Rattlesnake (27 page)

“How long were you and Jesse together?”

“Until the accident.” Shane was quiet after that, and Jimmy wondered what it meant that even in his teens, Shane had held on tight to one man.

Shane stood. “Let’s go.” Without waiting for Jimmy to answer, he trekked across the clearing to the driveway. When they got back to the road, he turned left toward town. But before they got there, he made a right onto a narrow road that rolled past a few small houses and then climbed a gentle hill. Jimmy recognized where they were when they reached the top.

“The cemetery,” he said, surprised and slightly uneasy.

Not answering, Shane took him around to the main entrance gate and then inside. He didn’t stop until they reached George Murray’s gravestone. “You saw this already?”

“Yeah.”

“He lived this wild, dangerous life, but he lived to eighty-six and died in his sleep.”

“Lucky him.”

“I suppose.” Shane rubbed the stone absently. “Maybe he was just too stubborn to die young.”

“Runs in the family,” Jimmy said mildly, earning a weak smile.

Shane crouched awkwardly and took a few photos of George’s grave. When he stood, his eyes looked oddly vacant. He limped slowly to the edge of the cemetery and halted in front of a small marker made of polished black granite. He didn’t say anything, so Jimmy stood next to him and looked down.

JESSE JAMES POWELL

MAY 20, 1979—SEPTEMBER 8, 2005

IN GOD’S CARE

“His father paid for the stone and chose the inscription. I was in no shape to do it myself anyway.”

A part of Jimmy wanted to put an arm around Shane to give him comfort, but Shane stood so stiff and proud that he couldn’t do it. Maybe right now Shane needed to stand alone.

“We’d spent the day down in Fresno. We needed some stuff for the ranch, so me and Jesse volunteered to go. After we picked up the stuff, we went to a bar we knew. The Stockyard. The name always made us laugh. It wasn’t… it wasn’t much of place, but it wasn’t Rattlesnake. And we could dance together. Which is what we did that night. I don’t remember if we had a good time, but we usually did. And I wasn’t dumb enough to drink. The cops said my blood alcohol level was zero.

“It wasn’t that late when we headed home. And my truck, it was a good one. Good tires and everything. But I was driving too fast. Maybe I was in a hurry to get home and get into Jesse’s pants. We shared a trailer at the ranch. Did I tell you that part already? Small but private.”

Jimmy didn’t want to hear what was coming next. Didn’t need to, really. He could easily guess the rest. But he wasn’t about to silence Shane now, so he stood and waited.

In a monotone totally unlike his usual voice, Shane finished his tale. “We weren’t far from home. I dunno. Maybe something distracted me. Jesse was a little buzzed, and he was always real funny when he drank. Maybe he said something to make me laugh. Anyway, I took the corner too fast, lost control on the gravel shoulder. Rolled the truck. Jesse died on impact. That’s what they told me, like maybe that would make me feel better. Maybe it does. I would’ve died too, if some tourists from Modesto hadn’t seen the wreck. One of them even got decent cell service, which was a miracle here in 2005. I didn’t die.”

For the first time since he’d begun his monologue, Shane looked at Jimmy. “I loved Jesse and I killed him. Lots of people… after, lots of people told me it wasn’t my fault. Just an accident, they said. But they’re liars. I was driving too fast, I lost control of the truck, and Jesse died. I killed him just as dead as if I’d put a bullet through his heart. I killed him just like old George killed thirteen of the men buried here.”

Jimmy didn’t tell him it wasn’t his fault, because it
was
. Shane had done something mildly stupid, something people did all the time. Hell, Jimmy had a lead foot that wouldn’t quit, and when his vehicles were capable of it, he often pushed them well past safe and legal limits. If he drove more often, he probably would have wrecked a bunch of cars by now, maybe killed himself. He’d come close more than once. But he hadn’t wrecked any cars, and he hadn’t killed anyone. Shane had.

Moving slightly closer, Jimmy briefly touched his shoulder. “When you kick yourself over this, is that the first kind of pain or the second?”

Shane blinked at him. “I don’t know. But you know what’s worse than the guilt? I robbed myself of our last few weeks together. It’s worse than not being able to say good-bye. I don’t know…. What if I was a jerk to him? I can be kinda pigheaded. He said so, a lot. And it used to drive him nuts how I left crap all over the place in the trailer. We used to fight about it. Or what if we had the best evening, the best sex, the best anything? What did he say to me? What movies did we watch and what did we eat and what….” His voice cracked.

That was enough. Jimmy moved around and gathered him into an embrace. Shane held on to him like a drowning man and sobbed into his neck, even though the camera dug unpleasantly into them both.

Any words of comfort would be meaningless—Jimmy knew that—and he had no experience uttering them anyway. He did the best he could, which was to let this strong man lean on someone else for a bit. Jimmy’s eyes remained dry, and he found himself thinking about Tom’s advice just before dying—fix things while you can, because eventually you’ll run out of time. Yeah, but Jimmy had nothing to fix.

Nobody could cry forever. The sobbing died out, but even then, Shane sagged in Jimmy’s arms. Finally, with a few sniffs, he dropped his arms and took a step back. “Sorry,” he muttered, rubbing his face with his sleeve.

“You’re going to have to get that shirt dry-cleaned.”

Shane’s lips almost twitched. “Good thing I got three more.”

“Yeah, except I’m pretty sure you got snot on this one too.”

This time Shane did smile, although his eyes still looked cloudy and faraway. “Thanks, man.”

“Thank you. For….”
Trusting me
. No, he couldn’t say that, because Shane shouldn’t trust him. “For sharing your story with me.”

“Let’s go back. I’m hungry.”

“Me too.”

More slowly and unevenly than usual, Shane walked toward the gate. Jimmy kept even at his side. When Shane stopped beside the grave of E. Foss, who’d died in 1927, Jimmy stopped too. He thought maybe Shane wanted to take a few more pictures or tell him another tale from Rattlesnake’s past. But then he realized that Shane wasn’t looking at the tombstone. Wasn’t looking anywhere in particular, in fact, because his eyes had rolled partially up into his head.

“Shane!”

Before Jimmy could grab him, Shane collapsed like a tree felled by an ax. He landed hard on one arm—Jimmy heard the sickening crack of bone. But that wasn’t nearly as horrible as the echoing thud Shane’s head made against the asphalt path or the unearthly screech that burst from Shane’s lungs.

“Oh God!” Jimmy fell to his knees and tried to help, but Shane’s legs kicked out and contracted and straightened again, tossing him onto his side. His arms extended stiffly in front of him, crossed just beneath the wrists, the hands clenched into fists. He began to jerk, his back bowing horribly and his head thunking against the ground while his legs kicked powerfully.

Completely at a loss about what to do, Jimmy managed to get his lap under Shane’s head to protect it. He looked frantically around, but nobody else was in sight, and it was unlikely anyone was within earshot. Still, he tried. “Hey!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Help! We need some help!”

Not surprisingly, nobody came running. The camera strap was twisted around Shane’s neck. With difficulty, Jimmy untangled it and pulled the camera off. It was broken, but that was the least of his worries. Shane’s spasms were so strong that Jimmy had trouble keeping him in place, and his right forearm was bent in an ugly way. His mouth gaped open, displaying bubbles of froth, and his eyes rolled wildly, but Jimmy didn’t think he was conscious. A large wet patch formed at his crotch. Jimmy smelled piss.

“Stop it stop it stop it stop—” Jimmy bit his tongue when he realized he was babbling. Praying? He didn’t know.

It felt like years, but was probably only a few minutes before Shane’s jerking slowed and then eventually stopped. His eyes were open but unfocused, and his body was limp. His breathing sounded okay, though. That was good, right? But his arm, that was
not
good. That nasty-looking red bump on his head was even less good. And the vacant look on his face was the worst of all.

Phone. Shane carried a cell phone in his pocket.

Jimmy reached into a wet pocket. God, let it not be broken. Let it not be shorted out by the urine. He huffed a loud noise of relief when it appeared to be working. But he didn’t know how to use it. He’d never used a fucking cell phone. It was almost as alien to him as it would be to old Rattlesnake Murray. He was ready to throw it away in frustration when his finger swiped across the screen and he saw the word “emergency” at the lower left. He stabbed at it and nearly sobbed in relief when a keypad appeared. He hit 911.

While he waited for help to arrive, Jimmy used the corner of his shirt to wipe the drool from Shane’s mouth. Shane blinked slowly, groggily, then moaned when he jostled his arm slightly.

“Stay still,” Jimmy ordered as he stroked Shane’s cheek. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay. Just don’t move.”

J
IMMY
SAT
in the hard plastic chair, slowly losing his mind. The hospital waiting room provided little in the way of distraction—posters and pamphlets about flu shots and breast self-exams, a TV tuned to a health channel, and a single large watercolor of a garden scene, hanging crookedly.

He probably would have been better off at the Rattlesnake Inn, where he could have found chores to keep him busy. But after the ambulance took Shane away and Jenn gave him a ride back down to Main Street, Belinda had insisted that he go to the hospital too. She’d even roped Jenn into driving him. And although Shane’s parents had turned away the flood of worried relatives who appeared in the small hospital’s lobby, they’d unaccountably allowed Jimmy to stay.

He’d been there a long time—long enough to have experienced two cups of awful vending machine coffee and, when his stomach protested, a vended candy bar and plasticky pastry. He paced. He picked up golfing and parenting magazines and put them down again. He stared out the front windows at the highway that ran atop a nearby hill.

When Adam appeared from the hallway leading to Shane’s room, Jimmy nearly tackled him. He halted, though, when he saw the expression on Adam’s face: tired but not grief-stricken.

“Shane and his mother are in the middle of an argument. He wants to see you when they’re done.”

Jimmy let out a long breath. Shane couldn’t be in too bad a shape if he was fighting with his mother. “Okay.”

Adam gave him a long look. “We might as well sit down ’cause they’re gonna be a while. The two most mulish people I have ever met. She’ll win, but it’ll take him a good long time to give in.” He folded himself into one of the uncomfortable chairs.

After a brief hesitation, Jimmy sat next to him. “How’s he doing?”

“He banged himself up, but he’ll be fine.”

“He was— He hit his head pretty hard.”

“It’s just bruised. Although I hear you kept him from bashing his head on the ground during the fit. That’s good. He could’ve really hurt himself otherwise.”

The EMTs had said something similar when he explained what happened, but Jimmy had been far too worried to process it. “After the seizure, he was just sort of staring.”

Adam nodded. “That’s normal. He just had a big electrical storm in his brain. Takes a while for everything to settle down.” He turned to look at Jimmy straight on. “You did exactly the right thing for him.”

Jimmy didn’t feel like he’d done anything. He kept hearing three sounds replaying in his head like a tape loop: the snap of bone, the crack of skull against pavement, the scream that had torn from Shane’s throat. Jimmy put his elbows on his knees and rested his face in his palms.

Adam cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “Shane’s been through an awful lot for a young man. He carries a lot of burdens.”

“He told me about Jesse.”

“Yeah.” Adam’s sigh was noisy in the quiet room. “You know, I always taught my kids to take responsibility for their actions. Sometimes I think Shane listened too hard to that lesson. Maybe I should’ve taught them more about forgiveness. Forgiving others and forgiving yourself, because the good Lord knows we’re all of us only human.”

Since forgiveness was something Jimmy had no experience with, he didn’t answer. And that worked out because Adam had more to say. “When Shane first told us about him and Jesse, I didn’t handle it like I should have. I guess it kinda threw me for a loop. I hurt him, and I sure didn’t mean to.”

Jimmy pulled his hands from his face and sat up straight. “He told me about it. He’s not angry at you over it, you know. He said you needed time to adjust. He knows you love him.”

“I’m glad to hear that. How did your people take it when you told ’em you liked men?”

“I don’t have any people,” Jimmy replied, looking away.

“I see.” A long silence fell. Adam stretched his long legs in front of him. “Here’s what I want to tell you about Shane. In spite of everything that’s happened to him—hell, maybe partly
because
of it—that boy… that man has a light to him. And I ain’t saying this just because I’m his daddy. I saw that light the very first time I met him. He was only six. You know that I’m not his biological father, right?”

“I… I heard that. But he says you’re his real father.”

Pleased, Adam smiled. “I am that. Couldn’t love him any more if he was my own blood. But even before I was his father, before I loved him, I saw what he is. He’s….”

“Special,” Jimmy finished for him.

“Yeah. Special.” He paused and then lowered his voice. “Look. I don’t know anything about you. I’ve heard some good things from Belinda and a few other people, and I gotta tell you, Shane’s judgment about people is usually pretty good. But if you do anything to harm my son….” He let the threat remain unvoiced.