Last Call for the Living (26 page)

A towering sign indicated where the Walmart was.

“I need a first-aid kit,” he said, admitted, and it was then Hicklin realized he was still holding his breath.

*   *   *

He handed Charlie
a hundred-dollar bill and nodded to the duffel bag in the backseat.

“Go on change that shirt. Put them sneakers on. Can't go in there looking the way you do.”

“You're not going with me?” Charlie said.

“I can't.”

Hicklin looked away. There were more than a dozen cars and RVs parked in the lot. A few people trickled out through brightly lit sliding glass doors, pushing shopping carts or carrying grocery bags. Hicklin knew the tremendous risk he faced by letting Charlie go in by himself. He shifted in his seat, felt the pain of a hundred sharp teeth chomping on his shoulder blade.

“I don't know if I can do it,” Charlie said.

“I trust you'll do whatever your heart tells you. Now go on … and keep your head down in there.”

He kept the engine running, watching Charlie limp across the parking lot. Hicklin relaxed against the headrest. A weak hand found the grip of the .45. His stamina depleted, he tried to keep his eyes open, but it was no use.

And Hicklin for once was scared. He had a vision of a parallel life, one where he took Charlie to Little League or showed him how to dress a deer. Hicklin saw himself in a house on a quiet street, looking out the window at Charlie while he played with friends in a modest front yard. The aroma of a sumptuous meal wafting from the kitchen. A hand on Hicklin's shoulder, Lucy's maybe, but when he looked up her face was blurred as if it'd been wrapped in Visqueen. He couldn't summon the details. Then in the dream a megaphone voice barked commands. Police sirens wailed in the distance. He seized from a terrible pain, as if someone had taken a can opener to his rib cage, only to watch as Lucy pulled a steak knife from his back, showed it to him. His blood running the length of the blade, down to the handle, across the knuckles of her pale, fragile-looking hand. Looking at her, he somehow understood her intentions.

Hicklin smiled.

Then he tilted his head back and let Lucy run the blade across his Adam's apple.

*   *   *

Charlie turned right
toward the men's room. No one so much as looked in his direction. There were two checkout lanes open. An overnight crew busy pulling pallet after pallet of plastic-wrapped goods out onto the floor. He splashed water on his face, washed his hands, wiped his neck and behind his ears with a paper towel. He looked as though he'd been mistakenly buried alive. Despite the clean white T-shirt, it would have been hard for someone not to notice his filthy slacks or sour odor.

He grabbed a shopping cart and made for the clothing first. Socks, boxer shorts, a pair of khaki work pants, a three-pack of undershirts. He heard two college-aged girls drunkenly giggle behind him, but Charlie didn't pay them any attention. Near the pharmacy he found the first-aid kits, gauze and bandages. Tweezers. Peroxide. A big bottle of Advil. Then he grabbed some much-needed toiletries. Deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrushes.

He pushed the cart across the store to the grocery aisles. Bread, sandwich meat, bottled water, potato chips. Charlie didn't waste time, but the thrill was there … as if he and Hicklin were on an adventure, on the run together like outlaws. He could have escaped by now, called the police and by sunrise been sleeping in his own bed again. But ever since attacking Lipscomb, Charlie had felt a charge like no other.

Maybe the way we are now's the way it's supposed to be?

He was one of three people in line. A young black girl, seven months pregnant and counting the minutes till her shift ended, gave Charlie a cursory glance, sniffled, then ran all his items across the scanner. She checked the hundred-dollar bill with a counterfeit pen and handed him his change without a word.

In forty-eight hours she'd see Charlie's face on television.

And the flicker of recognition would almost induce labor.

*   *   *

Hicklin heard a
knock on the passenger side window. He opened his eyes and saw Charlie standing beside the pickup with the shopping cart. Hicklin's throat tightened. After a moment he leaned over and opened the door. The pain had subsided temporarily, but he knew it would return. Charlie hurried, loading all the shopping bags into the backseat of the truck.

“Just leave the cart there,” Hicklin muttered.

Charlie got in. Hicklin put the pickup in gear.

“Why are you crying?” Charlie said.

“I ain't.”

But a tear had squeezed from the corner of an eye. Hicklin wiped his cheek, surprised when his fingers came away wet. He didn't say anything and neither did Charlie. They got back on the interstate and drove south until a sign for a cheap motel caught Hicklin's attention.

It was well after midnight. A light rain began to fall. The motor lodge was poorly lit, the lot mostly empty. Hicklin noticed they could park behind the long row of rooms and out of sight. He gave Charlie cash to pay for three nights, not sure if they'd even be staying more than six hours. As the boy walked away, Hicklin waited with the engine running. A hand on the .45 tucked under his right leg.

And he closed his eyes again and held his breath against the pain.

 

And the flowers died, on the northbound side.

And I could care less.

This branded man's headed west.

 

TWELVE

Hicklin sat naked
at the edge of the bathtub, watching the warm water mingle with his own blood. He'd never felt so vulnerable in his life, not even when he was forced to strip for some screw. But he really didn't have a choice.

“I just can't get it. It's too deep.”

Charlie was attempting to extract the bullet from Hicklin's back. He needled and gouged with a pair of tweezers, the black hole near Hicklin's shoulder blade oozing blood like a stopped-up garden hose. Hicklin wore a sustained grimace on his face. He reached with his good arm for the can of beer resting on the rim of the tub.

“I don't think I can do it. So close, but … I'm sorry,” Charlie said, unable to hide the disappointment in his voice.

After another particularly painful minute of digging with the tweezers, Hicklin realized Charlie was probably doing more harm than good.

“You tried, Charlie,” he said. “All you can do. Go on clean it real good and hand me that bottle of Advil.”

Hicklin turned the bottle up. Five or six little flesh-colored pills dropped into his palm. He downed them with a High Life chaser and stretched his neck until something popped. He pivoted and winked at Charlie.

“Damn,” Charlie said.

He cleaned and dressed Hicklin's wound as best he could, his patient sipping beer, staring at the pink water swirling around his feet and down the drain. Finished, Charlie draped a towel over Hicklin's shoulders. Then Charlie took a step back, as if a sudden idea could have knocked him off-balance if he wasn't careful.

“You know I bet my mother could help you,” he said.

Hicklin didn't move, but his mood turned a shade darker.

“She's a nurse,” Charlie clarified. “She would know what to do.”

“Her name's Lucy? Lucy Colquitt?” Hicklin said.

They were silent for a while, both waiting to see who would speak first.

“So it's true? About you and my mother?”

“She sounds real familiar.” Hicklin let out a nervous laugh.

“So what are we supposed to do?”

Hicklin didn't answer. He gestured for Charlie to leave him alone.

He shaved. It took almost twenty minutes to get dressed, but Hicklin managed without asking for any more help. The boy had done enough as far as Hicklin was concerned. But the beer and pills could mask only so much. His right arm tingled and he couldn't stand straight up. Over the years he'd been punched and kicked and bitten, sliced and stabbed, gouged and choked.

This pain was different.

*   *   *

Charlie turned on
the showerhead, testing the water with his hand. Hot. Hotter. Hottest. He pulled off the soiled clothes and eased into the tub. The stream of warm water felt good. He sank to his knees. Sat Indian-style, a week's worth of sweat and crud washing off him.

There was a new toothbrush, paste, mouthwash and deodorant waiting for him on the bathroom counter. He used a third of the tube of toothpaste, brushing his teeth for nearly ten minutes.

He opened the door and found Hicklin sitting back against the headboard of one of the twin beds, smoking a cigarette, watching a muted television. A cable news ticker scrolled across the bottom of the screen. The Pope. An earthquake. A flood. The economy. The President. Hicklin opened a bag of chips and offered it to Charlie while he dressed.

“How you feel?” Hicklin said.

“Better. You shaved your mustache.”

Hicklin waved a hand, as if to ward off the reminder of his new look.

“Get you somethin' to eat,” he said. “I already made me a sandwich.”

*   *   *

It was midnight
when Sallie Crews arrived at the Church of the Holy Lamb.

A frantic scene outside. Bodies haphazardly lying on the ground, some newly dragged from the church, many in distress. Pockets of people comforting one another, tending to the wounded, restraining the hysterical.

Emergency lights lit the faces of the living and the dead. Agents and state troopers set up a perimeter. EMTs established triage. Crews left her vehicle and crossed over to Deputy Bower. She could tell Bower was badly shaken. A man bleeding behind one ear walked slowly past her as if she weren't there. He held a snake hook in one hand, a burlap sack in the other.

“Don't go in there,” Crews said sharply, and to Bower, “Have you seen Sheriff Lang?”

The deputy looked blankly at her.

“Bower?” she said again.

Bower turned to the church. “I ain't never seen nothin' like that.”

The man with the hook was just outside the door, silhouetted like a spectral exterminator. Light came through bullet holes in the front wall. Crews walked up to the threshold and looked inside. At least five dead bodies in the aisle leading to the altar. She asked the man in the doorway what happened. He didn't answer. His grip on the snake hook tensed. Crews inched forward, cautiously watching the wrangler.

He picked up a five-foot timber rattler and dropped it into the sack. The homely church smelled of blood and wholesale carnage. She heard someone moan. Lang was lying on his side beneath an overturned pew, a snake coiled against a knee. She heard those same warning sounds elsewhere in the church, the rattles like crickets in a pasture.

Can I get to him?

The wrangler methodically made his way through the church, stopping often to hook snakes, lifting them carelessly into the sack. At Crews' urgent request he coaxed the snake away from the Sheriff's body, pinching it behind the head.

Lang was in big trouble, breathing badly. He opened an eye for Crews.

She ran for help.

*   *   *

Hicklin made his
bones with the Brotherhood by killing an inmate to prove himself. Two weeks later he stared up at bedsprings, listening to his bunk mate. A folded newspaper was laid across the toilet. Two guards patrolled their tier, doing their counts with an old-fashioned hand clicker.

Hicklin heard them click off each cell in pairs. Then the cell door locked automatically. The guard in the central control booth had tucked them in for the night.

You did good, son, Preacher said.

Don't call me son.

I figure you to have no daddy. Breast-fed from a damn dog, did ye?

Hicklin locked his fingers behind his head.

You hear me? Preacher said.

I hear you.

The Brand started out west. Long time ago. But it's here. Right here between these walls. The hacks don't know the extent of it.

I think they do.

Nah, son. Trust me.

What do I do now?

Well, tomorrow we gonna play cards and lift.

I prefer chess.

Thinking man's game, Preacher said, chuckling. You're so sophisticated.

Anything to pass the time.

What you know about time, son?

One day. Then another. Another after that, Hicklin replied.

One hour. One minute. Ever live like that? I break my day into twenty-second blocks. A couple of breaths.

I don't follow.

Oh, you will. There's an art to it. Livin' minute to minute. I call it the increment rule.

Yeah?

Yeah. Start hearing different. Start seeing different. Living like that becomes a drug. You walk around in the goddamn zone all day, every day.

I like that.

So how'd it feel?

How'd what feel?

Don't be coy, Preacher said.

Stuck 'im in his ribs. I've had harder times filletin' a catfish. Dragged his body all around the damn floor to get the message across. My ten will be life soon as they find out.

They ain't gonna find out.

How you know that?

Didn't I tell you to trust me? We run this show. This is our playground.

I don't see how. Browns and blacks. Sheer numbers. The yard here it's like twenty to one.

But they all know.

Know what?

How goddamn sick and crazy we are. Five of us counts for plenty. And fear go a long ways, Preacher said.