting everyone but the staff out of the room and out of the building, and they did so. It was a running battle through and out of the front doors, and before either of them really understood what had happened, Carson and Evan Riggs were standing face-to-face on the driveway of the hospital, Evan still cuffed, Carson holding a gun in his hand, the expression on his face as if he possessed every intention of using it.
“You are going back to Austin,” Carson said, his voice measured and certain.
“You can go fuck yourself, Carson. What the hell are you doing? What the fuck—”
Carson raised the gun and pointed it directly at Evan’s face. “You, my little brother, are going back to Austin. I am even going to take you there. You will not come back here again. You will not see Rebecca again. You will never speak to me, and you will never speak to Ma.”
“You can go fuck yourself, Carson … You are fucking crazy. You can’t make me go. You can’t fucking make me do anything …”
Carson swung the gun sideways. It connected with Evan’s right cheek and sent him to the ground.
Carson stood over him, brandishing the sidearm, every word from his lips like a bullet.
“You fucked her. You fucked her the night before she agreed to marry me. You are not my brother. You are not my blood. You betrayed me. You betrayed Ma and Pa. You are nothing to me.”
Carson stepped back and let fly with a harsh kick to Evan’s ribs. Evan howled in pain, turned onto his side, and pulled his knees up to his chest.
Carson got down on his haunches beside his younger brother and pushed the barrel of the gun beneath Evan’s chin.
“I should shoot you right now. To me, you are dead already anyway. You’re going back to Austin. I am taking you, and you’re going back now. You will never come back. That is the way it is going to be.”
Evan tried to push back against his older brother, but Carson just jabbed the gun hard into Evan’s face. His cheek now cut, the blood ran down the side of his nose and Evan could taste it on his lips.
“Not another fucking word, Evan,” Carson said.
“You cannot—” Evan started, but Carson shook his head, raised the gun, and brought it down on the side of Evan’s head with such force that the lights went out completely. No one intervened when they saw Calvary’s sheriff dragging an unconscious man to the black-and-white parked just a few yards away. He was the law, after all, and when it came to the law it was wise not to get involved.
Evan Riggs was arrested in Austin at approximately eleven that night. He was found slumped in a doorway by a beat patrol. Not only was his face bruised and swollen, but his clothes were ripped, stained with blood, and he was rank with stale liquor.
Seventeenth Precinct house took him, threw him in the tank, and called a doctor. Despite the stench of liquor, it appeared that he had not been drinking. He was dazed and confused, said something about his brother, that there was a girl in trouble, but little of that made sense. They held him, the doctor recommending he get a psych eval before they let him out.
In the morning they let him go. Seemed whoever might have been interested in determining the mental state of Evan Riggs was no longer interested. To the duty sergeant, he was just another of the many dozens of drunks who dragged their sorry stink in and out of the precinct house on a routine basis.
Evan Riggs walked a block and a half and found a bar. He was drunk before noon. By three he was haunting regular spots, arguing with folk he had no business arguing with, deep in a well of despair and self-loathing. It was a place he’d been before, knew it well, though this time there was more than enough reason for him to be there. He understood that Rebecca was pregnant. He also understood that he was the father of this soon-to-be child, and yet she was not only married to his brother but now locked up in the psych ward at Ector County Hospital. Carson was right. He had betrayed his brother, his folks, his own integrity, and he was an asshole of the first order. He drank more. Seemed the only solution.
By five, Evan Riggs was through and out the other side of the depression. He was angry, bitter, the shame and ignominy he felt for what he’d done somehow turning back upon itself. Carson deserved everything that had happened to him. Carson never really loved Rebecca; he just wanted her as some kind of trophy. Carson didn’t know what it meant to feel what Evan felt. Carson was the bad guy here, not because of what he’d done, but because of what he’d failed to do.