The Taking of Libbie, SD (17 page)

“What are you doing here?” she said.

I glanced back at the two men. They helped each other up and retreated to the front of the alley.

“What were you thinking?” I said. “Did you want them to hurt you?”

“Does it matter?”

“Saranne—”

“People treat me like a whore. My father treats me like a whore. I might as well act like a whore.”

“Why? To justify their expectations? To prove them right?”

Saranne thought that was funny enough to laugh over.

“McKenzie, you want to protect my virtue. Well, now you know I don’t have any.”

“Then why did you say no to those two? Why didn’t you let them rape you?”

The question caused Saranne’s face to freeze. Or maybe it was the word “rape.”

“You don’t need to be the town slut, you know,” I said.

“What else can I be? If that’s how people are going to treat me, what else can I be?”

“Have you ever read
The Scarlet Letter
?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Hester Prynne had a child by a man not her husband, so the people in her town—we’re talking about seventeenth-century Puritans here—they shunned her and forced to wear the letter
A
on her bosom. Yet she was the most virtuous character in the book. She not only refused to rat out the child’s father, she protected him. Over time people began to respect her. They began to see her not as the person they thought she was but as the person she actually was; as someone they could go to with their problems, as someone they could trust.”

“That’s just a book.”

“Hester was a hero because she refused to be the person the townspeople expected her to be.”

“It’s just a book, okay?”

“You have, what, another year of high school? Tough it out, Saranne. Do that, then you can leave Libbie, go where gossip can’t reach you; go to college, go anywhere. Your old man, he isn’t going to live forever. Who is he going to leave his businesses to, his grain elevator and restaurant and crap? When you come back, if you decide to come back, you’ll be the one in charge. Or you can just sell it off.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“No. It’s simple, but it won’t be easy. Especially during that last year in high school.”

“Like you know.”

“Listen. I’ll tell you the only thing I know absolutely for sure. Living well is the best revenge.”

“Yeah, right. I’m out of here.”

I didn’t blame Saranne for dismissing me. I probably sounded like one of those TV phonies like Dr. Phil.

“I’ll walk you to your car,” I said.

“Whatever.”

We walked back through the alley. Saranne didn’t speak again until we were nearing the entrance.

“
The Scarlet Letter
. Who wrote that? Hawthorne? I think it’s on the reading list next year.”

I was pleased to hear that they still taught the book in high school.

“Read it,” I said.

“Well, I have to, don’t I?”

“I suppose.”

We were rounding the corner of the alley onto the sidewalk when she spoke again.

“McKenzie, there’s something I want you to know. No one else believes me, but I want you to know because, well, just because. I didn’t have sex with Rush. He wanted me to. He tried to. He put his hands on me and he said things to convince me that it would be all right, but I wouldn’t let him. The truth is, I’ve never—I haven’t slept with anyone. Ever. Only no one believes me.”

“I believe you,” I said.

Saranne said something else, but I didn’t hear. Her words were drowned out by a kind of swooshing sound, followed by a crunching blow against the back of my skull. The world turned a dazzling red-orange and then faded quickly to pitch black.

CHAPTER NINE

I was in a room. The room was white. A woman, also in white, hovered above me. Behind her was a brilliant light that stung my eyes. I tried to turn my head away, but the woman wouldn’t allow it.

“Do you know who you are?” she asked.

“Where am I? Who are you?”

“My questions first.”

I tried to rise. The woman prevented it with the flat of her hand pressed against my chest. It didn’t take much effort on her part. The way I felt, a couple of kittens could have held me down.

“Do you know who you are?”

“Rushmore McKenzie,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t know. What have you heard?”

“Where do you live?”

I told her. I gave her answers to a lot of questions—my address, phone number, Social Security number, and yes, I had health insurance, the card was in my wallet.

“Good,” the woman said. “No apparent memory loss, no confusion. Very good.”

“Who said I’m not confused? Where am I?”

“You are in the emergency room of the City of Libbie Medical Clinic. I’m Nancy Gustafson. You have a concussion.”

“Oh.”

“Do you remember what happened?”

“No.”

“That’s not unusual. People who have concussions almost always have no memory of the impact that caused the concussion.”

“I remember walking in an alley—two men in an alley. Saranne. Saranne Miller was with me. Where is she? Is she all right?”

I tried to rise again. Nancy kept me down, although this time she had to put her weight into it.

“She’s all right, she’s okay,” Nancy said. “She’s outside. She’s the one who brought you in. Rest easy.”

Nancy patted my chest. Her smile was warm—I was sure I had seen it before.

“I was careless,” I said. “I’ve been careless ever since I arrived in this burg. Big-city boy gonna show the local yokels how it’s done. Dammit. I know better than that. Are you sure Saranne is all right?”

“Yes. You can see her in a bit. We need to do some things first.”

“The cops.”

“We called the cops. There are other things—”

“What things?”

“Listen to me, McKenzie. Are you listening?”

I stopped struggling with her.

“I’m listening,” I said.

“The brain has the consistency of gelatin. All right? It floats in a cerebrospinal fluid inside your skull that cushions it from bumps and jolts. Now, a blow to your head can cause your brain to slap against the inner wall of your skull.” For emphasis, she punched the palm of her hand with her fist. “This collision, the impact from the collision, can result in bleeding in or around your brain and the tearing of nerve fibers.”

“I know all this. I’ve had concussions before.”

“Then you know the drill.”

“You’re going to give me a CAT scan.”

“Yes.”

“The CAT scan will determine whether the blow has caused potentially serious bleeding or swelling in my head.”

“Exactly.”

“Are you set up for that in metropolitan Libbie?”

Turned out they were.

It didn’t surprise me to learn that South Dakota was facing a physician shortage. Nancy said that at least eighteen counties didn’t even have a single doctor living within their borders. To deal with the shortage, clinics relied on nurse practitioners—registered nurses that complete advanced education and training in the diagnosis and management of common medical conditions, including chronic illnesses. When patients were taken to emergency rooms, the nurse practitioners determined how serious their condition was and whether to transfer them to larger hospitals. In many cases, they relied on a complex telecommunications system that linked them with physicians in the bigger hospitals who provided assistance.

With the help of a nurse, I lay down on a narrow examination table, and the table was rolled into the large, donut-shaped CT scanner. A gantry containing electronic X-ray equipment rotated around me, taking multiple cross-sectional X-rays and combining them into detailed, two-dimensional images of my skull and brain. These images were sent directly to a hospital in Rapid City, where they apparently caused a certain amount of consternation.

Nancy returned me to the emergency room, set me on a gurney, and began asking more questions designed to test my memory and concentration, vision, hearing, balance, coordination, and reflexes. She asked if I felt dizzy, if I heard ringing in my ears, if I felt nauseous, if I was sensitive to light and noise, and seemed genuinely mystified when I kept answering no. In between the questions, she spent a lot of time on the phone.

Finally she said, “You told me that you had a concussion before.”

“Not really a concussion,” I said.

“What then?”

“An epidural hematoma.”

“When?”

“A couple of years ago.”

“Aha,” she said and hurried from the room.

She was smiling when she returned.

“What’s the problem?” I said.

“No problem. Your CAT scan revealed signs of the previous hematoma. It had us confused for a few moments. We have it sorted out now.”

“It’s not funny. I almost died.”

“I know. I saw the two burr holes in your skull that they drilled to drain the fluid and alleviate the pressure. Fortunately, there’s nothing like that this time.”

“Am I good to go?”

“No.”

“No?”

“I want to keep you overnight for observation.”

“I feel good, I really do. Besides, I have things to do.”

“Whatever they are, they can wait. I want you quiet for at least twenty-four hours. The docs say it’s okay for you to be observed at home provided there’s someone available to check on you periodically. If you sleep, you may need to be awakened every two hours to make sure you can be roused to normal consciousness.”

“I understand.”

“Do you have any friends?”

Proudly, I answered yes. Unfortunately, they were hundreds of miles away and could not help me.

“Do you have any friends in Libbie that can look out for you?” Nancy said.

“The only person I know here is Tracie Blake.”

“She’s not the nurse I would have chosen, but if you want to call her…”

“Do you know Tracie?”

“Everyone knows Tracie.”

“I take it you’re not friends.”

“We used to be, until she started sleeping with my husband.”

She smiled when she said that, a surprising thing to do, I thought.

“I remember you,” I said. “I remember your smile.”

“You do?”

“Nancy Gustafson.”

“Yes.”

“You’re the chief’s wife. I saw your photograph in his office. You were gorgeous.”

The smile on her face stiffened just enough to tell me what a numbskull I was—I blamed it on the concussion.

“That didn’t come out right,” I said.

Still, there was little resemblance to the young woman in the photograph. The older Nancy’s hair was short now and streaked with gray, her smooth face had become lined with worry, her eyes looked tired, and she had gained at least forty pounds.

“The photograph was taken a dozen years ago,” Nancy said. “I asked him to get rid of it.”

“Why?”

Nancy stepped back and held her hands wide. She spun in a slow circle.

“I’m never going to be a size six again,” she said. “Or a size eight. Or a size ten. Maybe if I could work at it all day for half a year, but who has time? When I’m not here, I’m doing housework or cooking or shopping or—look, I just don’t have the time or energy to be a model.”

When she said “model,” she meant Tracie.

“I apologize, Nancy. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay, McKenzie.”

It wasn’t okay, and I would have said so except a nurse interrupted us.

“The chief is here,” she said.

“Send him in,” Nancy said.

“I want to see Saranne if she’s still around,” I said.

A moment later, Saranne came through the door, followed closely by Chief Gustafson. She surprised me with a hug.

“Are you okay?” she said.

“I am very much okay, thanks to you.”

“Me?”

“You’re my hero.”

“Shuddup.”

“You are. If you hadn’t looked out for me, who knows what would have happened.”

“What did happen?” the chief said.

I was about to answer; only Saranne beat me to it, telling the story quickly and furiously, without a thought to editing her remarks to her advantage. The chief listened carefully. He had a notebook open and a pen poised to write, yet I noticed he didn’t take any notes.

“The two men who followed you into the alley,” the chief said. “Can you identify them?”

“Yeah,” Saranne said. “Only they’re not the ones who hit McKenzie.”

“They’re not?” I said.

“No, they were across the street at the time. The man who hit you, he was wearing a black ski mask and carrying a wooden baseball bat.”

“Wooden, not aluminum?” I said.

“What difference does it make?” the chief asked.

“Wooden bats are harder to come by these days. Unless they’re playing pro ball, most people use aluminum.”

“It was wooden,” Saranne said. “That’s all I can tell you. I didn’t get a very good look at him before he started running. He wasn’t tall. About my height. That’s really all I can say.”

“He was right-handed,” I said.

“How do you know?” the chief asked.

I touched the back of the right side of my head. “He was right-handed,” I said again.

“Any idea who might have wanted to club you, McKenzie?”

My first thought had been the two men in the alley. My second was Church. Saranne’s statement eliminated both possibilities.

“No one comes to mind,” I said.

“If it’s not a revenge thing, it has to be something else,” the chief said. “Think it might be connected to the questions you’ve been asking about Rush?”

“It would be helpful if you canvassed the area. Everyone seems to know everyone in this town. Could be someone saw something.”

The chief sighed like a man who thought too much was being asked of him.

“About the two men in the alley,” he said.

“They were across the street when we came out of the alley,” Saranne said. “I saw them. I made them help me get McKenzie into my car so I could take him here.”

“How did you manage that?” I asked.

“Blackmail.”

“You threatened to call the police?”

“No, I threatened to call their wives. Chief, they won’t be bothering me anymore. There’s no sense to pressing charges or anything.”

“Saranne—”