The Dark Horse

14

October 31, 3:04 A.M.

He wasn’t giggling anymore. “How long do you think I’ve got?”

“Longer than you’re going to want.”

He swallowed underneath the neck brace and dropped the wallet. “God damn it, this hurts. I showed the kid how to drive the thing and told him that if I didn’t get back in a couple of minutes, to just gas it the hell out of here and stay off the roads.” His eyes closed, and he clutched his stomach. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”

I looked at the young man’s face. I had to admit that he was good; I hadn’t made him, but now, seeing the symmetry of his features under the stubble, and his general demeanor, even after being shot, it all made sense.

It also explained why Sandy Sandberg had called off the polygraph.

Another wave of exhaustion swept over me, and I started getting a little panicked about all the things I had to do before I fell over. I touched his arm, and he grimaced. “You have to let me take a look.”

“Fuck you, you one-eyed bastard. No way.”

I casually wondered if he’d looked in a mirror lately. “We have to put something in there to staunch the bleeding-your hands aren’t doing the trick.”

He ground his teeth, and I could hear the crunch of the enamel from a foot away. “No.”

“Look, I’ve got to roll you over and see where the bullet went.”

He shook his head violently. “No fucking way.” He glanced up. “Why? There’s nothing you’re going to be able to do for me, so just go get help.”

“If I don’t stabilize the wound, you’re going to bleed to death.” I continued to look at him. Something in my head started reciting organs along with percentages-kidney 22 percent, stomach 18 percent, bladder 12 percent, and small bowel 12 percent. Something stuck in my mind that these were bad numbers, and we should root for the smallest percentage.

He studied me. “What the fuck is wrong with you anyway?”

I tried to remember. “I think I’ve been drugged.” My cheekbone ached, and my neck muscles were still doing a pretty good imitation of a boneless chicken. “As a matter of fact, I know I’ve been drugged. Barsad said he put something in Hershel’s canteen.” “And I think something in my foot’s broken.”

“Get the fuck out of here.”

I could feel my eyes starting to close again. “Could you say fuck some more; it’s really helping.”

“Fuck you, I’m the one who’s shot in the gut.”

I fought with my jacket while trying to get the. 45 back into my holster with my other hand. I couldn’t really feel my fingers, which didn’t bode well for my fixing Cliff Cly of the FBI.

I tried to focus on the case, figuring that the cipher effect might keep me awake-that, and the thought of a man who was possibly dying. But he could still talk, if with a limited vocabulary, so I was starting to think that his lung hadn’t been nicked after all. Some more facts leapt up about a collapsed lung-something about air sucking into the chest where it can’t escape, which in turn pushes the heart aside, so far, in fact, that the vessels to the heart are pinched to the point that they are closed and there is no blood flow to the heart.

I thought about it and came to the conclusion that that was bad, but it was like somebody else was talking inside my head, somebody I’d once been other than the sleepy person I was now. “So, what’s a nice bureau boy like you doing in a place like this?” I attempted to move his hands again. “Let me see.”

“Fuck you, Deputy Dawg.” His chin planted against the brace, and I watched as he tried to concentrate on not clutching the wound. He relaxed just a little, which I’m sure was for the best, and allowed his head to return to the ground. “He was ours in the witness relocation program, but after the fiasco in Youngstown we let him dangle, in hopes that he’d give us the information on his pals back in Jersey since they were looking for him. He was in Vegas, and then here.”

With his hands out of the way, I slowly unbuttoned his shirt and then carefully tore open the T-shirt at the wound. There was no sucking sound, and the blood was pooling at the depression in his skin.

“Well?”

Trying to keep my eyes open, I stretched my entire face in spite of my cheekbone. “It’s not as bad as I thought.”

“Yeah? Well, I feel so much fucking better.”

The voice was telling me things, and I wondered how smart was the guy I used to be? Now he was telling me about how, if it was a low-velocity, low-caliber weapon like a 9 mm, then most of the tissue damage was confined to the bullet tract, as opposed to a high-velocity, high-caliber weapon like a rifle that would result in a lot of damage to tissues and organs just by passing by them. “Energy dissipation.”

“What?” His voice was gargled, but I was pretty sure it was just mucus.

I leaned forward. “We’re hoping for no major organs or large blood vessels.”

“Well, if it’s a major organ, hopefully it’s my liver; the little fucker’s indestructible.”

Liver-30 percent.

“I think we can stop the bleeding, but you’re not going anywhere and we’re going to have to get you medical attention pretty quick.” I looked around and noticed that Wahoo Sue had moved off to the far side of the ring, probably because of the blood. She wanted nothing to do with us. The lightning had moved to the east, and it appeared that all we were going to get now was wind. “I don’t think I can move you.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“Deal.” I pulled off my neck scarf and looked at it, hoping it wasn’t too full of bacteria, and began folding it up in preparation for placing it over the wound. I thought about Martha, who had given me the silk bandana, and sighed. It was then that I saw the roll of duct tape that Wade Barsad must’ve dropped.

I reached over, picked it up, and ripped a length from the roll. Maybe it was being witness to someone else’s suffering, or having a task, or all the voices in my head, but I was actually feeling pretty good-still sleepy, but more on the dopey side than the passing-out side. I attached the one-foot piece to my scarf and ripped off another. “This stuff is great; you can use it for everything.”

He shook his head. “Oh, God.”

I completed the makeshift bandage, took a deep breath, and wished I had some whiskey. “This is going to hurt.”

“Uh huh.”

I planted the bandage squarely on the wound, pressed down, and wrapped the duct tape in all directions. He didn’t move. “There, that wasn’t so-”

“Jesus-fucking-Christ!”

I thought I’d been gentle.

The old me in my head was talking again and said that, with the ambient temperature, the blood around the wound was coagulating quickly, but the drop in blood pressure would also increase his susceptibility to hypothermia. I smirked a little to myself but then thought about the fact that no matter how smart the old me was, it was the new me that was going to have to do something about the problem. I took off my coat and carefully placed it over him.

I sat there for a moment, listening to him breathe and feeling as if I’d accomplished one of my tasks. Now, if I could just remember the others. The chain clanked and moved left.

Horse.

Dark horse. Three horses. One rider.

The boy, Benjamin.

I leaned over. “Where do you think he’ll go?”

The FBI man looked at me with one eye opened and one closed. “Who?”

I thought it was a reasonable question. “The boy… Benjamin.”

He took a couple of shallow breaths and then answered. “I told him to stay off the roads, but I didn’t go into it much further than that.”

“Why did Wade take him?”

He moved a little and immediately regretted it. “Fuck… Wade said something about a list that he’d written and that he thought his wife had taken, but he couldn’t find it so I think he thought maybe the wife had given it to the girl at the bar; then he wanted to back you off, but I guess when it became apparent that the old cowboy was headed down the mesa, all bets were off.” He looked down at the stalled blood at his abdomen. The duct tape bandage was doing a grand job. “I really didn’t think I was going to get shot; he just didn’t seem like the type.”

I thought about that and the old me said something important, which I repeated out loud. “He killed his brother.”

He scowled, and there was a little bit of blood staining his teeth. “Yeah, I guess I misjudged him. I started getting really suspicious when I found the old cowboy’s gun in the truck.”

Reminded of the Henry, I reached past him and picked it up, checking to make sure the muzzle wasn’t blocked and that it was still loaded. Loading and checking the Henry was a tedious process because the magazine tube was under the barrel, but Hershel Vanskike wasn’t the kind of man to load a weapon with only one round. “Well, he’s dead.”

“Vanskike?”

“Yep.”

He shook his head. “I was afraid of that. I brought the boy down here, but Barsad stayed back to wait for the old guy.”

“Hershel.”

He nodded. “Hershel. Said he just wanted to tell him he had the boy.”

“How did you find Barsad?”

He sighed. “Caught him returning to the motel after making one of his liquor deliveries to Bill Nolan’s place. I guess Wade couldn’t get used to keeping a low profile, so he schemed up this idea for getting Bill’s truck on a regular basis. Nolan told me about those mysterious whiskey deliveries, and it sounded like Wade.”

“So, he was staying in one of the rooms at the motel before I got there?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty good at hiding people even in a town of forty. I waited for him one night and even brought him into the bar when Pat was the only one there. Pat poured us a drink and vouched for me. That’s how we all got to be partners.”

“Speaking of drinking, that was quite a show you put on at the motel.”

“Show, hell. I was drunk.”

“Who was the girl?”

“Just a girl, but she figured out who you were before I did.”

“What about the fight?”

He laughed and then groaned. “They were getting suspicious, because I was backing away from the more severe aspects of the partnership.”

“Like?”

“Killing you.” His eyes shifted to mine. “I convinced them that I could just run you off.” He raised a hand and tapped the plastic brace at his neck, and even in my stupor, I could see his movements were starting to slow. “Then I convinced him to let me come up here and keep an eye on the three of you, but he came along because he wanted to check on that horse-wanted to see it die. Patience is not a strong suit with Wade, but torture is.”

“I’m getting that.” I took a deep breath. “So, he did set the barn on fire and kill the other horses?”

“Yes.”

I nodded along with him, until I felt myself falling forward again. The old me voice was shouting about abdominal infection, that he only had hours, and that pretty soon Cliff Cly of the FBI was going to start showing more sleepiness and fatigue.

Welcome to the club.

I put the old repeater in my lap, pulled out my. 45, and wrapped the FBI agent’s hand around the grip. “You’ve got five rounds, and you’re cocked and ready to fire.” He looked at me as if I were insane. “You’re too weak to handle this Henry, so I’ll take it.”

Within twelve hours fever was going to set in, his heart rate and respiration would go up; the heart rate would be unable to make up for failing blood pressure, and as soon as the organs were not getting enough blood they would fail. At this point, the smarty-pants voice was telling me, he would get weak, dizzy, drift in and out of consciousness, and within seventy-two hours, he would die.

“I’ve got to go.”

“What?”

“I’m going to fall over if I don’t get out of here, in which case you’re going to rapidly follow me into oblivion and Barsad’s going to find the kid, none of which are acceptable.”

“Your foot’s broken-you can’t walk out of here.”

I rolled to one side and dug a knee up, placed my hands on the ground, and struggled to my feet. I kept my weight on one side, using the Henry as a crutch. “I’m not going to walk.”

“Then what are you going to do? We don’t have anything to…” His voice faded as I stood and hopped, facing the circle of dark ground. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding.”

I pulled my hat down and kept my weight off my damaged foot; I felt like James Arness but probably looked more like Ken Curtis. There was more than just my voice talking now, as I listened to the wind that scoured the top of the mesa. It sounded like phantoms brooding and mourning in a testament to nostalgia and bitterness, and I could almost hear the chattering of the dry leaves in the cottonwoods, moaning and hissing from the powdery river below. Ancient voices pulled me apart from myself and slammed me back together.

I turned my head and looked at Cly over my shoulder. “Cliff, where are you from?”

His voice still gargled. “What?”

I repeated the question and, unsurprisingly, my voice didn’t sound like my own.

“Cherry Hill, New Jersey.”

“That’s near Philadelphia?”

“Just over the bridge.”

“That’s what I thought.” I limped to the edge of the circle. “Remind me to introduce you to somebody-you’ve got vocabulary in common.”

October 31, 3:34 A.M.

I don’t know how long it’d been since anybody had stepped onto that dark piece of ground, but the response was what I figured it would be. At first, she stayed at the farthest length of the chain, then she snorted and pawed the ground, and gave one headlong charge toward me.

I just stood there. Horses had charged me before, and it can be some kind of intimidating, but I didn’t move. She pulled up about ten feet away, eyes wild, and then reared. The big black mare pawed the air, and I could see the steel shoes that were still on her hooves. She planted and, when I still didn’t move, she bounced on her forelegs and planted again; this time she was five feet away.

I held the rifle at my side, took a breath, and held out a hand, fingers in, palm down. She backed away, snorting and shaking her head at me, her tangled mane flying.

I took a step toward her, more of a hop, really, and she rushed forward, turned and sent me flying with her substantial rump. I landed hard on the ground just outside the circle.

After a respectful moment, he spoke. “That went well.”

I looked at him and remembered something Lucian, my old boss, used to say in like situations. “You know the difference between an asshole and an anus?”

He spoke from the side of his mouth. “What’s that?”

“An anus can’t say ‘that went well.’ ”

I could just lie there, but that wasn’t part of the contract, so I struggled up on one elbow and felt something fall out of my shirt. I thought it might’ve been my spleen.

Spleen-8 percent.

I fumbled at it with my stiff fingers. It was roundish and about as long as a short, fat cigar. It was grainy, and I vaguely remembered that yesterday Henry had stuffed a handful of something into my pocket along with my badge.

I glanced at Cly and held it up. “Horse treat.”

“Do all you sheriffs run around with those in your pockets?”

“You bet.”

I sat the rest of the way up and watched the mare circle the perimeter of the chain. She stamped at me again, then backed away and neighed. I stood carefully, keeping my weight to my good side, and hopped a little closer to her territory. She charged again, but it was a feint-to be honest, I’d thought the earlier one was too and that she had just misjudged her retreat.

At least, I hoped so.

I took another hop-step and raised my left hand again, but this time with the palm up and fingers flat. She was standing near the stake that had been hammered into a fissure in the rocky surface of the mesa, and she didn’t move. Neither did I.

The wind rocked against me with the silence of the high desert, and the ghosts whined their way past but were unable to resist a touch on their way. I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature and wondered if they would be for me or against me.

Maybe it was because I didn’t have anything to lose and she could sense my need, maybe it was the keening of the spirits, or maybe it was because she had been starved almost to death, but she took a step forward-what my friends who knew about such things called a try. I took a breath but still didn’t move.

She turned her head sideways just a bit, the way horses always do when they really want to see you, and took another step. Another try.

In my life, I have been kicked by horses and bitten by them. I’ve been stepped on, crushed against gates, and thrown to the ground, but I have also been nuzzled, rubbed against, carried by, nickered at, and warmed by the great beasts. I thought of all the horses I’d known and couldn’t think of a bad one. My father had said the beasts of the field didn’t feel pain like we did, but I never saw him mistreat one, ever.

You learn by experience, and from my father I learned patience. So, I waited.

She took another step forward, stretched her neck, and tried to smell the grain and sorghum treat without coming closer.

My eyes watered and not just because of the wind. Humans can go for weeks without food, according to size and weight, but all of us perish in about seventy-two hours without water.

Another step, another try.

My arm was getting tired, but I didn’t move. The old me voice was back, telling me that horses don’t think like us, they don’t hold grudges, and they respond to release rather than pressure.

“Is this going to take long?” I shifted my eyes to him and then back to the mare. “I mean, I’m just asking.”

A number of thoughts and responses sprang to mind, but I didn’t want to startle Wahoo Sue.

Her neck strained forward, and the prehensile lips with the dark hairs touched the biscuit. You could see the damage the stiff, blood-coated harness had done to the horse’s tender nose and cheekbones. The noseband was bloodied and the galled skin around it was seeping fluid. The crownpiece had worn the hair from the poll section of her mane, and what was left was crusted with dried blood and serum. Along with skinning her sides, the unforgiving chain had damaged her legs, gaskins, hocks, and pasterns.

I took a few deep breaths and fought against the chemicals deadening every system in my body.

Her weight shifted, and she took the treat.

Hard to get, but not homicidal, the old me voice said.

I tried to remember what Mary had said when she had been sleepwalking in the jail. I spoke in the softest voice I could muster. “So-o-o girl, so-o-o girl…” I watched as Sue took a couple of guarded steps, then aligned her body, and considered me and the second offering.

I could feel myself wavering with each breath, every exhale pitching me forward just a bit. Maybe she could see it, too. Maybe she could tell I wasn’t in any shape to do anything, especially hurt her.

Mary’s voice prompted again, and I repeated. “S-o-o girl, so-o-o..”

Another try, then another.

This time she didn’t stretch her neck out but rather took that extra step. I placed the rifle barrel against my side, then rolled my hand up around the treat and only let her nibble on the end.

I raised my hand and touched under her chin. The big mare started in slight outrage, but then settled. I allowed her most of the treat from my hand and ran the other under her jaw line and readjusted the halter in a casual manner.

She lowered her head to me, and the old me voice said something about Hershel’s horse at the burned house and at the corral on Barton Road.

I leaned in very slowly and exhaled.

Wahoo Sue stuck her big, velvety nose out to me and inhaled, just as the old cowboy’s horse had. We stood there like that, exchanging breath, and I could feel the anxiety start to leave her.

It was as if I’d thrown a switch, and she stood there, stiff-legged but in a small way compliant. I slipped the rest of the treat into her mouth and took hold of the logging chain, careful to hold it away from her skinned and scabbed body. Slowly, I took a step in close, trailing the hated attachment to my left and turning toward the trunk of the mare’s body. She twisted to look at me but held still.

I was only going to get one shot at this, and even in my doped state, I knew it wasn’t going to feel good. I had to do it smoothly and quickly, neither of which were catchwords in my physical repertoire, even without a broken foot and a drug overdose.

It was almost as if she knew my intention, but I wasn’t sure if she pawed the ground in anticipation or warning. I took hold of the Henry rifle and then reached up to her withers, spreading my one hand over her spine, set my good foot, and leapt.

My weight caused her to shift slightly to the right and then she stood on stiff legs as I clambered for a seat. I waited and, to my surprise, absolutely nothing happened.

Almost adding insult to embarrassment, Wahoo Sue turned and looked at me with a large, soulful brown eye. Just to be sure, I stroked her neck, careful not to touch her wounds, and repeated the magic words. “So-o-o girl, easy girl…”

Cly called out from my left. “Hey, Sheriff, how are you going to get that stake out of the ground?”

Bureau boys.

I kept stroking her black neck, and it was like the wind was blowing inside me. I slumped forward with one of the waves of fatigue, which knocked my hat back. Somehow, I held the rifle across her withers with one hand and, with the other, I held Wahoo Sue’s mane. “Good girl, so-o-o good.” I took a few breaths and leaned back, kicking my heels down and gigging her toward the center stake to gain some slack.

I looked over the horse’s shoulder to the wounded man on the ground and kept my voice in the same soft tone as I had used with her. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take, but I’ll be back for you, so don’t go out crawling around and don’t lose my sidearm.”

His voice was still strong, and my hopes were that he’d hold out. He was tough, I knew that; the question was going to be how tough. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“If Barsad comes back, don’t take any chances, and do what you need to do.”

I saw him reaching with his far hand and pulling the weapon up and onto his chest. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to let him have another crack at me.” I could see a light spot in the darkness where his face must’ve been. “You’re talking like this is our last conversation.”

I rubbed my hands up the mare’s neck. “Just for now, because once I unbuckle this harness, I don’t think I’m going to have time to say anything.”

“What do you think she’s going to do?”

I stretched my eyes in an attempt to get a clearer view of the harness buckle. “I think she’s going to go for water, and that’s off the mesa and toward town.”

“Do me a favor?”

The nylon was stiff with blood, but I finally got it loosened enough so that I could move the flap under the keeper and through the buckle. “What’s that?”

“Don’t run over me.”

I nodded and slipped the rest of the strap out, and the harness dropped about an inch on Wahoo Sue’s long muzzle. I leaned in close and spoke softly into her ear. “I know you’re sick, I know you’re tired, but if you don’t get us both out of here, an awful lot of bad things are going to happen. They say you can run, so you show me.”

The halter fell away, and it was all she needed. She dropped her head, lunged back and to the side away from the chain, and was out of the circle. I felt the lift as my chest crashed against her withers, and I clutched the rifle and the big mare’s mane.

She crow-hopped to the right, then gathered her big haunches and launched in one great leap. And she was like a missile. I held on as we veered to the right and away from Cliff Cly. He screamed after us as we rushed by.

“Hi-yo Silver, away!”