Cutter and Bone (38 page)

Bone talked the girl into leaving the hospital then, and they checked into a nearby motel. She asked about the way he kept holding his back and he told her he had been in a fight at the jail and had fallen against a table. She ran a tub of water for him then and even helped him into it. He was not sure what would be better for his back—hot water or ice packs—but he knew that the heat felt good and he settled for it, for almost an hour. And all that time Monk held forth on the profound new depth her relationship with Cutter had reached. Her coming to Missouri with them had been preordained, she said. The gods or stars or whatever had known Alex would be needing her eventually and so had forced her to come along, against her will really. For she hadn’t wanted to come, had never done anything like this before, yet here she was, right when he needed her most. Alone she was nothing, a zero, always had been and always would be. But not as part of Alex, his lover or gopher or doormat, she didn’t care what her role was, as long as it was what Alex wanted. Because he was a very special human being—Bone could see that, couldn’t he? Had he ever known anyone like Alex before, anyone who could talk the way he could, anyone who behaved the way he did, anyone with
that look
of his, that special look that said he knew it all and had seen it all, felt it all? And he would be well again, be himself again, Monk knew that, did not question it any more than that the sun would rise in the morning. Simply because he was Alex, because he was he.

Bone kept nodding and yawning. And finally, ready for bed, he kissed her on the forehead and said goodnight. But he did not sleep. For a long time he lay there in the dark thinking about all that had happened that day, and he found it incredible that he still was not sure that Wolfe was guilty. He had seen the man in the flesh and no bells had rung, no lights had dawned. And yet, if the man was innocent, then he certainly had overreacted to Cutter’s charges, having a deputy bring Bone out to the farm and letting his lured hands beat him and grill him the way they had. If Wolfe’s only worry had been a nuisance blackmail attempt, why would he have gone to such lengths to stop it, outside the law?

On the other hand, if he
was
guilty, then why had he let Bone go? Billy had not been acting on his own—Bone did not believe that for a moment. Wolfe undoubtedly had heard what Cutter said at the parade. And he had learned that Bone was with Cutter, had traveled all the way from Santa Barbara with him, and therefore was probably his partner in crime. Yet they had let him go.

So Bone could only conclude that Wolfe was either innocent or the next best thing, a noncriminal at heart, a muddler like most people, like Bone himself, and in letting him go had opted for inaction and uncertainty rather than undertake a cold-blooded execution. Either way, Bone considered the matter over and done. He was safe. He was out of it. And Cutter too—but out of it in a way Bone did not want to think about now, not tonight. Tomorrow would be soon enough for that.

In the morning, stiff and sore, he returned with Monk to the hospital. And they had to wait till almost noon before a doctor finally saw them, a doctor who turned out to be the long-awaited psychiatrist, though in the flesh he could have passed more easily for a Los Angeles used car salesman, snapping his gum and glad-handing them, giving them a big Sears grin to match his computer-coordinated red and white print shirt with red tie and slacks, white belt and white shoes. Doc Wheelright, he called himself. And if they were expecting a lot of psychoanalytic jargon, then they’d come to the wrong store.

It was kinda hard to tell about their friend. He was still in a depressed state, that was for sure, but it was too early yet to say whether what he had was a genuine psychotic depressive reaction or just some sorta blue funk. Their friend had this weird kinda light in his eye—a kind the Doc had seen before, plenty of times—and it usually meant the patient was playing games of one kind or another. Which didn’t mean the boy wasn’t sick—oh, he was that, all right, no doubt about it. The doc had called L.A. for Cutter’s VA record and judging by it and what the girl here had told Doctor Ramsey last night, well it was obvious the boy needed to spend some time off the streets, safe from society. And quite often that’s all these things were, breakdowns like this—a kid knows he’s had it, knows he’s sick, and so kinda lets it all go, kinda commits himself to the hospital by his own hand. Sort of a
soldier, heal thyself
situation, if they knew what he meant.

The doctor paused at that point to grin and reflect on the phenomenon of his verbal felicity, then he got down to the business side of the case. This VA hospital did not have a psycho ward—he himself worked for the university, was here only in a consultancy capacity—so Cutter would have to be transferred soon, either to Little Rock or back to the coast, depending on family, finances, and so forth. Bone told the doctor that there was no family left but that a Santa Barbara businessman, a Mr. George Swanson, came closest to filling the bill. Bone himself was not in the most secure or affluent time of his life and—here he tried, and failed, to think of Monk’s real name—
she
was still in college. So the nearest source of moral and financial support, outside the VA, would be back in California. Wheelright, writing all this down, said that he imagined that was where they would probably transfer Cutter then, send him back with an orderly.

“And me,” Monk put in. “I go with him, wherever he goes.”

Wheelright nodded agreeably. “That’s fine—if you pay your way, of course. And if I don’t find out in the meantime you’re part of the patient’s problem.”

“She’s not,” Bone said.

Bone had a hard time convincing the doctor to let him see Cutter that same day, before he started for the coast. And even then Wheelright said that he would have to accompany him.

“I don’t want that sick boy gettin’ any sicker,” he said.

On the way, as they went past all the rooms, all the men on crutches and in wheelchairs and lying lost and broken in their beds, Bone began to feel more keenly than before the enormity of Cutter’s breakdown. He had lied to Billy about the electrotherapy—Cutter had never been that sick before—but now, following the doctor down these long waxed corridors of pain and despair, he had to wonder if it would not come to that, if in the end they would not wire Cutter up and burn away his mind and spirit, quench his antic flame with their cold fire. The more he thought about it, the more unendurable it became. And by the time he reached Cutter’s room he was not even sure he could speak. He felt as if he were strangling. His eyes burned with a terrible dryness.

The room had three beds and an orderly in attendance, a short husky black youth who told Wheelright that the new patient was conscious now and fairly relaxed, not fighting the sheet at all. The doctor nodded and Bone followed him to the corner bed, situated behind a white plastic curtain. In it Cutter lay on his back, motionless and slight. And only as Bone drew close did he understand why Alex might have fought his sheet, that it was in fact a restraining blanket, a heavy canvas cover strapped down. His expression was indeed relaxed, even serene. But his eye looked dead to Bone, that eye where the doctor had detected a “weird kinda light.” Dull and drug-glazed, it flicked briefly at Bone and then resumed its blank gaze at the ceiling.

“Only a few seconds now,” the doctor cautioned.

Bone nodded, still staring down at Cutter, hoping he would look back at him again.

“Hey, old-timer,” Bone said. “What’s the big idea?” And he tried to smile as he said this, knowing it was ridiculous, as ridiculous as his words. But he did not know how else to do it, how to talk to this unknown being lying before him. He remembered the last strange words Cutter had uttered, at the carnival, that
they
had come for him, finally come for him, and Bone wondered if he might reach him there, help him to understand that
they
did not exist, were only men, that was all, little men caught in little webs.

“I went to see Wolfe,” he said. “I talked with him. He wasn’t the one, Alex. He didn’t have anything to do with the girl, or the fire.” He wanted to add that Wolfe had not set the claymores in Vietnam either, or raised the sea at Point Conception. But Cutter would not have heard him, any more than he had heard the first part.

“Okay, I think that’s enough,” the doctor said. “You can see how he is.”

And now Bone could not keep it out of his eyes any longer. As they filled he reached down and touched Cutter, squeezed his shoulder.

“You find your way back,” he got out. “You hear me, kid? You come back to us. We need you.”

But the doctor was already gently pulling Bone away. He led him back across the room and out into the corridor.

“Now, don’t you give up,” he said. “That’s why I didn’t want you to see him yet. The first day like this, you just can’t tell. But a couple days from now, why he could just snap right back. You never know.”

Bone nodded, grateful. It was something.

That afternoon, he found a room for Monk. He helped her move her things in, gave her two hundred of the four hundred fifty dollars he had left, then he kissed her goodbye. She cried a little and said she loved him, loved him almost as much as she did Cutter. And Bone grinned.

“I’ll settle for that,” he said. “Any day.”

After he left her, he drove into a service station and called George Swanson collect in Santa Barbara, reaching him at his real estate office. He briefly told him about Cutter’s breakdown and that the VA would probably be sending him back to the coast soon. Bone gave him the telephone numbers of the hospital and of Monk’s rooming-house, and he told him how devoted she was to Cutter and that it would be a good idea to stay in touch with her, that she would be able to keep him informed on Cutter’s condition and when he would be returned to the coast. As for himself, Bone said he was going to leave that afternoon and would have George’s car back to him within a week. He tried to tell him about the money then, how much was left and who had it, but George said he didn’t care about it, that the important thing was that Cutter was still among the living and would be getting the help he needed, thanks to Bone.

Bone wanted to hang up then but George asked if he could tell him now what the trip had been about, why Cutter had wanted to go to the Ozarks.

“A wild goose chase,” Bone said.

“What goose?”

Bone told him, explaining about the picture of Wolfe in the newspaper.

And George whistled.
“The
J. J. Wolfe?”

“The same.”

“Well, how’d it turn out—was he the man you saw?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“Well, put it this way,” Bone said. “If you never see Alex or me again—if we wind up in a ditch somewhere—then yeah, I guess Wolfe was the man.”

For a few moments there was no sound at the other end of the line. When George spoke again his voice was thin, frightened. “Are you serious?”

Bone tried a laugh. “I hope not,” he said.

After he hung up, he pulled the car around to the gas pumps and had it filled. He had the oil and water and tires checked. At the store down the street he bought a blanket, some packages of dried fruit and nuts, and a canteen he filled with water at a roadside fountain. Then he drove out of town, heading west. And he liked the feeling, putting the Ozarks behind him, this country of Billy and Junior and J. J. Wolfe, with their easy smiles and easier brutalities. And somehow, now, in daylight, leaving, the whole Wolfe affair suddenly seemed unimportant. Deep down Bone believed the man was guilty, yes, but of an accident more than murder, some unfortunate stew of lust and alcohol, youth and age, mindless swinging California and the dark rages of the hill country. Bone believed it. But he did not really care. He was glad to be putting it all behind him. He only wished he could have done the same with Cutter.

He would take the long way home, he decided, the northern route up into Colorado and Wyoming and down through Utah and Nevada to San Francisco, then down the coast to Santa Barbara. He would drive alone. He would sleep in the car at night and during the day he would eat only the food he had brought with him and he would talk to no one. And maybe then he would begin to deal with it, the pain, the sense of loss, the knowledge that they were all gone, Mo and the baby, and now Cutter too, gone in his own way.

Back in Santa Barbara he would clean up his affairs. He would settle with Swanson how much he owed him and how he would pay it back, and then he would hitchhike down the coast to San Diego or Oceanside or one of the smaller beach towns and get some half-assed job to keep him in food and cigarettes. In time he would have a few friends. He would find a congenial bar somewhere, a place to talk and drink. And he would run on the beach. He would have an occasional girl and give his body sweet peace for a night or two. But that would be all. The friends and the girls, he would not let them into his life, not as he had Mo and Cutter. He would not love them.

Within an hour he had crossed the state line into Oklahoma and was heading north on a country blacktop when he noticed the pickup truck in his rearview mirror. It was a late model, black, and seemed to be holding at about three hundred feet in back of him. To test it, he increased his speed to seventy but the pickup did not fall behind. And he began to feel a first faint breath of alarm. He accelerated even more for a few seconds and then thought better of it, slowing the car instead, easing it down to forty-five to see if the truck would do the same. But it did not. It rapidly came up behind him and pulled out to pass.

Relieved, Bone pushed in the car lighter and started to get a cigarette out of his pocket. At the same time he glanced out the window at the pickup as it was moving past and he saw two men in it, the driver mostly in silhouette, a squat, large-headed figure staring straight ahead, while the man next to him, his cool bull-rider eyes hidden behind sunglasses, swung a shotgun out of the window and held it there for just a moment before firing, just long enough for Bone to know.